--- Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Matt Mahoney wrote: > > As you probably know, Hutter proved that the optimal behavior of a > > goal seeking agent in an unknown environment (modeled as a pair of > > interacting Turing machines, with the enviroment sending an > > additional reward signal to the agent that the agent seeks to > > maximize) is for the agent to guess at each step that the environment > > is modeled by the shortest program consistent with the observed > > interaction so far. The proof requires the assumption that the > > environment be computable. Essentially, the proof says that Occam's > > Razor is the best general strategy for problem solving. The fact > > that this works in practice strongly suggests that the universe is > > indeed a simulation. > > > It suggests nothing of the sort. > > Hutter's theory is a mathematical fantasy with no relationship to the > real world.
Hutter's theory makes a very general statement about the optimal behavior of rational agents. Is this really irrelevant to the field of machine learning? As for whether the universe is real or simulated, nobody can prove one way or the other. But your brain is programmed through evolution to believe the universe is real. If you were programming an autonomous agent for self survival, wouldn't you program it that way? -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983
