X-Message-Number: 8216 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #8200 - #8202 Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 21:13:55 -0700 (PDT) Hi! To Perry: Your line of argument seems odd to me. Yes, neither Ettinger nor I can PROVE that we are not simulations, or brains in vats, or even have consciousness... if by PROVE you mean prove in the mathematical sense. But then mathematics isn't the means by which we gain most of our information about the everyday world. You can no more prove the opposite: that you ARE in a simulation, or a brain in a vat. (And Mr. Clark cannot even prove ... in this sense of the world "prove" ... that he is a brain in a skull). You have presented no more or less than a game with words. Yet this game seems to mean something to you. So just what does it mean and why is it important to you? To John Clark: Given that we have a countable sequence of simulating computers, I agree that there would be no issue about (apparent) speed. HOWEVER what about the self-reference problem? After all, if I had a computer which simulated the Universe, I would be interested in what it predicted. And if it could not deal with its own prediction, everything would go haywire. Long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8216