[ExI] Bodies

spike spike66 at att.net
Wed Mar 17 06:02:00 UTC 2010


...
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Bodies...

>> Recall that fractals are an invented world of sorts...

> Malarky, fractals were not invented. They were found...  James

Ja, and that makes my point better than I did.  Like fractals, we will find
all kinds of new cool stuff by running sims.  In fact I would extrapolate
that the simulated world is actually better than the real world for finding
new things, because we can guide the questions into interesting areas.  Note
the delightful reduction in airline fatalities due to pilot error that we
have seen in the past decade.  More and more pilots were trained on the
simulator, so we can sim all kinds of situations that cannot be done safely
or economically in the real world, and train the pilots to deal with it.  

Similarly we can simulate evolution and answer Steven Jay Gould's
contingency conjecture by setting up a thousand identical worlds and seeing
what lifeforms evolve.  Gould would argue that every simulated world would
have completely different lifeforms.  I disagree to some extent based on
looking at the ratites: large flightless birds which include the emu,
ostrich, cassowary, rhea, and several extinct forms.  These guys are not
closely related on the evolutionary sense, so it demonstrates convergent
evolution on three different continents.

If I had an Mbrain, I'd sim life in the morning, I'd sim life in the
evening, all over sim laaand,  I'd simulate life forms!  I'd sim evolution!
I simulate all views of natural selection, all over sim laaaaaannnd.

spike





More information about the extropy-chat mailing list