From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Jun 19 2002 - 20:04:06 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
>
> Lee writes:
> > We all know the basic difference, apparent every day of our lives,
> > between static representations and dynamically changing ones over
> > time. We never suppose a frozen state, or even a sequence of frozen
> > states, to be conscious or to be experiencing anything.
snip...
>
> Actually I was not claiming this, and I don't think my argument depends
> on it. My claim was only that computer programs and even executions of
> programs exist in the same abstract sense that numbers and geometric
> shape exists. I am undecided on the issue of whether "passive" data
> could have the same properties.
I'm generally not. While a passive structure may contain the pattern of
a sentient being (as a dead body in cryostasis purportedly does as a
passive structure), that being, as a record is not necessarily concious
or alive. The record would need to be executing on some kernel
executable to gain life.
>
> However I can make two arguments in favor of that idea, even though I am
> not fully persuaded by them. The first is to think of the universe as a
> four-dimensional space-time continuum. One of the ideas from relativity
> theory is that time is a fourth dimension. It is a little different
> from the other dimensions in that the metric in that direction has a
> minus sign. But conceptually you can still think of the entire history of
> the universe as a four-dimensional object. This object is, in a sense,
> "static", in that time is one of its internal dimensions and the object
> (the universe's history) does not change in some other kind of dynamic
> way. This view is sometimes called the "block universe" because we think
> of the history of the universe as a sort of solid, four-dimensional block.
>
> So, here is a structure which is (in a sense) static and yet it does
> contain conscious entities. So this might give us some reason to think
> that static entities can contain consciousness if they have the right
> kind of internal structure.
Yes, exactly so. The difficulty being able to navigate in four
dimensions.... an exercise left for the reader.
Furthermore, a four dimensional record is to be considered a simulation.
A three dimensional record that remains static in the fourth dimension
is a database and not an executable. Four dimensionality should be
considered a necessary component of a simulation (using our physical
laws).
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