[extropy-chat] cryonicist living life in reverse

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 10:07:02PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:

> Not completely sure what you mean, but my main point is this: either

Lookup tables are functions, mapping input to output. They
don't include history, as in internal state representing
past states. 

> subsequent states are *computed* from past states, or they are not.

Lookup tables don't include history.

> If they are somehow "looked up", or somehow displayed in an arbitrary
> or non-arbitrary fashion and there's no causation between them, then
> it's extremely implausible that anyone is having an experience.

Yes, lookup tables without history/internal state are not much
of observers.
 
> For otherwise, we might just find random patches of dust already existing
> between the galaxies, and by looking at them the right way, discern

Of course "looking at them the right way" is a giant can of worms.

> sequences of states congruent to a thinking, feeling being. About as
> silly as Hillary Putnam's proof that rocks perform computations.

Yes. You can interprent a random sequence in any way you like, shifting
the burden into interpretation, not the sequence.
 
> > > parts of it receding from us, so what?  We don't want to depend on 
> > > arguments that work only in our universe, but not in other MWI branches
> > > totally identical to ours except for astronomical facts.
> 
> > How do you know there are such branches?
> 
> The same way you know that the universe is finite, I guess.

We know about inflation from astronomy, and from dark energy
runaway we know there's a maximum region from which you can
extract computation, before the event horizont pulls the final
curtain.

These are uncontested observations. There is so far absolutely
no evidence for the multiverse, other than it is being a neat idea.
That is not enough for a theory.

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