Thanks. :) This story simply made me wonder if it was possible to create a “fair” scheduled version of the program-of-all-possible-programs, and this was the first one I came up with. Not sure if there are any more elegant ways of doing that.
Though, of course, this wouldn’t change the whole issue of programs being embedded in other ones… And, actually, my instinct is that, given that all programs are actually run with an unbounded number of cycles, I’m not sure that the RATE at which they’re run relative to each other would affect the amount of reality-fluid each one got, but there’s much here that I’m confused about on that matter...
(EDIT: to clarify, I don’t think the relative rate they’re run at would make any difference.)
Oh, just for clarification: With the bit about Maria distributing the computing time exponentially according to complexity, did you mean each higher (starting?) complexity program got exponentially less time or exponentially more time? And what was Maria’s motivation there for that scheduling rule?
Simpler programs got exponentially more time. Mostly she’s just trying to match the “natural” distribution of programs, if there is such a thing. Allocating more time to simpler programs may help because it means that, e.g., simple programs which also simulate all programs in order, will get a lot of computing power, so it helps equalize the flow in a way that doesn’t depend as much on your initial choice of universal machine. Another way of looking at it would be that allocating equal time to all the programs would tend to make life less simple—to increase the probability of arbitrary things happening—which seems like a net negative for sentient life, ceteris paribus.
(Alternatively, I wonder if Mr. Rogers has a Superpowered Evil Side and that’s how he got the blood on his sweater.)
Okay then. You may want to edit the phrasing. As written in the story, it seemed a bit ambiguous but leaning toward her stating that she set it up to give more complex programs more time. At least so it read to me.
Hrm… super powered evil side for Mr. Rogers. Given that his good side could wrap senate committees around his fingers (Seriously, did you ever watch that vid of him testifying about the importance of not canceling funding for public broadcasting?) just by being in real life the way he was on his show...
But yeah, that story was fun. As delightfully twisted as Fractran. (Yes, I am comparing a story to a model of computation. But, given the nature of the story, is this not perfectly reasonable? :))
Thanks. :) This story simply made me wonder if it was possible to create a “fair” scheduled version of the program-of-all-possible-programs, and this was the first one I came up with. Not sure if there are any more elegant ways of doing that.
Though, of course, this wouldn’t change the whole issue of programs being embedded in other ones… And, actually, my instinct is that, given that all programs are actually run with an unbounded number of cycles, I’m not sure that the RATE at which they’re run relative to each other would affect the amount of reality-fluid each one got, but there’s much here that I’m confused about on that matter...
(EDIT: to clarify, I don’t think the relative rate they’re run at would make any difference.)
Oh, just for clarification: With the bit about Maria distributing the computing time exponentially according to complexity, did you mean each higher (starting?) complexity program got exponentially less time or exponentially more time? And what was Maria’s motivation there for that scheduling rule?
Simpler programs got exponentially more time. Mostly she’s just trying to match the “natural” distribution of programs, if there is such a thing. Allocating more time to simpler programs may help because it means that, e.g., simple programs which also simulate all programs in order, will get a lot of computing power, so it helps equalize the flow in a way that doesn’t depend as much on your initial choice of universal machine. Another way of looking at it would be that allocating equal time to all the programs would tend to make life less simple—to increase the probability of arbitrary things happening—which seems like a net negative for sentient life, ceteris paribus.
(Alternatively, I wonder if Mr. Rogers has a Superpowered Evil Side and that’s how he got the blood on his sweater.)
Okay then. You may want to edit the phrasing. As written in the story, it seemed a bit ambiguous but leaning toward her stating that she set it up to give more complex programs more time. At least so it read to me.
Hrm… super powered evil side for Mr. Rogers. Given that his good side could wrap senate committees around his fingers (Seriously, did you ever watch that vid of him testifying about the importance of not canceling funding for public broadcasting?) just by being in real life the way he was on his show...
But yeah, that story was fun. As delightfully twisted as Fractran. (Yes, I am comparing a story to a model of computation. But, given the nature of the story, is this not perfectly reasonable? :))
Tracked down on your suggestion: super powers indeed!
Told yah. :)
So yeah, a superpowered evil version of Mr. Rogers would be really really scary if one thinks about it. :)