Jerry Clark wrote:
>
> Christopher Maloney wrote:
>
> > Jerry Clark wrote:
> > >
> > > Such 'Life' evolution raises an interesting question: These SAS's would ...
> > > Sooner or later a physicists would hear about
> > > this new development and the realisation would be made that their universe
> > > *is* a Life simulation.
> >
> > Would it? This is a questions I've thought about some. Would the
> > fundamental mechanism of the life simulation be deducible by these
> > SAS's? Perhaps the only things that would be "knowable" by these
> > SAS's would be higher level structures, which they might interpret
> > as, for example, eleven dimensional quantum mechanical strings, or
> > something.
>
> I didn't say that the fundamental life simulation would be deducible by these
> Life SAS's, just that they would begin to play around with the 'Life' game and
> then notice a correspondence between some of the structures they were
> discovering in their Life simulations and some of the structures their
> particle physicists were discovering. Once such a coincidence had been
> noticed they'd be able to develop testable hypotheses that would go to
> show that their universe was a Life world, and then they'd be left with
> trying to calculate the boundary conditions (probably impossible in their
> case).
But, what you've just described is the deduction by these Life SAS's that
they live within a fundamental life simulation! So you've contradicted
yourself.
I was trying to suggest that this deduction might be completely
impossible to them -- that their life world might look like something
completely different, because, as I suggested, only "higher level
structures" might be available. I don't know what that means,
exactly. I'm sure there's been research on this idea -- I know
there's a vast body of literature on the game, and I'm not knowledgable
about it at all.
> > But, assuming that the lowest level structure of their world is
> > discernable, I would expect there to be a significant difference
> > between the measure of those creatures and the measure of other
> > creatures - us perhaps.
> >
>
> I don't know on what grounds you make that assumption but I'll go
> along with it. I'm definitely not assuming that our universe is a
> game of Life.
Right, well, I'm guessing from this response that you didn't
understand what I was trying to say. Mea culpa. I explicitly
assumed that our universe is *not* a game of life, and
then I went on to conjecture about why we don't find ourselves
in such a world.
> >
> > So if we further assume that our universe is *not* a game of life,
> > and if the AUH is true, then by the SSA I would conclude that the
> > probability of any SAS finding itself to be in a game of life is
> > probably zero. That is, the set of SAS's inside a game of life is
> > of measure zero relative to the set of SAS's inside universes like
> > ours.
>
> Can you please define SSA for me...
SSA = Self-Sampling Assumption.
Broadly speaking, it says, for me (it really only can be described
from a 1st person perspective) that I am a random SAS from among
the set of all SAS's.
> > In the bizarre nature of infinite sets, not all SAS's are in
> > universes like ours, but in fact the probability of being in a
> > universe like ours is 100%.
And here I make a desperate, arm-waving leap, from the idea that
I am a random sample, to the conclusion that SAS's "like me" are
the most numerous. Whatever "like me" might mean, I think it's
fair to guess that it wouldn't include SAS's inside a game of life,
unless you're talking about the ones generated within the UD.
> I don't believe in infinite sets. But I'd accept a rephrasing along the
> lines of "the probability of being in a universe like ours is very close
> to 100%". Still like to see the reasoning though. (Or perhaps a reference).
What does this mean, "I don't believe in infinite sets?" Do you
believe in the number 42? Do you believe in green? Do you believe
in (pick any human)?
> > > More interestingly still: when are *we* going to discover some
> > > CA or similar which
> > > turns out to be *our* universe? In my lifetime I hope.
What does "CA" stand for??
--
Chris Maloney
http://www.chrismaloney.com
"Donuts are so sweet and tasty."
-- Homer Simpson
Received on Mon Dec 06 1999 - 18:44:25 PST