On 9/26/2011 10:23 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 9:42 PM, Pierz <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I can see that you are actually right in asserting that the UDA's
computations are not random, but I'm not sure that negates the core of
my objection. Actually what the UDA does is produce a bit field
containing every possible arrangement of bits. Is this not correct?
I think you are confusing a bit pattern for a computation. A hard
drive can contain any possible bit pattern that will fit on its
platter, but this bit pattern won't contain consciousness.
Conversely, if the computer is powered up and running the appropriate
program, that program may be conscious. This is the difference
between the UD, and the series of integers or the digits of Pi. The
UD executes all possible programs, the set of Integers is equivalent
to all possible bit patterns.
I think what you are saying is that somehow this computation produces
more pattern and order than a program which simply generates all
possible arrangements of bits. Why? If I were to select at random some
algorithm from the set of all possible algorithms, it would be pretty
much noise almost all the time.
I think you could say the program may be uninteresting, or not contain
a mind or minds.
Are you familiar with the Anthropic principle? The idea that
observers will always find themselves in places where they can exist.
They perform the selection by virtue of their existence and
observation of their environment.
The vast majority of programs may not contain observers, but those few
that do will become environments for the minds they host.
*Proving* it is noise is of course
impossible, because meaning is a function of context. You've selected
out "the program emulating the Heisenberg matrix of the Milky Way",
but among all the other possible procedures will be a zillion more
that perform this operation, but also add in various other quantities
and computations that render the results useless from a physicist's
point of view. There are certainly all kinds of amazing procedures and
unfound discoveries lying deep in the UDA's repertoire of algorithms,
but only when we intelligently derive an equation by some other means
(measurements, theory, revision, testing etc) can we find out which
ones are signal and which ones noise.
We can ignore the computations which don't contain observers, and as
far as predicting your own future, we can ignore those that don't
contain you.
You also asked about why not execute them all in parallel. Every
program does exist in math independetly of the UD. I think the reason
Bruno described the UD was that it was a simple single program he
could show exists in math. You also questioned whether the existence
of the UD is something really there or some mental construction of
ours. If you think "17 is prime" is true independently of your
knowledge of it, then the statement "the UD does not halt" is also
true independently of your knowledge of it.
Jason
Jason,
I really would like to understand how it is that the truth
valuation of a proposition is not dependent on our knowledge of it can
be used to affirm the meaning of the referent of that proposition
independent of us? How does the sentence "17 is prime is a true
statement" confer implicit meaning to its referent?
Onward!
Stephen
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