X-Message-Number: 8157
Subject: CRYONICS Ettinger in a Vat
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 11:18:38 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>

> From: 
> 
> Replying again to Metzger, mainly # 8148:
> 
> 1. A general comment on tone and attitude: Metzger complains that differing
> with me doesn't constitute "egregious error." I think a neutral party  who
> has had the patience to read all the exchanges will conclude that my tone has
> generally been the more restrained and civil. Metzger (a cryonicist!?) has
> even tried to argue from "authority," bragging repeatedly about his expertise
> in computerese.

No, Mr. Ettinger, I haven't argued from authority. You've just been
pulling Vanevars left and right. (A "Vanevar" is named for Vanevar
Bush, the man who predicted skyscraper sized water cooled vacuum tube
computers *AFTER* the invention of the transistor.)

You keep claiming things about computers that *current experience*
shows aren't true. No one needs to believe any of what I've said from
authority -- I'm just pointing out areas of obvious ignorance on your
part. This whole "trying to simulate computers inside a simulation
will make the computer crash" business was amazingly silly -- it
betrays a view of computers that comes from cheap science fiction
films instead of reality. Real computers don't crash or start belching
smoke if you say "I'm a liar" to them or some such, and real computers
simulate other computers EVERY DAY, and in fact major companies have
had products based on this in daily use for almost thirty years! Your
"predictions" can be checked based on EVIDENCE. No one has to "believe
my authority". You've simply been spewing nonsense left and right and
I thought I ought to mention it. If you don't believe me, go out and
buy a copy of SoftWindows for your Macintosh and see for
yourself. Proof that you are wrong is available at the nearest
"Software Etc." store.

> 3. Continuing this line, he said your biological brain could be attached to a
> "virtual reality system simulating a world that wasn't quite identical to the
> one we live in," and you could carry on happily and maybe not notice the
> difference. 
> 
> Now he has suddenly switched from "17 dimensions" to "not quite identical."
> To the latter, of course no full answer is possible because everything
> depends on the details of that "not quite identical."

I never suggested plugging Ettinger's Brain into a 17 dimensional
world and assuming that Ettinger's Brain wouldn't notice. That would
have been stupid. Frankly, your argumentative technique seems to
consist of arguing against positions I've never taken.

When I mentioned a 17 dimensional world, the point was to illustrate
that we can simulate something (like a 17 dimensional world) without
there bein a reality that has 17 dimensions, just as we can simulate
the weather on an Earth with continents in different places and more
C02 in the atmosphere. Simulations don't have to be of the "real
world" -- they can be "what if"s.

Anyway, you still never answer my question: if I attached Bob
Ettinger's brain to a VR simulation, how the hell would you know I'd
done it? Can you prove I haven't done it already? I've asked this in
about four or five messages in a row, and you've ignored it each time,
perhaps because its too uncomfortable a question.

> Also, in a later post, I asked how probable it is we actually are living in a
> simulation (if simulated people could be real, which I strongly doubt). I
> pointed out that, since many people in the original world could produce
> simulations, and since simulations could produce sub-simulations in enormous
> numbers--and would, for the same reasons we would produce one in the first
> place--it appears to follow that we are PROBABLY (make that nearly certainly)
> living in a simulation. (If there are a zillion simulated worlds and only one
> real one, and you are equally likely to be living in any of them, then you
> are almost certainly in a simulation.) His answer was: "So? Who cares?" 
> 
> It seems to me that any really convinced uploader should be praying with all
> his might.

Why?

I've built many simulated worlds, and used many simulated
worlds. Should the fish in the Fish and Sharks simulation I did when I
was 11 have been "praying" to me? Should the Yakko's in "Yakko World"
which my buddies did at Bellcore been praying to my friends, hoping
for "divine intervention"?

> 5. I posed a simulation-overload problem (subsimulations, subsubsimulations,
> etc.), and his answer was (a) I don't understand simulations, and (b)
> Computers don't crash by accident.

Not quite. You don't understand simulations, and computers don't crash
from overload, they crash from bugs. Especially in a modern, virtual
memory based machine, crashing the system is hard unless you exploit
very unusual bugs.

This is not an argument from authority, by the way. You can verify
this yourself by learning more about modern computer architecture.

> We are (or at least I am) talking about ONE computer that simulates a world
> full of people; these simulated people (as hypothesized) can, and will,
> produce sub-simulations, etc. But NOTHING happens in ANY of the simulations
> unless hardware in the original ("real") computer changes state.

So? Why is this interesting.

> Of course we can have simulations within simulations, etc., but we
> CANNOT have one limited computer, working in limited time, produce
> unlimited numbers of (slightly different) simulations and
> sub-simulations without effectively stopping.

The universe is finite right now even if this is the "real world". You
can't build an "unlimited" number of computers right here on earth.

If there is a big computer "out there" simulating us, why would it
care if the atoms are arranged as a rock, a waterfall, or a computer?
Why would arranging the atoms in a waterfall be fine, but configuring
them as a computer would make the simulating computer "crash"?

Furthermore, even in the world of modern computers rather than
hypothetical atom simulating machines, you can always make time/memory
tradeoffs. I can perfectly simulate fifteen computers identical to my
computer *ON MY COMPUTER* if I'm willing to have them run slower and I
have sufficient virtual memory to handle the simulated memories of the
fifteen machines. This isn't a problem. Its well understood how to do
it, and as I've mentioned, IBM has been selling VM commercially for
something like 25 years. If you don't believe me, call them up.

> 6. Finally, he thinks that a simulation that omitted natural law not known to
> the programmer would still be good enough for the simulated people to live
> out their lives in a way that would constitute "survival" of the original--in
> particular, that biology does not depend in any signficiant way on any
> currently unknown processes. 
> 
> Maybe, maybe not. Roger Penrose thinks quantum or sub-quantum biology may
> underly consciousness. 

Yeah, but Penrose hasn't done a day of biological research in his
life, and suffers from a serious ego problem. "I, the great Penrose,
couldn't possibly be simulatable." This is much like, "I, the
civilized Victorian Gentleman, couldn't possibly be descended from
apes".

Thus far, the biological researchers haven't found anything
incomprehensable. Its all very straightforward chemistry. This does
involve quantum effects, but they are well understood, and in fact
easy to simulate.

So, I ask you the question I've asked over and over and that you've
never answered: can you prove to me that I haven't taken your brain out
while you were unconscious, and attached it to a VR simulator? Can you
prove to me that you are in the "real world" right now?

> In any case, the bottom line is that it is unreasonable to ASSUME, in the
> absence of knowledge or rigorous implication--before we understand the
> physical basis of feeling--that even a real-world "brain" of silicon could
> have a subjective life.

First, answer me how you can prove that you are in the real world, and
then we can go on to the question of the subjectivity experienced by a
computerized intelligence.

I contend that last week, I anesthetized you, removed your brain from
your body, put it on life support, and attached you to a VR
system. Prove that I didn't. Demonstrate that I'm lying.


Perry

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