Is there a layer zero though? What does that even mean? It implies the universe is designed and built upon layers of abstraction. That's just in our heads though, not out there. The layered model is a human abstraction.

▲ brotchie 7 hours ago | parent [-]

It's the difference between:

  a) Actually pouring a cup of water into a pond (layer zero), and
  b) Running a fluid dynamics simulation of pouring a cup of water into a pond (some layer above layer zero).

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colordrops 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I understand the original framing which is what you are repeating. I'm saying the framing itself is an illusion. It's an arbitrary distinction and also implies fully understanding all the underlying processes that go into pouring a cup of water in a pond (we don't) and that running a fluid dynamics simulation is some trivial thing (it's not).

	▲	brotchie 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Are you saying that, in some abstract sense, that actually pouring the cup may be isomorphic to running a perfect simulation of pouring the cup? Genuinely curious about your statement that its an illusion / arbitrary distinction, to figure out if there's a gap in my thinking / reasoning. To me there's a clear distinction between the actual thing happening via physical dynamics vs. us (humans) having creating a discretized abstraction (binary computation) on top of that and running a process on that abstraction. Maybe there's some true computational universality where the universes dynamics are discrete (definitely plausible) and there's no distinction between how a processes dynamics unfold: i.e. consciousness binds to states and state transitions regardless of how they are instantiated. I did use to hold this view , but now I'm not so sure.
	▲	dwb 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's not arbitrary because people are making exactly this distinction in order to argue that it's possible for computers to be conscious, which this paper argues against. So the distinction exists at least for the purposes of this argument. Whether it "really" exists of course depends on your perspective.