UDA for Dummies

[salvialover24]

UDA 7


SL, a and b above blew my mind. Is this possibly why the universe is expanding?

Perhaps. I cannot exclude this, at this stage. Here, the "robust explanding universe" is only a manner of having a simple protocol in which we can understand that physics become secondary with respect to computer science/arithmetic.

So that more computing memory for the 'Grand Simulation' is produced? I love this idea.

Hmm... Not sure you will like what will follow then, but I don't know, and to be franc, I don't care. I don't even know if me, or swim, like the idea.

Have others discussed this idea in the scientific literature?

Tegmark, a physicist consider the case of an infinite homogenous cosmos. In that case, all events repeat infinitely in space and time (or space-time), and we have infinitely many doppelgangers, separate by *very* large distances. But Tegmark is unaware of the first person indeterminacy. he considers also other type of reason why there are many universes, including the quantum one, that Everett discovered when taking quantum mechanics to be universal, working at all scales and notably the cosmological.
My point here is that if we take the mechanist hypothesis seriously enough, then eventually "all that" has to appear or to emerge from arithmetic seen from inside. This is testable, and basically makes the quantum into the digital seen by the digital. In a sense, it leads to the fact that we can test some deep point differentiating the current Aristotelian "large paradigm" (there is a primitive physical universe and consciousness is something emerging from it), from the Platonist paradigm, closer to mystics and some eastern ontologies, but reflected in most religion, and for which the physical universe is the border, or the shadow, of something non physical (like mathematical, arithmetical, computer-science theoretical).
I guess I anticipate. Take it easy.

Kedabra (in the UDA7 thread) brought up entropy. Can entropy fit into the UD or simulation idea?

Yes. But that asks for work. We can come back on this. It is related with statistics and the laws on big numbers.

Also, in your 'The Origin of Physical Laws and Sensations' paper, you used the 'dropping of a pen' for your thought experiment. I like the idea of a dropping pen as a starting point. Maybe you could use the dropping pen for any future examples. I want to visualize the whole damn UD argument from the perspective of a dropping pen. Hell, I started this thread, so I'm giving myself some power -- and why not? I just got hit by a f'ing bus!
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/public ... ARCHAL.htm

I took the dropping pen experience, as I could have taken any experience. I see that I took the "preparing and drinking tea" experience in my post to kedabra.
I did neither attribute nor not attribute, a first person experience to the pen. That might make the thought experience *much* more complex, and I am not sure even understandable by some one having never smoke salvia.

Also, try to avoid that bus.

It will be important, for grasping step 7, to see that this applies to all experience you can do, notably in physics. That will be why physics will be reduced to number theory, in fine. But you made me again anticipate.

###################

OK. I just re-read the UDA7 thread. It was only two pages long, but it was already beyond my ability to understand it.

So this is how I would like us to continue. From now on, I would like you to describe the UD using the example of a pen dropping. I think it's a great visual. It involves a first person POV.

I hope you mean the first person POV of the guy dropping the pen, and not the one of the pen. Later if you insist we might try to formulate the problem in a language which might be comprehensible by some pen (but I am not sure you realize the enormity of that task. Keep in mind that we *assume* comp all along. It is not clear in which sense a pen can be said to be conscious by virtue of supporting some computation. The comp idea is usually enforced by a resemblance between a brain and a computer, and it is not obvious to recognize in a pen the equivalent of a brain or a computer.

It contains movement which implies an infinity of running numerical associations. I guess it's possible for the pen to turn into a flying pig before it hits the floor.

It is possible that the guy dropping the pen lived that experience, and this is actually necessary if there is a universal dovetailing in the (robust) universe (assumed in step seven). But I will explain you what is and how the UD works first, OK. Then we will drop that pen again.

Also, I want to try to embed my actual salvia experiences into the discussion. But before we delve into the dropping pen visual, maybe you can answer the questions I posed. Take your time. You don't have to answer them all at once.
Thanks...........

