[extropy-chat] damien's psi book

[spike]

> 
> The next post on this topic is about what all this has to
> do with psi, uploading, evolution, extropy and everything
> like that. I had a blinding flash, a mind-blowing epiphany
> while doing these calcs.
> 
> spike


OK here it is, the epiphany.

Step 1: Any mechanical device which is used to generate
random numbers has inherent (if slight) bias.  A slot
machine has small imbalances in the wheels, a gaming
die is slightly heavier on one side than another, the
ping pong balls in the lottery machine are not all
exactly the same weight or perfectly identical ballistic 
coefficient.

Step 2:  With sufficient knowledge of the mechanical 
system, one could theoretically guess the outcome of 
a stochastic process better (even if only slightly 
better) than random guessing would be expected
to produce.

Step 3:  Every computer is a mechanical device.  Every
attempt to generate random numbers, regardless of how
clever the algorithm, will produce results slightly
nonrandom, for even the best piezoelectric timing
crystals produce pulses that are not *exactly* equal.
Given sufficient knowledge of that computer, the contents
of the memory locations and the algorithm, it would be 
theoretically possible to slightly outguess the law of 
averages. 

Step 4:  Someone (Hanson?) has suggested that we
must be living in a simulation, if it is possible
to exist in a simulation.  At least one esteemed
extropian (Yudkowsky) is convinced that we can 
theoretically exist as uploads, and is working to 
create this outcome.  

Step 5:  I find this line of reasoning very compelling:  
If for some reason we cannot in principle exist
as uploads, then all is lost anyway, we are all dead.  
If we can, even in theory, exist as uploads, then 
someone somewhere and somewhen in the universe has 
already done so, for the big bang was a long time ago, 
the universe is ancient, but humanity, which appears 
within centuries or possibly just decades of 
uploading, is recent.

Step 6:  If someone somewhere and somewhen created
a machine capable of simulating sentience, then the
natural thing to do would be to wander about the
universe looking for perishable sentience to upload
before it expires.  I conclude with Hanson (?) that
we must be living in a simulation, if it is possible
at all to do so.   

Step 7:  If we exist in a simulation as uploads,
that sim must be running on some meta-mechanical device
of some unimaginable sort, one that cannot, in principle,
produce *perfectly* random stochastic processes.  Even
meta-mechanical devices are mechanical devices still.

Step 8:  The term psi is given to a class of unexplained
phenomena that deals with deviations (even very slight)
from the law of averages in stochastic processes.  We would
not necessarily need to understand psi in order to observe 
it.  Note that this is not necessarily Damien's definition 
of psi, but rather a more general use of the term.

Step 9: As with the n/ln(n) trick that I used to predict
leading digits of primes, there may be hidden tricks
in stochastic processes that we currently know not.  A
random number generating algorithm often uses the contents
of the machine's memory locations as a seed, which is then 
loaded with the resulting "random" number.  If viewed
from a simulated being within the computer, this process
might appear as a curious self-referential paradox.  Under 
the assumption of unknown stochastic tricks and an algorithm 
of some sort running on a meta-computer, the apparent 
absurdity of quantum mechanics, that an observer can somehow 
effect the quantity being observed, suddenly seems less 
paradoxical.

Step 10.  Given sufficient knowledge of the meta-device
upon which we could exist, it would in theory be possible to
predict the outcome of a stochastic process better than
would be expected from the law of averages.  This is
getting me nervously close to saying that psi could be
real somehow, even if not at all understood.  Perhaps the
effects are too slight to observe with current techniques,
or perhaps the effect defines, by design, the limits of
observability.   


I may need to fill in some gaps in this line of reasoning,
but it reduces to something like:  If uploading is possible, 
then psi exists.  If uploading is not possible, then we are
all dead.  Bumper sticker version:  psi or die. 

spike