Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-17 Thread Hal Finney
Eric Hawthorne writes:
 So does that mean we just say think of the substrate of the universe as 
 being a turing machine equivalent,
 any old turing machine equivalent. Ok, but still, you have to admit that 
 every easy to think of instantiation
 of a turing machine (e.g. a PC with a lot of time on its hands) is a 
 terribly implausible universe substrate.
 For heavens sake, the PC with a lot of time on its hands presupposes 
 time (and space (i.e. different localities,
 with notions of adjacency),  in which to write the tape). Classic 
 chicken and egg problem.

 Does anyone know the way out of that particular conceptual pickle?

How about Tegmark's idea that all mathematical structures exist, and we're
living in one of them?  Or does that require an elderly mathematician,
a piece of parchment, an ink quill, and some scribbled lines on paper in
order for us to be here?

It seems to me that mathematics exists without the mathematician.
And since computer science is a branch of mathematics, programs and
program runs exist as well without computers.

Hal Finney



Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-17 Thread Eugen Leitl
On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 01:03:03AM -0700, Hal Finney wrote:

 How about Tegmark's idea that all mathematical structures exist, and we're
 living in one of them?  Or does that require an elderly mathematician,
 a piece of parchment, an ink quill, and some scribbled lines on paper in
 order for us to be here?

That wouldn't quite do. Just simulating this planet takes a lot of hardware. 
Just because you can write down Navier-Stokes it doesn't mean rivulets,
streams and oceans spring into being. A little more work is required for
that.
 
 It seems to me that mathematics exists without the mathematician.

To me it seems the opposite is true. As long as it's an unfalsifyable
prediction, there's not much point to pursue it further. 

 And since computer science is a branch of mathematics, programs and
 program runs exist as well without computers.

While I'm open to existence of a metalayer, built from information or
otherwise, I'm very much opposed to mysticism.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a
__
ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net


pgp0.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-17 Thread John M
Eugen,
an outsider thought to your interesting attachment:
We know about two parallel worlds (wit languages?):
A. the 'physos'-observable one - som call material reality (I don't),
B. mathematics

I extend A into all white elephant/rabbit versions we can 'talk' about.
B exists in the mind of mathematicians (including simpler levels existing
in simpler minds one would not call 'a mathematician'. E.g. me.

The problem starts when scientists start to apply one to the other,
mostly B to A, forcing connections between the parallels. 
It leads to omissions, unnatural conclusions, I call it reductionism 
into those cases where it was (successfully???) done.

I know this was not what you intended.

John Mikes

PS to your interesting Rock post:
that is what your human mind says. Ask the rock, you may be 
surprised. - J


- Original Message - 
From: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Hal Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 4:25 AM
Subject: Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds





Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-17 Thread Eric Hawthorne


Hal Finney wrote:

How about Tegmark's idea that all mathematical structures exist, and we're

living in one of them?  Or does that require an elderly mathematician,
a piece of parchment, an ink quill, and some scribbled lines on paper in
order for us to be here?
It seems to me that mathematics exists without the mathematician.
And since computer science is a branch of mathematics, programs and
program runs exist as well without computers.
 

Ok, but real computers are math with motion. You have to have the 
program counter touring
around through the memory in order to make a narrative sense of anything 
happening.

Mathematics, being composed of  our symbols, is an abstract 
re-presentation. I think what Tegmark
must be saying is that something exists which is amenable to 
description by all self-consistent
mathematical theories (logical sentence sets) , and by no inconsistent 
theories. To me, this is just
equivalent to saying that all possible configurations of differences 
exist and that any SAS that
represents its environment accurately (e.g. via abstract mathematics) is 
constrained, by its own
being part of the information structure, to only perceive 
self-consistent configurations of differences
as existing. Self-consistency of mathematical theory, as it translates 
from the representation level
to the represented level, just means that things perceived can only be 
one way at a time, and that's
the kind of thing that a consistent mathematical theory describes.



Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-15 Thread Stephen Paul King
Dear Hal,

In general I am in agreement with your argument here but do not
understand how it generalizes to the case where we consider a plurality of
observers, each with their own sets of boundaries.

Kindest regards,

Stephen

- Original Message - 
From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Stephen Paul King [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds


 Hi Stephen:

 What I am basically saying is that you can not define a thing without
 simultaneously defining another thing that consists of all that is left
 over in the ensemble of building blocks.  I suspect that usually the
left
 over thing is of little practical use.

