NYT: We're living in a PostHuman Simulation

[Stephen Guerin]

"it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else's
computer simulation." - Nick Bostrom, Oxford
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ex=1187755200&en=258a5f406
ca9d607&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Damn, them Posthumans! They're not allocating me sufficient CPU and memory!

-S

--- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
Stephen.Guerin at Redfish.com
www.Redfish.com
624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
mobile: [phone]
office: Santa Fe, NM [phone] / London, UK [phone]

[Marko Rodriguez]

Speaking of Greg Egan. I recommend the Greg Egan book entitled  
"Permutation City". Its all about allocating clock cycles to the rich  
and not to the poor! :) Subjectively, having few clock cycles doesn't  
alter your experience, but objectively, you are running alot slower  
relative to others. The time it takes a poor person to walk across  
the street, 1000 earth years might have passed.

Really cool book.

Marko.

On Aug 14, 2007, at 11:18 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

> "it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in  
> someone else's
> computer simulation." - Nick Bostrom, Oxford
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?
> ex=1187755200&en=258a5f406
> ca9d607&ei=5070&emc=eta1
>
> Damn, them Posthumans! They're not allocating me sufficient CPU and  
> memory!
>
> -S
>
> --- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
> Stephen.Guerin at Redfish.com
> www.Redfish.com
> 624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
> mobile: [phone]
> office: Santa Fe, NM [phone] / London, UK [phone]
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Marko A. Rodriguez
Los Alamos National Laboratory (P362-proto)
Los Alamos, NM 87545
Phone [phone]
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~okram


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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Stephen Guerin wrote:
> Damn, them Posthumans! They're not allocating me sufficient CPU and memory!
>  
To me, a fascinating aspect of such a future is what it means for the
individual.   To have the only expression of a super identity to be
through the complexities of coordinated action, keeping in mind that
much of the action may be carried out by automation having a degree of
intelligence itself.    Will it be feasible to discriminate a
corporation of true super identities (e.g. humans) in a virtual world
(e.g. General Electric)  from one that is engineered by one super
identity?   If not, does this benefit the existing power structures, or
charlatans, or is it the meek  inheriting the (virtual) earth?    [meek
person:  the imaginative individual that can modulate the expression of
her ego]

[jpgirard]

Just last night I was flipping through channels and the local "Christian"
channel
had an infomercial/debate with this guy
(http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml)
using the "anthropic principle" to talk about how the
universe was designed for life, and of course using that to hypothesize a
Christian God.

I thought he had the anthropic principle wrong or otherwise backwards, but
turned out I was
thinking of the "weak" anthropic principle (ie: observation is a selection
mechanism in itself, as we must find ourselves in some epoch and location
that fulfills the constraints of our existence) while he was
emphasizing the "strong" anthropic principle (ie: what are the odds that the
physical constants for
various key forces are what they are in the universe?  It must have been
designed for life/us)

Found that difference this morning, by reading the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Where halfway down it gives several possibilities for our universe:

A - The absurd universe - It just happens to be that way.
B - The unique universe - There is a deep underlying unity in physics which
necessitates the universe being this way. Some 'Theory of Everything' will
explain why the various features of the Universe must have exactly the
values that we see.
C - The multiverse - Multiple Universes exist which have all possible
combinations of characteristics, and we naturally find ourselves within the
one that supports our existence.
D - Intelligent Design - An intelligent Creator designed the Universe
specifically to support complexity and the emergence of Intelligence.
E - The life principle - There is an underlying principle that constrains
the universe to evolve towards life and mind.
F - The self-explaining universe - A closed explanatory or causal loop:
'perhaps only universes with a capacity for consciousness can exist'.
G - The fake universe - We are living in a virtual reality simulation.

So anyway, note entry G.
What are the odds I would be reading that this morning?
Did I just generate a warning message in the simulation? ;)

-jimG

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com]On
> Behalf Of Stephen Guerin
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 11:18 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] NYT: We're living in a PostHuman Simulation
>
>
> "it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in
> someone else's
> computer simulation." - Nick Bostrom, Oxford
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ex=118775520

0&en=258a5f406
ca9d607&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Damn, them Posthumans! They're not allocating me sufficient CPU and memory!

-S

--- -. .   ..-. .. ... ....   - .-- ---   ..-. .. ... ....
Stephen.Guerin at Redfish.com
www.Redfish.com
624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
mobile: [phone]
office: Santa Fe, NM [phone] / London, UK [phone]


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org