From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat Mar 16 2002 - 19:37:42 MST
Ken Clements wrote:
>
> This seems like the hard way to me. Without having to manipulate a universe, or
> the development of mathematics, you just have some "angles" appear to the elders
> of the tribe with some stone tablets. The tablets would establish the first
> written language, with some simple arithmetic (be sure to put in some hygiene
> rules to help this group propagate). Say, you give them a 16 letter alphabet and
> base 16 counting, and a full literacy commandment. In this case, the medium is
> absolutely going to be the message. The vocabulary and syntax might be quite
> strained, but what the heck, it's from angles.
>
> A thousand years later, someone is cranking out the digits of pi, and lo and
> behold, a big chunk of the religious text comes forth, which all the intellectuals
> had dismissed as mumbo-jumbo centuries ago. Deus ex pi.
>
> -Ken
Yep. Congrats.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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