RE: a description of you + a description of billiard ball can bruise you?

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 13:35:23 -0700

Lee writes:
>> Jonathan: Bruno's claim is a straightforward consequence of Strong AI;
that a
>> simulated mind would behave in an identical way to a "real" one, and
>> would experience the same "qualia". There's no special "interface"
>> required here; the simulated mind and the simulated billiard
>ball are
>> in the same "world", ie. at the same level of simulation. As far as
>> the simulated person is concerned, the billiard ball is "real". Of
>> course, the simulation can also contain a simulation of the billiard
>> ball (2nd level simulation), which will equally be unable to bruise
>> the simulated person, and so on ad infinitum. If we take Bostrom's
>> simulation argument seriously, we all exist in some Nth level
>> simulation, while our simulated billiard ball exists at the
>(N+1)th level.
>
>Now just to keep our bookkeeping accurate, Bruno Marchal's
>claims far exceed what you have written.
>
<snip>
>No, the important claims that Bruno makes go far beyond. He
>attempts to derive physics from the theory of computation
>(i.e., recursive functions, effective computability,
>incompleteness, and unsolvability).
>His is also one set of the claims, hypotheses, and conjectures
>that attempt to reduce physics to a completely timeless abstract world.
>Julian Barbour, in The End of Time, gave, as you probably
>know, one of the most brilliant presentations from this perspective.

Sure; but I was just addressing the observation by Bruno that a description
of a ball can bruise you (if you are also a description). That observation
is not unique to Bruno's Comp; it applies to any theory that accepts the
premise of Strong AI.

Jonathan
Received on Wed May 18 2005 - 16:51:03 PDT