[extropy-chat] Is simulation recursion a problem?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 11:55:01AM -0400, George Dvorsky wrote:

> What is the latest thinking in regards to the problem of simulation 

The latest thinking is not different from old thinking. Emulators
are a mature discipline.

> stacking (i.e. the prospect of endless simulations emerging within 
> simulations). Is there merit to the suggestion that this is a problem 
> and that historical simulations are thus set to be terminated at the 
> time that advanced simulation technologies emerge?
> 
> Or, are there computational options that could conceivably result in a 
> virtually endless array of simulations (e.g. agonizingly slow 
> clockspeeds, quantum computation, etc.)

Since each matrioshka simulation contains less bits than the embedding
simulation layer, the dolls do get smaller and smaller. Of course
speed is too limited in the relativistic universe, so even massively
parallel systems simulating massively parallel systems do bog down
into unusable slowness, soon.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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