This has been a long discussion between Jason and Mark. How do I get into it
is
by Mark's remark:
"I don't think I go anywhere as far as John M. in this but then maybe that
is just because I fear to let go of my sceptical reductionist walking stick.
"
--Stop half-way: when the guy received $10,000 in the bank in 100s and
counted
them ....37,38,39, - then stopped and said: well. so far it was a match, let
me believe that the rest is also OK.
We are much earlier into the completion of what we know about our existence.
Then again you both wrote about simulations (even: emulations) horribile
dictu:
"The key point is that a wilful entity or conspiracy seeks to emulate all or
part of another wilful entity's world to the extent that the latter can't
tell the difference when the change is made."
Untold: "restricted to details known" Nobody can simulate or look for
unknown details. Of course "the latter" can't tell whether 'simulated' if
looking only at the portion that matches. (I am not clear about "wilful
entity".)
The fallacy of the simulational business is more than that: you (get?)
simulate(d?) HERE and NOW and continue HERE under these conditions, while
THERE the simulacron lives under THOSE conditions and in no time flat
becomes different from you original. That the world of THERE is also
simulated? Just add: and lives exactly the life of THIS one? then the whole
thing is a hoax, a mirror image, no alternate.
*
Jason: " A reversible computation is one that has a 1 to 1 mapping between
input
and output. " Going up in the $100 bills to #45, the map may change. Don't
tell me please such "Brunoistic" examples like 1+1 = 2, go out into the
'life' of a universe (or of ourselves).
How can you reverse the infinite variations of a life-computation? You have
got to restrict it into a limited model and work on that. Like: reductionist
physics (QM?) .
It seems to me like a return to Carnot, disregarding Prigogine, who improved
the case to some (moderate) extent from the classical reversible even
isotherm thermodynmx,
from which I used to form the joke (as junior in college) that it shows how
processes would [theoretically] proceed, wouldn't they proceed as they do
proceed.
We can reverse a closed model content, all clearly known in it. Not life.
Just count into the simulations and reversals the constantly (nonlinearly!)
changing world not allowing any 'fixing' of circumstances/processes. No
static daydreams.
*
Jason: "Quantum mechanics makes the universe seem random and uncomputable to
those inside it, but according to the many-worlds interpretation the
universe evolves deterministically. " - right on. I just wonder why all
those many worlds are 'emulated' after this one feeble universe we pretend
to observe. In my 'narrative' I allowed 'universes' of unrestricted variety
of course 'nobody' can ever continue in a totally different 'universe' a
life from here. With e.g. a different logic.
*
"Are you saying that a perfectly efficient computer could not be built or
that the physics of this universe are not computable? "
You mean: with unrestricted, filled memory banks working on the limitless
variations nature CAN provide? A perfectly efficient computer could then
compute this universe as well. Maybe not these binary embryos we are proudly
using today. Indeed: you ask about the physics of this universe, is it the
reductionist science we are fed with in college? That may be computed.
Discounting the randomness and indeterminism shown for members of this
quantum universe of ours.
Sorry for the length and my unorthodoxy.
John M
On 2/24/07, Mark Peaty <mpeaty.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> This is yet another delayed response; the story of my life really ...
>
> Jason: "By physically reversible I don't mean we as humans can undo
> anything
> that happens, rather physical interactions are time-invertible. If you
> were shown a recording of any physical interaction on a small scale, an
> elastic collision of particles, the decay of a nucleus, burning of
> hydrogen, it would be impossible for you to tell if that recording were
> being played in reverse or not, since it is always possible for that
> interaction to occur as it does in either direction of time."
