From: Max M (maxmcorp@worldonline.dk)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 07:04:49 MST
Anders Sandberg wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 09:14:58AM +0100, Max M wrote:
>
>>Well this has been obvious for me for a long time. But what freaked me
>>out a bit, is that it is not the flesh that has conscience but the
>>'calculations' that is done in the flesh. And the flesh is only the
>>interface that allows us to experience the world.
>
> Ah, you have become a functionalist! Welcome to our camp! :-)
No. Well actually I have been a functionalist as long as I can remember.
What happened was more of a Eureka moment, where everything clicked, and
the idea became second nature. You know, when you become totally
comfortable with it. Not just being intellectually aware of it.
The idea that you can create a universe by writing with a pen on paper,
following a simple set of rules, and that intelligence and life could
exists in that universe. Furthermore, if we did not make some kind of
interface to this universe, it would have no way of knowing that we
existed. Eerie.
But if we believe that uploading is possible, this is a logical conclusion.
> But can you get information without matter? The more I have studied
> information physics, the more information seems to be physical - it is
> not something that floats around on its own, but something that has to
> be encoded/implemented in matter of some kind to remain.
I will agree if you have a very wide definition of matter :-)
>>So the amusing thing is that, given enough time, it should be possible
>>to run a program with a pencil, on a piece paper, that has intelligence
>>and conscience. If you stop writing the life ends and you kill your
>>'creature'.
>
> Or rather, it is indefinitely suspended. A bit like placed in stasis.
Well until that paper, and thus the state of the life, decomposed.
> I saw a paper suggesting that the spontaneous creation of computer
> viruses was not as small as commonly believed; with computers with
> crashing code and memory overwrites simple viruses could presumably
> develop on their own and start propagating. Not the likeliest occurence,
> but once it happened it would spread. Cyberspace is on the other hand
> already crammed with replicators, so it would probably be out-competed.
We must make an AGreenpeace immediately! All that Linux stuff that
doesn't crash is destroyng the virtual ecosystem! It must be stopped. I
am once again a Windows man!
> The step towards thinking is another thing. Again, there is too much
> "pollution" from outside sources to make it visible if it exists. Maybe
> one should start a SDI project: the Search for Digital Intelligence.
> SDI@Home to analyse net traffic?
There is defenitly a few complexity bumps along the way towards
intelligence.
First level is process. (Which is what happens i Conways 'life'.)
Then there is life.
Then there is intelligence.
I certainly didn't mean that we could create a "universe on paper" from
any set of rules. It would still have to be a very complex programme.
But ask Eliezer about that ;-)
-- hilsen/regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark http://www.futureport.dk/ Fremtiden, videnskab, skeptiscisme og transhumanisme
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