X-Message-Number: 8148
Subject: CRYONICS more comments from Ettinger
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 09:54:01 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>

> From: 
> Subject: CRYONICS sim sim etc
> 
> Metzger (#8143) again makes several egregious errors.

No, Mr. Ettinger, disagreeing with you does not automatically make a
statement an "egregious error"

> 1. He says a simulated physicist in a simulated world (the
> situation in question) could experience any laws of physics the
> programmer chooses, e.g. more dimensions and new forces. 
> 
> Obviously, this would not be a simulation at all, but just a new
> type of virtual world, something very different.

You are playing silly semantic games again. Where I come from, a
"simulation" is not necessarily of the real world. For example, many
meteorologists "simulate" the weather on hypothetical earths. Since
those worlds don't exist, I suppose you'll be going off and shouting
at them for misnaming their work, eh?

> The whole underlying premise of the general discussion relates to
> the possibility of real people, and particular people, carrying on
> their lives as simulations. You can't do this in a "world" that has
> different laws or different geometries etc.

Of course you could. I could attach your brain, your real live
biological brain, to a virtual reality system simulating a world that
wasn't quite identical to the one we live in and you could probably
happily carry out your life within -- you might never even notice the
difference.

In fact, how can you prove that this hasn't already happened?

> 2. He says "WHO CARES" whether, if you are in a simulated world,
> you might be able to reach the "programmer" by "prayer." Obviously,
> if we think it very long odds that our world is simulated, we may
> not be interested in "praying" to a hypothetical programmer. But if
> we think the possibility appreciable, we OUGHT to care very much
> indeed.

I invite you to go off and pray to the Great Programmer, then.

> And what are the odds that we are living in a simulation? I suggest
> that, if such a simulation is feasible at all, and if simulated
> worlds exist, then simulated worlds probably outnumber "real"
> worlds by some enormous factor. From this point of view, one might
> argue that we PROBABLY are living in a simulation.

So? Who cares?

> 3. He denies the simulation overload problem. Of course you can
> have computer simulations within simulations, and you can run a
> simulation of one computer on another computer; but if you have
> just one, finite set of hardware (the "original" or "real" world),
> and if simulated worlds breed sub-simulations (all a bit different)
> ad infinitum, then the system will soon, for all practical
> purposes, grind to a halt, if it doesn't crash altogether.

Your ignorance of simulations is showing.

A simulated computer in that universe is going to be pretty much like
any other simulated object. My simulator isn't going to care what its
simulating. You are attributing magical properties to computers.

By the way, Mr. Ettinger -- computers don't "crash" by accident --
only, usually, if their software is buggy. You've been watching too
many cheap science fiction movies. Next you'll be envisioning the
simulation machine puffing out smoke when it becomes overloaded, or
something equally silly.

> 4. He says that, even though our limited knowledge of natural law
> may prevent a perfect simulation, that still allows a sufficiently
> detailed simulation of a person. This is mere conjecture. How can
> anyone know all the possible effects of mistakes in simulation?

I'm pretty sure that any effects in physics that require light years
to be noticed, like Einstein's cosmological constant flub, are
unlikely to be sufficiently potent on the scale of neurons to be
noticeable.

Anything thats a second order effect or less is unlikely to be
particularly important.

Indeed, thus far, we haven't encountered any effects in neuroanatomy
or neurochemistry that can't be explained by perfectly conventional
physics. I doubt any are going to show up, either. From the point of
view of the chemist or biochemist, physics is pretty much "finished"
at this point. I think its been something like fourty years since
something out of line with very humdrum quantum theory of electron
orbitals showed up in chemistry.

> 5. He says a simulated person, in his "lifetime," could not
> determine from experiment whether he was in the "real world."
> 
> First, if "prayer" is a possibility, this is one way in which he
> might indeed find the answer.

I have stunning news for you, Mr. Ettinger: last week, I anesthetized
you, removed your brain, put it on life support, and attached all your
motor and sensory neurons in to a sophisticated virtual reality
system.

If you don't believe me, prove that I'm wrong.

> Second, his use of the word "lifetime" disregards certain
> possibilities; it seems to imply a limit on the simulated person's
> available "time."

The universe itself is finite, Mr. Ettinger.

> But the simulated people could presumably do what we could do,
> including creating faster computers and subsimulations, which could
> make discoveries and perform "experiments" at prodigious rates.

Big deal.


Perry

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