X-Message-Number: 8192 Subject: yadda yadda yadda Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 12:51:29 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <> > From: > > The main claim in Metzger's #8180 was that I started the discussion by saying > some one couldn't live out his life in a simulation, and that I have now > conceded that I might be doing so. > > Wrong as usual. > > What I have said, among other things: > > a) We do not know that an inorganic medium--let alone a computer > simulation--could sustain feeling and consciousness. The "information > paradigm" is only a postulate, not proven. Prove, Mr. Ettinger, that YOU are conscious. The "Robert Ettinger is conscious" paradigm is a postulate, not a proven. Please name a reproduceable experiment I can perform which will show that you are conscious. And no, saying "well, you should guess that I'm conscious because you and I have the same sort of brain hardware" doesn't cut it. Provide me with a scientific demonstration of that consciousness. > b) IF a simulation could be conscious, and IF a computer could be made to > simulate a world full of people, still generally one could not live > indefinitely, in such a simulation, a life closely similar to what one's life > would have been in the real world. Well, you have already agreed that you could be a brain in a vat hooked up to a VR system, and that you would have no way to prove this was not the case. Given this, I think you've already agreed that b) isn't true except for the "simulated scientist" issue. Of course, since you have no way of proving you aren't a brain in a vat right now, you also have no way of knowing if the laws of physics you observe around you correspond with those in the "real" world right now. > c) If people in the real world are motivated to simulate a world full of > people, the simulated people will also be so motivated, generating an > exploding set of subsimulations, effectively causing the original computer, > in the real world, to stop. This is demonstrably provable as false. No matter how many nested copies of PSIM I run, my machine runs just as fast. As I noted, no matter how many new copies I started (actual experiment here, not thought experiment) my machine continued to function just the same for all other work. > 4. Metzger: "I am currently running five nested copies of PSIM on the machine > I am typing this on. The outer machine is not "grinding to a halt." > > I did not say the hardware of the real computer grinds to a halt; the > effective production of the system grinds to a halt. See above. And instead > of five, try running a billion nested copies on your machine--just for > openers. If I ran a billion nested machines, the outer machine would notice nothing. No matter how many additional nested machines I run, my real machine continues to run at exactly the same speed. This isn't even a theoretical question -- its demonstrably true. No amount of denial on your part is going to make it untrue. Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8192