It is risky. Please do, but I know it is risky. Salvia is like the bible, you can interpret it in many ways, but never literally, at least when you discuss it publicly. But it is not unlike comp, and the main thing to keep in mind, is that we communicate only hypotheses. Embedding the salvia experience might also invites me to say more on this that either comp, or the salvia experience makes me feel we can really "say".
Of course, it is your thread, and my curiosity and interest might trigger me in encouraging you to do so, but expect absence of comments, and don't interpret those no-comments in any way, and remember, that unlike some of our colleagues here (grin), when the lady asks me to shut up, I do. I can say that swim remembers that "there" SWIM understand why and find that pretty obvious.
If we dig in computer science, you will see that something similar appears unavoidably for universal machines, when they look inward.
Near death experience are near inconsistency experience. Some truth becomes inconsistent by the very act of uttering them.
You are warned, Dummy burning

[salvialover24]

Hey SL. I don't want to become the questioner from hell, but I have another question.

Let's say I'm watching a pen drop. Can you explain 'comp indeterminacy' using the visual of a pen dropping?

Yes. We will do that.

Also, can you explain the term 'substitution level' using the visual of a pen dropping? This is the only way I'm going to be able to understand this stuff. I want to build a UD world that radiates from the visual of a pen dropping. I know you're busy and I don't want to bug you. To give you an idea just how UN-busy I am, I'm sitting in my Lazy Boy chair in my pajamas. No, I don't mean my chair is wearing my pajamas -- I'm wearing pajamas.
What I'm saying is: I don't have a job. This thread is my job. I WANT TO EXPERIENCE A 'AHA' MOMENT, DAMMIT! (I haven't smoked salvia in a month -- maybe I should.)

You will have to be patient. I can promise you a "AHA" moment, but I can't promise it will please you.

I have no problem with you, or your chair, in pajamas, unless this put you in some negative mood, but only you can judge that.
If you have mood problem, well it is said that salvia can provide help.

Just be patient, I am a slow guy. I am not just platonist, I am platonist- procrastinator: I tend to displace in the next life what I could do in the current life

[burningmouth]

The following might help all dummies understand levels 1-7:

The UD is basically an algorithm that executes all possible programs. It is called a dovetailer because, in order not to "crash" on infinitely executing programs (there is in theory no way to exclude such algorithms), it executes one instruction from each program in sequence then goes on to the next instruction in the next program, and so on, thus doing what a multitasking OS with a single core effectively does - simulating parallelism. Now suppose that the universe is large enough and robust enough to allow such a device to run forever. It follows that will generate all possible Turing machine states infinitely often, including all possible virtual reconstructions of yourself in all possible locally emulable environments. And since we have established (or assumed) that your mind/brain is emulable and any such emulation will in fact result in a 1-p indeterminacy as to where 'you' end up - this indeterminacy being the infinite union of all finite portions of the UD machine where you are emulated - we can see that 'you' exist within the UD as one trace through all the existing computational states of this "machine". So physics, as the science which gives correct predictions about the probabilities of entities being in particular states, can be reduced to "fundamental machine psychology", or "some measure of consistent states" from a first-person point of view.

http://clubofsc.blogspot.com/2011/08/my ... ument.html

OK. The above post puts everything in a nutshell, but I still haven't grasped enough to give me an "AHA" moment.

It would be great if the above quote could be explained in a way that I can understand.
What does the above quote mean as far as my first person perspective experience of watching a pen drop from my hand towards the floor? The dropping pen is a real experience. I would like to understand UD through a real experience. What does UD tell me about what I'm not seeing through my 1st person experience? Are my doppelgangers experiencing everything that can be experienced? Is one of my doppelgangers fishing in the River Thames using a strip of Queen Elizabeth's panties as bait? What is the process that bridges the gap between my watching a pen drop and my doppelganger fishing in the River Thames?

When I trip on salvia, that is a real experience/hallucination. During a salvia trip, the movement is fast; and there is a sense of watching many different frames of reality peeling off my visual cortex. Am I experiencing something related to UD? Is there anything about a salvia experience that connects to the UD idea?

[tushaar]

Can you put the two expression "salvialover24" and "burningmouth" in alphabetical order?

24aaeillorsvv and bghimnnortu
or
24aabeghiillmnnoorrstuvv
?

But so far...just Wow. Believe it or not, I am expanding with you....well to be honest with your help ) Just a spectator so far, but we will see

[salvialover24]

Can you put the two expression "salvialover24" and "burningmouth" in alphabetical order?

