We are most likely in a simulated universe (1 Viewer)

[A High Way Man]

The paper is by Nick Bostrom who concluded that we have a 66% chance of living in a simulated reality.

 

[Riet]

Don't worry gaiz, all will be revealed after the resonance cascade. I just hope I'm near Gordon when the combine come.

 

[blakegman]

lol. unforeseen consequences.

 

[A High Way Man]

Don't worry gaiz, all will be revealed after the resonance cascade. I just hope I'm near Gordon when the combine come.

I never thought I'd see a resonance cascade. Let alone create one.

 

[ronnknee]

its no more likely than any other "god did it" or "my life's a dream" hypothesis - there is completely no evidence either way. as soon as you assume something true, of which you have no clue on its probability of being true (eg. "we can create conscious computer simulations"), it completely de-validates any argument concerning the likelihood of the event occurring.

Firstly I was using theory in a different sense. I know wat it means scientifically. Of course there is no evidence and i do have a clue on the probability! I am assuming we can eventually create conscious computer simulations, but the probability comes not in that but in when we do create them eventually, the probability of us being in one is far too great. So to sum it ALL up:
Assumption-We can create conscious computer simulations.
Probability-We'd make heaps of them so our universe is probably fake.

How is this technology developed? Most importantly, why does anyone want to expend time and resources creating a simulated reality for billions of people? What could they possibly gain from it?

I have no idea how the technology is developed and no one else does yet. Reaons for the simulation include:
-Entertainment (gaming etc.)
-History (wanting to know their past if this is it)
-Experiment (who kows what they could be tryin to validate)

There the ones I know off the top of my head.

 

[A High Way Man]

omg guys i think i found the 'easter egg' that proves we are living in a simulated universe

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

shakespeare was an NPC

 

[ronnknee]

I agree with you that the strongest counter argument is to highlight the lack of evidence.

Let's assume we can make a simulation. Then there would be heaps of reasons to make many. Then for 1 real universe there are many fake ones so ours is probably fake. Evidence is helpful but not needed in THIS case because if my assumption is true, my thesis is true i.e. that we are VERY LIKELY to be in a simulation. I don't understand why its taking ages for many of you guys to understand what ive been repeatin so many times. It all makes sense.

 

[A High Way Man]

Who would place us in this situation at their own expense and for what purpose? I am yet to hear a convincing explaination. I have already discredited the ludicrous explanation in The Matrix (see above).

'Ancestor simulations'. What if humans of the far future are interested in what occured in the past (they will be) and our reality is their simulation (ie a restaging of 'historical events')?

I think we had the capability, we would run hundreds of simulations dealing with alternate histories - an investigation into little things that could've changed the course of history. ie if Germany won the war, etc.

Apart from purely recreational purposes (simulations for the LULZ), this is the only reason I think is plausible.

 

[ronnknee]

The question still remains; why would we be trapped in a simulated reality where we can't escape to the physical reality? Who would place us in this situation at their own expense and for what purpose? I am yet to hear a convincing explaination. I have already discredited the ludicrous explanation in The Matrix (see above).

If we are real beings put into this simulation, maybe we have to die before we wake up so we can leave without leaving in a big flash of light or something to ruin the experience. We could be bots and this simulation exists for the many reasons i gave above.

 

[ronnknee]

Like what?

Even if we create many universes, for the assumption that a given being is most likely in a simulated universe to follow, we must also assume that many people are created trapped in the simulated universes. Which brings me back to what I just asked you, why would anyone want to do this?

Like what?? I gave you reasons and u even quoted the reasons! You know history, gaming etc.

 

[Riet]

'Ancestor simulations'. What if humans of the far future are interested in what occured in the past (they will be) and our reality is their simulation (ie a restaging of 'historical events')?

I think we had the capability, we would run hundreds of simulations dealing with alternate histories - an investigation into little things that could've changed the course of history. ie if Germany won the war, etc.

Apart from purely recreational purposes (simulations for the LULZ), this is the only reason I think is plausible.

Ya, but dude in Assassin's creed there are glitches and shit. I'm pretty sure we'd know by now.

 

[A High Way Man]

It seems like a huge expense to try and see the past. .

There's an entire genre devoted to Alternate History in Science-Fiction and Computer Games. I'd imagine it would be a fairly mainstream hobby for the future human to lean back on his/her couch and check how his/her Universe is going.

