From: Vladimir Nesov (robotact@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2008 - 11:38:59 MST
On Jan 24, 2008 7:57 PM, Matt Mahoney <matmahoney@yahoo.com> wrote:
> We could have laws of physics that allow us to make exact predictions. The
> existence of any such law would prove that the universe is not simulated.
>
By problem of induction you can't have absolute certainty even if you
have such law, so again it doesn't make a test. If degree of certainty
that your computer won't suddenly turn into a fire-breathing dragon
isn't good enough, what is?
> I mean that if there is a program on A that can simulate any program on B,
> then there is no program on B that could simulate this program on A. I could
> make a similar argument about Turing machines, replacing the number of states
> with algorithmic complexity. In either case, it means you cannot build a
> computer that could run an exact simulation of the universe (including your
> computer), unless the universe is not computable by a Turing machine.
Okay. But you say that question is if machine can simulate itself, so
it's not an arbitrary machine already.
-- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact@gmail.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:01 MDT