It would probably help if you explained what the tables were actually supposed to be, rather than hoping that the reader can deduce it from the construction. Is an entry in TT(n) supposed to represent the state of some turing machine with some input after n steps?
In any case, it looks like mostly you’re using a whole lot of words to get across the idea that a program can dovetail running all possible programs.
For the “omg we’re just computer programs what if I run it” part, note that you (or anyone in this universe) aren’t actually going to run your program long enough to actually simulate anyone. Whether programs you don’t run can experience anything is an unsolved philosophical problem that people who aren’t me may want to go on about at length.
I don’t know why, but until I actually thought about what the diagonal argument means in terms of Turing machines I hadn’t seen the horrible fridge logic of ‘Even the simplest things that can exist must contain everything that can exist, and if that’s not what we are, there must be an enormous coincidence going on’.
And all you need to explain the existence of everything that can possibly interact with us is one turing machine, which doesn’t need to be infinite.
And things like the real numbers aren’t. And it doesn’t matter if we’re a simulation or not. And the concept of death is completely incoherent. And if you run a simulation of someone, it doesn’t make any difference to anything.
Is that all just so obvious that just no-one bothers mentioning it?
“There’s a short program that can run all possible programs, OMG” is a good summary. I’ll put it at the top.
It would probably help if you explained what the tables were actually supposed to be, rather than hoping that the reader can deduce it from the construction. Is an entry in TT(n) supposed to represent the state of some turing machine with some input after n steps?
In any case, it looks like mostly you’re using a whole lot of words to get across the idea that a program can dovetail running all possible programs.
For the “omg we’re just computer programs what if I run it” part, note that you (or anyone in this universe) aren’t actually going to run your program long enough to actually simulate anyone. Whether programs you don’t run can experience anything is an unsolved philosophical problem that people who aren’t me may want to go on about at length.
Khoth, yes absolutely.
I don’t know why, but until I actually thought about what the diagonal argument means in terms of Turing machines I hadn’t seen the horrible fridge logic of ‘Even the simplest things that can exist must contain everything that can exist, and if that’s not what we are, there must be an enormous coincidence going on’.
And all you need to explain the existence of everything that can possibly interact with us is one turing machine, which doesn’t need to be infinite.
And things like the real numbers aren’t. And it doesn’t matter if we’re a simulation or not. And the concept of death is completely incoherent. And if you run a simulation of someone, it doesn’t make any difference to anything.
Is that all just so obvious that just no-one bothers mentioning it?
“There’s a short program that can run all possible programs, OMG” is a good summary. I’ll put it at the top.