24aaeillorsvv and bghimnnortu
or
24aabeghiillmnnoorrstuvv
?

But so far...just Wow. Believe it or not, I am expanding with you....well to be honest with your help ) Just a spectator so far, but we will see

Well, actually Burning's answer was closer to what I has in mind. But of course your answer is the correct answer to a quite similar question: mainly, something like: put each of the two bags of letter {s, a, l, v, i, a, lo, o, v, e, r,, 2, 4} and {b, u, r, n, i, n, g, m, o, u, u, t, h} is alphabetical order.
(A bag is a set which can contains more than once an element).

But I was only asking to put the set of the two expressions: "salvialover24" and "burningmouth" in alphabetical order, simply.

So, the answer was

burningmouth
salvialover24

OK?

We will need this to get the way how the universal dovetailer is working. But perhaps some people are willing to accept, at least for a while, its existence. I will see. I see that burning is burning from impatience! I might need some fresh water to cool him down a little bit

[salvialover24]

The following might help all dummies understand levels 1-7:

The UD is basically an algorithm that executes all possible programs. It is called a dovetailer because, in order not to "crash" on infinitely executing programs (there is in theory no way to exclude such algorithms), it executes one instruction from each program in sequence then goes on to the next instruction in the next program, and so on, thus doing what a multitasking OS with a single core effectively does - simulating parallelism. Now suppose that the universe is large enough and robust enough to allow such a device to run forever. It follows that will generate all possible Turing machine states infinitely often, including all possible virtual reconstructions of yourself in all possible locally emulable environments. And since we have established (or assumed) that your mind/brain is emulable and any such emulation will in fact result in a 1-p indeterminacy as to where 'you' end up - this indeterminacy being the infinite union of all finite portions of the UD machine where you are emulated - we can see that 'you' exist within the UD as one trace through all the existing computational states of this "machine". So physics, as the science which gives correct predictions about the probabilities of entities being in particular states, can be reduced to "fundamental machine psychology", or "some measure of consistent states" from a first-person point of view.

http://clubofsc.blogspot.com/2011/08/my ... ument.html

OK. The above post puts everything in a nutshell, but I still haven't grasped enough to give me an "AHA" moment.

I will just ask you question to help *me* to see what you don't understand in the above quote. Which is very good, or very bad with respect to what people already intuit about computer and computationalism.

Do you know, passively or actively, what a computer is? Do you know what is a programming language? Do you know what a program is?
Do you want me to explain this, shortly, or less shortly?

It would be great if the above quote could be explained in a way that I can understand.

I will try, but normally, if you don't understand some text, there is a first sentence, or a first term, that you don't understand, so feel free to make them precise. If you have no idea of what a UD is, it is normal to get a problem of understanding.

For example do you understand the following proposition (again I assume all along computationalism). If some UD run, without stopping, then soon or later, it will run a program emulating Burnings' mind being in the state "Ah, now I will let that pen drop on the floor"?
Please don't feel ashamed to say "no". Never say "yes" in case of any remaining unclarity.

What does the above quote mean as far as my first person perspective experience of watching a pen drop from my hand towards the floor?

OK, let us do that experience. The question is "will I see the pen dropping on the floor?".

How do we answer this question today?

There is "grandmother's answer": she believes, by experience, that when object are drop, they always fall below, and if there is no obstacle between the pen and the floor, the object always drop of the floor.

There is the physicist answer: he believes that there is a physical universe, and that everything in that universe obey to some law. He believes in particular that an object of mass m (like the pen) is attracted by an object of mass M (earth) by some law (gravitation law). So he applies that law to the pen, and concur with the grandmother.

Unfortunately, we were asking "where will *I see* the pen dropping on?". This means that the question was not bearing on what some possible pen will do, but on my future first person experience. So both the grandmother explanation, and the physicist explanation were relying on some psycho-physical relation, relating my mind (or my first person experience) with my brain, and there was an implicit assumption that "my" brain is unique, and that that pen is unique, so that we can neglect the role of the mind, and use only the proper physical law.

