X-Message-Number: 8143
Subject: CRYONICS Re: CryoNet #8137 - #8141 
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 13:38:44 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>

> From: 
> Subject: CRYONICS typewriter in the sky

Ugh, not again.

> In a previous post I mentioned one of the less obvious problems with a
> simulated world full of sumulated people. The problem: how could a simulated
> scientist do an experiment?

Mr. Ettinger, I will point out that the entire simulated universe
thing is a CANARD. It doesn't matter.

> Obviously, he could only do a simulated experiment,

He could do an experiment that would seem simulated to us, but real to
him. Big deal. The laws of physics he would experience would be the
laws of physics of the simulation. We get to pick what those laws
are. Whether those laws are identical to the ones in our universe is
mostly a matter of choice -- we could put our simulated physicist into
a seventeen dimensional world with loads of entirely new forces if we
wish. So what? None of this proves anything about the nature of
simulations.

By the way, as I've mentioned, I could anesthetise you, remove your
brain, put it on life support, and attach it to a virtual reality
system. You would then be in the same position as the electronic
scientist in the simulated world.

Both "naturally" biological and synthetic intelligent creatures may be
attached to virtual reality systems. Again, this proves nothing about
the nature of intelligence. All it proves is the old cartesian saw
that your only knowledge of the outside universe is based on that
information which your senses provide you with, and that sense data
might or might not have a bearing on "reality", whatever it may be.

> I have also briefly mentioned another problem, viz., that a simulated world
> is not isolated; it necessarily (in principle) permits some degree of two-way
> communication between the simulated world and the original.

How do you know you aren't in a simulated world right now? Maybe
"prayer" is the way for you to reach "the programmer". Who knows? More
importantly -- WHO CARES?

> But the creators would also have to deny to the simulated people
> any propensity to create their own simulations, since any attempt to do so
> would quickly produce a cascade overloading the original computer.

That in no way follows at all. Where would you get such a crazy
notion?

A certain company from Armonk called "IBM" still will happily sell you
an operating system called VM that simulates multiple IBM mainframes,
and inside of each of those simulated mainframes you may run another
copy of VM if you wish, and on those machines you could run another
IBM operating system like "MVS" or run Yet Another copy of "VM" if you
wished.

Some friends of mine are right now working on debugging a port of an
operating system called NetBSD to the PowerPC chip set. In order to
make this easier, they are using a program called "psim", which
simulates a PowerPC machine on another machine (it can run on PowerPC
machines, or i386 machines, or any other sort of machine -- even one
with more physical memory than the machine you are using, if you
wish). There is no reason why one could not run another copy of psim
on the copy of NetBSD running on the psim simulated machine.

Now, one might ask "is the psim simulated machine simulating the
running of NetBSD or is it really running NetBSD", but frankly, who
gives a damn?

> ...Again, none of this particular line of thought speaks to the possibility
> of simulations "being people," but I think it does suggest the
> impossibility--even in principle--of creating simulated worlds with combined
> high fidelity, large spatial extent, and long duration.

No, your arguments in no way argue for any of those things at
all. The only point you've made, which is fairly accurate, is that the
simulated universe follows a set of laws of phyisics devised by those
creating the simulation, and that if the creators do not know enough
about "real world" physics they cannot simulate it perfectly. However,
this is no big deal, and in my opinion, obvious rather than
interesting. It in no way prevents creating a simulated world which is
detailed enough that a "biological" Robert Ettinger would in no way be
able to determine, based on experimentation, whether or not he was in
a "real world", for the duration of his "lifetime".

Perry

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8143