Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!nagle
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: When is a simulation of a Y a Y? (Was Bag the Turing
Message-ID: <nagleD1HDC1.J3x@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <3cvc9r$1q4@newsbf02.news-fddi.aol.com> <HPM.94Dec23013949@cart.frc.ri.cmu.edu> <3dmu38$g13@tadpole.fc.hp.com> <1994Dec27.020221.21588@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 17:45:37 GMT
Lines: 13

minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>You seem to have fallen prey to the current epidemic of belief in
>causal powers.  What you're missing is appreciating the vacuity of
>expressions like "fundamentally cause and effectly real". What
>conceivable experiment or argument could possibly enable you to
>determine whether you're in (1) a fundamentally cause and effectly
>real world, (2) a simulated world, (2*) <an arbitrary number of nested
>such simulations), or (3) an abstract monogenic formal system?
>Answer: none.

      The effects of system errors are different for each case.

						John Nagle
