..the number of possible public histories of the world
which differ from each other is limited
and does not exceed the number N.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
"De l’Horizon de la Doctrine Humaine"(1693)
There is already a definite number, one for each and every possible input, the number is implicitly defined even before we input any data, it can index a picture without having to ever take it; or a book with no need of a writer; and there is even no need to have all those possibles stored, it’s enough to generate them on demand when you summon it, the number is enveloped in the algorithm. Is this enough to input a number to get a book? well, not so fast, the problem is how to know the number in advance? that’s not easy, but just slightly possible; indeed if you insert a book data, then it will reveal which number it was, the number has been already there forever, but it is really very hard to guess.
What is everything? we are limited, in time, space, and also in the degree of detail we can perceive, with a great enough digital resolution in a virtual ‘realism’ experience we are not able to distinguish it from any other upper resolution experience, neither from any other reality. How many things we can recognize as being different things? given enough details there is finally a threshold where there is no further distinction we can do.
So it’s our limits in perception, memory, reasoning and lifetime what outline this upper bound, how many colours, how many concepts, how many books, how many songs, paints, movies, or any invention that we could possibly make, all the experiences any human can ever have are limited within a finite number of possibilities that despite being huge, is still finite as we are. Then a list doesn’t need to be unbounded to have it “everything”.
Any perceivable phenomenon could be in principle be represented through symbols (of course after the known experience) a symbolic recording that, although different, could be reproduced indistinguishable from its source reality. Then we can only experience or create things inside a certain amount of possibles, within a big space, but not an infinite one, every possible distinguishable fits on a list.
We could then imagine that everything is already on a list of possible realities, waiting there, before anyone develop or experience them, before we all were born; regardless of us. No thing can exist nor happen that is not already on the list.
The bad news (or good depending on your view) is that it’s perhaps easier to evolve a whole universe than finding things on the list by chance, even worse: most stuff on the list is incurably incomprehensible; between any item and its explanation, there are far more unexplained things.
Understand everything, is an oxymoron.
Can we talk about a list of perceivable things without regard to who or what perceives it?
Of course as integral living beings itself we can not fit on the list (not even all numbers can!). It’s perfectly possible to think about things outside any list and other beings, their lists, and so on, the list reveals itself incomplete, it do not have absolutely everything indeed, but it can has anything, that’s all for you, for me, and for everyone; that’s all folks.
Any possible being that has a enough finite perception to even be called perception (and being), will be bounded by a custom list of possibles.
In some sense, every list is the same list.
Some ladies and gentlemen complain
“Reality is not a reproduction, even if under certain circumstance we can confuse special effects with reality, like a bird hitting a mirror, we can still distinguish the past from the future, "the list” does not include our time, so sorry for “the list” but it lacks of time, and I can recognize pretty well when I’m getting older!"
and quote the classical one, from Heraclitus
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”
But don’t worry, the list is big enough to handle it all, the list doesn’t have time, that’s right; but it has the whole history of any man, of any river and the changes over them, so before judging about changes in a river or in a man, we should be able to ask if those were a river or a man in first place.
Send your own complain!
The very idea of possible outcomes is as old as humanity can remember, so we can’t list to every person ever say something about it, anyway, here is another incomplete list of people related with the list:
As in many other areas of knowledge, G. W. Leibniz has also thought already about this issue, in his essay “De l’Horizon de la Doctrine Humaine” (1693) he proposes two options, on one side, as our written history can’t be outside the list, and because of our finitude, if human existence time were long enough (let’s say >N years) it’s required for history to have repeated parts; as a second option he proposes future beings going beyond actual humanity, pushing our limits, changing our upper bound of perception.
-“the human race will not always remain in the same state, since it is not in keeping with the divine harmony to always play the same chord.”
It seems that Leibniz have a lot to tell us, and that we should get back to Leibniz, but that’s a wrong way to say it, because in fact, we have never reached him.
He managed to find a way to compare the “amount” of natural numbers (the infinite set of all natural numbers) with the “amount” of Real numbers (another infinite set), concluding that there are infinitely many more Real numbers.
He does not have much to do with this list, but he indeed create a list, a numbering system, tagging any possible statement within a system with a unique natural number, then properties of those statements (for example the property of being true or false) would end being also properties of those numbers, and so on. But instead of UTF-8, Gödel used a system based on prime factorization, Gödel admired Leibniz as we do, so he would be pleased to be mentioned in context with him.
Because of this quote from him : “God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man.”
He wrote “La biblioteca de babel”, a story very related with the list, he was also a Leibniz reader.
He paint a list of numbers (for years!) so he really deserves to be here.
There is no direct reference to the list there, but any possible matrix like universe will be also on the list.