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.
No, gcc chasn't bootstrapped **itself** -- it has been bootstrapped by
another
compiler ("if you already have a working C compiler"). You can use gcc
to compile itself only if it has already been compiled. Gcc cannot
bootstrap
itself on a computer without a compiler. what you have said serves a
loose
illustration of self-bootsrapping, but it is not an actual expample of
it.
In fact there are no strict examples of self-bootstrapping -- of
something starting
up ex nihilo.
if it is possible for systems to bootstap themselves (or for
simulations
to be equivalent to realities) we should be able to observe it, and we
don't.
That is equally true even if we assume the observed world is already
a simulation -- "simulations" (ie second-order
simulations-within-the-Great-Simulation) don't
become "real" (ie first-order simulations)
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Received on Fri Mar 24 2006 - 10:21:21 PST