6 ms·

Even if we live inside a simulation inside a simulation inside a simulation, ultimately there is a base reality that influences the design of the simulations co

Even if we live inside a simulation inside a simulation inside a simulation, ultimately there is a base reality that influences the design of the simulations contained within it, and can impinge upon the simulations at any time. Infinite regression doesn't work here - using the term "simulation" implies some special pleading when moving from the outermost simulation to the base reality. If you want to regress forever, then there is no qualitative difference between layers of reality and the word "simulation" is meaningless. We live in the base reality. All a simulation could do is obscure complexity. Interestingly this isn't a new idea. The gnostics of the first two centuries BCE had a theology of this, in which a flawed world, in which humans lived, was created by an imperfect creator called the demiurge. There was a perfect realm beyond this world with an intercessor named Sophia (wisdom) who would rescue us from our flawed world, the simulation created by the demiurge.

Smaug123 10y ago
Sorry, I think I might be misunderstanding you. By "We live in the base reality", do you mean "Even if we live in a simulation, the simulation itself is hosted somewhere; following back the chain, eventually you reach the base reality. Therefore in the same sense as one should say that Microsoft Word runs/exists in our real world, one should say that (even if we're simulated) we exist in the base reality"?
- jackcosgrove 10y ago
  Correct.
akvadrako 10y ago
You imply twice in your post that you assume there is a base reality, but why? I could argue it makes just as much sense that every layer is simulated by the layer "above". That could continue ad infinitum or perhaps create a cycle, so eventually it's simulating itself. These may be what we refer to as simulations, like what's running on my PC, or some kind of emergent behavior. Either case seems to work. It's natural to define the universe / all of reality / all layers as that which is self-defining, which is hard to describe without circular reasoning.
- jackcosgrove 10y ago
  If you can recurse infinitely, then there is no need to define reality as a simulation. A simulation implies some loss of fidelity relative to the layer hosting it. If you continue this infinitely eventually you end up with a completely entropic layer. Maybe there is a discontinuity and this entropic layer crystallizes into a highly ordered "base reality". I don't know how this innermost, entropic layer can contain the outermost, ordered layer. I think "simulation" is a bad term since it implies a monotonic loss of fidelity. A simulation only has meaning if there is a base reality. Otherwise there are only layers of reality.
  - 3pt14159 10y ago
    I disagree. A simulation has meaning even if there is not a base reality. A simulation is alterable in a way that a physicalists reality is not. For example by it's parent can slow it down, or alter physical constants.
    - qubex 10y ago
      A “slowing down” of a simulation would only be perceptible to those observing from without, not those who are observing from within, whose perceptive processes would be slowed in synchrony with the processes they are perceiving. There's no reason to presume the simulation proceeds at a constant rate as measured from the outside world either: “render times” may vary with the complexity and fidelity required — for example when we innards fire up the LHC, a huge bump in resolution might be required. When we innards venture onto the moon, a whole new world has to be mapped in and professing speed might drop accordingly. What the original poster is saying is that insofar as we do not know what the base reality is, there is no reason to argue that our reality is a lower-fidelity instantiation of it: we might as well be a flawless emulation of something totally orthogonal to the base reality. Furthermore for obvious reasons computation cannot endlessly recurs endlessly and somehow forms into a loop: somewhere the arithmetic actually has to be performed.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
logicallee 10y ago
I disagree with you that: >and can impinge upon the simulations at any time A simulation could just be some states. Consider the rule, double and subtract one to get to the next world-state, over the integers, and start the world with the state 1. So the next state is 1. The one after is also 1. The one after is also 1. The universe is stuck in a static state. As I, you, or a Python script is modeling this universe, where does the outside universe "impinge" on it? Then let's do a different universe, starting at 2. Then the next state is 3, the state afrer is 5, the state after is 9, and so forth. As you do this universe in your head, where does the outside universe "impinge" on it? There is a problem, however. All future states are well-defined in the universe I've given even if nobody in our universe or any other is calculating them. It is trivially obvious that the human mind is an emergent property of its neural firings (of the brain), and that replacing some part of it with a black box that interacted with the rest would leave it with the same emergent properties, even if this black box were modeling in a different medium. The question is, if you can model the whole thing over a well-defined program that did not require non pseudorandom entropy, then it would be similar (just start with more complex data than 1 or 2, and more complicated rules than double and subtract one) - so in order for these states to exist, would anyone have to actually calculate it, or is it enough for these states to be mathematically defined? What I am saying is that it is a statistical certainty that within a thousand years we can create a deterministic model of a brain in a VR, where the brain reports consciousness. (this is 100.000% absolutely necessarily true and not open to debate. The brain is a couple of pounds of stufd, with just a few hundred billion neurons or fewer - I bet we could practically have the hardware to model one today.) Does this mean that that model already exists? (before anyone chose to calculate it)? This is similar to asking whether the quintillionth prime exists. Yes, of course it exists. Really? Even if nobody calculates it? Then what is to say that we might not exist without anyone calculating us? Perhaps the states of the universe, like the quintillionth prime, exist without anyone calculating it. Perhaps there is no underlying reality at all, just as there is not an underlying reality in which the quintillionth prime is embedded.
- SiddarthaBuddha 10y ago
  > this is 100.000% absolutely necessarily true and not open to debate That sounds completely absurd to me given that we can't even agree on a definition for consciousness.

