[ExI] What should survive and why?

[Samantha Atkins]

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
> On 06/05/07, *Samantha Atkins* <sjatkins at mac.com 
> <mailto:sjatkins at mac.com>> wrote:
>
>     Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     > On 06/05/07, *Lee Corbin* <lcorbin at rawbw.com
>     <mailto:lcorbin at rawbw.com>
>     > <mailto: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,
There may well be a quanta 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.
>  
I don't believe any scenario allows arbitrarily mixing orders of infinity. 
>
>     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?
>
This is one of the reasons I have very little use for some of this 
thought and/or some of its interpretations.   Again it seems to me that 
you are crossing up orders of infinity.     I think you are engaging in 
a meaningless set of speculations.     That there is a multiverse does 
not automatically presume that every possible variation of every being 
and event occurs somewhere/sometime within the multiverse.  You can have 
a mulitverse of infinite diversity without all possible variations of 
any particular being or event occurring somewhere within it. 
 
>
>     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.
>
No it doesn't have to be the case if the universe is infinite.  If the 
universe is countably infinite then there is no way to map on to that 
infinite variations of everything within that infinity.  Even if there 
an infinite number of such countably infinite universes there is no 
reason that any of them should be devoted to variations of any of the 
others.  They could all be unique one to another.  Speaking loosely 
recursive mapping of all conceivable variations seems to be what you are 
attempting to do.    MWI has a various variants  and interpretations 
only some of which claim that every possible variation of  macro level 
things occurs.    These speculations may be fun to entertain but I don't 
see how they have a lot of traction for getting ourselves where we would 
like to go.  

If you really believe what you are proposing then it is inevitable that 
you will become posthuman somewhere in your notion of the infinite 
multiverse so why worry or sweat it much?  It can too easily become 
another pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. 


>     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.
>
It is highly questionable in my view to spend for now extremely limited 
time and productive years entertaining extreme hypothesis without 
evidence and with little or no predictive ability or explanatory 
power.     I think you are more than bright enough to know that your 
internal combustion engine analogy does not have merit.    And I said 
nothing at all about the universe ending where the visible universe ends 
(?). 

- samantha