[ExI] R: Re: R: Re: R: Re: Cramer on impossibility of FTL communication

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Thu Sep 3 14:52:01 UTC 2015


On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 7:13 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Now let's move these minds apart, at subluminal speeds, allowing them to
> remember the total amount of acceleration they experience (to let them keep
> synchronized time), and enough that they leave each other's light cones.
> Each mind will continue to be able to predict the internal states of the
> other mind by looking up the responses to die-generated digits and to all
> possible local environmental inputs.
>

The set of all possible local environmental inputs quickly makes this
impossible in any real example, unless you so limit the inputs they are
allowed to process that you can't honestly call them "minds" any more.
(Even a cat or dog, let alone a human-equivalent, would suffer significant
cognitive breakdown from having no touch, taste, smell, or hearing, and
sight limited to a few monochrome on/off pixels if even that much, for
days.  They have tested this to lesser degrees by extended sensory
deprivation, well beyond the few-hours-long therapeutic sessions.)


> Obviously, this is a contrived example, straining the meaning of
> "communication" but please note that for an outside observer who does not
> have direct access to the content of the GLUTs but who has true FTL
> communication, the behavior of the minds would be indistinguishable from
> true FTL communication, as long as the minds would observe some
> restrictions on what kind of answers and what kind of behaviors they would
> exhibit.
>

That's like saying a computer with pre-scripted answers can pass the Turing
Test so long as the questions are confined to a given set.  You're
stretching the meaning to the point that you're redefining the word, and
are no longer talking about what most people talk about.

That is a form of lying.
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