Hi Stephen
Stephen Paul King wrote:
Dear George,
Interleaving.
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Wednesday, May 12, 2004 3:00 PM
Subject:
Re: Are we simulated by some massive computer?
Stephen,
Stephen Paul King wrote:
Dear George,
How does indeterminacy and
multiple-world-occupation follow from an inability to deduce that one
is not in a simulation?
Multiple world + comp => indeterminacy
[GL]
It seems to me that if two worlds are indistinguishable from
the point of view of an observer, then the two worlds could be switched
on the observer - or conversely that the observer could be teleported
from one world to the other - without him knowing it.
[SPK]
The 3rd person abilty to
interchange identical worlds does not necessitate the a priori
existence of a multitute of identical worlds from a 1st person point of
view, because, as you wrote they could be switched without him (the 1st
person) knowing it. So why entertain their existence in the first
place?
The existence of multiple worlds is a consequence of the principle of
sufficient reason as I have explained before. If a world is in a
particular state, and there is no reason for it to be in this state,
then it must also be in all possible states.
Let us also take into
account that the kind of teleportation that you bring up here is not
physically possible. I do not understand how it continues to be used as
a pedagological device.
Such teleportation would be trivial for creatures living in a
simulation or even in the real world when you have a distributed
computing capability like the Internet.. Applets are being teleported
on the Internet every day. In the future, robots may get to have their
software teleported from one machine in Paris to another one in
Washington.
[GL]
The existence of many such worlds give rise to Quantum
indeterminacy.
[SPK]
I beg to differ. IIRC,
David Deutsch and others have repeatedly pointed out that it is the
superposition principle of Quantum Mechanics that implies the existence
of "many worlds" not the prior existence of multiple identical worlds.
As I mentioned above, multiple worlds + comp => indeterminacy
[GL]
Measurement only restricts the size of the ensemble.
[SPK]
Are you assuming the
"collapse of the wave-function" or some classical or "ignorance based"
interpretation of probabilities here?
No. When an observer exists in two worlds, (or equivalently in a single
world in two states of superposition), and this observer makes a
measurement, then obviously the measurement will come out differently
in each world. The observer's states which must remain consistent with
the world that he observes, must then diverge.) The world he now
occupies is a single world (or equivalently there is no more
superposition).
[GL]
A creature nominally living in a simulation as observed (3rd
person) by an experimenter, lives from the first person point of view
in multiple simulations located at multiple levels.
[SPK]
It seems to me that you are
assuming what I define as the "voyeur's framing" when considering the
notion of a simulation. That is ok, IHMO, so long as you acknowledge
that such a simulation will involve less computational power that one
that dissallows for the voyeur's framing. It is like observing the game
"EverQuest" on your computer monitor.
When you make this
assumption it follows that many -even an infinity - of simulated worlds
could simultaneously exits, but I am arguing that the support for the
multitute of identical worlds vanishes when we consider the case of the
simulation that requires more computational power than that available
to *ANY* observer that you, from within the simulation, could
communicate with. To follow the EverQuest analogy, consider yourself as
a NPC (non-player character) within the EverQuest "world". The maximal
computational power that you would have available would be the
computational power needed to generate the unfolding of events you
could observe from a 1st person point of view.
I argue that we have
a similar situation in our "real" world. Stephen Wolfram wrote:
"The behavior of a physical system may always be
calculated by simulating explicitly each step in its evolution. Much of
theoretical physics has, however, been concerned with devising shorter
methods of calculation that reproduce the outcome without tracing each
step. Such shortcuts can be made if the computations used in the
calculation are more sophisticated than those that the physical system
can itself perform. Any computations must, however, be carried out on a
computer. But the computer is itself an example of a physical system.
And it can determine the outcome of its own evolution only by
explicitly following it through: No shortcut is possible. Such
computational irreducibility occurs whenever a physical system can act
as a computer. The behavior of the system can be found only by direct
simulation or observation: No general predictive procedure is possible."
I take this reasoning and
invert to to argue that what we experience as "reality" is
indistinguishable from a simulation of the world using the most
computational power available, the latter being the world as a physical
system, acting as a computer, computing its own evolution. What we take
as a 1st person "reality" is nothing more than the best possible
simulation. My rubric is: if we cannot 1st person distiguish between a
"real" object and a simulated object, there is no difference.
OK
[GL]
This can easily be proven. If the experimenter pull the plug
the creature continues living somewhere/when else in the ensemble. So
if living in a simulator is indistinguishable with not living in a
simulator, then the world is in a superposition of states. Ergo
multiple world and indeterminacy
[SPK]
No, that does not follow
because the premise is flawed! The ability to "pull the plug"
necessitates access to the computational resources that go into the
generation of the simulation and this is not 1st person possible, as I
point out above. You seem to be conflating the 3rd person "voyeur
framing" of an experimentor "outside" of the machine tinkering with the
computation itslef and that of the creature existing within the
simulation, having a 1st person experience of a "reality" that it
cannot prove is or is not a simulation.
Let me rephrase: So if living in a simulator is indistinguishable for
any creature with a first person perspective, with not living in a
simulator, then the world is in a superposition of states for that
creature. Ergo multiple world at multiple level of implementation and
indeterminacy. Computation speed has nothing to do with it. One
implementation could have a one nanosecond clock and the other one a
one billion year clock. Consciousness will span these implementations
forward in time, backward in time as long as the transitions from one
conscious state to another are consistent from one to the next. You can
compose a coherent message by going to a library and selecting a
sequence of words from various books. eg: Hamlet word 201, A Tale of
Two Cities word number 5469, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone word
5892, ....
[SPK] Also, how is
multiple-world-occupation knowable 1st person unless by the means I
discusses previously? Does this not violate the anthropic principle?
[CMR]
I don't understand.
[SPK] Let me put and paste the
entire post that my quote comes from and try again.
***
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Wednesday, May 12, 2004 7:25 AM
Subject:
Re: Are we simulated by some massive computer?
Stephen Paul King wrote:
Dear George,
My take of Russell's post is:
Unless the creature had some experience
that was not dismissible as a hallucination (1st person) and/or was
witness by others (a proxy of 3rd person?) that lead him to the
conclusion that it existed within a virtual reality then it would have
no ability to make such a deduction.
True. But from its own point of view its world would then be
indeterminate. The creature would occupy several worlds as long as this
indeterminacy exists.
***
[SPK]
How is the anthropic
principle consistent with the simultaneous co-existence of 1st person
experiences, e.g. the situation where Identical creatures have
different 1st person experiences simultaneously?
I don't see how identical creature can have different first person
experience and still be consistent with their world, unless you are
willing to allow some uncertainty in how you define "identical"
creature and/or "different" experiences.
If we are considering the
case of many identical observers having identical 1st person
experiences, I argue that the existence of more than one observer X and
1st person experience A pair, {X, A}, only follows from the postulation
of a secondary observer of {X, A}_i; where i can be more than
1. My symbols might be malformed here so I beg your indulgence. ;-)
Does that help?
Kindest regards,
Stephen
George
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