For such a simulation to work you would have to create beings in the artificial reality that think identically to the people that existed in the past time being simulated. This seems impossible because the brains of the people in the past have disintegrated into nothing and can never be replicated.

Good point. To escape this scenario, I'd propose they'd use AI. The AI of the future would be able to adapt to whatever timeframe the simulation is running, as long as 'seeds' are planted to suspend disbelief

Alternatively, we could merely be mere imitations of humans in 2008. It could be possible that the simulators are speculating.

However, even if this were the case, it's a big stretch to say that people in the future would use this so extensively as to create beings trapped in simulated universes that greatly outnumber all the humans that have ever existed.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Simulated reality could explain why we're so isolated in the Universe. The simulators have programmed the distances between heavenly bodies large enough to stop us even contemplating attempting colonizing other planets and changing the inherent aim of the simulation. Or, a la the Truman Show, there's an actual physical end to the simulation. Running a simulation with an infinitely large universe doesn't make sense.

 

[Riet]

Do androids dream of electronic beats? I found evidence btw.

 

[KFunk]

However, it is wrong to say that the theory that we are living in a simulated universe does not attempt to explain observational phenomena. Look at it this way. There are two competing explanations for how we experience what we currently perceive as being real. (1) What we see is physically real (2) What seems real is actually a simulated reality. So Ockham's razor suggests we should prefer theory (1) as it offers the least complex explanation. I see your point that theory (2) does little to help explain observable phenomena or to predict future events. However, it can still be used to do so. The fact that it is so poor at doing this is the very reason why Ockham's razor should be applied.

I agree with you that the strongest counter argument is to highlight the lack of evidence. However, Ockham's razor strengthens the counter argument. The suggestion that we may one day be able to simulate reality has some empirical support. The rate of growth in computer processing power, the development of existing technologies that already simulate reality and our increased understanding of how to directly stimulate the human brain indicate there is a reasonable chance simulated reality that is indistinguishable from reality may someday be achieved.

So in refuting argument that "we are most likely in a simulated universe," it is relevant to point out that even if the technology is likely to be possible, we have to make a number of further assumptions to arrive at the conclusion that a simulated universe is actually probable.

I agree with your example in the first paragraph quoted above that if it were just a matter of deciding between two proposed theories of reality [i.e. (1) the world is real vs. (2) the world is simulated] then Ockham's razor could be introduced to reject option (2) which holds our experiences to be the result of a simulation (assuming, that is, a paucity of evidence).

My contention, though, is that the argument in question does not propose a scientific theory in this sense. In other words, it is not saying 'here is a hypothesis explaining observed phenomena - let's test it'. Instead, it is a claim which forms the conclusion of a deductive argument. Nor are the premises of this argument hypotheses in the required theoretical sense. They are empirical claims which depend on the evidence behind them.

Ockham's razor (/the principle of parsimony) is a terrific tool when we are dealing with theoretical constructs. This is great when we don't have specific evidence to favour one construct over another - we simply say that one goes beyond what is necessary in terms of postulating entities/particles/forces/etc. However, when it is claimed that evidence does exist you can't just employ a heavy handed sweep of Ockham's razor to avoid the conclusion. The evidence must be evaluated.

Consider the analogy of arguments for god. Ockham's razor is correctly applied when theists claim 'the universe must be sustained by some necessary entity and we propose that this entity is god' (note that this is a theory in the sense required above). To suppose that the entity is sentient, etc., goes beyond what is necessary and so we can use O's razor to reasonably criticise their position. Suppose, then, that they produce the rejoinder that 'a set of empirical facts, X, implies that the existence of god is more probable than not, therefore we can reasonably conclude that god exists'. In replying to this you cannot simply rip out O's razor. Instead, their claims stand or fall on the basis of their claims of evidence and implication.

Does this analogy make my position any clearer?

 

[ronnknee]

It seems like a huge expense to try and see the past. For such a simulation to work you would have to create beings in the artificial reality that think identically to the people that existed in the past time being simulated. This seems impossible because the brains of the people in the past have disintegrated into nothing and can never be replicated.

How do you know it would be expensive to run the simulations. Technology could be good enough so its affordable. We may not knowhow ppl existed, but if we inputted the exact conditions for just when the universe began, everything in this universe should pop up the same, so they dont need to know our brains at all.

And KFunk, you made sense to me the first time u talked about O razor.

