“Turning into a cat doesn’t even BEGIN to compare to this. You know right up until this moment I had this awful suppressed thought somewhere in the back of my mind that the only remaining answer was that my whole universe was a computer simulation like in the book Simulacron 3 but now even that is ruled out because this little toy ISN’T TURING COMPUTABLE! A Turing machine could simulate going back into a defined moment of the past and computing a different future from there, an oracle machine could rely on the halting behavior of lower-order machines, but what you’re saying is that reality somehow self-consistently computes in one sweep using information that hasn’t… happened… yet...”
But Harry later tested time loops, and system somehow told him to stop messing with time.
EDIT: If the computer MoR runs on is really able to compute infinite loops in one sweep, then there’s no reason not to allow Harry to compute his primes. Instead something scarry happened so Harry had to tell himself not to mess with time.
So maybe it is Turing computable after all, it just have watchdogs to stop loops after some iteration.
A simpler explanation is that “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” was the simplest piece of information that could be generated by time travel that resulted in a stable loop because Harry’s precommitment to follow the experimental protocol was weak.
Also, it’s impossible to prove the universe non-turing-computable.
A simpler explanation is that “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” was the simplest piece of information that could be generated by time travel that resulted in a stable loop because Harry’s precommitment to follow the experimental protocol was weak.
Simplest isn’t quite as important as easiest (or most probable in terms of how reality fluid flows in a loop until it forms a stable equilibrium). The latter of course encompasses the former. In this case not only is it simple (not requiring many ontological loops) it is utterly trivial given the psychology of Harry. It only has to amplify Harry’s paranoia only slightly to make him pull a reaction like that. And, in fact, given that Harry hadn’t put any effort into even considering risks before doing something so extreme some reaction from him that is not the brute-forced-decryption result isn’t unreasonable—so could have even happened without much consistency pressure beyond a single iteration required.
If Harry were a bit more stable and had better judgement in assessing safety he would probably have taken his time when replying and written something like “Don’t be a reckless fool! Forcing black swans much?” As it happens though Harry has inherited from the author an outright dangerous way of dealing with risk—he panics, doesn’t think things through and makes things worse!
In the above I am referring most significantly to the incident with transfiguration experiments. As far as I know Eliezer and Harry both believe Hermione’s response was appropriate—not absolutely insane! Her reacting quickly and decisively was good but the nature of her intervention was just stupid. You don’t go in there and dispel the enchantement when it is the consequences of dispelling that cause the problems. You get Harry the hell out of there, seal the room as best you can then run as fast as you can to McGonnagal. She is the one best equipped to minimize the repurcussions. At very least she would get Pompfrey on hand to heal damage before it becomes fatal and most likely would be able to detect transfigured materials and do something to prevent the worst of any damage.
Harry’s response to Hermione should have been “Ok, I really appreciate the thought and I was an idiot to experiment like this… but WTF were you thinking?! If there was actually a problem with my experiment you probably would have just killed me instantly.”
Likewise the appropriate response upon realising that doing things like trying to solve NP complete problems with a time turner is stupid is not to abandon all use except as a sleep enhancer. It is to implement only the simplest of protocols involving the time turner. ie. as a primitive failsafe signalling mechanism that gives a warning and (potentially) prevents certain death of his friends or worse disasters in his vicinity. This is far simpler than all the other childish things he has done with the time turner and not implementing it is outright irresponsible.
But Harry later tested time loops, and system somehow told him to stop messing with time.
More specifically Harry told himself to stop messing with time, Harry being part of the system.
If the computer MoR runs on is really able to compute infinite loops in one sweep, then there’s no reason not to allow Harry to compute his primes.
Sure, if there isn’t something that is more likely to happen given the state of the universe before the loop.
Instead something scarry happened so Harry had to tell himself not to mess with time.
That scary thing being Harry telling himself not to mess with time. What we infer from this depends on what we know about Harry and what sort of things are most likely to make him respond in this way.
So maybe it is Turing computable after all, it just have watchdogs to stop loops after some iteration.
Watchdogs are a possibility. This evidence should increase the probability to this sort of thing being the case. But not by much.
Harry is stated to only have access to about half of the easier parts of the sequences.
I assume the timeless physics sequence is one of the parts he doesn’t have access to...
