From: Phil Goetz (philgoetz@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Aug 26 2005 - 18:55:37 MDT
> Rather, what kind of virtual world could be built to ethically
> contain a
> sentient being, so that it could be evaluated prior to releasing it?
> Its interactions with the inhabitants of the virtual world could be
> of
> help in determining how friendly it is.
> Mike
And are we in one already?
I think it's interesting that, were one to build a simulation of
a universe, it would be impossible to use Newtonian physics.
First, you'd have roundoff errors for objects moving at
very high speeds - but implementing relativity theory
could solve that problem.
Then, you'd be unable to implement physical interactions
to the infinitely-fine level of resolution required by
Newtonian physics. So you would probably choose some very fine
level of resolution, and say that for interactions at that
resolution or less, instead of simulating them completely,
you'd use a probabilistic approximation.
:)
- Phil Goetz
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