 

[KFunk]

Yes it does make it clearer. I still dont agree. They have presented some evidence, just like there is some evidence for God. For instance, so called miracles. However the evidence in both cases is extremely weak. So as I said, attack the theory by pointing out the lack of evidence, but also use O's razor to point out the unecessary complexity of their theory.

If you have understood me then we will have to agree to disagree.

I'm not sure why you insist on categorizing things so rigidly.

Probably because I am a victim of an intellectual tradition which is strongly influenced by Aristotle / analytic philosophy (alas!). There is some merit in allowing concepts to be more fluid (in the right circumstances) but I find that debates tend to fall apart if we abandon precision - it leads people to talk past one another. Also, it's not just a matter of me being rigid about the application of Ockham's razor - I am also arguing that your extension of Ockham's razor lacks good logical/philosophical grounding.

But again, if you disagree after having understood my argument then we are at an impasse. Disagreements about, and the possibility of the relativity of, logic lead to some of the most fascinating topics in philosophy (I think), but sadly such areas are also among the hardest to argue about.

 

[A High Way Man]

To contruct a universe with the level of detail ours has would take more time and effort than one human being could afford to expend.
The idea that each human could have their own simulated universe doesn't make alot of sense. It's actually quite possible.

It's quite possible. As far back as 50-60 years ago, no one could even imagine computers fitting in the space under our desks, or even laptops. There's also something called Moore's Law, which basically says that every 18 months the processing power of computers double and the production costs halve. (Corollary: computers are getting smaller)

Perhaps humans could purchase pre programed universes and then customize them and run their own simulations.

This is the same as someone who buys a generic computer from Dell/HP compared to a tech enthusiast who buys his own parts and has an interest in software development etc.

However, once you have a lot of unverses running and people don't have much time to supervise them closely, you'd have high chances of glitches occuring that would give clues to the subjects that they are in a simulated reality.

In software development circles there is something called unit testing, where the program is tested for glitches against every user input that the programmer can think of. But if the universe is actually a fairly large and open computer simulation, it would be impossible to test for every possible case (event occuring) - there would be too many glitches happening. Considering this, there are either many restrictions in the simulation and some facets of the simulation are scripted, or, assuming we're AI, we have been simply programmed to ignore the glitches.

I guess a way to test if we're real is to simply test the extreme bounds of the simulation. A random mass extinction of the human species the second you read this would piss of the simulator... but I'm no megalomaniac. Maybe firing a rocket into space as far as possible to find to find the invisible wall..? Even then, we wouldn't really know where the rocket went.

For instance, if you want people in your simulation to respond realistically to pain, why not just program them to do this. Is it necessary or even possible for them to actually feel pain?

I think it would be in the interests of the accuracy of the simulation. You'd want the AI to be as close to human as possible: self-deterministic.

Good point. I suppose if you were going to create a simulated universe you'd make barriers. Not allowing us to leave our solar system would make sense. However, the fact that this suggestion fits is still a long way off proving that we actually live in a simulated universe.

Yeah fair enough, but if I suddenly disappear off the face of the universe for posting in this thread, I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Riet]

Dom, AI would be important because it'd be far more practical to develop something that thinks and acts for itself than trying to script it so that the "NPCs" acted realistically. Further, have you ever met a person who wouldn't say they are self aware?

 

[ronnknee]

how do you know that:

1) It would be possible at all?
2) If it is possible that human civilization advances to the stage where it is actually invented?
3) People would want to?
4) People could afford to if they did want to?
5) The technology would not be banned for ethical reasons?
6) The technology would be so widely used that more beings would exist in the simulated reality than have ever existed in the physical reality?
How could we know the exact conditions of the begining of the universe? In fact there is strong evidence that it is impossible to observe the moment when the universe was first created?

1. I dont know though its highly probable if Q2 is right.
2. This is the only thing standing in they way of the simulation idea.
3. I've answered this many times.
4. Again, it'd prolly be cheap enough eventually.
5. Just no.
6. Becuase people would want to make one. And make many for the same reasons.

We don't need to know the moment of the beginning of the universe. We could know a millisecond after.

 

[ronnknee]

However, once you have a lot of unverses running and people don't have much time to supervise them closely, you'd have high chances of glitches occuring that would give clues to the subjects that they are in a simulated reality.

Can anyone cite evidence that could indicate glitches in a simulated universe? If not, we are left with the difficult to reconcile position that simulated realities have been perfected or very near perfected.

The simulation could be paused if there is a glitch. It could even be rewinded, though we wouldn't know.