On Sun, Jun 01, 2014 at 09:19:54PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > On 01 Jun 2014, at 01:53, Russell Standish wrote: > > >On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 01:40:58PM -0700, meekerdb wrote: > >>On 5/30/2014 11:45 PM, Russell Standish wrote: > >>> > >>>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 aren't "we" as physically instantiated beings, also of the > >>cardinality of the continuum? > >> > > > >Yes, we are, but not the virtual reality environments, which must be > >countable by virtue of there only being a countable number of > >programs. > > > >With COMP, and via the UDA, the number of "real" environments > >experienced must be the cardinality of the continuum, and would > >include all the CantGoTu environments. > > > >We could therefore conclude (contra Bostrom), that we are most likely > >not in a simulation, but that we can never prove it by any finite > >observation (Deutsch's CantGoTu argument). > > > >I agree that sometimes we can know we're in a virtual reality - > >Deutsch's chess VR example, for instance - but only by it being > >logically incompatible with our existence as an observer. > > > >The question remains - suppose someone finds a physical phenomenon > >that contradicts the laws of physics derived from COMP. Does that > >falsify COMP, or does it imply we're in a virtual reality? How can you > >possibly distinguish those two situations? > > We can't. > > But this is similar to the fact that, for accepting that we can at > least refute a theory, we still need to bet that we are not dreaming > or that we are not in some emulation (made normal by being physical, > that is built on the top of the sum on all computations). > > So, to answer the question more precisely, we will need to describe > more precisely how much the physical phenomenon depart from the comp > physics, like for the case with the natural physics. If the > emulation is gross (too big pixel) we can see quickly we are > dreaming or emulated, or branched to a virtual (programmed) > environment/video-game. > > By default, when I say that comp is falsifiable, I suppose we are at > the base level, and that QL and QM does describe the base levels. > > Comp (and QL) saves us (normally) from the diabolical white rabbits, > but it does not save us from the human and indeed universal Löbian > consistent deception. > > Bruno > >
I would say that COMP predicts we must be at the base level, and not in a virtual reality, by virtue of the cardinality difference between the set of all environments and the set of virtual ones. Therefore if we do discover ourselves in such a virtual variety (eg Deutsch's chess world) violating the laws of physics derived from COMP, then COMP must be falsified. Whilst COMP could be rescued by stating that it's just bad luck that we are in one of these virtual worlds, there is no epistemological benefit in doing so, because then COMP would not provide a description of our phenomenological physics. Just the same is if we ever found the Anthropic Principle to be violated (and didn't immediately wake up and realise it to be a dream), then we'd have to declare the AP falsified, because it no longer has any epistemological value. We could alternatively conclude that we're living in a Sim (DD's argument), but that would be simply a statement of faith, making the AP unfalsifiable. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.
