On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 10:07:00AM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 31 May 2014, at 08:45, Russell Standish wrote: > >I gather you think it might be possible to distinguish between being > >in a virtual reality, and being in the real reality. > > > >David Deutsch introduced the concept of a CantGoTu environment. > > It is unclear if this contains only total functions or partial one.
Neither. A CantGoTu environment by construction is not the result of any program. ... > > > > >Yet it seems to me that CantGoTu environments and other non-virtual > >reality environments have measure one in the space of environments > >hosted by the UD, as UD* has the cardinality of the continuum, whereas > >virtual reality environments are strictly aleph_0. But we can never > >know that we're in one. > > What is a non-virtual reality environments in the UD*? > UD* is not a set, so cardinality notion does not apply. But with the > rule Y = II, we can associate a set of computations which has the > cardinality of the continuum to UD*, but this can make the virtual > reality environments into a continuum (and I think it should, to get > rid of the white rabbits). > I think the way virtual reality is defined in FoR, there can only ever be a countable number of them. It is the environment that is simulated, not the observer. By contrast with the UD, it is the observer that is "simulated", leading to a continuum of environments by FPI. > > > > > >DD does later in the chapter speculate about VR environments that one > >can know one is trapped in a VR, such as being inside a game of > >chess. This is because the "rules of physics" of such an environment > >are inconsistent, especially with the presence of an observer. But > >provided the rules of physics are consistent with yourself as an > >observer, then there doesn't appear to be any way of knowing whether > >you're in a simulation of not, as per the CantGoTu argument above. > > But DD ignores the FPI. > Sure - but I'm not sure of the relevance... > > > > > >The rules of physics (whether under COMP or not) must be those that > >allow the presence of observers, and of observation. All else _has_ to > >be geography. > > > >The only way we can prove we're actually in a simulation is if the > >Anthropic Principle were to suddenly fail. > > You need to take into account the comp RSSA, based on the FPI. All > computations emulating an observer, even if contradicting the > physical laws, have to be taken into account, and that is why > physics is a sum on all computation (going through your states), OK - but how does the following follow? > so > you can (in principle) find out if you are in a simulation (assuming > comp all along). > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
