From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Wed May 01 2002 - 11:07:57 MDT
Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Apr 2002, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>This almost exactly duplicates Descartes' infamous musing. If you
>>were uploaded into a VR that *perfectly* replicated your current
>>reality, in a way that you did not remember the upload, then no, it
>>would not matter: by definition, there would be no difference to you.
>
> Of course there would a world of a difference: you wouldn't be in control.
> You'd be in teletubbyland, at mercy of whatever entity that is running the
> place. Perfect prison, can't even kill yourself.
Ah, but if your actions were constrained in any way other than what
reality already constrains, then that wouldn't be a perfect replication,
would it? ^_-
>>The nagging suspicion that it might matter comes from the insistence
>>on perfection here: we intuitively know that, no matter what we may
>>rationalize, replications (at least from non-digital states like
>>"reality as we now know it") are actually rarely perfect, even if done
>
> It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to fool you. ("Perfect" is
> meaningless, anyway).
Perfect, in this case, means absolute fidelity. Way more than just good
enough to fool you: also replicating all the imperceptibles that you
don't notice, which could add up to noticeable effects over a long
enough time or in odd enough circumstances.
>>by very clever people assisted by the best of modern technology (and
>>thus, one suspects despite all rationalization, replications made by
>>even very advanced SIs would suffer from the same limitation in
>>practice), that one state can often be told from another...and in that
>>difference, is what matters.
>
> Huh? You can tell this from *what*? What are you comparing this reality
> with?
With the only thing you can: memory of another reality, before the
upload. Granted, your memories might be edited, but again, even the
slightest discrepancy - and there would likely be discrepancies - in
the edited memory and the present reality would be noticed. ("If we
evolved in this zero G space station, why do we have legs optimized for
walking in one G?")
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