From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed May 22 2002 - 02:46:52 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
> Curt Adams writes:
>
>>The recursion requires that the universe be digital, which isn't proved,
>>to put it mildly. In any case, if that offends you, put in a randomizer
>>and there's no loop. If that entity is so limited, anyway, so are we
>>in the same way and for the same reason.
>>
>
> It's true, with a randomizer there is no loop, but there are still only a
> finite number of states (fewer than there would have been because you're
> using some of your resources to run your randomizer!). So now you can
> jump around pre-explored states at random instead of running through
> them sequentially. But you will have no memory of your trajectory.
You are assuming that your own state does not change by your
experiences, finite or not. Even if you repeated an experience,
you are not the same on subsequent iterations. You really can't
step into the same river twice.
>
> It would be as though you were granted a form of resurrection which
> consisted of reliving each day of your life in random order, without
> any awareness that you weren't living the day for the first time.
>
That would be very hard to arrange if you really worked at it.
> If you think of the universe as a four-dimensional space-time
> structure, in a sense every moment that we live is embedded "forever"
> in the vast space-time block that is the universe and its history.
> Each moment existed/exists/will exist in a timeless sense. Being able
> to re-experience moments at random does not seem to me to represent a
> true expansion of life.
>
Huh? How do you after n experiences once again become exactly
as you were when you experience the first experience? How does
the universe manage to stand still or reverse not reversible
processes? This fantasy doesn't strike me as any real future
danger. I believe it is an impossible construct that exists
only in empty words.
> For another perspective, imagine that the time-line of the universe
> is drawn on a piece of notebook paper, from bottom (big bang) to top
> (big crunch, we'll assume for this philosophical point). The universe
> begins, runs for a while, and then ends, a sad story. Now curve the
> paper into a cylinder, touching the bottom to the top to make time loop
> from the end back to the beginning. This makes the universe seem to go
> on "forever", repeating the same thing over and over again. But it is
> really a meaningless transformation, twisting or turning the paper does
> not change the essence of what the universe is.
>
Just because you can curve your paper means utterly nothing
about what you can do in reality.
> Bending the paper in this way is an empty mathematical transformation that
> is unobservable and has no real effect. It does not turn a limited life
> into immortality. Living with a finite supply of resources is limited
> in much the same way. The immortality you achieve is an illusion.
>
Not at all. Your mind is not limited in what it can learn nor
can it avoid new experiences even in a finite universe. Finite
resources and a finite extent of the universe does not
necesitate and end to change or a finite number of states. This
seems paradoxical I know.
Add to this that we do not know the universe actually is finite
or that the univers is "all" after all.
I do agree on one level philosophically. The quest for ever
"more" in outward terms is empty.
- samantha
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