ciphergoth comments on The conscious tape - Less Wrong

11 Post author: PhilGoetz 16 September 2010 07:55PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 17 September 2010 07:58:17PM *  2 points [-]

I don't think your thought experiment is logically consistent. You're using a physical theory, namely special relativity, to discuss a case in which the theory explicitly refuses to say what happens, because it's considered unphysical within that theory.

If the computer moves at exactly the speed of light, and assuming special relativity, the time in which the computer will reach a given step of its program becomes undefined, not "never." In any physically possible case, in which the computer's speed can be arbitrarily close to c, things develop completely normally in the computer's own reference frame.

Moreover, if you observe the code of a program, it's just a string of bits (assuming a binary computer). And a string of bits can be interpreted as implementing any arbitrary program, given an arbitrary choice of the interpreter. Therefore, until an actual interpretation happens, what makes your hypothetical "hell" and "Utopia" essentially different?

Comment author: ciphergoth 18 September 2010 08:09:08AM 2 points [-]

The "speed of light" qualification was a mistake. I was just trying to get the computer out of our light cone somewhere we can never observe it.