X-Message-Number: 11540
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 00:18:23 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Simulations/Emulations, etc.

Thomas Donaldson, #11535, writes

>In any case: in any practical sense, the "unresolvable issues" do not
>exist. 

I.e. we can tell what a subject is thinking and feeling. Yes, that's true
NOW, because the subjects in question are other humans like ourselves, or
maybe other animals who also have neurons and other structure similar to
what we have. But I particularly had in mind possible systems in the future
that might behave *as if* they were thinking and feeling, but still were
made of very different stuff than we are, maybe nonbiological materials.
Then some (among those that are still biological especially!) will perhaps
raise doubts, and perhaps the "unresolvable issues" will come to the front.
As for me, I see myself being strongly inclined to give the benefit of the
doubt, i.e. grant that a system thinks and feels whether or not it is
biological, if certain other criteria are met.

Bob Ettinger,  #11536, writes

>Followng Mike Perry's post yesterday (#11534), I would say we are almost 
>fully in agreement on the possibility of people (including ourselves) being 
>simulations or emulations.
>

Yes, and following Bob's later comment in his post, I'll grant that we don't
know for sure that the information paradigm is valid, or that feeling does
not require some special kind of medium, including certain processes running
simultaneously, etc. There is quite a bit, in fact, that we don't really
know, and we should keep an open mind at all times, though it's also okay to
express preferences.
 
>... a small additional comment on one point: Mike says, 
>
>>Why couldn't a programmer--an
>>advanced nonhuman intelligence, design a program that would incorporate
>>new discoveries ...? ...such a program could be halted from the outside
from >>time to time and modified carefully, to add more possible "new"
discoveries >>for us to make, to keep pace with any "real" new discoveries.
>
>A problem with that is one of consistency. Seems to me it would be difficult 
>to modify a program from time to time without gaps in internal coherence, 
>which could be noticed by the simulated people.
>
Well, I said "carefully" modified--presumably by advanced folk who knew what
they were doing. There are other possible tricks too, such as using backups
of the state of computation of the simulation. If problems like the
simulated beings discovering inconsistencies develop, just halt execution,
revert to an earlier backup, and work forward from there.

...
>> Another point
>>to make is that we may *eventually* be able to determine that we are in an
>>emulation (a good simulation), but certainly haven't done so yet.
>
>So long as no evidence appears to support the simulation hypothesis, I think 
>the presumption becomes stronger that we are not in a simulation.

I agree, and as a working hypothesis accept that we are not in a simulation,
until some serious evidence surfaces otherwise.

>And yet another previous suggestion I made, somewhat militating against the 
>simulation hypothesis--cascades of subsimulations.

Those could produce complications, but could probably be handled too without
slowing the system to a standstill. In fact, I think successive levels of
simulations (again, really be emulations) would themselves run more and more
slowly, but need not slow down the system as a whole, any more than the
first level slows down reality as a whole.

Mike Perry

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