[ExI] BICEP2 and the Fermi paradox

[Anders Sandberg]

Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> , 11/4/2014 3:15 PM:
On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 6:41 PM, Tomaz Kristan <protokol2020 at gmail.com> wrote:
 > So this predicts that a random observer should predict he is in a simulation of an early interval.  
Then, he must also predict, that his simulator is also simulated! And so on, through all the turtles/simulators?

If the universe is a simulation, is there a base hardware for computing the sims?
Might depend on whether one buys what Greg Egan calls the 'dust theory' or Max Tegmark's level IV multiverse: there worlds might be implemented endlessly in each other.
A paper taking this to its theological limit is Eric Steinhardt's Theological Implications of the Simulation Argumenthttp://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000338/article.pdfIt argues (perhaps naively) that God would be the hyperturing true foundation of an endless tower of simulations, but it has some neat ideas of how to get an "aesthetic theodicy" that actually provides a meaning for the universe (the generation of interestingness). 

I'd like to propose that information density is a feature of any given volume of space.  Is expansion is a result of increased information content or is entropy a result of expansion.  While information is computed, new information is generated (ex: metadata,intermediate results, etc)  I think it's obvious this becomes unwieldy in much the same way a base1 number system is unwieldy.  So Intelligence (capitalization denoting requisite handwaving of definitions) applies some externalization of meaning into a computation protocol.

I think the information density of space is a pretty deep question. It is the counterpart to the entropy of spacetime and fields issue: our matter fields can have a fair bit of entropy, but spacetime seems to have started in a low entropy state, which allows it to drive lots of complexity-creating processes as matter clumps. However, spacetime expansion likely does not correspond to an information storage increase: it just adds more low-entropy flatness. Maybe it is more like a dropbox or gmail account, where available storage space is going up all the time whether you use it or not.



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20140411/393d7baf/attachment.html>