X-Message-Number: 8196
Subject: infinite amounts of computation
Date: Fri, 09 May 1997 11:33:58 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>

> From: Ken Stone <>
> 
> Could one of the defenders of the notion that it is somehow
> possible to create an infinite cascade of simulations please
> let me know where I can go find an affordable infinite-MB
> SIMM to run one on?

No one has made the claim that you can do an infinite amount of
computation. The universe itself is finite. The fact that a simulation
cannot conduct infinite amounts of computation thus does not mean that
it is somehow "less capable" than the universe itself.

Ettinger repeatedly claims that simulations must be able to conduct
infinite amounts of computation to be like the real universe, which of
course is silly since as I've said three times in this message, the
universe itself cannot conduct infinite amounts of computation and is
not itself infinite.

Ettinger also keeps claiming that a machine containing simulations
which contain simulations will somehow magically "slow down" or "grind
to a halt" -- as I have pointed out, not only isn't this true in
theory, but the experiment of actually running nested copies of PSIM
on a NetBSD 1.2D machine (sitting in front of me) shows that no matter
how many copies are nested, the outer machine does not increase in
load. This is, of course, to be expected, since the simulator it is
running will take the same amount of CPU time to run regardless of
what software it runs.


Perry

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