X-Message-Number: 14971
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 18:37:03 -0800
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: Turing and Pi

In #14956, Robert Ettinger stated that there are at least two problems
with the information theory of identity, one being that

>The "emulation" supposedly consists of eventual production, from time to 
>time, of sets of numbers corresponding (within uncertainty principle limits) 
>to the quantum states of a person and (part of) his environment and history, 
>past or/and future.

I don't think that's accurate.  It's not the _sets_ of numbers,
per se, as one would infer from this paragraph, but the computations
that produce these numbers that is critical.  

>The uploaders believe that if the algorithm or program, with the initial 
>store, corresponds closely enough to the laws of nature and some set of 
>initial conditions, then there will be (closely enough) a one-to-one 
>correspondence or isomorphism between the physical actuality and the 
>computer-generated sets of numbers, and that "therefore" there will be
>a live emulation...

Well, more accurately it should be stated that we believe in an
isomorphism between the usual physical actuality and the computer
physical actuality, i.e., processing.  Not "sets of numbers". 

>The first problem, once again, is binding of space and time. FEELING may
(and 
>I think probably does) demand a REGION of space and time (possibly some kind 
>of standing wave, the self-circuit), not a point or quantum cell. In such 
>case, isomorphism will NOT do the trick.

No one that I know of has said that a "point or a cell" would suffice. 
Indeed, I agree with you:  unless there is a REGION of spacetime that
supports a PROCESS that is sufficiently similar to someone, then that
person cannot be said to be living.

>Second is the problem Mike Perry has mentioned, the presumptive existence of 
>hidden sets either in the world of physics or the world of Plato or of 
>mathematics. If you expand pi in some base, for example, whether base two or 
>some prime number, you may eventually get a segment of digits corresponding 
>nearly enough to some person and a segment of his environment and history.
If 
>that segment is written down in some fashion, does or did or will the person 
>exist and feel? Will or does he exist or feel even if the numbers are never 
>written down? Never discovered? 

This is the same Problem of the Succession of Frozen States that
I have addressed before.  No set of FROZEN STATES, no matter how
fine, can constitute a process.  A process is active in time.  In
an earlier email, Dr. Ettinger pointed out that it seems strange
that the isomorphism includes time (according to the uploaders).
Both Mike Perry and myself addressed this very good point at that
time, and nothing further was posted about it.

The digits in pi, if they are completely random, indeed contain the
information of every structure.  But this does not make them alive.

They are no more alive than if you had a succession of frozen states,
e.g., a billion separate frozen brains of someone, one corresponding
to each instant in, say, a five minute interval.  Just because all
the information is there---indeed a complete record of what happened
in the five-minute interval---this by no means translates to a
sequence of frozen states (which is only a record of an active process).

Now probably quite independent of the foregoing, here is my own opinion
on the reality of abstractions.  I am a mathematical realist (and, by
the way, according to Robert Solovay, a well-known mathematician of my
acquaintance who is also a mathematical realist, mathematical realism,
sometimes called mathematical Platonism, has made great stides against
the formerly dominant philosophies of intuitionism and formalism).  So
I believe that all integers exist, pi exists, and they exist whether or
not anyone ever writes them down or even whether or not the universe
develops intelligent creatures to ponder them.  This is what all
mathematicians act like they believe anyway, except on Sundays, when
they seem to be afraid to admit that they believe in the existence of
abstractions.

Lee Corbin

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