From: Bradley Thomas (brad36@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Dec 03 2009 - 19:07:33 MST
>There wouldn't be a problem if the programs were an inputless virtual
environment with conscious inhabitants. You could run it on any general
purpose computer with enough time and memory and the result would be just
the same, independent of the actual hardware. If you are living in such a
virtual reality now there is no way you could know anything about the
details of the hardware you are running on, or notice any change if the
hardware is changed.
I can somewhat agree with all that but this uses a notion of identity that
is purely based on introspection. Surely any useful idea of identity enables
an external observer to find sameness/equivalence. If I imagine another
universe that is running just like ours, only its been going faster so we're
all older in that universe, I still find it hard to say there's any useful
notion of equivalence between the two universes *except* inasmuch as one
predicts the future of the other.
Brad Thomas
www.bradleythomas.com
Twitter @bradleymthomas, @instansa
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org] On Behalf Of Stathis
Papaioannou
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 6:54 AM
To: sl4@sl4.org
Subject: Re: [sl4] Uploading (was : goals of AI)
2009/12/3 Bradley Thomas <brad36@gmail.com>:
> The example of the Universe you give is interesting but I don't think
> it is analagous because by definition the Universe is not dependent on
> its environment. Every conscioussnes that we can conceive of, is. Even
> if we stretch our definition of consciousness to include these systems
> without input, no real system is immune to the effects of the
> environment... E.g. cosmic rays, quantum effects etc. There are going
> to be perturbations.
>
> But lets even assume that we can somehow prevent that (with shielding
> for example). You're saying that it is ok they run at different
> speeds. But if we have two essentially identical intelligent agents,
> lets call them Forex Trading Black Boxes A and B, similar in every way
> except that B is ever-so-slightly faster, clearly B has an advantage.
>
> Even if we assume that these two programs can eternally run the exact
> same code-sequence, they still differ in their respective performance.
> This is why again I make the point that I don't think it makes sense
> to say the identity resides purely in the code. The physical
> implementation makes a difference. To outside observers, these
> implementations display different behaviour. These agents have
> different personalities. If my brain ran at double speed, people would
> notice the difference. I'd be some kind of superhero or at least I
> would drive my wife nuts twice as often.
There wouldn't be a problem if the programs were an inputless virtual
environment with conscious inhabitants. You could run it on any general
purpose computer with enough time and memory and the result would be just
the same, independent of the actual hardware. If you are living in such a
virtual reality now there is no way you could know anything about the
details of the hardware you are running on, or notice any change if the
hardware is changed.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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