From: gary tripp (gtripp@ica.net)
Date: Tue Dec 21 1999 - 22:14:19 MST
Matt writes:
>Subject: Re:
>
>Supposing for an instant that we live in a deterministic universe,
>what's the difference between the 'real world' and a stack of paper
>with some rules and initial conditions? The information content is the
>same - why should it matter whether we're described implicitly or
>explicitly? If time is a construct of the mind, and 'now' is a
>perceptual artifact, what's the difference between a thought and a long
>list of brain-states? Would you expect a static list to have subjective
>experience if it enumerated the intermediate states of the right
>computation, or does it have to be embedded it some special kind of
>substrate?
>
I remember reading a science fiction novel by Greg Egan ("Permutation City")
which spoke to these issues.
/gary
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