[extropy-chat] Role of Observer is not Relevant

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Sat Mar 31 13:39:15 UTC 2007


On 3/31/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 01:47:55PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> >    Are you saying real world consequences are required, or would doing
> >    all this in software, in a simulated environment without external
> >    input, suffice?
>
> No, behaviour is independent of substrate.


OK, so you take the whole simulation (with an agent that can count) and run
it on a system that is Turing-equivalent (I used an abacus above; a counter
machine is Turing-equivalent and resembles an abacus). This running can take
one of three forms: (a) the TM designer physically manipulates the machine;
(b) the TM designer writes out a program and has an ignorant person who can
follow instructions manipulate the machine; (c) the wind happens to
manipulate the machine in the same way as the human would have. Does the
program run and counting occur in each case?

Stathis Papaioannou
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