>
> MP: This is only true for 'individual' reactions on the micro scale, but
> even then the 'truth' about the reversibility can only really be maintained
> by hiding the truth about the context. For example, it is logically possible
> for certain atomic nuclei to collide at just the right velocities and fusion
> will occur. In reality however the probability of what are normally fission
> products coming together to make a uranium nucleus is so close to zero you
> are never going to see it. [I don't know much about the physics but my
> casual believe is that heavy elements are created through various long and
> complex 'ratchet' accretion pathways in which nuclear isotopes of H or He
> enter heavier nuclei.] Like wise the burning of hydrogen; it seems simple
> enough and yes it is 'reversible', but does the reverse occur? Not where you
> and I can see it.
>
> Jason: "Quantum mechanics makes the universe seem random and uncomputable
> to
> those inside it, but according to the many-worlds interpretation the
> universe evolves deterministically. It is only the observers within
> the quantum mechanical universe that perceive the randomness and
> unpredictability, but this unpredictability doesn't exist at the higher
> level where the universe is being simulated (assuming many-worlds). "
>
> MP: I don't think I can accept this. Maybe I sound arrogant in saying
> this, but I think the idea of simulation is used a bit too loosely. I know
> there are those lurking on the Mind & Brain list and JCS-online who would
> say I am 'the pot calling the kettle black', because I am always asserting
> what I call UMSITW [pronounced um-see-two for English speakers] - updating
> the model of self in the world - is the basis of consciousness. But they
> misunderstand me, because I do not say there is anyone else doing
> simulation, merely that we experience being here because the universe has
> evolved self sustaining regions within itself which maintain their structure
> by means of dynamically modelling themselves and their local region so as to
> avoid fatal dangers while obtaining everything they need from their
> environments. My point here is simply that the universe is its own best
> simulation and that any ideas of something greater, such as a Matrix type
> operation, are science fiction only. Why? Because for a feasible universe
> like the one we seem to inhabit to be deterministic does not require that it
> is predictable nor that it can be repeatable. Nobody knows to what extent
> quantum level events are intrinsically random as opposed to being _pushed
> from 'behind' or 'below'_ so to speak.
>
> That is one thing. Another thing is that no entity or set of entities
> could know if their 'simulation' attempt was doing what they wanted in every
> detail because to attempt to find this out would interfere irreversibly with
> the unfolding of the world. This latter objection can be sidelined by
> accepting that there are no entities with any such intention therefore it is
> irrelevant. For those who would be 'believers' in Sky God, as well sceptics,
> this puts divine intervention pretty much off limits.
>
> OK, that leaves the concept of pseudo-emulation: another hidden 'level' of
> structure embodied in calculation. I guess this can be represented by either
>
> 1/ the movie '13th Floor' - which I think much better than 'Matrix' 1, 2,
> and 3 in terms of its encapsulation of interesting philosophical questions -
> or
> 2/ Bruno's 'Yes Doctor' hypothesis.
>
> These might seem to be very different but I don't think so. The key point
> is that a wilful entity or conspiracy seeks to emulate all or part of
> another wilful entity's world to the extent that the latter can't tell the
> difference when the change is made. Doubtless Bruno has a far more exacting
> definition and sets of caveats, but I insist on plain-English. As far as I
> can see, the assertion that this MUST be possible in principle because 'we'
> can imagine a mathematical implementation, just begs the question. I do not
> think there is anything shameful in 'reifying' physics, because if we exist
> and know that we do it has to be because we BELIEVE in ourselves and our
> world. Believing in something IS reifying it. When we understand that the
> basic mechanism underlying this process is the activation of a model of
> whatever it is, the whole question of mind and consciousness is demystified.
> This does not remove the wonder, or the challenges, of living in the amazing
> universe. It should mean that we spend less money on snake oil though!
