X-Message-Number: 32910
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:24:12 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32904
References: <>

At 02:00 2010-10-05,  wrote:
>[...]
>Why  successful uploading is unlikely, ever.
>Reason  2.  Bad physics. The simulation MUST be  erroneous in some ways and
>some degree, because the program necessarily is based  on current knowledge
>or guesses about physics, some of which is certainly wrong  or incomplete,
>and this will be true for a long time to come. The importance of  these
>errors is yet uncertain, but their existence is 
>not. Remember that just  about
>all of the once-dominant "laws" of physics have eventually been shown to  be
>wrong, inaccurate or incomplete.
>It continues to amaze me that most people not only have  not considered
>this fact, but do not acknowledge it even when  told.
>Robert  Ettinger

Current physics has it that *all* processing is 
algorithmic, this being based on quantum 
mechanics. (A reference is Seth Lloyd, "Universal 
Quantum Simulators,  Science 273 (23 August 
1996): 1073-79. A few physicists like Roger 
Penrose have attempted to challenge this premise 
but so far are a small minority and haven't 
produced a successful alternative.) QM in turn is 
the most successful scientific theory in history. 
Unless you plan to overturn quantum mechanics in 
some significant way, I don't see a way around 
this. So we are likely algorithmic in nature, a 
prospect that does not at all preclude 
probabilistic or "random" state changes. In 
particular our processing over an interval of 
time has a finite description and resolves into 
discrete state changes which could in principle 
be written out in a very long record. Maybe 
future discoveries will show somehow it isn't so, 
that no finite description could ever adequately 
record the significant events going on in the 
brain over even a short time interval. I doubt it 
but no one can say with certainty that it isn't 
so. Still I think the uploading premise probably 
could survive many changes in physical theories 
and it doesn't seem unreasonable to be confident 
it holds. If it doesn't we must look elsewhere 
for the better housing we would like to have for 
our minds, considering how fragile and vulnerable 
brain tissue is, and no doubt limited in terms of 
the processing power we will eventually want to 
have. We will have a long time to work on this, 
if our civilization survives. In one way or other 
we should be able to upload to *some* type of 
device we find more suitable than our present 
meat machines, for the type of life we want to live.

Mike Perry

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