 However, this duality also applies to the Nothing and its left over
which
 is the Everything.  A look at this pair allows the derivation that the
 boundary between them [the definition pair] can be represented as a
 normal real and can not be a constant if zero info is to be maintained.

 Thus, given the dynamic, this boundary's representation as I said in the
 last post can be modeled as the output of a computer with an infinite
 number of asynchronous multiprocessors.  A cellular automaton with
 asynchronous cells.  Universes are interpretations of this output.

 Sort of a left wing proof that we are in a massive computer.

 The Hintikka material you pointed me to is far too imbedded in
mathematical
 language symbols for me to understand.

 Yours

 Hal

 At 12:03 AM 4/13/2004, you wrote:
 Dear Hal,
 
  I will have to think about this for a while. Very interesting.
Meanwhile
 I ask that you take a look at the game theoretic semantic idea by
Hintikka.
 
 Kindest regards,
 
 Stephen




Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-14 Thread Bruno Marchal
Dear Stephen,

snip
 [BM]
 Giving that I *assume* that arithmetical truth is independent
 of me, you and the whole physical reality (if that exists), I do have
 infinite resources in that Platonia. Remember that from the first person
 point of view it does not matter where and how, in Platonia, my
 computational states are represented. Brett Hall just states that
 the proposition we are living in a massive computer is undecidable
 (and he adds wrongly (I think) that it makes it uninteresting), but
 actually with my hypotheses physics is a sum of all those
 undecidable propositions ...(Look again my UDA proof if you are not
 yet convinced, but keep in mind that I assume the whole
 (un-axiomatizable by Godel) arithmetical truth, which I think you
 don't.
[SPK]

This is very unsettling for me as it seems to claim that we can merely
postulate into existence whatever we need to make up for deficiencies in our
theories. This can not be any kind of science.


But Mendeelev discovered new atoms by that method. I am not sure what you
mean.


But I can put that complaint
aside. It is what is missing in this Platonia that bothers me: how does it
necessitate an experienciable world.
It necessitates the experienciable truth, and worlds emerge from that.



The fact that I experience a world must be explained, even if it is
merely an illusion. It must be necessitated by our theories of Everything.
Sure.


I tend to think of the truth in Arithmetic Truth (and any other formal
system) to be more of a notion that is derived from game theoretics
(http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~pauly/Submissions/mcburney.ps  and
http://staff.science.uva.nl/%7Ejohan/H-H.pdf) than from hypostatization.


arithmetical truth is not (by Godel, Tarski, ...) formally definable in
any formal arithmetic.


This, of course, degenerates the notion of objective truth, but I have
come to the belief that this notion is, at best self-stultifying. What sense
does it make to claim that some statement X is True or that some Y exists
independent of me, you and the whole of physical reality when X and Y are
only meaningful to me, you, etc.?


I know you dislike arithmetical realism, but it is hard for me to believe that
the primality of 317 is contingent, or even remotely linked to us.


We can claim that anything at all is True, so long as it is not
detectable. This entire argument of independence teeters on the edge of
indetectability.


I don't understand. You should put your cart on the table. What are your
presupposition?




 [SPK]
  I agree with most of your premises and conclusions but I do not
 understand how it is that we can coherently get to the case where a
 classical computer can generate the simulation of a finite world that
 implies QM aspects (or an ensemble of such), for more than one observer
 including you and I, without at least accounting for the appearance of
 implementation.


But I do. See the ref to the everything-list in my url.



[BM]
 A non genuine answer would be the following: because the solutions
 of Schroedinger equations (or Dirac's one, ...) are Turing-emulable.
 This does not help because a priori we must take into account all
 computation (once we accept we are turing-emulable), not only
 the quantum one (cf UDA).
[SPK]

A priori existing UDA, Platonia, whatever, how is this more than mere
hypostatization?


Because those are  well defined arithmetical object. UD is a well defined
program.


Again I am reminded of Julian Barbour's notion of best
matching. He himself discussed the difficulty of running the computations
to find best matchings among a small (finite!) number of possibilities, and
yet, when faced with an infinity of possibilities the complexity is hand
waved away by an appeal to Platonia!
Even if we assume that Platonia has infinite Resources, the kind of
computation that you must run takes an Eternity to solve.


Yes, but our first person experiences rely on that infinity just because
we cannot be aware of any delay in the UD processing, so that we must take
into account the infinite union of all initial segment of the whole processing
of the UD.

