From: Dirk Bruere (dirk.bruere@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 07 2006 - 12:05:17 MST
I'm rather fond of the Simulation Argument (SA) not least because it seems
the only hypothesis that neatly resolves the Fermi Paradox. However, there
is inevitably a question as to what this Sim is all about. So, allow me to
make a suggestion, and I would be pleased if someone could point me to
previous such discussion.
Given the SA then the Singularity has for all intents and purposes come and
gone, somewhere, and we did not preceed it.
This is something of a very brief condensation of my writings elsewhere, but
essentially this Sim is a *dream* or an act of memory retrieval. In our own
dreams we simulate realities quite convincingly most of the time, and people
them with entities often quite capable of passing the Turing Test. Not bad
for a kilo of wetware. Also, our acts of memory are often de facto
simulations. For example, a question of "what did you do last Thursday" will
elicit in most people a brief re-run of the events leading up to and into
Thursday as a method of retrieval. In addition, we often 'fill in' our
memories with plausible fabrications presumably as a data compression or
space saving device. Apart from that we have various daydreams and 'what-if'
scenarios we habitually play out. Indeed, one might argue that the hallmark
of intelligence is such scenarios.
Anyway, if this is what's happening it does suggest that the Being who is
doing all this has certain likely features. These are:
a) It uses data compression and/or is running a maximally efficient
reversible computing algorithm.
b) It may be using a QC-like structure to simulate what-ifs as proliferating
branches.
c) A Jupiter brain has an inevitably fragmented personality given lightspeed
restrictions.
d) It's recalling the events leading up to a Human created Singularity, and
filling in the gaps. We are here because of the historical record.
e) The Singularity (from our POV) is the end of the process.
There are a few other implications, but these are presumably off-topic for
this list.
Dirk
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