--- Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 06:50:59PM -0700, Matt Mahoney wrote: > > > Of course it could be that a singularity has already happened, and what > you > > perceive as the universe is actually a simulation within the resulting > > superintelligence. > > Is this a falsifyable theory?
Unfortunately, no. You would have to prove that the universe is not computable, for example, that your observations are a function of the halting probability Omega or some other uncomputable number. I don't know that that would even be mathematically possible. But everything we know about it suggests that the universe is computable. For one, the universe has finite entropy*. For another, Occam's Razor seems to work in practice, consistent with AIXI's assumption of a computable environment (abductive reasoning, I know). For a third, there is nothing going on in the human brain that we believe is not computable, so it would be impossible to distinguish reality from a simulation, and we are simply programmed to reject such a possibility. *The entropy of the universe is of the order T^2 c^5/hG ~ 10^122 bits, where T is the age of the universe, c is the speed of light, h is Planck's constant and G is the gravitational constant. By coincidence (or not?), each bit would occupy the volume of a proton. (The physical constants do not depend on any particle properties). -- 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
