If we believe that our conscious experience is a computation, and we hold a universal prior which basically says that the multiverse consists of all Turing machines, being run in such a fashion that the more complex ones are less likely, it seems to be very suggestive for anthropics.
I visualize an array of all Turing machines, either with the simpler ones duplicated (which requires an infinite number of every finite-length machine, since there are twice as many of each machine of length n as of each machine of length n+1), or the more complex ones getting...
I think what matters is whether they're concurrent—which it sounds like they are. Basically, whether they're more or less simultaneous and independent. If you were emulating a brain on a computer, they could all be on one CPU, or on different ones, and I don't think anyone would suggest that the em on the single CPU should get a different CEV than an identical one on multiple CPUs.
Where do the model-based system's terminal goals come from?
Today, the many spinoffs of physics in general can lend support to branches that haven't produced spinoffs yet. But what about the first developments in physics? How soon after Newton's laws were published did anyone use them for anything practical? Or how long did it take for early results in electromagnetics (say, the Coulomb attraction law) to produce anything beyond parlor tricks? I don't know the answers here, and if there were highly successful mathematical engineers right on Newton's heels, I'd be fascinated to hear about it, but there very well may... (read more)