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AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

Anton Vredegoor anton at vredegoor.doge.nl
Tue Oct 28 09:49:04 EST 2003 
mis6 at pitt.edu (Michele Simionato) wrote:

>A good rule of the thumb is "never believe anything you read and you don't
>understand". Sometimes, you should not believe even what you think you
>understand ...

In Scientific American (I think it was the may 2003 issue) I read
something about parallel universes. One idea goes like this (adapted
to make it fit my brain).

Suppose you're sitting in a chair in the middle of a virtual 2X2X2
cube. Next imagine a cube filled with protons (or some even smaller
particles) as tightly as possible. The difference between this cube
and the cube you are sitting in is that in your cube some of the
protons are absent. The cubes could possibly be represented by Python
long integers [1], where the full cube would be a long with all bits
set to one and different cubes would have some zero bits at
corresponding positions.

There can not be more different cubes than 2**(number of protons per
cube) so in an infinite universe (or even in a big enough universe) at
some distance from you a cube identical to the one you are occupying
would exist, or else one would need a very good reason why the cube
you are occupying is unique.

Anton

[1] How many protons would fit inside a 2x2x2 meter cube is left as an
exercise for the readers
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