X-Message-Number: 22303
From: 
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 10:47:53 EDT
Subject: more on simulation

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Mike Perry asks again how we could be sure a system isn't conscious (if it 
has functions isomorphic to those of feeling). 

This is just another way of asking: "How can we know that isomorphism isn't 
everything?"

One answer that makes sense to me is that in other areas of life and thought 
we reject the idea that isomorphism (or partial isomorphism) is sufficient. 

For example, a mechanical analog computer can do definite integrals which could
be interpreted as the charge accumulated on a capacitor--but we do not 

therefore say that the mechanical computer "is" a capacitor accumulating charge.

It seems rather odd that upmorphists are willing--even eager--to accept a 

simulation as a person, but not (for example) willing to accept a 
disk-and-stylus 
analog computation as an accumulation of charge. Or you could put the 

computation on an ordinary digital computer, with symbols for charge as well as 
time 
and current and anything else you deem important. What it boils down to, 
again, is the ASSUMPTION by the upmorphists that information processing is 

everything. As I believe Mike has acknowledged, this is an untestable 
assumption, 
hence many would regard it as meaningless.

As part of this, remember that only a fraction of the stored bits in the 

computer correspond to coordinates of the simulated system in phase space. MOST 
of 
the bits relate to intermediate calculations, and which is which is 

arbitrary, a matter of labeling and understanding the labels. But this 
understanding is 
in the mind of the beholder or programmer, who tells the computer which items 
he wants highlighted or displayed.

Ontology generally is a wide open area of investigation. What is a "thing" or 
object? If there are only "relationships" and not things, as Smolin and 
others suggest, then what do the relationships connect? Doubtless the language 
needs to be improved, since we are still working with words and phrases that 
reflect our experience on the macro and conscious levels.

Mike also says that a simulation doesn't have to be perfect, just good 

enough. That is a truism, but leaves unresolved the question of what is good 
enough. 
It is plausible that classical physics might be good enough for life and 

consciousness, no quantum effects or relativistic effects required. In fact, 
this 
might be implicit in the idea of a simulation, since a digital computer 
(Turing machine) IS a classical system, even though it can do quantum and 

relativistic calculations (as can a person with pencil and paper). So if there 
is a 

person "in" the computer, that person is just one aspect or subset of the state 
or 
succession of states of the computer--rather ethereal, don't you think?

One day, perhaps not far off, we will understand the physical basis of 

feeling in animals. This will make no difference to the most extreme 
upmorphists, 

who don't care what it is, since it will be capable of description and hence of
simulation. But if, as I suspect, we find that e.g. a quale has extension in 
space and time, this will sober up some of those previously willing to bet the 
farm on description.

Robert Ettinger


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