Baughn comments on For FAI: Is "Molecular Nanotechnology" putting our best foot forward? - Less Wrong

48 Post author: leplen 22 June 2013 04:44AM

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Comment author: loup-vaillant 25 June 2013 04:19:19PM 0 points [-]

Here's my guess:

  • "Continuous" is a reference to the wave function as described by current laws of physics.
  • Eliezer is "infinite set atheist", which among other things rule out the possibility of an actually continuous fabric of the universe.
Comment author: Baughn 28 June 2013 05:02:12PM 2 points [-]

As I've already pointed out to another infinite set atheist, you could get the appearance of a continuous wavefunction without actually requiring infinite computing power to simulate it. All you need to do is make the simulation lazy - add more trailing digits in a just-in-time fashion.

Whether or not that counts as complicating the rules for the purpose of solomonoff induction is.. hard to say.

Comment author: loup-vaillant 28 June 2013 06:00:39PM 0 points [-]

Furthermore, a "continuous" function could very well contain a finite amount of information, provided it's frequency range is limited. But then, it wouldn't be "actually" continuous.

I just didn't want to complicate things by mentioning Shannon.