On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Stephen P. King <stephe...@charter.net> wrote: > On 2/28/2012 10:46 AM, Terren Suydam wrote: >> >> On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:47 AM, Bruno Marchal<marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: >>> >>> When we are dreaming we are in a higher level relative >>> emulation (all UMs can do that). >> >> That's confusing. I find it hard to believe a bacteria can dream. The >> UM implemented by a bacteria could *potentially* run any program, but >> it is *actually* running the bacteria program. To suggest that >> bacteria (e.g. one of the class of "all UMs") can dream by virtue of >> being definable as a UM generates more confusion than clarity. >> >> Put another way, if a particularly instantiated UM possesses the >> ability to dream (to imagine), then that says something non-trivial >> about the constitution of that UM's cognitive architecture. >> >> Terren >> > Hi Terren, > > If a bacterium is a physical system capable of implementing a universal > Turing machine aka the particular bacteria's program, then Bruno's argument > shows that it will necessarily be able to dream, for what are dreams if not > alternative TMs running on the same hardware via dovetailing? > > Onward! > > Stephen
Dreaming in the context of Bruno's remark means that the running of a single program could result in alternate 1p realities being constructed... not that multiple programs could be run in the UM. At least, that's how I interpret it. A bacteria is a universal machine in that it can potentially run any program. However, bacteria as they appear to us run specific programs (as selected by evolution). Their instantiation as such is a stable measure relative to us - the shared 1p plural reality. Bacteria that run programs capable of dreaming (as above), while possible, would probably count as white rabbits. Terren -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
