On 20 Dec 2013, at 19:50, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
> Do you agree that after turning this computer on, and letting it
run for a long enough time (eternity let's say), there is a 100%
chance John Clark will eventually find himself in this computer
Yes, in fact it may have already happened.
>> That would only be true if everything that could exist does
exist, and maybe that's the way things are but it is not obviously
true.
>It doesn't require that everything to exist, it requires only one
particular program to exist: the universal dovetailer. This program
and its execution exist within mathematics.
I'm pretty confident that such a program exists within mathematics,
but I am far less confident that a computer to run it on also exists
at that same level of reality; I'm not saying it doesn't, maybe it
does, but I don't know it for a fact. With today's emphasis on
software sometimes we forget that a program is useless without
hardware to run it on.
But the hardware/software distinction might be a relative indexical.
If you got the step 8 (or even step 7) this should easily be
understood (or conceived).
> For example, it is a true statement that the state of this program
after the 10^100th step of its computation has some particular value
X, and it is also a true statement that the 10^100 + 1 step has some
other particular value Y. It is also a true statement that the
program corresponding to the emulation of the wave function for the
Milky Way Galaxy contains John Clark and this particular John Clark
believes he is conscious and alive and sitting in front of a
computer in a physical universe.
For that you don't need to bring in Everett or Quantum Mechanics or
virtual worlds or dovetailing or computers, all you need are the
19'th century ideas of Ludwig Boltzmann. There are a gargantuan
number of ways the atoms in my 200 pound body could be organized,
but there are not a infinite number, therefore if the universe is
spatially infinite 10^1000 light years away (give or take a few
hundred thousand million billion trillion) there can be no doubt
that John Clark is typing a post to the Everything list about
Boltzmann's idea.
Boltzman still use physicalism, and Boltzman brain cannot clealry grow
infinitely in some stable way, unlike the arithmetical UD, which
exists in the same sense that the distribution of primes exists in
arithmetic;
Bruno
John K Clark
> Hence, arithmetical realism is a candidate TOE.
A candidate certainly, but is it the real deal? Maybe but it's not
obvious.
Right, but it is a scientific question. It will not be easy but we
can refute or confirm the theory by seeing what the UD implies for
the physics that observers see. Everett's theory was a great
confirmation, for without it, conventional QM with collapse (and a
single universe) would have ruled it out. As it stands, there are
several physical concepts that provide support for the UD being a
valid TOE:
Quantum uncertainty
Non clonability of matter
Determinism in physical laws
Information as a fundamental "physical" quantity
(I think there is something I am forgetting, but Bruno can fill in
the gaps)
> This is the "grand conclusion" you have been missing for all these
years. I don't think this was obvious to Og the caveman.
Nor is it obvious to John the non-caveman.
Nice.
Jason
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