= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
UnholySmoke comments on Timeless Causality - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (63)
Wait a second, this doesn't make sense. If the universe is timeless, then you don't have to actually simulate the universe on a computer. You can just create a detailed model of the universe, put in the neccesery causality structure, stick it in the RAM, and voila! you have conscious beings living out their lives in a universe. You don't even have to put it in the RAM, you can just write out symbols on a piece of paper! Or can this impeccable line of reasoning be invalidated by experimental evidence?
18 months too late, but http://xkcd.com/505/
By Eliezer's line of reasoning above - that the subjective experience is in the causal change between one state and the 'next' then yes, symbols are as good a substrate as any. FWIW, this is how I see things too.
4 years too late but... this is missing the point of both Eliezer and IL. Eliezer/Barbour's timeless physics has no changing state over time, because there is no time. Both states exist in a timeless configuration space, and the causal connection between them is only inferred. IL is trying to illustrate this leads to some pretty rediculous conclusions - such as that all you have to do is write down the states on a piece of paper, and then viola - you have created conscious beings even though no computation is actually going on.
EDIT: For what it's worth I think the Barbour's physics is a mysterious answer that doesn't actually dissolve any of the questions it purports to solve..