X-Message-Number: 8110
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 19:51:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: CRYONICS Emulation, Simulation and stuff
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Robert Ettinger Wrote:
>an "emulation" is a physical system unto itself
A simulation must be a physical system also.
>A "simulation," on the other hand, can be a mere description or
>predictive train of statements
Mere Predictive? Prediction is the name of the game. I would say that an
emulation is an exact duplication of every aspect of a system, a simulation
is only a duplication of some aspects of it. So far the only emulation anyone
has ever made is for software, for example a DOS or Windows emulation that
will run on an Apple.
>I could simply WRITE DOWN in longhand, on a zillion reams of paper,
>a complete description/prediction of you and your actions over a
>certain period of time in a certain environment, all of your quantum
>states and transitions.
True, although emulating me would be vast overkill, I'm not interested in my
knee cap or my big toe or even the color or taste of my neurons, I'm only
interested in emulating the signals my neurons send to other neurons because
it's my consciousness I want to survive not my big toe.
>if mere information is all you deem important, why bother even to
>write it down?
Only 2 reasons I write anything down.
1) I'm afraid I'll forget it.
2) I want somebody else to read it.
>The requisite information ALREADY EXISTS in the universe
Perhaps, but information does me no good if I can't find it.
>You cannot FULLY emulate anything unless/until you know EVERYTHING
>there is to know about it
True again, and when you say "know" you must mean know information, because
that's the only thing we can know. To fully emulate me would be possible but
VERY difficult, even Nanotechnology couldn't handle it, it would take
something like Tipler's Omega point or perhaps Quantum Computers. If the
Bekenstein Bound is true, and almost everybody thinks it is although it's
unproven, then the maximum amount of information that could be contained in a
sphere of R meters radius and a mass of M kilograms is (2.58*10^43)*M*R bits.
This figure is obtained from the formula 2Pi*E*R/h*c*ln2, h is really h bar
(h/2pi) ; E is the energy inside the sphere from one kilogram of mass,
remember E =Mc^2 .
My body of 100 kilograms could certainly fit inside a sphere of one meter
radius, so it must contain 2.58*10^45 bits of information or less, if you
knew that information you would know all there is to know about me and my
body, it would be my body. This number is absolutely enormous, but it's no
closer to being infinite than the number one is, and as I said, to just
emulate my consciousness would take vastly less.
>Even if you knew everything, it seems impossible that you could get
>a genuine ONE-TO-ONE isomorphism between the original and the
>emulation.
Why not? Naturally you'd need to process that information, but you can also
use the Bekenstein Bound to figure out the maximum amount of information
processing going on inside the sphere, not just the amount stored there.
No part of the sphere can change unless it receives a signal, and the longest
it could possibly take to send a signal is 1/(2*R/c). Divide the Bekenstein
Bound by this figure and you get 3.86*10^53 states per second, or bits per
second. Remember this is a maximum number, a real human body almost certainly
changes far slower, and this emulates every aspect of my body and mind
exactly, not just consciousness, unless of course I have a soul.
>a Turing tape cannot be an emulation for many reasons, including
>the fact that on the tape setup only one thing can happen at a time,
>while in the world many things happen simultaneously.
A Turing Machine with any finite number of tapes and reading heads can be
EMULATED by a vanilla sequential Turing machine with only one head.
Even ignoring this fact I think the sequential/parallel distinction is not
productive, our brain may be processing information from a thousand different
places at the same time but we're usually only conscious of one of them.
Thomas Donaldson said something very similar to this recently, I often
disagree with Thomas but not this time.
>"emergence" is not a magic wand that "explains" everything
You make use of the emergence magic wand just as much as I do. I'm certain
that you don't think an atom in a human brain is conscious, and I doubt if
you think a neuron is, yet the brain as a whole is sentient.
>Even Dr. Perry has said that MAYBE ("maybe" emphasized to acknowledge
>his caution) even a thermostat has some kind or some degree of
>feeling.
The difference between my emotions and those of a thermostat must be
astronomical, the difference between night and day, but then, there is no
point where day suddenly turns into night. Regardless of how big the
difference is between two things, one can fade into the other. Exactly when
do you fall asleep? Exactly when do you die? A 80 pound man is thin, a 800
pound man is fat, how many grams must a thin man gain before he becomes fat?
