VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 11:09:06 06/09/03 Mon
Author: Grizlas
Subject: Determinism and the Matrix
In reply to: neonate 's message, "No such thing as past or future in matrix" on 08:34:57 06/07/03 Sat

Time is a tricky thing to define. Time simply means change, since without any change at all, the word "time" would have no meaning.

The Matrix as an isolated system with no humans connected, might be deterministic, all depending on what an AI is, and wether or not it has non-deterministic free will. If humans are connected, then the Matrix can only be deterministic if humans lack non-deterministic free will.

If there exists non-deterministic free will inside the matrix, then no choice made by an entity possessing it can be calculated 100% and thus the prediction stops until that choice is made. Therefore there exists time in a matrix populated with non-deterministic agents. Of course this assumes that the humans connected to the matrix are still humans, and that it is still their brain doing the deciding.

However, if there doesnt exist non-deterministic free will in humans nor AI, then there is still time in the matrix. As i'm sure you've learnt in physics class, Einstein teaches us that time is relative, meaning that within the matrix, humans and AI will still experience events, even if they are predetermined. You can slow it down, or even stop it, but you cannot reverse it, or fast forward it as long as humans are connected, since the matrix has to wait for the brain to compute it's response even if the matrix knows precisely what that response will be, otherwise the state of the brain wouldnt be consistent with the illusion presented to it.

As an example, lets look at little Joe that's 10 years old. One day, the architect decides to forward time 30 years, and all of a sudden joe comes to, standing on a podium accepting a price for biochemistry. He knows absolutely nothing about biochemistry, he still thinks like a 10 year old even if he sees his body is 40 years old.

In other words, the only way time can be fast forwarded, is if the architect can reprogram the brain of everyone that's connected. But even if that was possible, you would have other problems.

As another example, lets look at Fred who's a 78 year old retired U.S 3 star general. This time the architect decides to reverse time 60 years, and he's clever enough to manipulate all the brains connected to the matrix in such a way that they have no memory of being older, and has made their brains function exactly like they should corresponding to their new age. Fred wakes up one morning at 0600 hours on the army base and gets ready for his morning run. Since the matrix isn't real, he has no trouble running as fast as the others, but suddenly he just drops dead. His real body has died of natural causes.

In other words, young people would start dying by the millions for no apparant reason, and old people would just not die. This would seem very unreal to anyone connected, and would probably cause the matrix to crash.

Dont know if this makes any sense, but you can look at my earlier "dissagree abit" reply for more ramblings :)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Forum timezone: GMT+0
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.