X-Message-Number: 18437
From: 
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 16:12:39 EST
Subject: Uploading: dt & time shuffles

It's not important, but it's amusing, and I haven't seen it discussed 
elsewhere, so (in 2 separate messages, of which this is the first, I'll say a 
bit about a couple of slightly different angles on uploading problems.

Delta-t problems:

As far as I know, physicists do not regard time as quantized--it has a 
continuum of possible values in the Schroedinger equations. (Even energy is 
only quantized in the sense that it is delivered in packets. E.g. the energy 
of a photon is hf, and f has a continuum of possible values.)

Now, a hypothetical digital computer, running a simulation of a person, 
generates successive sets of numbers, representing the successive quantum 
states of the person. But it can only do this in increments, which means 
approximations (in addition to the fuzziness from the uncertainty principle). 
If the increments (delta-t) are small enough, the delta-t fuzziness will be 
smaller than the uncertainty fuzziness, but nevertheless the simulation will 
add fuzziness, hence will not be of highest fidelity, unless delta-t 
approaches zero, which would make the simulation take forever.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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