>
> Regards
> Mark Peaty CDES
> mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ <http://www.arach.net.au/%7Empeaty/>
>
>
>
> Jason wrote:
>
>
>
> Mark Peaty wrote:
>
> Hello Jason,
> please excuse my ignorant interjections here but, as a
> non-mathematician, non-philosopher, I need to work things into a plain
> English version before I can feel that I understand them, and even then
> the edges of things get fuzzy with far more ease than they get straight
> and clear cut. Furthermore I am beginning to wonder if the apparently
> 'straight' and clear cut boundaries to concepts and so forth are not
> merely figments of my imagination. I don't think I go anywhere as far as
> John M. in this but then maybe that is just because I fear to let go of
> my sceptical reductionist walking stick. :-)
>
> Jason: 'perform an infinite number of
> computations with a finite amount of energy, but only if the
> computations done on that computer are logically reversible.'
>
> MP: Surely 'logically reversible' does not necessarily imply no entropy,
> just that for the purposes of the concerned observer, the computing
> system can return to a state that is sufficiently close to the original
> state so that the inputs can be discovered. More or less by definition,
> entropy increases and manifests as deterioration of the substrate and as
> the need to supply more energy to travel through the system than
> otherwise is calculated to be necessary to obtain the minimum changes
> needed to embody the changes of state in the calculating system.
>
>
> Right, logically reversible computations on their own do not imply no
> increase in entropy by the computing system, but for a computing system
> to operate with no net increase in entropy, the computations it
> performs must be logically reversible. This is because: "For a
> computational operation in which 1 bit of logical information is lost,
> the amount of entropy generated is at least k ln 2, and so the energy
> that must eventually be emitted to the environment is E kT ln 2." (
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing#More_on_Landauer.27s_principle
> ) Note that the computing substrates needed to implement such an
> efficient computer are well beyond our current level of technology and
> are only theoretical. However there is as of yet, no known reason why
> an arbitrarily efficient computer could not be built.
>
> A reversible computation is one that has a 1 to 1 mapping between input
> and output. For example if if I compute x=x+3, every input has a
> unique output, given the function and the result it is possible to
> determine the input. However the same could not be said of a function
> defined as x=x modulo 3, or x=0, where there are a finite number of
> outputs. These computations are not reversible because it is
> inpossible to get the input given function and the output.
>
> Jason: 'The physical interactions that occur in this universe are also
> reversible. e.g. An electron can accept a photon and move to a higher
> energy state or an electron can emit a photon and move to a lower
> energy state. Does reversible physics imply that a computational model
> of said physics would involve entirely reversible computations? '
>
> MP: This concept of 'reversible' is very useful, but to how great an
> extent is it just a convenient fiction? My understanding is that you
> can't fire *a particular* photon at a particular atom and guarantee that
> your favourite electron will rise to the predicted level. I mean it
> either will or it won't.
>
>
> By physically reversible I don't mean we as humans can undo anything
> that happens, rather physical interactions are time-invertible. If you
> were shown a recording of any physical interaction on a small scale, an
> elastic collision of particles, the decay of a nucleus, burning of
> hydrogen, it would be impossible for you to tell if that recording were
> being played in reverse or not, since it is always possible for that
> interaction to occur as it does in either direction of time.
>
> Conversely as I understand it [AIUI] the
> subsidence of an electron to a lower orbital is only predictable in a
> statistical sense. Once again is it not that the real world entities
> must be dealt with in a statistical manner, either as bulk substances,
> predictable due to the averaging of activities of the individual quantum
> particles, or as individual quantum items manifesting radical
> indeterminacy?
>
>
> Quantum mechanics makes the universe seem random and uncomputable to
> those inside it, but according to the many-worlds interpretation the
> universe evolves deterministically. It is only the observers within
> the quantum mechanical universe that perceive the randomness and
> unpredictability, but this unpredictability doesn't exist at the higher
> level where the universe is being simulated (assuming many-worlds).
>
> Either way AIUI, the computational model will manipulate
> symbols denoting the real world physics and there is no guarantee that
> any such computing system could overcome the limits imposed by entropy
> and quantum indeterminacy.
>
>
> I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you saying that a perfectly
> efficient computer could not be built or that the physics of this
> universe are not computable?
>
> Jason
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Sat Feb 24 2007 - 17:08:18 PST