But, only from step six, we know that the physicist (and the grandmother) answers are too quick. Indeed, if in some other galaxy, perhaps in some billions of billions of years, some histories happening there and then generates the exact same "Burning-state-with-the-pen-in his-hand", but, to make a difference, it happens there in a realist dream, with the pen transforming itself into a white rabbit (as this can happen in dream), then the correct answer should be (by UDA1-6): there is a probability 1/2 that *I will see* the pen dropping on the floor, and a probability one half that *I will see* the pen transformed into a white rabbit. The billions years delay is not relevant (by step 2 and 4). And we have to take into account all consistent continuation of the computation leading to our state. This shows that the physicists answer makes the implicit assumption that "he" is not in more examplar that one, or that most examplars of "me" are in very similar world (to explain why the pen so often drop on the floor without becoming a white rabbit, that is, why the pen obeys the usual laws).

Now, let us put a running-forever UD in the universe. In that case, we don't have to assume a far away galaxies with some dreaming burning there, as we are guarantied, by comp and that UD, that the UD will generate *all* possible "Burning-state-with-the-pen-in his-hand", and all consistent ontinuation of that state, including dreammy and salviaesque states. To get the prediction right, we have to take the full first person indterminacy into account, bearing on the whole UD execution. I might add, and that is simple to prove, that the UD not only generate all possible subjective states (assuming comp, I insist), but it does that infinitely often, so the indeterminacy bears on a large infinite domain.

So, if the physicist explanation can still work, it means that the physical laws have to be retrieved from the first person indeterminacy on all computations (run by the UD) probabilities. This reduces the physical laws to a problem of probability on computations.

Does this help you a little bit?

The dropping pen is a real experience. I would like to understand UD through a real experience. What does UD tell me about what I'm not seeing through my 1st person experience?

Seeing the pen dropping is the real experience. But with comp that experience is related to a computation, plausibly made by your brain. But also made infinitely often by the UD, so your next state is given by the first person indeterminacy.

Burning, understanding UDA1-6 is not enough. You must explicitely apply what you have learned in UDA1-6, in the step seven, where a UD is running without ever stopping.

Are my doppelgangers experiencing everything that can be experienced?

Yes. But the probabilities can be different. In fine we will have to explain why some experience are realtively rare, and other relatively frequent, and this only from the structure of the UD's computations, that is in term of relative frequences of computations.

Is one of my doppelgangers fishing in the River Thames using a strip of Queen Elizabeth's panties as bait?

Yes, except that if you are in front a pen, the chance are low that you will find yourself suddenly fishing in the River Thames. But indeed the chance are not null. All physical laws becomes probabilistic, like in QM (so QM confirms comp, here). "Confirms" is not much, note. We learn more through refutations.

What is the process that bridges the gap between my watching a pen drop and my doppelganger fishing in the River Thames?

Well, a computation. In this case, probably a dreamy absurd one. Well, we can hope.

When I trip on salvia, that is a real experience/hallucination.

OK.

During a salvia trip, the movement is fast; and there is a sense of watching many different frames of reality peeling off my visual cortex. Am I experiencing something related to UD?

If computationalism is correct, *all* your experiences are brought by the UD. It is already the case with the assumption that there is a UD running in the universe, but step 8 will eliminate that assumption. The fact that the UD is running in arithmetic will be enough. Of course, to understand that the UD, which seems dynamical, is run in arithmetic (which seems statical) will ask for some work. Arithmetic will appear to be a sort of block-mindscape (have you heard of the notion of block universe, in physics?).

Is there anything about a salvia experience that connects to the UD idea?

All experiences, the consensual mundane one, and the altered consciousness states, are connected to the UD. Actually, they are even generated, infinitely often, by the UD. Do you see this?
Then at some point we can discuss if the salvia concurs with UDA, and if the salvia "alternate reality view" is connected with the "many computations" view of comp, or with the many quantum superpositions. Yes that is interesting, but we have better to get the idea right before doing the comparison of them.

[burningmouth]

Do you know, passively or actively, what a computer is? Do you know what is a programming language? Do you know what a program is?
Do you want me to explain this, shortly, or less shortly?

I have a rough idea what those are.

Arithmetic will appear to be a sort of block-mindscape (have you heard of the notion of block universe, in physics?).

