Russell Standish writes: > > Is it still correct to say that a computation running on two physical > > computers (that is, what > > we think of as physical computers, whatever the underlying reality may be) > > has almost twice > > the measure as it would have if it were running on one computer? Otherwise, > > there would > > be no point backing up anything, relying instead on Platonia's infinite > > hard disk. > > > > Stathis Papaioannou > > It does not change the measure of the computation in Platonia. I think > that is the clear message from COMP. But it does change the measure > within the "physical" universe that we inhabit. > > Backing up things is to improve robustness in the face of noise (or > equivalently the second law). I don't know of anybody doing it to > increase measure per se. > > On the other hand printing 100 copies of my book is all about > increasing the measure of my book within our physical universe, and > not backing it up (5 copies distributed to the main libraries of the > world would suffice for that!)
By increasing the measure locally in our universe, are you making no difference, or only a small amount of difference to the measure overall in Platonia? For example, if all the matter in the universe were converted to computers repeatedly calculating "2+2=4" would that give "2+2=4" a bit of an edge over "3+3=6" in Platonia? What about the far more complex computations underlying human consciousness: my understanding was that the appearance of an orderly physical world that goes along with these is not an optional extra, but a necessary consequence of the type of computation under consideration. That would mean that all of the measure attributed to a conscious moment is in fact tied up in the (apparent) physical world, because there are no computations of the required type possible that don't give the appearance of a physical world. (If there are, we have to explain why we don't experience them.) So if you increase the measure locally by duplicating and running a sentient program, you are increasing the measure in Platonia as a whole, since there isn't anywhere else where sentient programs of the sort with which we are familiar might be hiding. Stathis Papaioannou _________________________________________________________________ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
