[ExI] simulation as an improvement over reality.

[The Avantguardian]

>From: John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Sent: Fri, December 31, 2010 9:53:05 PM
>Subject: Re: [ExI] simulation as an improvement over reality.
>
>
>On Dec 31, 2010, at 5:28 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:
>
>
>The soul? Is that what you think this is about? 

-----------John wrote---------------------------
Yes, that is exactly what I think this is about. You say the copy is perfect but 


it is nevertheless missing something; leaving aside the obvious illogic of such 
a thing, what exactly is this secret sauce that the original has that the copy 
does not? You say it is not information, and you'd better say it is not atoms or 


you will end up inundated in absurdities, so this mysterious ingredient must be 
something else entirely and it is of enormous importance too, but for some 
unknown reason it cannot be explained or even detected by the scientific method. 


There is already a word in the English language for something like that, but I 
can't really blame you, I'd feel pretty foolish using The Word That Must Not Be 
Named too. 
---------------------------------------------------

I am not saying that there is something "missing" from the copy. I am saying 
that both the original and the copies will have unique reference frames. These 
reference frames will be physical in the sense that they will sweep out distinct 

world lines in space-time, and mental in the sense that their brains will 
perceive/construct a map or model of the world with their particular instance of 

self at the origin of a comoving reference frame. Call it the autocentric sense, 
if you will, since it is the perception that ones consciousness lies at the 

center of the universe. 
 
--------John Wrote-------------------------------------------
Congratulations, you have discovered that (some) things happen at a particular 
place at some time; but of course adjectives like you and me do not.
--------------------------------------------

I know you are fond of thinking that the pronouns you and me are adjectives. But 

I think they are more like prepositions. The label "you" implies "over there". 
Me implies "here".

----------------John wrote--------------------------------
Talking about space-time coordinates does sound much more scientific than 
mundane time and place, even if it means the same thing and brings nothing new 
to the conversation. And if that is the secret of identity it leads to some 
peculiar conclusions, you become a completely unrelated person from one second 
to the next, or when you move from one place to another, a totally different 
person who's continued consciousness is of absolutely no interest to you, other 
than that of empathy. And yet despite it all somehow I seem to continue, how 
odd.
-------------------------------------------------------
 
Yes you continue there where you are. Like Buckaroo Banzai once said, "wherever 
you go, that's where you are". You don't feel like a different person by moving 
from one spatial coordinate to another because the reference frame moves with 
you i.e. it is co-moving. That's not to say that the autocentric sense can't be 
fooled as 

the links posted by Amara describe ways that it can be experimentally 
manipulated. But it is still an important aspect of consciousness IMO.  


> If my copy does not occupy my position in space and time, it is not me. 

-----------John wrote-------------------------------
Even if that were true, and I have no reason to think it is, how do you even 
know what position you or your copy are in? If you exchange the position of you 
and a identical copy of you in a symmetrical room neither you nor the copy will 
notice the slightest difference, an outside observer will notice no difference 
either. The very universe itself will not notice that any exchange has occurred. 


Objectively it makes no difference and subjectively it makes no difference. If 
the difference is not objective and the difference is not subjective then that 
rather narrows down your options in pointing out just where that difference is. 
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
The autocentric sense does not track your absolute position in space, there is 
no such thing, but your position relative to external objects including any 
copies of you that may be around. And regardless of your autocentric sense, you 
have a physical position and associated reference frame relative to the fixed 
stars. Playing some kind of gedanken shell game with your copies does not change 
the fact that if one of your copies slapped you in the face, you would not 
wonder how you came to inadvertantly slap yourself, instead you would 
correctly perceive that someone else has slapped you.  
 
 
Stuart LaForge 


"There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, 
and energy of her citizens cannot cure."- Dwight D. Eisenhower