Future events are "already there", and that there is no objective flow of time. It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time.
---wikipedia

All experiences, the consensual mundane one, and the altered consciousness states, are connected to the UD. Actually, they are even generated, infinitely often, by the UD. Do you see this?

Yes.

######################

OK. I'm sitting in my Lazy Boy chair. What is UD telling me? Is it telling me that there is no material universe and that I and my chair are just products of executing numbers?
If the answer is yes, then I have no problem with that. I think if I really believed that I can be reduced to a stream of numbers, then I might be able to off-load a bunch of stress about myself and about the world around me.

(moving tangent to the topic)
There's a website that I go to which shows a map of the US with all the record high and low temperatures for the day. Lately, the record highs are outnumbering the record lows by a significant margin. If reality is just a stream of numbers, then I can tell myself, "Fuck global warming. It's all just a bunch of numbers, anyway."
Then again, what if we could manipulate the execution of the numbers in such a way as to tweak the weather so that our environment is more healthy. Maybe we will have the technology to do that in...uhh, 40 thousand years?

(back to the topic)
I think it would be cool if I could really understand this UD thing. I would love to be able to mentally visualize myself as a system of parallel burningmouths layering away into infinity. It would make things less drab and boring. And just think what it could do for my already out of control megalomania?

[salvialover24]

Do you know, passively or actively, what a computer is? Do you know what is a programming language? Do you know what a program is?
Do you want me to explain this, shortly, or less shortly?

I have a rough idea what those are.

That might be enough.

Arithmetic will appear to be a sort of block-mindscape (have you heard of the notion of block universe, in physics?).

Future events are "already there", and that there is no objective flow of time. It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time.
---wikipedia

OK.

All experiences, the consensual mundane one, and the altered consciousness states, are connected to the UD. Actually, they are even generated, infinitely often, by the UD. Do you see this?

Yes.

OK.

######################

OK. I'm sitting in my Lazy Boy chair. What is UD telling me? Is it telling me that there is no material universe and that I and my chair are just products of executing numbers?
If the answer is yes, then I have no problem with that.

Wow. OK. Then it might be that I have not so much to explain you. The point is only that point: the physical reality, together with consciousness, emerges from the relation between the numbers, and this in a sufficiently precise way as to be tested empirically. The overal picture makes the digital mechanist conception of reality closer to Plato (physics emerges from an immaterial reality), than Aristotle (the physical reality is the primitive reality that we have to assume). The point of UDA is to make this understandable by any one (including machines, and that's done in AUDA).

I knew I have not much to explain to salvianauts. But you might be also to quick in accepting this. Your remind me of a joke where a magician beginners searching for a job in a circus shown how he was able to take out of his sleeves things like rabbits, hypoppotamus, crocodile and eventually dinosaurs, but the director of the circus didn't give him the job, asserting it was all to clear that he took them out of the sleeves

I think if I really believed that I can be reduced to a stream of numbers, then I might be able to off-load a bunch of stress about myself and about the world around me.

But science, that is research is not invented with practical application in the mind. I do think that comp can help, for some existential problems, but that might only be lucky side products. I am not sure you can believe in any direct intuitive way the consequence of computationalism. Even machines have to have difficulties with this. It is somehow necessarily counter-intuitive.

More related to salvia, would be the question of the existence of intermediate reality between earth and heaven. Have you seen that comp makes us immortal, but that it makes the notion of personal identity illusory?

(moving tangent to the topic)
There's a website that I go to which shows a map of the US with all the record high and low temperatures for the day. Lately, the record highs are outnumbering the record lows by a significant margin. If reality is just a stream of numbers, then I can tell myself, "Fuck global warming. It's all just a bunch of numbers, anyway."
Then again, what if we could manipulate the execution of the numbers in such a way as to tweak the weather so that our environment is more healthy. Maybe we will have the technology to do that in...uhh, 40 thousand years?

Or we have it already, and belongs to a simulation made by our descendents, interested in seeing what happens if humans did continue to pollute the planets. But the quantum, and perhaps salvia, shows defects in their simulations. Well, with comp we belongs to infinities of simulations, at once.

