What if we imagine the source code for the universe? Can we say: “the omnipotent being can check any part of the source code of the universe.” Where “source code of the universe” means: a computationally irreducible algorithm which has a perfect isomorphism with the universe. It is part of our assumption as physicalists that the variables of this source code only ever store values that are of a physical nature, i.e., would be studied by physicists.
If you can imagine what state in the source code would correspond to the the truth of your belief, it is meaningful. If there is likely no statement in the TOE (no matter how large and stupid) which corresponds to your claim, then it is meaningless. This seems to be better defined but also capture the benefits of having an omnipotent being be the judge of meaningfulness.
the omnipotent being can check any part of the source code of the universe.
You cannot simply check the source code. No matter how many experiments you run, there will always be room for the possibility that the source code is such that the spaceship disappears.
Yes, the point I was trying to make was that for a sentence to be meaningful, there must be a physical state for which it encodes, even if that physical state is in-accessible to us. “At 8:00 pm last night a tea kettle spontaneously formed around Saturn.” is meaningful, because it encodes a state located in space-time.
What if we imagine the source code for the universe? Can we say: “the omnipotent being can check any part of the source code of the universe.” Where “source code of the universe” means: a computationally irreducible algorithm which has a perfect isomorphism with the universe. It is part of our assumption as physicalists that the variables of this source code only ever store values that are of a physical nature, i.e., would be studied by physicists.
If you can imagine what state in the source code would correspond to the the truth of your belief, it is meaningful. If there is likely no statement in the TOE (no matter how large and stupid) which corresponds to your claim, then it is meaningless. This seems to be better defined but also capture the benefits of having an omnipotent being be the judge of meaningfulness.
You cannot simply check the source code. No matter how many experiments you run, there will always be room for the possibility that the source code is such that the spaceship disappears.
Yes, the point I was trying to make was that for a sentence to be meaningful, there must be a physical state for which it encodes, even if that physical state is in-accessible to us. “At 8:00 pm last night a tea kettle spontaneously formed around Saturn.” is meaningful, because it encodes a state located in space-time.