I believe this stuff bottoms out in physics—it’s either possible or impossible to make a physically provable analog to the PREFIX program. The idea is fascinating, but I don’t know enough physics to determine whether it’s crazy.
The difficulty would be to make sure nothing could interact with the atoms/physical constituents of the prefix in a way that distorts the prefix. Prefixes of programs have the benefit they go first, and in the serial nature of most programs, things that go first have complete control.
So it is a question of isolating the prefix. I’m going to read this paper on isolation and physics, before making any comments on the subject.
It gave some ideas. It suggests we might start with specifying time limits, e.g. specifying a system will be effectively isolated for a certain time, by scanning a region of space around that system.
I believe this stuff bottoms out in physics—it’s either possible or impossible to make a physically provable analog to the PREFIX program. The idea is fascinating, but I don’t know enough physics to determine whether it’s crazy.
The difficulty would be to make sure nothing could interact with the atoms/physical constituents of the prefix in a way that distorts the prefix. Prefixes of programs have the benefit they go first, and in the serial nature of most programs, things that go first have complete control.
So it is a question of isolating the prefix. I’m going to read this paper on isolation and physics, before making any comments on the subject.
I read the paper, and it seemed to me to be useless. We want a physically inviolable guarantee of isolation.
It gave some ideas. It suggests we might start with specifying time limits, e.g. specifying a system will be effectively isolated for a certain time, by scanning a region of space around that system.