From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Tue Jun 18 2002 - 14:45:22 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, June 18, 2002, at 02:32 pm, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> > Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> >>
> >> A mathematical formula does not contain real people. A book does not
> >> contain real people. A map does not contain real towns with real
> >> people. A photograph does not contain real people. Merely describing
> >> people with words, math or pictures does not mean they are consciously
> >> living outside of any physical reality.
> >>
> >> This argument is just word play. It confuses the map with the
> >> territory.
> >
> > But this is the whole point of the universe as simulation hypothesis. If
> > our universe is a simulation, then we are nothing but mathematical
> > formulae processing data.
>
> You just switched topics. We weren't debating whether simulations could
> contain real people. We were debating whether books or mathematical
> formulas contained abstract people existing without the need of any
> physical universe.
>
> Data describes people. Simulations emulate people. Data without
> executiion on a physical machine is inert and not alive.
Just so. But what is a human brain? It is a physical machine. Can
formulas or books contain living entities, no, not as inanimate records.
Every instance of of execution on a physical machine creates a universe,
though, so there are billions of universes of Oliver Twist, billions of
Tomb Raider universes, etc.
Egan's allegedly absurd Theory of Dust in Permutation City is no more
absurd than quantum theory is, and explains a lot about the absurdities
of quantum theory, as a permutation on Heinlein's World as Myth theory,
though it doesn't assign a probability to a universe existing based on
how prevalently a particular myth is believed or fantasized about. 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.
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