[ExI] What should survive and why?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 06/05/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 06/05/07, *Lee Corbin* <lcorbin at rawbw.com
> > <mailto:lcorbin at rawbw.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     In 2061 an AI ruling Earth has extremely recently discovered certain
> >     astounding things, such as how using quantum effects to produce
> >     infinitely many computations over a finite interval of time. Now,
> how
> >     to deal with all the troglotyte humans?  Well, maybe some of them
> >     will agree to this:  Y'all will be down loaded into one grain of
> sand
> >     on a shore in Siciliy, and during the first second, you will
> >     subjectively
> >     experience one second of your great life. During the next half
> second
> >     you will experience you will experience the next second, during the
> >     next quarter second, the third second, so that at the end,
> >     objectively,
> >     of two seconds the Ruling AI has eliminated the resource problem
> >     insofar as regards y'all.
> >
> >     Or do you want more?  Do you want *objectively* to be around
> >     at all times and places in the future?
> >
> >
> > Subjective immortality is acceptable. Your example raises another
> > interesting issue in that the computation method proposed will allow
> > all possible computations to be implemented in the two seconds.
>
>
> Sheesh.  Didn't this sort of thing go out with Zeno's paradox?  You
> can't cram infinite subjective time and and infinite number of
> experiences of infinite time into two seconds.   We don't do that kind
> of magic around here.


No, Zeno's paradox implies that motion is impossible due to this sort of
mechanism (you have to move 1/2 metre before you move a metre, then another
1/4 metre, then another 1/8 metre... so you can never move the full metre),
whereas you and I both know that motion is possible, which means you *can*
fit an infinite number of time slices into a finite period. It isn't
possible if there is a minimum quantum of time, which would mean that motion
is not actually continuous but analogous to the frames of a film, but I
don't know that this question has been decided with certainty one way or the
other by physicists. Frank Tipler proposed that computation could go on
forever using this mechanism in a (certain kind of) collapsing universe,
while freeman Dyson proposed the exact opposite mechanism, slower and slower
computation in an infinitely expanding universe. Either scenario allows for
all possible computations, and of course either scenario may be impossible
depending on what the real cosmology turns out to be.


Stathis wrote:
> Not only will you be resurrected to live forever, so will every other
> possible variation on your mind, and every other possible mind.
>
> samantha
> Whatever for?  In this fantasy of infinitely fast and infinitely
> abundant computational resources for playing a googleplex of variations
> of every mundane humane life and every posiible extension of it is there
> any meaning, any substance?  Or has anything real become just one more
> possible permutation in the quantum foam?   Everything literally and
> literally nothing at all.  Bah.


Any of the Tegmark multiverse levels would give rise to this situation.
Would it upset you, for example, if it turns out to be the case that the
universe is infinite, which would mean that every possible thing actually
happens, infinitely often? Do you think that it is more likely that the
universe is unique and finite?

Stathis:
> This obviates the problem of being certain that you are really you: the
> real you has to be in there somewhere, as well as versions of you
> arbitrarily close to the real you.
>
> hehehehehe.  How very comforting.  Not.


This has to be the case if the universe is infinite or if the MWI of QM is
true, to give two examples.These are not wild and unfounded speculation,
like religious belief. There are good physical reasons supporting these
scenarios, such as the theory that you don't cause something to exist by
looking at it.

Stathis:
> Another consequence is that if you find yourself a conscious entity in
> this infinite computer, you can be sure that your past memories and
> future expectations will have corollaries in actual computations either
> in the past or in the future (not necessarily respectively). We could be
> living in such a world at the moment and not be awar! e of it.
>
> Yes and I could be a bacteria on a boil on the butt of a rat in some
> other dimension.  Yawn.


I understand your scepticism, but it is irrational to ignore everything for
which there is not direct and unequivocal evidence. For example, we have no
evidence that an internal combustion engine would function properly in the
Andromeda galaxy, but it is reasonable to suppose that it would. That the
universe does not end where the visible universe ends is an analogously
reasonable assumption, despite the present and perhaps perpetual absence of
direct evidence in its support.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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