Friday, December 14, 2012

Yet Another Mathematical Proof of God


Gödel Machines give us a mathematical way to define the ineffable but fundamental rightness that maximizes one's benefit while maximally serving and supporting the entire Universe.
It seems like He's everywhere these days.

From a post on the VPRI mailing list I learned of the Gödel Machine, a Turing machine loaded with an axiom solver and an axiomatized description of itself, hardware + software (including the solver software) that can make "provably optimal self-improvements".

Given a utility function that can let the solver solve for whether a course of action (self-modification) will improve some utility metric (shorter runtime, lighter memory usage, whatever) the machine can decide to rewrite itself to optimize that metric.

It's a general self-optimizing problem-solver. Go look, it's amazing

Once the alternating waves of terror and elation subsided a little I had a curious idea.

How to decide what utility function to give to the machine? What is the utility of the utility?  What is the most useful way to become more useful?

How to optimize the optimization of optimizing?

Obviously this is one of those self-referential functions that becomes totally abstract when detached from a specific “self” with specific “goals” that can admit of optimization. Or does it?

If, as seems unavoidable, the entire Universe is a great quantum computer, then it must be just such a GM, and, since there's no place outside the Universe for the fitness function to reside, it must also be part of the GM's (self-optimizable) program.

So what is the Universe optimizing?

The only property that makes sense, across all known phenomenon, is time. The Universe is optimizing its own duration, it's optimizing Eternity.

The Universe can be said to be that program which, when run across all possible universes, results in itself (and this includes all physical and quantum variables or what-have-you what-so-ever, including time.)

Obviously the Universe must compute your optimal “path” too just like the spiritual folk have been saying all along.

In fact, there's an old Sanskrit word for this Universal (and deeply personal) self-optimizing function: Dharma

Mathematically, in the context of the GM machine you could say:
= ()

Biological organisms exhibit this property vividly: Life is a chemical tautology, there's no meaning to the geometric perambulations of the molecules and therefore no purpose. In the absence of purpose there can be no measurement of efficiency. The only thing governing the chemical process is therefore endurance. Those systems which continue will tend to continue over time because they continue, they optimize the optimizing of continuing, they are the Dharma function.

Keep in mind that the chemical Dharma function has, apparently, made you, whatever you are, and now you are on the hot seat as far as carrying on the game.

Tag! You're it!

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