From: empresstheodora@juno.com
Date: Wed Jun 19 2002 - 22:08:56 MDT
---------- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@datamann.com> writes:
From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey@datamann.com>
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: Re: What is a Simulation? (was Nothing)
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 21:54:52 -0400
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Mike wrote
>
> > Each instance of simulation, on a silicon or biological computer, is a
> > universe. To deny this is to deny that our own universe is a simulation.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "each instance" of simulation.
> Do you mean "each instant"? If so, then that's wrong because
> IMO a simulation requires information flow---cause and effect
> ---between each state of the simulation and the succeeding
> state.
"An instance is each time a simulation is run. I run Tomb Raider tonite,
you run it tomorrow. Two different, nearly identical universes."
But there is a difference between the complex universe which we inhabit and a contrived senario. Especially in Tomb raider. The people don't think and nothing really happens that someone didn't dictate beforehand.
Everything that is "seen" is nothing but a representation not even how it would actually appear even if it was possible to think of a program in this way.
>
> What is usually meant is an emulation. (I know that some other
> threads have been talking about this.) But if we wanted to get
> really precise about language, I would suggest that a painting
> of the Earth is a simulation of it, because it matches the
> appearance of the Earth. In other words, a portrayal of the
> Earth can count as a simulation.
>
"An image is not a portrayal, it is a solid record, like a book. It is a
database. It is not an executable. I may have a kernel in my imagination
USE that image to imagine such a planet."
I would agree that images are not really simulations. Images are just spatial frames of reference about light illuminating an object nothing more.
> A puppet is a portrayal of a character. The puppet only appears
> to have experiences and emotions. They're only simulated.
"The physical puppet in the city park is a portrayal. The mental puppet
in my memory, after watching the performance, having further adventures
is in a universe of its own, but may or may not be a sentient being."
Pretending you are the pupet and giving him adventures is not giving something sentience. That's why intelligent people don't "play" after they are kids. That's also why pornographic dreams and fantasies are so unfulfilling eventually: you are just getting a contrived experience that dosn't really change at all. Otherwise it could be possible to get rejected in such dreams.
"The problem with using the term 'puppet' as an example is that puppets are
under external control with no volition, etc. Thus a puppet without a
puppet master is nothing but a database. The master is the executable."
And the pupet is nothing. He has nothing and no sentient will. That means I could do something with the puppet and claim that the puppet did it. That dosn't work.
>
> But by common convention here, I think, we'll mean emulation when
> we say simulation. So what is an emulation? In another thread
> they said (with more accuracy) than I'm going to do here, that
> it is necessary for the emulation to re-create every property
> of whatever it is that's being emulated.
"A simulation is a universe, but I believe we were treating an
'emulation' as some sort of character or entity within it."
That's all mathmetical jargon. For all intents and purposes universes reawlly shouldn't be talked of unless we are invoking some sort of physics and the like. Computer programs while they involve the forces of physics don't make universes. Nor for the most part have they (yet is the key word) do much in the way of thinking. I believe that at most becuase we are creating such entities and we are limited in the way we think that they will only be approximations.
>
> Well, maybe that was good enough for their discussion. But taking
> uploading as an example, I'd say that emulating a human being in
> software---running software of course---requires only that all the
> properties of the person's consciousness need be emulated. Probably
> no one has a problem with that.
>
> Therefore I *could* be an emulation of Lee Corbin, and our world
> *could* be an emulation of 21st century Earth, but a program stored
> away on tape which cannot be running cannot be a simulation of
> anything.
"Correct."
To add to this I would state that such advances are quite difficult to actually pull off and would be in the far distant future. I believe that there was one episode of DS9 where an small group of individuals had their heigher level brain functions stored away in a space station's computer core and almost completely had all remaining space. Not a pretty picture.
*****************
"The death of one man is a tragedy the death of a million is a statistic.
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