I can understand ‘supernatural’ in the context of the Game Of Life: the user (‘God’ if you like) violates the laws of physics (in this case by anomalously switching some cells on or off).
Can’t we give pretty much the same definition of ‘supernatural’ in the real world? (Relative to the ‘true laws of physics’ whatever they are.)
Perhaps we could say that a supernatural event is one that “increases the algorithmic information content of the universe”, though formulating this precisely would require some care.
Of course I’d argue that the game of life is not an isolated universe if one can toggle cells in it, and if you consider the whole lot then there’s nothing supernatural about the process of cells being toggled.
But this is a good example. I asked about what others mean by “supernatural” and this sounds very close indeed!
I can understand ‘supernatural’ in the context of the Game Of Life: the user (‘God’ if you like) violates the laws of physics (in this case by anomalously switching some cells on or off).
Can’t we give pretty much the same definition of ‘supernatural’ in the real world? (Relative to the ‘true laws of physics’ whatever they are.)
Perhaps we could say that a supernatural event is one that “increases the algorithmic information content of the universe”, though formulating this precisely would require some care.
Of course I’d argue that the game of life is not an isolated universe if one can toggle cells in it, and if you consider the whole lot then there’s nothing supernatural about the process of cells being toggled.
But this is a good example. I asked about what others mean by “supernatural” and this sounds very close indeed!