Re: UDA query

[Nick Prince]

Sorry I accidently posted my previous message twice.  A pity because
now I think the conclusion I came to in them was wrong.  Because I
assume comp to be true and the line of reasoning implies a simulated
realityy because of comp then it doesn't make comp any less
contingent.  Oh well!,  the rest was insightful to think over.  If
anyone sees any other errors in my thinking then please do let me know
because I don't want to take anything on board that is wrong and has
been cleared up in the past.

Nick Prince

On Dec 23, 1:02 am, Nick Prince m...@dtech.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
 On Dec 23, 12:55 am, Nick Prince m...@dtech.fsnet.co.uk wrote:



  Hi Bruno

  My background is in mathematical physics but I am trying to read up a
  bit of this new stuff as I go along.  Thank you for being patient with
  me.

  However, I think you have confirmed some things - let me know if any
  of these is fundamentally wrong.

  I want to put aside the platonic arithmetical UD for the moment but
  will come back to that.

   Just supposing that there is as yet NO UD operating.  Comp says it is
  possible to build a concrete one and in step 7 of your paper you say
  that the UD could provide infinitely  many possible consistent
  extensions of me.  (I am thinking of descriptions of simulated worlds
  with me in them  as  bit strings)  I quote you from the sane paper:

  Then, it follows from the six preceding steps that it will generate
  all possible Turing machine states, infinitely often (why?), which (by
  comp) includes all your virtual reconstitutions corresponding to
  (hopefully) consistent extensions of yourself, in all possible
  (locally) emulable environments or computational histories. And this,
  with comp, even in the case you consider that your ‘‘generalised
  brain’’ (the ‘‘whatever’’ which is needed to be emulated by a  DU
  digital body/brain to survive) is the whole Milky Way galaxy. And we
  don’t need any Science Fiction like devices to make this concrete, if
  we make exception of the robust universe.

  Actually the kind of teleportation I am interested in, for reasons
  as you will see is the usual simple one which takes us from moment to
  moment.  I am being teleported into the next observer moment all the
  time ( if this is because I'm already being computed by a UD then as I
  say lets just ignore this possibility for now as you did in your
  paper).  If someone is blown to bits, then we have lost the chance to
  make a decent copy of them.  However, Once the “concrete” UD is run
  then it  computes all possible futures for all possible virtual
  extensions. Then there will be  an (infinitely many) extension(s) for
  the blown to bits person.  The blowing to bits is just the equivalent
  of the annhiallation part of your earlier steps.  So here we have the
  basic quantum immortality thing coming in again.   However, if  it
  takes the UD a long time to generate sufficient extensions then the
  delay will be considerable before the blown to bits man continues
  consciousness - although to him it will seem instantaneous. From 3d
  person, well - they see the delay.

  Now is the interesting bit.  Because this future UD creates all
  possible extensions of all possible states of the blown to bits man
  then what’s to stop him finding continuation with a consistent
  extension prior to the blowing up!  In other words every observer
  moment of his life (not just the one just before being blown up - but
  any  of them) could just as easily be followed by a suitable one in
  the virtual UD rather than one in the initial run of the universe.  In
  conclusion,  from our ist person point of view we do not know whether
  our next observer moment will occur in the “real” universe or in a
  simulated one- this is 1-indeterminacy again.  If the UD can simulate
  all possible observer moments then it will have those associated with
  our very first sense of consciousness and hence we will have very
  quickly slipped, without knowing it, into the UD’s virtual world.  We
  never noticed any delay of course but there may have been a huge time
  difference assuming Russell’s time postulate has meaning here!

  Hence if a UD is possible, then only the first observer moment(s) -or
  fraction of our conscious lives - were ever lived in a “basic/real”
  universe at all.  The rest is all simulation.  The very existence of a
  UD implies that we are in a simulation.

  If they exist platonically then it's all simulation and
  computationalism must be necessary rather than contingent.

  It's a very fumbling line of thinking but it helps me to learn about
  things as I go along.

  Best

  Nick

  On Dec 22, 6:41 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

   On 22 Dec 2009, at 18:48, Nick P wrote:

Hence by it generating all possible emulations of
stages of my life) that I could just as easily experience for my  
next
OM as opposed to the one i would expect to experience on the current
wetware (or 

Re: UDA query

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Nick,

On 23 Dec 2009, at 01:55, Nick Prince wrote:


 My background is in mathematical physics but I am trying to read up a
 bit of this new stuff as I go along.  Thank you for being patient with
 me.

