Pentashagon comments on L-zombies! (L-zombies?) - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Benja 07 February 2014 06:30PM

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Comment author: Pentashagon 09 February 2014 06:23:32AM 0 points [-]

Consider a Turing Machine whose input is the encoded state of the world as a binary integer, S, of maximum value 2^N-1, and which seeks SN positions into its binary tape and outputs the next N bits from the tape. Does that Turing Machine cause the same experience as an equivalent Turing Machine that simulates 10 seconds of the laws of physics for the world state S and outputs the resulting world state? I posit that the former TM actually causes no experience at all when run, despite the equivalence. So there probably exist l-zombies that would act as if they have experience when they are run but are *wrong.

Your last paragraph brings up an interesting question. I assumed that transitions between l-zombie and person are one-way. Once run, how do you un-run something? It seems to imply that you could construct a TM that is and is not an l-zombie.