<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 23, 2006, at 7:27 PM, Russell Wallace wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 5/24/06, <B class="gmail_sendername">Samantha Atkins</B> <<A href="mailto:sjatkins@mac.com">sjatkins@mac.com</A>> wrote:<DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote"></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I also suspect that one reason for creating a historical sim is to<BR>tweak the factors involved as minimally as possible to get a<BR>different and better outcome. This could be one way to learn more<BR>deeply from experience. </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR> There might be other reasons for doing it too.<BR> <BR> Suppose you invented a time machine (of the science fiction variety that can take you back to any point in history without announcing your presence by flinging solar masses of unobtainium around the place). What's the first thing you do with it? Well, the traditional answer is straightforward: maybe you want to attend Woodstock or talk philosophy with Socrates or go dinosaur hunting or whatever, but along the way you stop off and kill Hitler.<BR> <BR> If you subscribe to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (as I do) then you have created an Everett branch in which Hitler died early, therefore hopefully in which the Holocaust didn't occur. This is good, is it not?<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>As I understand it QM interpretations do not apply to macro level reality generally speaking. So I don't think MWI can be claimed to give you such a macro level branching. </DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV> <BR> Now suppose you create a simulation of Earth ~1930 onward, accurate in every respect except that Hitler died early in your simulation and therefore the Holocaust didn't occur. Given that by hypothesis a simulation is subjectively indistinguishable from a "real" Everett branch, should this not be considered good in exactly the same way?<BR> <BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Hmm. I don't know. Do the beings within have the same chances for Singularity and transcendence? </DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV></BODY></HTML>