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johnlawrenceaspden comments on Truth Tables - Less Wrong Discussion

-7 Post author: johnlawrenceaspden 12 December 2013 10:16PM

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Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 16 December 2013 07:25:36PM *  0 points [-]

is there some subtle point here that I'm missing?

I don't think so. You're saying 'Library of Babel' to my 'Simple Process that Computes Everything'. And obviously there's a continuum between them which includes 'a program to print out all the integers'

But I get a much stronger emotional reaction to a computation that's actually being performed than to a record of one having been performed.

It feels like the difference is something to do with swapping space and time is important.

So now I think: What about a 1-d turing-equivalent cellular automaton running that SPCE program? Where every new row appears below the previous row, so that you can look at it either as a flat piece of paper where consciousnesses exist, or as a process in which consciousnesses exist.

But yes, I think the entire content of my post is something like OMGintegerswoo!? And even after admitting that, I still find the idea of these tables mind-blowing in an ontologically-reassuring sort of way.

I think people really care about the distinction between 'results' and 'computation'.