6 ms·
What does “encode” mean here? If it is supposed to contain the whole state in one chunk, the space of possible deterministic algorithms is too huge compared to
by chr1 6y ago
What does “encode” mean here? If it is supposed to contain the whole state in one chunk, the space of possible deterministic algorithms is too huge compared to the amount of dust, so it can't contain that. If it is supposed to find small chunks and rearrange them, it will not be using any information from the dust, and with same success encoder could use just any set of 0s and 1s. To circumvent finiteness of dust One could use digits of an irrational number or simple counting, but that is a very strange definition of existence. By that logic every possible history is just a number, so everything exists. The Important question is how to construct these numbers, find them in the sea of other meaningless numbers.
I think Stephen Wolfram's idea of computational irreducibility is very useful here.
It says that most computations (even very simple systems like some of cellular automata) cannot be replaced by other computations, and even to verify that a number represents result of a computation, one have to carry out that same computation. So the part of the book where states of the simulation are computed out of order is simply wrong, the latter state of the simulation could not have been computed without computing the intermediate states, and all the methods of computing that state were equivalent to the person living through that interval of time.
- ajconway 6y agoYou are still talking about mapping the simulation to a representation that will make sense to you. The episode that I found fascinating to think about is when a simulated character reflects on his existence: “And if the computations behind all this had been performed over millennia, by people flicking abacus beads, would he have felt exactly the same? It was outrageous to admit it-but the answer had to be yes.” It looks like the physical medium and the representation do not matter to the simulation, as long as computation occurs. Then the question is, what is computation. If you believe that all digits of Pi exist, then every possible computation should also exist. We don’t usually believe that. It seems that information in our universe cannot exist without some physical medium. The out of order computation was added to the story to make it more dramatic, the author states.
- chr1 6y ago>You are still talking about mapping the simulation to a representation that will make sense to you. I am talking about mapping that will make sense to anybody at all, be that inside or outside the simulation. If such mapping cannot be constructed, then how can we state that information about these computations exists in dust? The part about abacus is very good, but it is also very different from dust theory, since with abacus there is a process of computation, states are obtained one from another sequentially, and the positions of abacus beads are not random. In the case of dust the information about the simulation is clearly not contained in the dust, so it's unclear how dust can cause the simulation to exist. > It seems that information in our universe cannot exist without some physical medium isn't that simply due to the definition of the word exist?