MP: .....
> 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.
Brent:
This assumes that the simulation must be quantum mechanical - but I
think that would defeat the whole point of assuming a simulation. If the
world can be simulated classically, then it can be monitored without
interference.
MP: well actually I wasn't thinking about QM at all; I guess most of my
thinking is 'classical' although I realise of course that QM principles
impose minimum sizes for basic components of all information processing
systems.
My concern is much more a pronounced sceptical disbelief in the ability
of sentient creatures at any order of magnitude to be able to control
all the variables in a system they wish to impose. I think the basic
condition is always going to be that we and they CANNOT. My usual
expression of this, said in the context of working at a low level in a
bureaucracy, is that in any given situation there are always more things
which can occur than we want to occur, and usually there are more things
which can occur than we can possibly know about. This is a long winded
way of expressing 'Murphy's Law', but it is also a precise way of
stating in plain-English how entropy manifests at the level of our
work-a-day lives.
The thing is, setting up a simulation or emulation of something requires
giving up some degree of control over the process. I mean that's what we
have machines for isn't it,to do the work for us? And as far as I can
see, despite what Bruno says, the numbers have got to BE somewhere. So
the cosmic Boffins have got to have systems which are at least to some
degree autonomous. [As I write this it seems to me I am cutting at the
root of Bishop Berkeley's concept of being in the mind of God, or some
such.] In fact considering the scale of what is being contemplated I
would assume that at least some parts of the system would be interacting
in recursive self-referential ways that guaranteed unpredictability. And
if it is unpredictable then you are not controlling it; it is simply
happening, and it is non-QM randomness.
I can see I have rambled on here a bit too much, but I have to say I
think the issue of testing to see if what you predicted is really
happening, must involve some interference in the simulation process
itself, either that or the measurement is estimation with significant
error margins.
I also think there is a strong argument from ethics that we are NOT in a
simulation and furthermore that that sort of thing just doesn't happen.
My argument is very presumptuous of course but, what the heck, if there
IS a conspiracy of ET, pan-dimensional experimenters out there somewhere
tweaking their coding to make our world ever more 'realistic', well they
NOW have a moral duty to show themselves and give account for what they
have done. Why? Because if they are smart enough to do such a thing then
they are also smart enough to realise that they are causing avoidable
harm and suffering to people here on Earth and this has been going on
for a long time. [and it's gotta stop!]
If they don't show themselves and give account then they are just a
bunch of moral wimps who do not deserve our respect, let alone
adoration. This will be true even only if there is only The One. It
is the question that has to be directed at all those who wield power: If
you are so smart, why aren't you kind?
It's like Terry Pratchett says: There is only one sin, and that is to
treat another person like a thing.
Regards
Mark Peaty CDES
mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
Brent Meeker wrote:
> Mark Peaty wrote:
<<snipped>>
>
> This is mixing Everett's relative state interpretation with the idea that the world is a simulation. These are not the same and maybe not even compatible. The world evolves deterministically in Hilbert space and the "many-worlds" are projections relative to us. Whether this can be simulated, except in a quantum computer, is questionable because the Hilbert space is infinite dimensional. Is some fixed finite resolution sufficient for simulation?
>
>> 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 assumes that the simulation must be quantum mechanical - but I think that would defeat the whole point of assuming a simulation. If the world can be simulated classically, then it can be monitored without interference.
>
> Brent Meeker
>
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Received on Thu Mar 01 2007 - 11:15:10 PST