(back to the topic)
I think it would be cool if I could really understand this UD thing. I would love to be able to mentally visualize myself as a system of parallel burningmouths layering away into infinity. It would make things less drab and boring. And just think what it could do for my already out of control megalomania?

It seems to me that you do have some understanding. I can explain more, but I don't want to bore you with more math and technical stuff. But if you insist, it will be with pleasure.

Yet, at some point, you must not ask for an intuitive direct understanding, as the brain, for probable Darwinian-evolution reason, cannot handle this in the intuitive way. Oh, perhaps salvia, by altering the brain, can give helps and clues for approaching this, but those clues will be hard to communicate publicly, and can work only on people having used salvia. We can try that too, if you are interested, even if it is a bit risky.

I am a bit amazed you can have megalomania (unless you were joking 'course).
It seems to me that salvia can be helpful to cure or diminish that kind of thing.
Is salvia not supposed to "kill the little ego"? is not megalomania a little ego's fate? ( )

[burningmouth]

I am a bit amazed you can have megalomania (unless you were joking 'course).
It seems to me that salvia can be helpful to cure or diminish that kind of thing.
Is salvia not supposed to "kill the little ego"? is not megalomania a little ego's fate?

I was thinking that with a few billion well placed burningmouth's, I could take over the world.


All joking aside:
If someone came up to me and told me that my body was composed of tiny atoms, it really wouldn't affect my day to day activities.

If SL24 came up to me and told me that my brain and the material world around me is generated by integers, that also would not affect my day to day activities.

So my question to SL is this:
Is there anything about my thought processes or is there anything about the structure of the world around me that can be reflected in UDA theory? In other words, is there a hint of number sequences in my experiencing of the mundane world around me? In other, other words, if we can see fractals in nature, can we see number sequences in our dreams and in our surrounding natural world?

[salvialover24]

I am a bit amazed you can have megalomania (unless you were joking 'course).
It seems to me that salvia can be helpful to cure or diminish that kind of thing.
Is salvia not supposed to "kill the little ego"? is not megalomania a little ego's fate?

I was thinking that with a few billion well placed burningmouth's, I could take over the world.

LOL

All joking aside:
If someone came up to me and told me that my body was composed of tiny atoms, it really wouldn't affect my day to day activities.

And that is very wise. I would even say "correct". Unfortunately, some people would infer things from that, like inferring that there is no afterlife. Unfortunately that is not valid. Having a body composed of tiny atoms does not solve the mind-body question per se.
But even a scientific "solution" of the mind-body problem should not affect day to day activities, if only because science does not answer such question, it only refutes old theories. The only day to day possible change is in getting more modest with respect to the deep questioning, and in the possible local technological applications. The real spiritual work needs to be supplemented by the individual, in all cases. Of course (in thsi forum), we can bet that some plant can help (or mis-help). But that's already 'technological'.

If SL24 came up to me and told me that my brain and the material world around me is generated by integers, that also would not affect my day to day activities.

Nice.

So my question to SL is this:
Is there anything about my thought processes or is there anything about the structure of the world around me that can be reflected in UDA theory? In other words, is there a hint of number sequences in my experiencing of the mundane world around me? In other, other words, if we can see fractals in nature, can we see number sequences in our dreams and in our surrounding natural world?

Yes.
But we have a brain which transforms the 'number sequences" into 'real-life movie' and diverse scenario. You don't see the number sequences, because your brain hides them, and makes chunk of them with more shapes and colors. Think about the first computers: to program them you needed to enter the data and program explicitly in term of long sequence of numbers, written in binary, or in base 16. Today you just click here or there, on pictures and texts, instead of writing very long sequence of numbers. It is the same with the brain, except it is older, and the numbers are hidden since much longer.

Unfortunately I have to go now, but I have infinitely many things to add, to be sure. perhaps it will help to dig just a little more on how a computer functions. the main teaching of computationalism, not yet really swallowed by the contemporaries, is that Plato might be more correct than Aristotle, for the possible coherent big picture. Although this should not per se change the day to day activity, it might change the mentality, and this can have important indirect consequences on *many* things in everyday life. More on this later, but feel free to elaborate your questioning. Have you grasp that the after-life question becomes more hard that in the Aristotelian picture? And this says something. Civilizations always correspond to a conception of afterlife. OK?