Russell,
Thats a good summary. However, my issue with your conclusion is this:
even if I accept that a "machine" or a "prime mover" is not necessary,
such explanations are still part of the plenitude and therefore part of
reality. So if everything is reducible to math or information, even if
you are correct that our reality can exist independent of these
third-party explanations, such explanations still exist as part of the
totality of everything that can exist. What this would mean to me is
that the reality I experience may occur naturally as a consequence of
the logical bootstrapping you describe, but it would also be occuring
through any number of artificial creations at the same time. These
realities overlap and it would be meaningless for me to try and say
whether the reality I am experiencing now is one or the other- it is both.
If you accept MWI or the plenitude, there are really only a few ways to
avoid the above argument. First, you could argue that our reality is
not reducible to computations or math or information, and therefore it
is not possible to artificially create our reality. Obviously, you and
Marchal do not make this argument. Second, you could argue that the
creation of our universe requires some kind of infinite computation, and
therefore the ability to artificially create it will forever lie beyond
the means of intelligent beings. However, I have always believed there
are a number of problems with this argument, which I'll avoid right
now. Third, I guess you could argue that the reproduction of our
universe to the point of emulation may require some kind of knowledge
that would never be obtainable. Again, if you accept that everything is
reducible to math, then everything should be ultimately understandable
at least in theory.
I may accept your bootstrapping argument, but the plenitude is going to
also logically bootstrap other creations, such a Tiplers Omega Point,
into existence which my reality is a subroutine of. The fact is our
reality is by and large pretty simple to describe. I'm thinking we are
a pretty run of the mill program in the plenitude...
Danny
Russell Standish wrote:
>This is the way I put the argument in my upcoming book. You can also
>read the Universal Dovetailer Argument in Bruno Marchal's SANE04
>paper.
>
>\item That a description logically capable of observing itself is
> enough to bootstrap itself into existence. Let me speak to this by
> means of an example: The C programming language is a popular
> language for computer applications. To convert a program written in
> C into machine instructions that can execute on the computer, one
> uses another program called a compiler. Many C compilers are
> available, but a popular compiler is the GNU C compiler, or gcc. Gcc
> is itself a C language program, you can download the program source
> code from http://www.gnu.org, and compile it yourself, if you
> already have a working C compiler. Once you have compiled gcc, you
> can then use gcc to compile itself. Thus gcc has bootstrapped itself
> onto your computer, and all references to any preexisting compiler
> forgotten.
>
> What I'm tryng to say here is that the description is a complete
> specification of a conscious being, when interpreted (observed) by
> the conscious being. There may have been an initial interpreter
> (conscious or not) to bootstrap the original conscious being. It
> matters not which interpreter it is --- any suitable one will do. If
> {\em computationalism} \S\ref{computationalism} is correct, any
> universal Turing machine will suffice. In fact since the 3rd person
> world has to be a timeless {\em ideal} structure, it is not
> necessary to actually run the initial interpreter. The logical
> possibility of a conscious observer being able to instantiate itself
> is sufficient in a timeless Plenitude of all possibilities. Thus we
> close the ontology of the bitstring Plenitude, and find an answer
> to Stephen Hawking's question ``What breathes fire into the
> equations''\cite[p. 174]{Hawking88}. Paraphrasing the words of
> Pierre-Simon Laplace to Napoleon Bonaparte, we have no need of a
> hypothesis of a concrete reality\cite{Marchal98}.
>
>
>I appreciate that some can never do this ontological closure, that for
>them there must always be a machine somewhere doing the running. This
>is reminiscient of those people for whom there must be a prime mover
>to start the universe off.
>
>I know that Bruno says he's eliminated the "extravagent hypothesis",
>but really I think he's shown that it is unnecessary, and can be pared
>away by Occam's razor, not that it is contradictory.
>
>Cheers
>
>On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:37:51PM -0800, Norman Samish wrote:
>
>
>>Are you saying that a tape of infinite length, with infinite digits, is not
>>Turing emulable?
>>
>>I don't understand how the 'compiler theorem' makes a 'concrete' machine
>>unnecessary. I agree that the tape can contain an encoding of the Turing
>>machine - as well as anything else that's describable.
>>
>>Nevertheless, it seems to me there has to be a 'concrete' machine executing
>>the tape, irrespective of the contents of the tape.
>>
>>Norman
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Russell Standish" <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
>>To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
>>Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 2:37 PM
>>Subject: Re: Fw: Numbers
>>
>>
>>
>>But the tape can also hold an encoding of the Turing machine to perform the
>>interpretation. This is the essence of the "compiler theorem". One can
>>simply iterate this process such that there is no "concrete" machine
>>interpreting the tape. I think this is another way of putting the UDA.
>>
>>Cheers
>>
>>
>>On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 01:31:22PM -0800, Norman Samish wrote:
>>
>>
>>>peterdjones.domain.name.hidden wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>"Hal Finney" wrote:
>>>>The first is that numbers are really far more complex than they seem.
>>>>When we think of numbers, we tend to think of simple ones, like 2, or 7.
>>>>But they are not really typical of numbers. Even restricting ourselves
>>>>to
>>>>the integers, the information content of the "average" number is
>>>>enormous;
>>>>by some reasoning, infinite. Most numbers are a lot bigger than 2 or 7!
>>>>They are big enough to hold all of the information in our whole
>>>>universe;
>>>>indeed, all of the information in virtually every possible variant of
>>>>our
>>>>universe. A single number can (in some sense) hold this much
>>>>information.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>How ? Surely this claim needs justification!
>>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>The single number can be of infinite length, with infinite digits, and can
>>>therefore contain unlimited information. One could compare the single
>>>number to a tape to a Universal Turing Machine. Granted, the UTM needs a
>>>head and a program to read the tape, so the tape by itself is not
>>>sufficient to hold information.
>>>
>>>Norman
>>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Mar 19 2006 - 11:45:27 PST