On 2/20/2012 03:35, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> If I am a simulation, and a programmer watches 'me' and can intervene
> and change my program and the program of my universe at will, then to
> me they are a true God, and I would be well advised to pray to them.
>
I think you might be misunderstanding COMP. In COMP, your 1p is mostly
identified with some true arithmetical sentences, some such sentences
may talk about some particular physics being implemented by some UMs. If
someone else runs an UM which partially computes your local physics
(it's provably impossible to do so for the entire history tree of some
observer), then they are merely observing some computation, sort of like
looking into a window to your "universe". If they chose to intervene,
they would be "entangling" the computations of a copy-of-you with their
own, however the chance of being in such a computation becomes
astronomically lower. COMP makes being in an universe/simulation
controlled by interventionist "gods" a very low probability event. Also,
the longer the simulation + arbitrary changes keep going on, the lower
the chance that you won't just end up in a version where nobody is
changing your computations (what's simpler? "program A ran by UM" or
"program A ran by UM ran by UM2 ran by ..."). There is however one way
for such a "god" (a better term I heard used for such a being would be a
"Matrix Lord") to make his actions more likely to be experienced by you:
simulate 'you'(as copied from his earlier digital physics simulation) in
his own world. Also, COMP makes pure digital physics less likely
locally, and false globally.
Also, if said "Matrix Lord" decided to kill himself in his level of
reality, he might have some unusual continuations over which he has no
control over, same would be for the observer within his simulation. COMP
makes any interventionist "god"'s interventions very less likely to be
experienced and in the limit, an observer will always escape such control.
The main idea is to look at all possible consistent continuations within
the UD, not just at what's possible within some local digital physics.
Also, if there is nothing "supernatural" that can be experienced by an
observer with a computable body: it's all somewhere in the UD, which
itself is in arithmetic. However, if the observer's body is not
computable, things are weirder, but that's non-COMP.
>>
>>> Computationalism says that we have no way of
>>> knowing that has not happened yet and MWI (and Tegmark's Level 3
>>> classification) demands that this is inevitable in some universes.
>>
>>> In a scenario of infinite universes, how can any possibility be said
>>> to be supernatural?
>>
>> There is a supernatural/natual distinction in MWI based multiverses.
>
> If it is not supernatural for us to build a Turing machine and control
> the content of it's 'tape', then it cannot, cannot, can-not be
> supernatural for that UM to have its world be controlled by us. As
> long as the top level programmer is natural and resides in a top level
> MWI universe, there can be no limit to their omnipotence over their
> programs in comp. To claim supernatural distinctions within an
> emulation is to turn the programs into zombies, is it not? They become
> the second class citizens that I am criticized for suggesting.
>
Controlling the content of the tape means that the UM no longer runs
that one particular program that it was running, but something else
entangled with your own computations (so UM0 becomes UM1 running
modified UM0). Omnipotence is non-sense if it claims to change the
consequences of the Church-Turing Thesis. CTT is either false or true,
it can't be changed on a whim.
Also, consciousness isn't associated with the physical state of the
tape: MGA shows that it's not the case. It's associated with abstract
computations which may also be contained in a physical body, although
the notion of the physical itself becomes rather abstract.
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