I guess the idea is that if you approximate quantum physics with a hypothetical more simple model of atoms (might contain epicycles and magic numbers, it does not need to be theoretically elegant, just sufficiently simple to compute), some parts of the simulated organism might keep working, while other parts would fail immediately because they are more sensitive to details that in other situations can be abstracted away.
Still, in long term, the bird simulated by imprecise physics would probably die, because some other parts of their metabolism would also be sensitive to some details in a way that does not immediately have visible effects, but the smaller effects would accumulate over time. (I am just guessing here, but I imagine the symptoms would resemble radiation poisoning.)
A possible use in science fiction: the first emulated humans can live and think, but only for a few hours; trying to simulate them longer results in nausea, unlocalized pain, and finally death. Thus human emulation would not be used as a form of immortality, but rather as a way to save a “snapshot” of you, that you can later spin up an instance of, ask it to solve a problem, and delete it afterwards. A weaker version of Robin Hanson’s ems, because no instance could live long, so they couldn’t learn things or solve problems that would require more than their simulated lifetime. To get ems who are experts in new things, you would need to make new snapshots of people after they have learned it. As an economical consequence this would probably create a sharp distinction between people who spend their entire lives learning to become better and better experts to produce the best snapshots who will then do the actual work; and people who do not bother learning at all, because one could no longer get a white-collar job by being “merely good” or even “merely very good” at something, if the company can buy a snapshot of the best expert instead.
Uhm, back from science fiction… if this turns out to be true, I imagine there are two potential ways to solve it. First is to simulate the actual quantum physics, if that is feasible. Second is to keep studying human metabolism and keep adding epicycles to the simulation. For example, if the imperfect physics simulation ruins a synthesis of a certain molecule, the simulator could just magically keep injecting those molecules to the proper places in the simulated body, in proper quantities. You would probably want some kind of magic anyway, like to prevent cancer or aging, so you might as well also add magic to fix the imperfections of the simulated metabolism.
I guess the idea is that if you approximate quantum physics with a hypothetical more simple model of atoms (might contain epicycles and magic numbers, it does not need to be theoretically elegant, just sufficiently simple to compute), some parts of the simulated organism might keep working, while other parts would fail immediately because they are more sensitive to details that in other situations can be abstracted away.
Still, in long term, the bird simulated by imprecise physics would probably die, because some other parts of their metabolism would also be sensitive to some details in a way that does not immediately have visible effects, but the smaller effects would accumulate over time. (I am just guessing here, but I imagine the symptoms would resemble radiation poisoning.)
A possible use in science fiction: the first emulated humans can live and think, but only for a few hours; trying to simulate them longer results in nausea, unlocalized pain, and finally death. Thus human emulation would not be used as a form of immortality, but rather as a way to save a “snapshot” of you, that you can later spin up an instance of, ask it to solve a problem, and delete it afterwards. A weaker version of Robin Hanson’s ems, because no instance could live long, so they couldn’t learn things or solve problems that would require more than their simulated lifetime. To get ems who are experts in new things, you would need to make new snapshots of people after they have learned it. As an economical consequence this would probably create a sharp distinction between people who spend their entire lives learning to become better and better experts to produce the best snapshots who will then do the actual work; and people who do not bother learning at all, because one could no longer get a white-collar job by being “merely good” or even “merely very good” at something, if the company can buy a snapshot of the best expert instead.
Uhm, back from science fiction… if this turns out to be true, I imagine there are two potential ways to solve it. First is to simulate the actual quantum physics, if that is feasible. Second is to keep studying human metabolism and keep adding epicycles to the simulation. For example, if the imperfect physics simulation ruins a synthesis of a certain molecule, the simulator could just magically keep injecting those molecules to the proper places in the simulated body, in proper quantities. You would probably want some kind of magic anyway, like to prevent cancer or aging, so you might as well also add magic to fix the imperfections of the simulated metabolism.