 However, I think you have confirmed some things - let me know if any
 of these is fundamentally wrong.

 I want to put aside the platonic arithmetical UD for the moment but
 will come back to that.

 Just supposing that there is as yet NO UD operating.  Comp says it is
 possible to build a concrete one and in step 7 of your paper you say
 that the UD could provide infinitely  many possible consistent
 extensions of me.  (I am thinking of descriptions of simulated worlds
 with me in them  as  bit strings)  I quote you from the sane paper:

 Then, it follows from the six preceding steps that it will generate
 all possible Turing machine states, infinitely often (why?), which (by
 comp) includes all your virtual reconstitutions corresponding to
 (hopefully) consistent extensions of yourself, in all possible
 (locally) emulable environments or computational histories. And this,
 with comp, even in the case you consider that your ‘‘generalised
 brain’’ (the ‘‘whatever’’ which is needed to be emulated by a  DU
 digital body/brain to survive) is the whole Milky Way galaxy. And we
 don’t need any Science Fiction like devices to make this concrete, if
 we make exception of the robust universe.

 Actually the kind of teleportation I am interested in, for reasons
 as you will see is the usual simple one which takes us from moment to
 moment.  I am being teleported into the next observer moment all the
 time ( if this is because I'm already being computed by a UD then as I
 say lets just ignore this possibility for now as you did in your
 paper).  If someone is blown to bits, then we have lost the chance to
 make a decent copy of them.  However, Once the “concrete” UD is run
 then it  computes all possible futures for all possible virtual
 extensions. Then there will be  an (infinitely many) extension(s) for
 the blown to bits person.  The blowing to bits is just the equivalent
 of the annhiallation part of your earlier steps.  So here we have the
 basic quantum immortality thing coming in again.

OK. TO be sure it is the older comp immortality, and it is an open  
problem if the quantum interference and immortality *is* a result of  
the comp interference and immortality. It looks like that, and up to  
now the math confirms formally the resemblance.


 However, if  it
 takes the UD a long time to generate sufficient extensions then the
 delay will be considerable before the blown to bits man continues
 consciousness - although to him it will seem instantaneous. From 3d
 person, well - they see the delay.

Yes. (would they live long enough)




 Now is the interesting bit.  Because this future UD creates all
 possible extensions of all possible states of the blown to bits man
 then what’s to stop him finding continuation with a consistent
 extension prior to the blowing up!

Sure. (that happens all the time, and that's why we have to justify  
the apparent stable laws from that).



 In other words every observer
 moment of his life (not just the one just before being blown up - but
 any  of them) could just as easily be followed by a suitable one in
 the virtual UD rather than one in the initial run of the universe.

Absolutely. Would a real *singular* concrete material universe exist,  
the probability to stay in that universe is zero.


 In
 conclusion,  from our ist person point of view we do not know whether
 our next observer moment will occur in the “real” universe or in a
 simulated one- this is 1-indeterminacy again.  If the UD can simulate
 all possible observer moments then it will have those associated with
 our very first sense of consciousness and hence we will have very
 quickly slipped, without knowing it, into the UD’s virtual world.  We
 never noticed any delay of course but there may have been a huge time
 difference assuming Russell’s time postulate has meaning here!


It has meaning, because it is neither physical time nor subjective  
time, but just the natural numbers with the successor operation, or  
the number of steps taken by the UD to reach the computational states.  
And the step 8 explains why, even if a real physical time exists, it  
just cannot compete with the UD time.  It is no more than 0, 1, 2,  
3, ... or a set having a computable bijection with N.



 Hence if a UD is possible,

Well, the mathematical existence of the UD is a logical consequence of  
Church thesis + Turing's theorem in computer science.
There is number U such that for all x and y, phi_U(x, y) = phi_x(y).  
U can emulate x on y.
Once you can emulate all x, you can dovetail on all emulations  
possible, including those with oracles in some rings.


 then only the first observer moment(s) -or
 fraction of our conscious lives - were ever lived in a “basic/real”
 universe at all.  The rest is all simulation.  

