X-Message-Number: 8138
From: 
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 11:28:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: CRYONICS typewriter in the sky

This is overkill, but it amuses me, and therefore may possibly amuse others.

In a previous post I mentioned one of the less obvious problems with a
simulated world full of sumulated people. The problem: how could a simulated
scientist do an experiment?

Obviously, he could only do a simulated experiment, with the results
depending on the "laws" of physics as encoded in the programming of the
simulated world. If he tried to do an experiment which, in our (real?) world
would reveal something new, something not implied by previously known rules,
then his results would be different from results in the real world.
Consequently, the simulated world would rapidly diverge from the original.
(That does not speak to the question of whether the simulated people are
"real" in the sense of having experiences, but it certainly speaks to the
question of whether a simulation could carry on the life of a particular
person.)

I have also briefly mentioned another problem, viz., that a simulated world
is not isolated; it necessarily (in principle) permits some degree of two-way
communication between the simulated world and the original. The programmer or
other people in the original world (if time relationships permitted) could
observe events in the simulation, including the thoughts and actions of the
simulated people; this would allow intervention in the simulated world,
changing data stores or programming, essentially equivalent to changing
history or changing the laws of nature--producing "miracles" or just wrecking
the system.

LIkewise, the inhabitants of the simulated world could surmise the existence
of the original, and send messages to any "original" personnel who might have
access to the simulation's information and hardware. This might be the
equivalent of "prayer." By powers of persuasion, then, the simulated people
might be able to change the rules of their own existence! ...Reminds us
vaguely of Lafayette Hubbard's short novel, TYPEWRITER IN THE SKY.

But there is still another problem, involving a regression. There is no way
the original programmers could include in the simulation any information
reflecting new discoveries of natural law, not yet available to the
programmers. But the creators would also have to deny to the simulated people
any propensity to create their own simulations, since any attempt to do so
would quickly produce a cascade overloading the original computer. (Each
sub-simulated world would produce another sub-simulation, etc.)  Therefore
the simulated people, or their history, would have to be markedly different
from the originals, even at the outset.

...Again, none of this particular line of thought speaks to the possibility
of simulations "being people," but I think it does suggest the
impossibility--even in principle--of creating simulated worlds with combined
high fidelity, large spatial extent, and long duration.

Robert Ettinger

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