It is like a
Perfectly Fair game: it takes forever to verify its fairness and, once that
infinity has passed, it is a game that never ends.
Is our 1 person experience a trace of this game?
Not exactly. It is less false to consider it as a partial view on an
infinity of traces, giving that we cannot distinguish the infinity of 
version of
that trace.



 [BM]
 A priori
 comp entails piece of non-computable stuff in the neighborhood,
 but no more than what can be produced by an (abstract) computer
 duplicating or differentiating all computational histories.
[SPK]

Surely, but all computational histories requires at least one step to
be produced. In Platonia, there is not Time, there is not any way to take
that one step. There is merely a Timeless Existence.
That is true for any block universe. In general relativity time is also
a 

Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-14 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi Stephen:

What I am basically saying is that you can not define a thing without 
simultaneously defining another thing that consists of all that is left 
over in the ensemble of building blocks.  I suspect that usually the left 
over thing is of little practical use.

However, this duality also applies to the Nothing and its left over which 
is the Everything.  A look at this pair allows the derivation that the 
boundary between them [the definition pair] can be represented as a 
normal real and can not be a constant if zero info is to be maintained.

Thus, given the dynamic, this boundary's representation as I said in the 
last post can be modeled as the output of a computer with an infinite 
number of asynchronous multiprocessors.  A cellular automaton with 
asynchronous cells.  Universes are interpretations of this output.

Sort of a left wing proof that we are in a massive computer.

The Hintikka material you pointed me to is far too imbedded in mathematical 
language symbols for me to understand.

Yours

Hal



At 12:03 AM 4/13/2004, you wrote:
Dear Hal,

I will have to think about this for a while. Very interesting. Meanwhile
I ask that you take a look at the game theoretic semantic idea by Hintikka.
Kindest regards,

Stephen




Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-12 Thread Hal Ruhl
Hi Stephen and Bruno:

I only managed to jump into the list and read the last two posting on this 
subject so I hope this effort to contribute is of interest in areas such as:

[Cut and pasted out of context:]

 [SPK]
  I agree with most of your premises and conclusions but I do not
 understand how it is that we can coherently get to the case where a
 classical computer can generate the simulation of a finite world that
 implies QM aspects (or an ensemble of such), for more than one observer
 including you and I, without at least accounting for the appearance of
 implementation.

[SPK]
Surely, but all computational histories requires at least one step to
be produced. In Platonia, there is not Time, there is not any way to take
that one step. There is merely a Timeless Existence. How do you propose
that we recover our experience of time from this? Perhaps I need to learn
French...
As Alastair indicated awhile back, he and I are having a discussion in the 
Agreed Fundamentals Project re something/nothing.

The following is a rework of my most recent response in that 
discussion.  Definitions extracted from the module are below.

xxx

Here is sort of a very short form of the module.

There are, it seems, three information content possibilities for the system 
that could be the basis of our universe and these are:

1) The system contains no information.
2) The system contains some information.
3) The system contains all information.
The second seems unsatisfactory since you could tune the information 
content to fit your purpose.

All I really do is to assume what is actually (I think) a bundle of no 
information - my Nothing (N) or #1 in the above list, and a bundle of all 
information - i.e. all complete sets of cf-counterfactuals - i.e. my 
Everything (E) or #3 in the above list simultaneously.

I then show - I think - that they are fundamentally not independent.  I now 
call such interdependence an example of a definitional pair.  [ Whenever a 
definition is made there are actually definitions of two things being 
forged simultaneously - Whatever the thing you are defining is and and 
another thing that is all that is left over.]

If all complete sets of cf-counterfactuals is the same as all bit 
strings, then as I see it the above is the same as saying that N contains 
no number at all and that E contains a normal real number.

Further if all information is equivalent to having no information then all 
sets of cf-counterfactuals results in no potential to divide i.e. no 
cf-information.  So we note an odd thing: we have a definitional pair that 
define two forms of the same thing - the net absence of a potential to 
divide - no cf-information.

The dynamic I develop in the module [from: only cf-counterfactuals allowed 
in E] says that any such pair can not be static or have a fixed 
evolution.  In other words the boundary - no number opposed to a particular 
normal real number - between the two must be dynamic and therefore 
represent a sequence where E contains a series of normal real numbers in 
random order.  And because of this dynamic our universe's current state 
which is a particular decode [interpretation] of a particular string in 
that number will always be present and will eventually come into proper 
juxtaposition [also necessarily a dynamic] with all those strings that 
represent encoded possible next states - evolutionary trees - during the 
dynamic.

