Re: Let There Be Something

From: Russell Standish <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 13:03:10 +1100

On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 12:18:01AM +0100, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
> Hi Russel,
>
> Le Jeudi 03 Novembre 2005 22:11, Russell Standish a ??crit??:
>
> >
> > Even then, there is still a loophole. I suspect that 3D environment
> > are far more likely to evolve the complex structures needed for
> > consciousness, so that conscious GoL observers are indeed a rare
> > thing. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if true it would
> > make a GoL example irrelevant. More interesting is to look at some 3D
> > CA rules that appear to support universal computation - Andy Wuensche
> > had a paper on this in last year's ALife in Boston. No arXiv ref I'm
> > afraid, but you could perhaps email him for an eprint...
> >
> > Cheers
>
>
> But 3D, 2D CA is of no relevance... the way we see the computation through the
> gol as nothing in common with how hypothetical living being inside the gol
> would perceive their environment.
>
> Quentin

True, but I suspect it does have impact on the likelihood of conscious
observers arising in such a system. In a plenitude of CAs of different
rules and dimensionality, initialised at random, I suspect that 3D or
higher CAs will dominate the measure of those CAs that generate the
complex data structures needed for conscious observers. Perhaps 3D is
even favoured. This is, of course, a hunch to be proven or disproven
by some future mathematical genius.

Cheers

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Received on Thu Nov 03 2005 - 22:48:24 PST

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