I can no longer conceive that there might really be a universal time, which is somehow “moving” from the past to the future. This now seems like nonsense.
Something like Barbour’s timeless physics has to be true, or I’m in trouble: I have forgotten how to imagine a universe that has “real genuine time” in it.
From this I read that Harry’s mistake is the notion that there are things that “[haven’t] happened yet”.
“Quantum mechanics wasn’t enough,” Harry said. “I had to go all the way down to timeless physics before it took. Had to see the wand as enforcing a relation between separate past and future realities, instead of changing anything over time—but I did it, Hermione, I saw past the illusion of objects, and I bet there’s not a single other wizard in the world who could have. Even if some Muggleborn knew about timeless formulations of quantum mechanics, it would just be a weird belief about strange distant quantum stuff, they wouldn’t see that it was reality, accept that the world they knew was just a hallucination. I Transfigured part of the eraser without changing the whole thing.”
From chapter 14
But Harry later tested time loops, and system somehow told him to stop messing with time. EDIT: If the computer MoR runs on is really able to compute infinite loops in one sweep, then there’s no reason not to allow Harry to compute his primes. Instead something scarry happened so Harry had to tell himself not to mess with time.
So maybe it is Turing computable after all, it just have watchdogs to stop loops after some iteration.
A simpler explanation is that “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” was the simplest piece of information that could be generated by time travel that resulted in a stable loop because Harry’s precommitment to follow the experimental protocol was weak.
Also, it’s impossible to prove the universe non-turing-computable.
Simplest isn’t quite as important as easiest (or most probable in terms of how reality fluid flows in a loop until it forms a stable equilibrium). The latter of course encompasses the former. In this case not only is it simple (not requiring many ontological loops) it is utterly trivial given the psychology of Harry. It only has to amplify Harry’s paranoia only slightly to make him pull a reaction like that. And, in fact, given that Harry hadn’t put any effort into even considering risks before doing something so extreme some reaction from him that is not the brute-forced-decryption result isn’t unreasonable—so could have even happened without much consistency pressure beyond a single iteration required.
If Harry were a bit more stable and had better judgement in assessing safety he would probably have taken his time when replying and written something like “Don’t be a reckless fool! Forcing black swans much?” As it happens though Harry has inherited from the author an outright dangerous way of dealing with risk—he panics, doesn’t think things through and makes things worse!
In the above I am referring most significantly to the incident with transfiguration experiments. As far as I know Eliezer and Harry both believe Hermione’s response was appropriate—not absolutely insane! Her reacting quickly and decisively was good but the nature of her intervention was just stupid. You don’t go in there and dispel the enchantement when it is the consequences of dispelling that cause the problems. You get Harry the hell out of there, seal the room as best you can then run as fast as you can to McGonnagal. She is the one best equipped to minimize the repurcussions. At very least she would get Pompfrey on hand to heal damage before it becomes fatal and most likely would be able to detect transfigured materials and do something to prevent the worst of any damage.
Harry’s response to Hermione should have been “Ok, I really appreciate the thought and I was an idiot to experiment like this… but WTF were you thinking?! If there was actually a problem with my experiment you probably would have just killed me instantly.”
Likewise the appropriate response upon realising that doing things like trying to solve NP complete problems with a time turner is stupid is not to abandon all use except as a sleep enhancer. It is to implement only the simplest of protocols involving the time turner. ie. as a primitive failsafe signalling mechanism that gives a warning and (potentially) prevents certain death of his friends or worse disasters in his vicinity. This is far simpler than all the other childish things he has done with the time turner and not implementing it is outright irresponsible.
Voted up for the last paragraph
More specifically Harry told himself to stop messing with time, Harry being part of the system.
Sure, if there isn’t something that is more likely to happen given the state of the universe before the loop.
That scary thing being Harry telling himself not to mess with time. What we infer from this depends on what we know about Harry and what sort of things are most likely to make him respond in this way.
Watchdogs are a possibility. This evidence should increase the probability to this sort of thing being the case. But not by much.
Harry is stated to only have access to about half of the easier parts of the sequences.
I assume the timeless physics sequence is one of the parts he doesn’t have access to...
From this I read that Harry’s mistake is the notion that there are things that “[haven’t] happened yet”.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/qp/timeless_physics/
Nope: