On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 05:20:24PM -0400, Stephen Paul King wrote: > Hi Russell, > > But does this only make the problem worse? The quantity of > information that would have to be specified in analogue recordings > would be at least some power greater than the information necessary to > specify the finite bit digital version!
I don't think the information content of an analogue recording is even well defined, without specifying a coarse graining. But I don't see how that is related to the Maudlin / Movie Graph argument. I'm open to be convinced otherwise, though. I would like to be wrong on this, but ISTM that the Newtonian picture of the universe demands infinite computational resources to implement the Laplace Demon. I am trying to make sense of the Bekenstein bound and an idea in resent discussion by David Deutsch in his On Optimism speech – a speech that I wish all persons would watch and comprehend. > I do overthink things. My lovely and brilliant wife often points this out to me. :) Please allow me to ask another question. Is the notion of an “observer moment” corresponding to “the smallest possible conscious experience” related to Bruno’s concept of substitution level? ISTM that both act like the idea of a coarse graining on an ensemble that is used to define the entropy of a system in that all of the members of the ensemble that are indistinguishable from a macroscopic point of view. Related to this see: http://dare.uva.nl/document/134446 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.3972 . In our search to define a generic non-anthropocentric notion of an observer, I think that this notion of a lower bound on observable differences may help us see a better outline of the idea that we are looking for. > It could be. Maybe Bruno has an opinion. ISTM that transformations of implementations that leave observer moments invariant must be below the substitution level, so you're probably on the right track here. > Onward! > > Stephen > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
