From: Vladimir Nesov (robotact@mail.ru)
Date: Tue Aug 28 2007 - 03:43:05 MDT
Tuesday, August 28, 2007, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
SP> It makes a difference to the probability calculations. In the simple
SP> case, if you can be sure that one simulation has been run, you have a
SP> 1/2 chance of being in that simulation. But if a recursive simulation
SP> has been run, you have a much higher chance of being in the
SP> simulation.
It's an interesting point. Illustrates how 'counting the simulations'
is useless. Say, in universe A there is a simulation of universe B,
and in universe B there is a simulation of universe C. How many
simulations of universe C are there? One can say that C is also simulated
in universe A, so it doubles 'number of times being simulated' for C.
What is the contribution of indirection?
Say, implementation of simulation of universe B in universe A consists
of two devices which communicate with each other. Within each device,
the same pattern content can be simultaneously viewed as being
represented (and hence simulated) on two levels: say, pattern of
communication between processing devices and storage devices and
patterns within processing devices. So, each half of universe B is
effectively simulated twice, so whole B is simulated 4 times. If
simulator consists of N parts, it makes 2^N simulations.
I see solution to this debacle in:
1) same level of existence of all possible universes (one can say,
simulated by enumerating turing machine, but it should be unnecessary)
as mathematical abstractions;
2) irrelevance of number of simulations/identical universes; effectively
from subjective POV substructures exist simultaneously in all simulations
that contain them.
-- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact@mail.ru
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