Re: UDA query

[Nick Prince]

Thanks Bruno

I want to have a good think about your answers and also the eighth
step in your paper.  I think it is the most difficult for me and yet I
sense its somehow. Schmidhuber assumes a great programmer runs the UD
but you effectively dispense with him. If a universal turing machine
necessarilly exists platonically which is capable of running UD's that
can simulate our minds then our experience of reality follows. Yet I
still feel that somehow this will be confusing the map of the
territory with the reality, the equations of physics with the
physically real.

Best wishes

Nick



On Dec 23, 2:15 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
 Hi Nick,

 On 23 Dec 2009, at 01:55, Nick Prince wrote:





  My background is in mathematical physics but I am trying to read up a
  bit of this new stuff as I go along.  Thank you for being patient with
  me.

  However, I think you have confirmed some things - let me know if any
  of these is fundamentally wrong.

  I want to put aside the platonic arithmetical UD for the moment but
  will come back to that.

  Just supposing that there is as yet NO UD operating.  Comp says it is
  possible to build a concrete one and in step 7 of your paper you say
  that the UD could provide infinitely  many possible consistent
  extensions of me.  (I am thinking of descriptions of simulated worlds
  with me in them  as  bit strings)  I quote you from the sane paper:

  Then, it follows from the six preceding steps that it will generate
  all possible Turing machine states, infinitely often (why?), which (by
  comp) includes all your virtual reconstitutions corresponding to
  (hopefully) consistent extensions of yourself, in all possible
  (locally) emulable environments or computational histories. And this,
  with comp, even in the case you consider that your ‘‘generalised
  brain’’ (the ‘‘whatever’’ which is needed to be emulated by a  DU
  digital body/brain to survive) is the whole Milky Way galaxy. And we
  don’t need any Science Fiction like devices to make this concrete, if
  we make exception of the robust universe.

  Actually the kind of teleportation I am interested in, for reasons
  as you will see is the usual simple one which takes us from moment to
  moment.  I am being teleported into the next observer moment all the
  time ( if this is because I'm already being computed by a UD then as I
  say lets just ignore this possibility for now as you did in your
  paper).  If someone is blown to bits, then we have lost the chance to
  make a decent copy of them.  However, Once the “concrete” UD is run
  then it  computes all possible futures for all possible virtual
  extensions. Then there will be  an (infinitely many) extension(s) for
  the blown to bits person.  The blowing to bits is just the equivalent
  of the annhiallation part of your earlier steps.  So here we have the
  basic quantum immortality thing coming in again.

 OK. TO be sure it is the older comp immortality, and it is an open  
 problem if the quantum interference and immortality *is* a result of  
 the comp interference and immortality. It looks like that, and up to  
 now the math confirms formally the resemblance.

  However, if  it
  takes the UD a long time to generate sufficient extensions then the
  delay will be considerable before the blown to bits man continues
  consciousness - although to him it will seem instantaneous. From 3d
  person, well - they see the delay.

 Yes. (would they live long enough)



  Now is the interesting bit.  Because this future UD creates all
  possible extensions of all possible states of the blown to bits man
  then what’s to stop him finding continuation with a consistent
  extension prior to the blowing up!

 Sure. (that happens all the time, and that's why we have to justify  
 the apparent stable laws from that).

  In other words every observer
  moment of his life (not just the one just before being blown up - but
  any  of them) could just as easily be followed by a suitable one in
  the virtual UD rather than one in the initial run of the universe.

 Absolutely. Would a real *singular* concrete material universe exist,  
 the probability to stay in that universe is zero.

  In
  conclusion,  from our ist person point of view we do not know whether
  our next observer moment will occur in the “real” universe or in a
  simulated one- this is 1-indeterminacy again.  If the UD can simulate
  all possible observer moments then it will have those associated with
  our very first sense of consciousness and hence we will have very
  quickly slipped, without knowing it, into the UD’s virtual world.  We
  never noticed any delay of course but there may have been a huge time
  difference assuming Russell’s time postulate has meaning here!

 It has meaning, because it is neither physical time nor subjective  
 time, but just the natural numbers with the successor operation, or  
 the number of steps taken by the UD to reach the computational states.  
 And the