All that assumes that infinity exists for any meaningful use of the word “exists” and as far as I know nobody has ever found a infinite number of anything. Mathematics can write stories about the infinite in the language of mathematics but are they fiction or nonfiction?
John k Clark On Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 7:36 AM Lawrence Crowell < [email protected]> wrote: > On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 10:02:39 PM UTC-5, Bruce wrote: >> >> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 12:48 PM John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> When I was younger I read a lot of science fiction, I don't do it so >>> much anymore and technically I didn't do it this time either but I did >>> listen to a audio book called "We Are Legion We Are Bob" it's the first >>> book of the Bobiverse trilogy and I really enjoyed it. You can get a free 5 >>> minute sample of the book here: >>> >>> We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1 >>> <https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/B01L082SCI/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=> >>> >>> It tells the story of Bob, a young man who has just sold his software >>> company for a crazy amount of money and decides that after a decade of hard >>> work he's going to spent the rest of his life just goofing off. On a whim >>> he signs with a Cryonics company to have his head frozen after his >>> death and then just hours later while crossing the street to go to a >>> science fiction convention is hit by a car and dies. Five subjective second >>> s later he wakes up and finds that a century has passed and he's been >>> uploaded into a computer. This is all in the opening chapter. >>> >>> Parts of the story are unrealistic but parts of it are not, I think it >>> was Isaac Asimov who said it's OK for a science fiction writer to >>> violate the known laws of physics but only if he knows he's doing it, and >>> when Dennis Taylor, the creator of Bob universe, does it at one point with >>> faster than light communication it's obvious that he knowns it. And I can't >>> deny it makes for a story that is more fun to read. I have now read (well >>> listened) to all 3 Bob books and, although parts are a little corny and >>> parts a little too Star Trek for my taste, on the whole I greatly enjoyed >>> them all. They're a lot of fun. >>> >>> The only other novel I can think of that treats the subject of uploading >>> with equal intelligence is "The Silicon Man". >>> >>> The Silicon Man by Charles Platt >>> <https://www.amazon.com/Silicon-Man-Cortext-Charles-Platt/dp/1888869143> >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >> >> Consider any of the earlier novels by Greg Egan, the Australian hard >> science fiction write based in Perth, WA: particularly "Permutation City" >> (1994). >> >> Bruce >> > > I had this idea of a science fiction story of where minds are stored in > machines in order to "eternally" punish them. The idea is that if a million > seconds in the simulated world is a second in the outer world then one can > in effect construct a near version of eternal hell-fire. The setting is a > world governed by complete terror. Then Egan came out with Permutation > city, which explores a similar set of ideas. > > The problem with the idea of putting minds into machines is that machines > can run recursive functions or algorithms, but in a number system such as > Peano's we make the inductive leap that the successor of any number can't > be the same number or zero in all (infinite number) cases. We can make an > inference from a recursively enumerable set. I would then think that the > idea of putting minds into machines, or robotic consciousness, is at this > time an unknown, maybe an unknowable, proposition. > > LC > > -- > 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 view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/44ed303e-5650-430b-b255-bc28392194ae%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/44ed303e-5650-430b-b255-bc28392194ae%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2R53vB_PEEi8YtsY1Hf8%2B%2BobKYNL0NbATrdR5%2B8cqEWQ%40mail.gmail.com.
