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A while ago I wrote up my own take, inspired largely by Permutation City but also by Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis: https://blog.domenic.me/mathema

A while ago I wrote up my own take, inspired largely by Permutation City but also by Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis: https://blog.domenic.me/mathematical-consciousness/ https://blog.domenic.me/mathematical-consciousness/ To me this line of thinking is very attractive. As someone who has been a mathematical Platonist forever, this gives a very satisfying answer to big questions like "why is there something instead of nothing" and "why is our universe so perfectly described by mathematics".

GeekyBear 6y ago
> Permutation City I haven't read that book since the early 90's but it dealt with ideas that have really stuck in my mind.
- croissants 6y ago
  The main detail I remember from that book is that credit card companies would track whoever you dined with at a restaurant and then serve you ads featuring computer-generated people who resembled those people to manipulate you into trust. Pretty ahead of its time for 1994!
  - GeekyBear 6y ago
    At the time, using computational chemistry to simulate an entire living, evolving life form was just a mind blowing idea.
JanSt 6y ago
> Let’s consider what this simulation really is: a program, which generates a series of (very long) numbers. Each number represents the state of the computer’s memory at that point in the simulation. A projection like that seems very likely to break consciousness. Writing down the state of a computer onto a paper does not allow the paper to continue the computation.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Our universe isn't perfectly described by mathematics. Parts of our universe can be described by mathematics on limited timescales while also assuming inherent randomness. Math can't even predict the fate of the solar system out to infinity. Planetary systems aren't unconditionally stable, and the effects of limited precision - presumably relevant to any hypothesis of computability - make very long term predictions not just unreliable, but impossible. This pretty much kills Tegmark's thought experiment, which is in any case a perfect example of begging the question - in spite of the increasing improbability of the examples. Platonists need to explain if they believe that consciousness is possible on clockwork hardware. If Platonists actually believe that, they may as well dismiss everything that's happened in science since the days of Newton, because that's a very extraordinary claim with absolutely no evidence to support it.

GeekyBear 6y ago

> Permutation City I haven't read that book since the early 90's but it dealt with ideas that have really stuck in my mind.

croissants 6y ago
The main detail I remember from that book is that credit card companies would track whoever you dined with at a restaurant and then serve you ads featuring computer-generated people who resembled those people to manipulate you into trust. Pretty ahead of its time for 1994!
- GeekyBear 6y ago
  At the time, using computational chemistry to simulate an entire living, evolving life form was just a mind blowing idea.

JanSt 6y ago

> Let’s consider what this simulation really is: a program, which generates a series of (very long) numbers. Each number represents the state of the computer’s memory at that point in the simulation. A projection like that seems very likely to break consciousness. Writing down the state of a computer onto a paper does not allow the paper to continue the computation.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Our universe isn't perfectly described by mathematics. Parts of our universe can be described by mathematics on limited timescales while also assuming inherent randomness. Math can't even predict the fate of the solar system out to infinity. Planetary systems aren't unconditionally stable, and the effects of limited precision - presumably relevant to any hypothesis of computability - make very long term predictions not just unreliable, but impossible. This pretty much kills Tegmark's thought experiment, which is in any case a perfect example of begging the question - in spite of the increasing improbability of the examples. Platonists need to explain if they believe that consciousness is possible on clockwork hardware. If Platonists actually believe that, they may as well dismiss everything that's happened in science since the days of Newton, because that's a very extraordinary claim with absolutely no evidence to support it.