Higgo James wrote:
>
> All depends what level you're talking on. 'human' is a subjective
> phenomenon; 'two humans' is as well. You speak on the emergent level then
> accuse me of doing it!
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Christopher Maloney [SMTP:dude.domain.name.hidden]
> > Sent: Saturday, July 17, 1999 4:33 AM
> > To: everything-list
> > Subject: Re: Cardinality of the MW
> >
> > Higgo James wrote:
> > >
> > > But even such an 'identical' human has different spatial co-ordinates
> > and is
> > > therefore different, no?
> > >
> >
> > Umm, no! "Space" is an emergent phenomenon as well. What could you
> > possibly mean that it has a different "spatial coordinate"?
> >
I don't think I understand where you're coming from. I've included the
original paragraph that you replied to here for reference (below), but
snipped out everything else. I was suggesting the point of view that
any two "simulations" of a human that happen to be identical, up to
some level of "indiscernability", really and truly can be considered
identical. That it would be meaningless to say that there are more than
one of them, except for the purpose of predicting what they will see
next. This is in line with the very short essay that I wrote that Bruno
introduced me to the group with, where I espouse what he calls
"computational indeterminacy". Note that this is also given in
Tegmark's paper, but in a slightly different formalism.
To quote (dontcha hate people who are always quoting themselves?):
There also exist an infinite number of other implementations of me,
which are impossible to fathom. Each implementation will experience
a "next instant", after the current one that I am experiencing right
now. The particular "next instant" that I find myself having, is
chosen at random from the complete ensemble of next instants
experienced by the implementations.
I am suggesting that other considerations such as time and space do not
play a role. That is, if there are two instantiations of me separated
by many distant galaxies and five aeons of time, they are nevertheless
identical, and my stream of consciousness could "jump" from one to
another, no problem.
If you don't like that terminology, then think of it in the terms
Tegmark uses. At any given instant, I have an uncertainty about which
"me" I am. Among all the instantiations of me, I could be any one!
This results in exactly the same subjective predictions as the way I
put it.
> > > >
> > > > But if you believe in the computationalist hypothesis, then you'd
> > > > have to assume that at some point, a simulation of a human becomes
> > > > "close enough" to be identical. That is (to oversimplify) when
> > > > each particle is simulated to within a Plank length, then the
> > > > simulation becomes indiscernable from the original, and thus
> > > > identical. If this is true, then I would no longer expect the
> > > > physical laws to give rise to ever-increasing cardinality of
> > > > universes, since that could never increase the cardinality of
> > > > the set of humans past aleph-0, anyway.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Chris Maloney
> > > > http://www.chrismaloney.com
> > > >
> > > > "Knowledge is good"
> > > > -- Emil Faber
> >
> > --
> > Chris Maloney
> > http://www.chrismaloney.com
> >
> > "Knowledge is good"
> > -- Emil Faber
> >
--
Chris Maloney
http://www.chrismaloney.com
"Knowledge is good"
-- Emil Faber
Received on Mon Jul 19 1999 - 16:10:28 PDT