--- "John G. Rose" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > From: Matt Mahoney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > The simulations can't loop because the simulator needs at least as much > > memory > > as the machine being simulated. > > > > You're making assumptions when you say that. Outside of a particular > simulation we don't know the rules. If this universe is simulated the > simulator's reality could be so drastically and unimaginably different from > the laws in this universe. Also there could be data busses between > simulations and the simulations could intersect or, a simulation may break > the constraints of its contained simulation somehow and tunnel out.
I am assuming finite memory. For the universe we observe, the Bekenstein bound of the Hubble radius is 2pi^2 T^2 c^5/hG = 2.91 x 10^122 bits. (T = age of the universe = 13.7 billion years, c = speed of light, h = Planck's constant, G = gravitational constant). There is not enough material in the universe to build a larger memory. However, a universe up the hierarchy might be simulated by a Turing machine with infinite memory or by a more powerful machine such as one with real-valued registers. In that case the restriction does not apply. For example, a real-valued function can contain nested copies of itself infinitely deep. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=98631122-712fa4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