By the way, I think Dr. Perry's caution is entirely justified, I don't know
for sure that a thermostat has feeling, and I don't know for sure that you do.
>The misfiring of a neuron is only a "mistake" from our point of view;
>in the operation of our universe it is natural and indeed inevitable.
OK.
>In the Chinese simulation, however, a mistake by the operator is
>equivalent to a CHANGE IN THE LAWS OF NATURE
I do not see how that follows at all. The operator made a mistake simply
because a neuron in his brain misfired.
>Metzger asks why a simulation of a computation is different from a
>computation. It isn't
True.
>But the QUESTION is why a simulation of a PHYSICAL SYSTEM should be
>regarded as fully equivalent to the actual system.
That is an irrelevant question. My brain may be a physical system but my
consciousness is not, nor am I. I am the way that matter behaves when it is
organized in a particular way. Right now only one object in the universe
behaves in a John Clark way, that may not always be true.
>It seems a bit ironic to me that info folk typically seem to think
>of themselves as materialists, yet believe we are essentially
>immaterial, being at core just patterns of information and processing
>of information.
It's true, but I don't see it as ironic, I see it a combining the best
aspects of mysticism and materialism in a logical way to explain the nature
of identity.
>At the moment (in the operator's world, our world) that the operator
>completes his notations, does the simulation then (according to an
>observer in our world) feel the experience?
There is only one way to know, ask the simulating being if he is feeling the
experience right now or not. If the simulated creature did not have any
senses into our world, and so could not here our questions, then it would be
meaningless to talk about when it experiences anything, or where. A mind
without senses can't detect it's position, a mind can't detect time either.
I could speed up or slow down your brain as much as I wanted, I could even
stop it for a billion years and you would never notice. A brain without
senses can't detect anything.
Sensations can certainly change subjectivity, so the space-time position of
the sense input is of paramount importance, but the position of the brain is
totally irrelevant. An Upload might not know or care where his brain was,
it could be distributed in thousands of computers all over the planet.
On the other hand, he would be very interested where and when his senses were.
>why should it matter whether the last notation is actually put on
>paper? The operator knows what that last notation is supposed to be,
>whether he writes it down or not. [...] there isn't any actual
>simulation until data are physically manipulated, new data derived,
>programs modified, marks made on paper etc....Does this help
>underscore the profound difference between symbol manipulation and
>physical activity?
You say the operator knows what that last notation is supposed to be, if so
then data must be physically manipulated in the brain of the operator, there
is still physical activity, unless of course the operator has a soul.
>a wheel is just a collection of atoms, and its wheelness is an
>emergent property of the system
I agree, it is an emergent property.
>But the POINT is that wheelness is a definite, specific, easily
>discerned, esily described, and easily understood property.
The point is that consciousness and intelligence are more complicated than a
wheel and even a wheel does not have a wheel circuit, it's just what happens
to some objects when they becomes round enough.
>We have not dodged the issue or laid a smoke screen or hollered
>"Emergence!"
No, you have hollered "self circuit".
>"Car-ness" is a concept less clear-cut
John Clark-ness is an even less clear-cut concept.
>there is a less clear distinction between "cars" and "non-cars."
Ok then, let's look at two different categories of cars, those that have
traveled to Toledo Ohio and those that have not. Does a car have a Toledo
circuit, is there some part I could remove and the car would still operate
perfectly except it would be physically incapable of travailing to Toledo.
Suppose you were buying a car that had never been to Toledo but had been all
over the country and seemed to be operateing perfectly. Suppose you were
planing to move to Toledo, would you refrain from the purchase until somebody
was able to point out a Toledo circuit in the car?
>With consciousness and feeling, there IS a problem. We do NOT know
>the nature or origin of feeling or its offshoot, consciousness.
True, there is a problem. The evidence is overwhelming that intelligence
invariably generates consciousness, just as mass invariably curves space-time,
but we don't know why either is true, there may not be anything to know, it's
just the way the universe is. I very much doubt we will ever find a better
theory of consciousness, and there is no chance in hell we will ever find a
theory we can prove with certainty.
John K Clark
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