From: Thomas McCabe (pphysics141@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 30 2008 - 20:43:28 MST
On Jan 30, 2008 5:10 PM, Peter de Blanc <peter@spaceandgames.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 16:02 -0500, Thomas McCabe wrote:
> > People running the simulation? As in, intelligent thinkers? That's a
> > heck of a lot more complicated, and therefore much more unlikely, than
> > assuming the simulation is governed by a simple set of Turing-style
> > computational rules.
>
> Scenario 1: Simple Laws of physics produce intelligent beings via
> natural selection.
>
> Scenario 2: Simple Laws of physics produce intelligent beings via
> evolution, [who build more intelligent beings] who run simulations of
> other intelligent beings.
>
> Both scenarios are governed by a simple set of Turing-style
> computational rules.
>
>
How simple? 10 bits? 100 bits? 1000 bits? I have no idea what the
Kolmogorov complexity of intelligent life in general is. For large
enough selection pressures to produce general intelligence, you need
(http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/no-evolution-fo.html):
* Entities that replicate
* Substantial variation in their characteristics
* Substantial variation in their reproduction
* Persistent correlation between the characteristics and reproduction
* High-fidelity long-range heritability in characteristics
* Frequent birth of a significant fraction of the breeding population
* And all this remains true through many iterations
This seems to require significant complexity. And out of all general
intelligences, how many will run massive, high-fidelity universe
simulations? How many of those will be shut down when the atoms
rearrange themselves into Singularity-patterns, rather than
pre-Singularity patterns? How many of those will be shut down when the
atoms remain in pre-Singularity patterns?
Yes, these are very difficult questions to answer precisely. I can't
answer them myself. Giving a rigorous mathematical proof/disproof of
God's existence seems to be very difficult, no matter how you go about
it; if it were easy someone would have done it already. Be aware that,
by general societal standards, you are proposing a new religion here.
And a solution to the First Cause problem.
In the meantime, the planet continues on its steady progression
towards nuclear war/nanotech war/AI paperclipping/supervirus
plague/etc. I'll keep working on that, with whatever resources I have.
Historically, most of the attempts to discuss stuff like this have
become quagmires, no matter how intelligent the participants were.
- Tom
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