From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sun Jun 23 2002 - 06:45:46 MDT
On Sat, 22 Jun 2002, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Here's a stranger and stronger form of the question: What would you
> do if you found out that the world was a simulation and *someone else*
> was the only real person in it? Assume that we subtract from the
If I can't tell the difference, and I'm not told who is it the difference
is completely academic. If I'm told, then it will make a difference in an
abstract sense. I would spend a lot of time trying to spot the crucial
difference between the real person and the so-called zombies. (Because I
don't believe in nonsentient zombies, said the bee to the robot fake,
dancing the dance).
> equation your Cartesian knowledge that you are a real person and
> replace it with the hard knowledge that you are a giant look-up table.
It is impossible to implement a real person in terms of a lookup table due
to computational physics constraints. Assuming, the implementation used
dirty tricks (magic physics) that doesn't make a iota of a difference. The
implementation layer is completely transparent. The single thing that
counts is the user experience.
> What would you do? I like to think that (the simulated wallpaper
> version of) Eliezer would spend all available mental energy on making
> that one real person's life as pleasant as possible, but of course you
You're acting purely on faith here, of course. Not that there's something
necessarily wrong with it.
> never really know what you'll do (or the simulated wallpaper version
> of you) until the clinch.
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