I was not talking about Bostrom's theory but about a unified theory
which is based on the assumption that our reality is a virtual reality
(!=simulation). Bostrom might be on the right track but he might be too
indoctrinated and culturally biased to make the final logical leap.
No, you don't need to simulate the entire universe. No conscious
observer is taking measurements out there and especially not on the
atomit/sub atomic level. I can write a LOD (level of detail) based
engine rendering the universe and just use a single cpu/gpu. Heck even a
RaspberryPI running "Google Sky" (or however it is called) would be
sufficient 99% of the time. If this is a virtual reality then it would
be just plain stupid to process every unobserved part of it at every
update interval/delta-t (Planck time). An on-demand rendering engine
based on a probability distribution (quantum mechanics) with a database
storing information required for consistency is all it takes ...
According to the theory you can know a lot about the bigger reality
system as our physical universe is _NOT_ a bullet proof sandbox but a
fundamental part of the larger system. It does not run our physical
(virtual) reality for fun or entertainment but to evolve itself. If the
more fundamental evolutionary process came up with this virtual reality
then it would make no sense to make us believe anything. It would be in
the process's interest if we used our free will and intent to develop
and help the entire system to reduce its inherent entropy.
According to Campbell's theory it doesn't matter in which physical
reality you are. What's fundamental is your consciousness and not your
brain, intellect or ego. You are part of all reality frames (physical
and non-physical) but your thoughts and your ego cling on to this
particular reality. That's why all religions and philosophies and native
American teachings will tell you that our existence within this physical
reality is not fundamental, unreal, an illusion, a big dream, etc.,
etc., etc., ...
Space-time is not fundamentally real. Space is the product of limiting
the speed at which information can travel. According to Campell's theory
the more profound evolutionary process stagnated because there was
little to no causality and little to no feedback loops without something
like space time. Imagine how much growth there would be if World of
Warcraft was a 1-dimensional game? Anything could happen anywhere
without any chronological order/causality.
Page 255+ explains how our physical reality might have evolved because
of evolutionary pressures working on primordial consciousness.
http://books.google.at/books?id=RYHtBPiZVgsC&lpg=PA1&pg=PA255#v=onepage&q&f=false
Again ... not saying that Campbell is right but he is definitely doing a
better (less biased) job than Bostrom.
On 28.10.2014 01:31, Matt Mahoney via AGI wrote:
On Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 4:42 PM, justcamel via AGI <[email protected]> wrote:
On 26.10.2014 17:24, Steve Richfield wrote:
It would take a capability beyond present imagination - probably more CPUs than
there are atoms in the Milky Way galaxy, beyond even anyone's conception of
God, to do such a thing. Why would this even be interesting?
Not really. As I wrote before ... quantum mechanics could be a processing time saver.
There might be no atoms in the Milky Way at all unless you take a measurement. Just as
regions of the map nobody is currently using are not rendered/processed by the
"World of Warcraft" servers.
Yes that's true. It would take 10^120 bit operations to simulate the
physics of the universe according to Lloyd (
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0110141 ). But to you, it would be
indistinguishable from the 10^18 simulated neural spikes coming from
your simulated sensory organs over your lifetime. And even that could
be reduced further by the simulated filtering of your perceptual
neural circuitry down to 10^9 bits of long term memory.
But I have two different problems with Bostrom's simulation argument
(the original can be found at http://www.simulation-argument.com/ ).
First he is assuming that whoever is simulating us is just like our
future selves. Actually we cannot know anything about the universe
that simulates us when even our own thoughts are the result of its
computation. It can have us believe whatever it wants us to believe.
It might be that in this other universe that space, time, and matter
are abstract concepts it invented for our world. We can say nothing
about the upper limit of its computing capacity, obviously.
My second problem with Bostrom is that he misuses probability theory.
He argues that if there is one real universe and 9 simulations of it,
then there is a 90% chance that we are in one of those simulations.
That is not what "probability" means. Probability is a mathematical
model of belief, not of reality. It means that if we perform 100
trials of an experiment and we believe that those trials are
independent, and that a certain outcome is observed in 90 of those
trials, then we say that there is a 90% chance of that outcome
occurring on the next trial. We will believe that the trials are
independent if we do not know of any program shorter than 100 x H(0.9)
bits long which outputs the observed results, where H(p) is the
entropy of p = p log 1/p + (1-p) log 1/(1-p).
This is not what Bostrom is claiming. We cannot do an experiment where
we test 10 universes and find that 9 of them are simulations. If you
are a simulation, then you will believe what the simulation has
programmed you to believe. In any case, probability theory doesn't
work in cases where you have done 0 experiments. Different people will
assign different probabilities without any mathematical justification,
because no such justification is possible.
-------------------------------------------
AGI
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424
Modify Your Subscription:
https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