Now the final point I have interest in in the module is: Can there be a 
fixed number of these evolutionary trees [all, some fixed fraction, none] 
that have at least one path that is free of external true noise?   No 
because any such number would represent a cf-factual not a 
cf-counterfactual.  Therefore all paths eventually experience an external 
noise event since none must randomly be the right number.

One view of the dynamic is a computer [Turing?] moving along an infinite 
string as data and outputing the original string and a computed new string 
as it went.  Behind that would be two more and behind each of those two 
more etc.  These computers would all have randomly constructed rules and be 
asynchronous [the external true noise].  The result to me seems to be a 
dynamic of all possible universes evolving to all possible next states.

--- From the module - more or less 
--

I see no difference between cf-information [a term defined in the module - 
see below] and the usual idea of information and intend none.

[1def] cf-Information: The potential to divide as with a boundary.  An 
Example: The information in a Formal Axiomatic System [FAS] divides true 
statements from not true statements [relevant to that FAS].

[2def] cf-Factual: A particular potential to divide.  Used as a noun.  An 
example: The FAS known as Arithmetic.

[4def] cf-Counterfactual: A cf-factual [cf-factual B] that to some degree 
influences the potential to divide or 

Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-12 Thread Stephen Paul King
Dear Hal,

I will have to think about this for a while. Very interesting. Meanwhile
I ask that you take a look at the game theoretic semantic idea by Hintikka.

Kindest regards,

Stephen

- Original Message - 
From: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 9:34 PM
Subject: Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds


 Hi Stephen and Bruno:

 I only managed to jump into the list and read the last two posting on this
 subject so I hope this effort to contribute is of interest in areas such
as:

 [Cut and pasted out of context:]

   [SPK]
I agree with most of your premises and conclusions but I do not
   understand how it is that we can coherently get to the case where a
   classical computer can generate the simulation of a finite world that
   implies QM aspects (or an ensemble of such), for more than one
observer
   including you and I, without at least accounting for the appearance of
   implementation.
  

 [SPK]
  Surely, but all computational histories requires at least one step
to
 be produced. In Platonia, there is not Time, there is not any way to take
 that one step. There is merely a Timeless Existence. How do you propose
 that we recover our experience of time from this? Perhaps I need to learn
 French...


 As Alastair indicated awhile back, he and I are having a discussion in the
 Agreed Fundamentals Project re something/nothing.

 The following is a rework of my most recent response in that
 discussion.  Definitions extracted from the module are below.

 xxx

 Here is sort of a very short form of the module.

 There are, it seems, three information content possibilities for the
system
 that could be the basis of our universe and these are:

 1) The system contains no information.
 2) The system contains some information.
 3) The system contains all information.

 The second seems unsatisfactory since you could tune the information
 content to fit your purpose.

 All I really do is to assume what is actually (I think) a bundle of no
 information - my Nothing (N) or #1 in the above list, and a bundle of
all
 information - i.e. all complete sets of cf-counterfactuals - i.e. my
 Everything (E) or #3 in the above list simultaneously.

 I then show - I think - that they are fundamentally not independent.  I
now
 call such interdependence an example of a definitional pair.  [ Whenever a
 definition is made there are actually definitions of two things being
 forged simultaneously - Whatever the thing you are defining is and and
 another thing that is all that is left over.]

 If all complete sets of cf-counterfactuals is the same as all bit
 strings, then as I see it the above is the same as saying that N
contains
 no number at all and that E contains a normal real number.

 Further if all information is equivalent to having no information then
all
 sets of cf-counterfactuals results in no potential to divide i.e. no
 cf-information.  So we note an odd thing: we have a definitional pair that
 define two forms of the same thing - the net absence of a potential to
 divide - no cf-information.

 The dynamic I develop in the module [from: only cf-counterfactuals allowed
 in E] says that any such pair can not be static or have a fixed
 evolution.  In other words the boundary - no number opposed to a
particular
 normal real number - between the two must be dynamic and therefore
 represent a sequence where E contains a series of normal real numbers in
 random order.  And because of this dynamic our universe's current state
 which is a particular decode [interpretation] of a particular string in
 that number will always be present and will eventually come into proper
 juxtaposition [also necessarily a dynamic] with all those strings that
 represent encoded possible next states - evolutionary trees - during the
 dynamic.

