From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Jan 11 2004 - 01:19:04 MST
On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:12:46 +0900
"Metaqualia" <metaqualia@mynichi.com> wrote:
> Nothing to do with the paranormal.
>
> As defined in Hans Moravec's Simulation, Consciousness, Experience (1998)
>
> all interpretations of any physical process (including an absurdly simple
> t=+1) which can be seen through an arbitrarily complex interpretation
> algorithm to contain self-aware observers are by definition real to the
> observers that they contain. The interpretation itself is not needed since
> simulated observers do not need to be spied on in order to exist. The
> process itself can disappear as the interpretation becomes very complex.
>
> So everything that can exist, exists; furthermore every physical process
> embodies all possible worlds.
>
I am underwhelmed. The summation is an empty global assertion I would expect to see in a religious text. The construct regarding every physical process embodying all possible worlds is utterly non-sensical. The core notion above seems to amount to little more than saying that all interpretations read into observable facts are in a fundmental sense real or at least they are if the interpretation is "complex enough" to contain self-aware observers. If the "interpretation" was what convinced you of the advanced civilization residing in a soap bubble in your bath, then it is certainly not true that you can now drop your mere needless interpretation and let the soap-bubble super-civilization go on its way.
- samantha
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