[ExI] tumbling pyramids again

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 3:12 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] tumbling pyramids again

 

On 16 February 2017 at 06:25, spike  wrote:

 

>>…So if we want to make a fair pyramid shaped five sided die, what is h?

 

 

>…The internet spoils everything.  :)

 

On the contrary, the internet fixes everything.

 

>…You can buy 5-side dice already, but in order to roll they must have bevelled edges.

<http://www.gamesciencedice.com/Gamescience-Amethyst-d5--Five-sided-die--Plain_p_138.html>



>…BillK

 

Ja BillK, but the goal is not to make a fair 5-sided die, but rather to figure out what dimensions would be needed to make a square-based pyramid gaming die.  The reason why I want to know this is that it gives me a clue on why the Big Bang happened.

Follow my reasoning please.

Suppose you get a bunch of mathematically-empowered fellers (women and the alphabet soup crowd can be fellers too (so don’t jump me on that (we have them at LockMart (a really accomplished technical type gets the title of Feller (and some of the fellers are women.)))))

These fellers are arguing about the requisite dimensions of a square based pyramid, as we are doing now, and each comes up with some line of reasoning, Adrian suggests h=1, I think it might be 1.58, and several other fellers come up with different answers based on different lines of reasoning, but all have equations that suggest their answer.  

Pretty soon one of the fellers will say it: we need to make a set of these, with the dimensions suggested by each of us, and roll em, see who is right, with the grand prize being our everlasting esteem or until we forget.  Otherwise we just sit here like Greek philosophers arguing over the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth.  We all reluctantly agree the old closed-form equation approach that usually works so well just has its inherent limitations.  One of the prol… eh… fellers calls his buddy with the 3D printer and it’s off to the races, ja?

Now suppose all this matter and energy that we call reality is a digital simulation of some sort and we are all avatars, created for the entertainment of we don’t know what.  Seems reasonable to think that our predecessors were also avatars, and turtles all the way down to before the Big Bang (somehow (since we don’t understand how we could be sims, then we don’t’ need to bother explaining how a pre-BB computing device could exist.))  The simulated pre-BB fellers were arguing over what would happen if there was matter and energy, nobody could convince the others, they decided to have a gentle-being’s bet, and the only way to settle it is to Let there be light.

If we can’t figure out h on the pyramid die with all this collective mathematical horsepower, we know why the Big Bang happened.  

That whole scenario has a cool reversal of the usual meme of some kind of super-being created us but we are really digital sims.  In that scenario, they are the sims and we are the real deal.  Cool!

spike

I am going to forward this to Anders Sandberg.

 

 

 

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