Toward an Algorithmic Metaphysics

Abstract

There are writers in both metaphysics and algorithmic information theory (AIT) who seem to think that the latter could provide a formal theory of the former. This paper is intended as a step in that direction. It demonstrates how AIT might be used to define basic metaphysical notions such as object and property for a simple, idealized world. The extent to which these definitions capture intuitions about the metaphysics of the simple world, times the extent to which we think the simple world is analogous to our own, will determine a lower bound for basing a metaphysics for our world on AIT.