The Answer To Life, The Universe, And Everything

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The Answer To Life, The Universe, And Everything © January 2022 - Written by David Wicker Please do not reprint without permission * * * This chapter is Rated: EVERYONE Is not 42. No it's not. No, in fact it may very well be 256. I have been giving a lot of thought, most of my life really, to just how much data 256-bytes is. Not just for Pico-8 but in instances regarding philosophy, theology, and mathematics. Permutations involving matching identifications especially. I am now fully believing that is possible to store an entire universe (or at least the molecular design for a block of cheese), inside the span of 256-bytes of data. How is this possible ? Well if we consider that life itself is made up of billions, trillions, of atoms, then isn't it possible that 256-bytes of data is enough to store all that complex information ? And you may be asking, how can that be done ? Well, think about it. We have 256 multiplied by itself, one time, is 256. Two bytes are 65,536 possibilities. Three bytes are 16,777,216, and four bytes are 4,294,967,296 possibilities. At 4-bytes we are already at 4-trillion possible definitions. So, yeah, if you get 256 and multiply it 256 times which is a total space of 256-bytes, you get a number that I think is pretty close to the stars in the sky, or MAYBE the building blocks of the universe. Is there a way to calculate 256^256 ? Not to my knowledge, No. Yet I suspect the number is large enough that even if it can't store the entire universe, it should be able to hold real-time true-to-life finite molecular data what we call LIFE. And it should be possible to work within this scope to open literally uncounted possibilities for reality. So the paltry sum of 256-bytes of data is clearly more than it appears to be. That every great computer program ever written or would be written could use this 256-bytes of memory as a marker. An identification card to show which of the millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions, sextillions, septillions, Octillions, Nonillions, and Decillions - of programs, of codes of reality, of building blocks of DNA, of - whatever you need to catalogue that goes beyond conventional numbering. It could all be done - within 256-bytes of data. Now here's the rub though. We have no way of "cataloguing" all of this data according to numbers. So today we are sloppy in our coding and development of data storage. Sloppy to the point we don't even use permutations for numerical recall, instead we store finite numbers in areas that are full of holes. Holes as big as a Buick. Holes that if all added up together could probably circle the Earth a few times and maybe even comprise a new black hole. A black hole of sloppy encoding. Using a single-byte to hold a single digit 0-9, or even 0-1 and its position and time of arrival is considered of no consequence. Where we live in an age where terabyte drives are the norm. And even more sloppy coding and encoding is done. So games today are not even counted in kilobytes or even megabytes, no gigbytes, and 2-3 years from now ? Who knows ? We'll have videogames that take a full terabyte of storage. So full of holes - so could it be catalogued in 256-bytes of data, a single bit variant from the 2048-variants which are calculated not according to changes but location in the change. The time it changes. The place it changes. All of these elements are critical to its definition. All of these elements adding up to rock-solid data encryption and protection, these lowly 256-bytes. May someday be used for all kinds of identification in the future. What are your thoughts regarding 256-bytes possibly being the ultimate storage of data ? Return back HOME You are Earth Visitor #