Le 01-mars-07, à 17:14, Mark Peaty a écrit :
>
>
> 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.
I agree.
>
> 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.
I disagree, or I agree. The multi-words, or multi-computations, can be
simulated classically. Then the interference between world/computations
appears from the fact that we are ourselves in the simulations, and
that we cannot know in which computational histories we are, and that
we suffer from unavoidable self-limitations.
>
> 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 agree.
> 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.
Yes. And a reading of Godel's second incompleteness theorem is exactly
that "Murphy law": Shit happens of may happen" (is it english?).
Well modally: Bf v DBf, i.e. the false is provable or it is consistent
that the false my be provable. We are insane or, if we are sane, we may
well loose sanity.
>
> The thing is, setting up a simulation or emulation of something
> requires giving up some degree of control over the process.
Yes, and that is why, in the spirit of this list, we never consider the
problem of emulating something, which is indeed near the impossible,
but we simulate everything. With comp, there is a notion of
"everything" completely captured by Church thesis. If comp is true,
although you cannot and will never been able to emulate a particular
individual and, at the same time, knowing that your emulation is
correct, you can trivially emulate all individuals, by running the
Universal Dovetailer, for example.
> I mean that's what we have machines for isn't it,to do the work for
> us?
Err... locally yes, but most machine introduced in this list are run
for theoretical purpose only.
> And as far as I can see, despite what Bruno says, the numbers have got
> to BE somewhere.
I think you are doing a category error. A particle can be somewhere
(and even this is only relative to some other particles). I don't see
at all why a number should be somewhere, except when the number
manifests itself to you in some context, but even here I would take
such localization as not being entirely serious. If your bank account
is empty, saying zero is in your bank would only be a way to speak.
Numbers are not the type of entity capable of being somewhere. You will
never say: guess who I met in Tokyo last week, the number 666!
> 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 agree. I think it is a fundamental point. But we have to distinguish
between
1) simulating everything (easy with comp, in Platonia (by which I mean
with no bounded time nor bounded space or memory).
2) simulating a thing (and not necessarily knowing it): possible, by
chance.
3) simulating a thing and knowing it (most of the time impossible with
comp)
>
> 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 think so. In a nutshell, this is how I try to extract physics
(interference and non classical logic) from comp (classical
truth/logic).
>
>
> 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!]
Most probably we are not in *such* a simulation, desired by other
person-being. If we are in such a simulation then we can know it, soon
or late. But with comp, we are in a natural simulation handled by the
usual (but very rich) relation among numbers. Like in Plotinus, the
ultimate simulator is not a thinking person.
>
> 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?
There is no sense to say the One is smart or whatever quality you want
attribute to It/Him/her.
True, Plotinus and Plato call it "Good", but it means only that it acts
as a universal attractor for all soul.
>
> It's like Terry Pratchett says: There is only one sin, and that is to
> treat another person like a thing.
I agree completely, as I have already told you. But this is a reason
for appreciating comp, if only to understand (either intuitively
through thought experiments, or formally by listening to a
self-observing universal machine) why most machine are lead to the
distinction between third-person notions and first person notions. Of
course the person that you describe as not being a thing is the *first*
person. The one who can have pleasure and pain. Even Peano Arithmetic
can prove that a first person is not a thing.
Regards,
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Mar 02 2007 - 06:24:07 PST