 Now the final point I have interest in in the module is: Can there be a
 fixed number of these evolutionary trees [all, some fixed fraction, none]
 that have at least one path that is free of external true noise?   No
 because any such number would represent a cf-factual not a
 cf-counterfactual.  Therefore all paths eventually experience an external
 noise event since none must randomly be the right number.

 One view of the dynamic is a computer [Turing?] moving along an infinite
 string as data and outputing the original string and a computed new string
 as it went.  Behind that would be two more and behind each of those two
 more etc.  These computers would all have randomly constructed rules and
be
 asynchronous [the external true noise].  The result to me seems to be a
 dynamic of all possible universes evolving to all possible next states.

 --- From the module - more or less
 --

 I see no difference between cf-information [a term defined in the module -
 see below] and the usual idea of information and intend none

Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-10 Thread Bruno Marchal
At 00:35 10/04/04 -0400, Stephen Paul King wrote:


 BM: I agree with this. There is no embedding of QM in a Boolean
representation,
 if by embedding we mean a injective function which preserves the value of
 the observable. But ...
[SPK]

Ok. Well please help me how does my argument not follow? I am trying to
understand how my claim fails. You seem to understand this, I need to
understand this, help me please.




BM: My feeling is that we just have different fundamental hypotheses. More
in the sequel.




BM:
 it follows
 that it is impossible to fully simulate a QM system on a classical
computer
 unless we allow for some rather exotic special conditions.

 I disagree. Unless fully means in real time ? Not only a classical
 computer can compute all quantum computable functions, but if you
 allow the classical computer to simulates the system consisting of
 you + a quantum computer, then the classical computer will, relatively
 to you, be able to simulate all quantum processes (and not only the
function).
[SPK]

I have one situation in mind where your conclusion follows but it seems
to be a Very Special case, the case where we have infinite resourses
available for the classical systems to simulate the QM systems, all of the
possible.


Giving that I *assume* that arithmetical truth is independent
of me, you and the whole physical reality (if that exists), I do have
infinite resources in that Platonia. Remember that from the first person
point of view it does not matter where and how, in Platonia, my
computational states are represented. Brett Hall just states that
the proposition we are living in a massive computer is undecidable
(and he adds wrongly (I think) that it makes it uninteresting), but
actually with my hypotheses physics is a sum of all those
undecidable propositions ...(Look again my UDA proof if you are not
yet convinced, but keep in mind that I assume the whole
(un-axiomatizable by Godel) arithmetical truth, which I think you
don't.



I agree with most of your premises and conclusions but I do not
understand how it is that we can coherently get to the case where a
classical computer can generate the simulation of a finite world that
implies QM aspects (or an ensemble of such), for more than one observer
including you and I, without at least accouting for the appearence of
implementation.




A non genuine answer would be the following: because the solutions
of Schroedinger equations (or Dirac's one, ...) are Turing-emulable.
This does not help because a priori we must take into account all
computation (once we accept we are turing-emulable), not only
the quantum one (cf UDA). A priori
comp entails piece of non-computable stuff in the neighborhood,
but no more than what can be produced by an (abstract) computer
duplicating or differentiating all computational histories.
Remember that if we are machine then we should expect our
physical reality NOT to be a machine. Indeed at first sight we
should expect all nearly-inconsistent histories (white rabbits).
But the godelian constraints add enough informations for defining a
notion of normality, that is a beginning of an explanation of why coherent
and sharable realities evolves from the point of view of the observers
embedded in Platonia.
Most of Alan and David critics of comp works fine for Schmidhuber
form of comp (where physics comes from a special program) or
Tegmark where physical reality is a mathematical structure among
all mathematical structures. I provide arguments showing that if we belong
to a mathematical computation then our future/past (that is our physics)
depends on an infinity of (relative) computations (all those going
through our relative states).




How is it that we necessarily experience an asymmetrical flow of time
given the assumption that all 1st person experiences are assumed to be
merely algorithms that exist a priori in Platonia?


Your phrasing is a little bit misleading here I'm afraid. The first person
experiences are knowledge states. If you agree with the usual axioms
for knowledge (that is : I know A implies A, I know A implies that I know
that I know A, I know (A - B) entails that if I know A then I know B,
plus the traditional modal inference rules, then with comp that
knowledge states are completely captured by the S4Grz modal logic
which has nice semantics in term of antisymmetrical knowledge states
evolution. What is absolutely nice is that from the machine point of view
that knowledge cannot ever be defined. Only meta-reasoning based
on comp makes it possible to handle it.
You can read the appendice (in english!) in Conscience et Mecanisme
by the Russian logician Sergei Artemov which provides an argument
for identifying the notion of informal (and even un-formalizable) provability
by the conjonction of formal provability and truth. By Godel, that *is*
different from just formal provability:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/Volume4CC/6%20La%20these%20d'Artemov.pdf
Note that this 

Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds

2004-04-10 Thread Stephen Paul King
Dear Bruno,

Thank you for your wise and patient reply. Interleaving.

