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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: When is a simulation of a Y a Y? (Was Bag the Turing
Message-ID: <1994Dec27.020221.21588@news.media.mit.edu>
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References: <3cvc9r$1q4@newsbf02.news-fddi.aol.com> <HPM.94Dec23013949@cart.frc.ri.cmu.edu> <3dmu38$g13@tadpole.fc.hp.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 02:02:21 GMT
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In article <3dmu38$g13@tadpole.fc.hp.com> allsop@fc.hp.com writes:
>
>Hans said:
>
>> The position also suggests that the totality of my physical reality
>> and my experiences in it can be fully explained as the product of a
>> schema of abstractions (some of which we call physical law and try
>> to express in formulae and simulations).  And if that is so, there
>> is no need to postulate any other kind of existence.  Everything
>> there is, is an abstract schema (and nothing more).  What could be
>> simpler?
>
>	But how can any "schema of abstraction" exist without being
>implemented or instantiated in or on some fundamental cause and effect
>phenomenon?  Though mathematics is theoretically or abstractly real it
>isn't physically real unless instantiated on or in something that is
>fundamentally cause and effectly real.  What am I missing?  How can
>something be a "product of a schema of abstraction" without the
>abstraction being implemented on something?
>
>	Brent Allsop

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.

However, I can relieve you of your anxiety about this, for the usual
charge, or tithe -- namely 10% of your income.  For this small
consideration, I will reassure you that the undetectable substrate of
actuality does indeed exist.


