Jesse Mazer writes:
>>[Stathis]
>>There are two separate probabilities to consider here. One is the
>>probability (3/4, as you show) that civilization will never break down if
>>implemented on a computer with behaviour as specified above. The other is
>>the probability that the actual hardware will work according to
>>specification. I don't think you should conflate the two, effectively
>>arguing that the hardware will work to specification because that is part
>>of the specification!
>[Jesse]
>I don't think I ever said anything about the probability involving software
>only. If you have a distributed computing network (such that destroying any
>part of it won't cause a global breakdown), and more and more of the
>universe is constantly being gobbled up and converted into computing power,
>then perhaps the probability of all the hardware in the universe breaking
>down would decrease geometrically as well, on average. Assume that when I
>talk about the probability of all copies of you being destroyed decreasing
>like 1/8+1/16+1/32+..., this probability takes into account all possible
>causes of failure, including software problems, destruction of hardware,
>and even stuff like the possibility that some other enemy groups of A.I.'s
>will attempt to erase all copies of you.
>>[Stathis]
>>Returning to the original question, once you have settled into your new
>>home, what is to stop all your friends disappearing, as before? The
>>computer will try to prevent this from happening, and you could probably
>>try the geometric series trick again (i.e. decreasing probability that
>>your friends disappear), but in this case there will be nothing tying you
>>to those ever-rarer branches where the hardware works as it is supposed
>>to.
>[Jesse]
>But my point is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a matter of
>"ever-rarer" branches--even aside from quantum immortality, it might be
>true that in 3/4 (or whatever) of all branches stemming from a given point
>in time, any A.I. around at that time will have at least some copies around
>in the giant computing network forever.
You seem to be treating the proposed ever-decreasing failure rate per clock
cycle as if it is something that will just happen inexorably once the
denizens of the far future decide to build this computer. You may as well
say that in the future, there will be computers with a mean time between
failure of 10^10^100 years, or whatever arbitrarily large number you choose.
The problem is not in conceiving of such super-machines, it is in the
details of design and implementation. I imagine that in the future there may
be multiple attempts to build computers which will squeeze an infinite
period of subjective time into a finite period of real time, in the way you
have described, and like any other engineering project, the success rate
will increase with increasing experience and resources, but even the "last
gasp" effort in the moment before the big crunch will only succeed in an
infinitesimally small proportion of multiverse branches.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Apr 19 2005 - 07:28:44 PDT