- Original Message - 
From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: Computational irreducibility and the simulability of worlds


snip
 [BM]
 Giving that I *assume* that arithmetical truth is independent
 of me, you and the whole physical reality (if that exists), I do have
 infinite resources in that Platonia. Remember that from the first person
 point of view it does not matter where and how, in Platonia, my
 computational states are represented. Brett Hall just states that
 the proposition we are living in a massive computer is undecidable
 (and he adds wrongly (I think) that it makes it uninteresting), but
 actually with my hypotheses physics is a sum of all those
 undecidable propositions ...(Look again my UDA proof if you are not
 yet convinced, but keep in mind that I assume the whole
 (un-axiomatizable by Godel) arithmetical truth, which I think you
 don't.

[SPK]

This is very unsettling for me as it seems to claim that we can merely
postulate into existence whatever we need to make up for deficiencies in our
theories. This can not be any kind of science. But I can put that complaint
aside. It is what is missing in this Platonia that bothers me: how does it
necessitate an experienciable world.
The fact that I experience a world must be explained, even if it is
merely an illusion. It must be necessitated by our theories of Everything.

I am reminded of an idea by Jaakko Hintikka where he criticizes the
notion in game theory that every player has complete knowledge of the
possible moves of the other players. He goes on to explain how imperfect
information games are more realistic.

http://www.maths.qmw.ac.uk/~wilfrid/kingsfeb00.pdf

I tend to think of the truth in Arithmetic Truth (and any other formal
system) to be more of a notion that is derived from game theoretics
(http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~pauly/Submissions/mcburney.ps  and
http://staff.science.uva.nl/%7Ejohan/H-H.pdf) than from hypostatization.

This, of course, degenerates the notion of objective truth, but I have
come to the belief that this notion is, at best self-stultifying. What sense
does it make to claim that some statement X is True or that some Y exists
independent of me, you and the whole of physical reality when X and Y are
only meaningful to me, you, etc.?

We can claim that anything at all is True, so long as it is not
detectable. This entire argument of independence teeters on the edge of
indetectability.



 [SPK]
  I agree with most of your premises and conclusions but I do not
 understand how it is that we can coherently get to the case where a
 classical computer can generate the simulation of a finite world that
 implies QM aspects (or an ensemble of such), for more than one observer
 including you and I, without at least accounting for the appearance of
 implementation.

[BM]
 A non genuine answer would be the following: because the solutions
 of Schroedinger equations (or Dirac's one, ...) are Turing-emulable.
 This does not help because a priori we must take into account all
 computation (once we accept we are turing-emulable), not only
 the quantum one (cf UDA).

[SPK]

A priori existing UDA, Platonia, whatever, how is this more than mere
hypostatization? Again I am reminded of Julian Barbour's notion of best
matching. He himself discussed the difficulty of running the computations
to find best matchings among a small (finite!) number of possibilities, and
yet, when faced with an infinity of possibilities the complexity is hand
waved away by an appeal to Platonia!
Even if we assume that Platonia has infinite Resources, the kind of
computation that you must run takes an Eternity to solve. It is like a
Perfectly Fair game: it takes forever to verify its fairness and, once that
infinity has passed, it is a game that never ends.

Is our 1 person experience a trace of this game?

 [BM]
 A priori
 comp entails piece of non-computable stuff in the neighborhood,
 but no more than what can be produced by an (abstract) computer
 duplicating or differentiating all computational histories.

[SPK]

Surely, but all computational histories requires at least one step to
be produced. In Platonia, there is not Time, there is not any way to take
that one step. There is merely a Timeless Existence. How do you propose
that we recover our experience of time from this? Perhaps I need to learn
French...

 [BM]
 Remember that if we are machine then we should expect our
 physical reality NOT to be a machine. Indeed at first sight we
 should expect all nearly-inconsistent histories (white rabbits).
 But the godelian constraints add enough informations for defining a
 notion of normality, that is a beginning of an explanation of why coherent
 and sharable realities evolves from the point of view of the observers