Smaug123 10y ago

Sorry, I think I might be misunderstanding you. By "We live in the base reality", do you mean "Even if we live in a simulation, the simulation itself is hosted somewhere; following back the chain, eventually you reach the base reality. Therefore in the same sense as one should say that Microsoft Word runs/exists in our real world, one should say that (even if we're simulated) we exist in the base reality"?

jackcosgrove 10y ago
Correct.

akvadrako 10y ago

You imply twice in your post that you assume there is a base reality, but why? I could argue it makes just as much sense that every layer is simulated by the layer "above". That could continue ad infinitum or perhaps create a cycle, so eventually it's simulating itself. These may be what we refer to as simulations, like what's running on my PC, or some kind of emergent behavior. Either case seems to work. It's natural to define the universe / all of reality / all layers as that which is self-defining, which is hard to describe without circular reasoning.

jackcosgrove 10y ago
If you can recurse infinitely, then there is no need to define reality as a simulation. A simulation implies some loss of fidelity relative to the layer hosting it. If you continue this infinitely eventually you end up with a completely entropic layer. Maybe there is a discontinuity and this entropic layer crystallizes into a highly ordered "base reality". I don't know how this innermost, entropic layer can contain the outermost, ordered layer. I think "simulation" is a bad term since it implies a monotonic loss of fidelity. A simulation only has meaning if there is a base reality. Otherwise there are only layers of reality.
- 3pt14159 10y ago
  I disagree. A simulation has meaning even if there is not a base reality. A simulation is alterable in a way that a physicalists reality is not. For example by it's parent can slow it down, or alter physical constants.
  - qubex 10y ago
    A “slowing down” of a simulation would only be perceptible to those observing from without, not those who are observing from within, whose perceptive processes would be slowed in synchrony with the processes they are perceiving. There's no reason to presume the simulation proceeds at a constant rate as measured from the outside world either: “render times” may vary with the complexity and fidelity required — for example when we innards fire up the LHC, a huge bump in resolution might be required. When we innards venture onto the moon, a whole new world has to be mapped in and professing speed might drop accordingly. What the original poster is saying is that insofar as we do not know what the base reality is, there is no reason to argue that our reality is a lower-fidelity instantiation of it: we might as well be a flawless emulation of something totally orthogonal to the base reality. Furthermore for obvious reasons computation cannot endlessly recurs endlessly and somehow forms into a loop: somewhere the arithmetic actually has to be performed.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

logicallee 10y ago

I disagree with you that: >and can impinge upon the simulations at any time A simulation could just be some states. Consider the rule, double and subtract one to get to the next world-state, over the integers, and start the world with the state 1. So the next state is 1. The one after is also 1. The one after is also 1. The universe is stuck in a static state. As I, you, or a Python script is modeling this universe, where does the outside universe "impinge" on it? Then let's do a different universe, starting at 2. Then the next state is 3, the state afrer is 5, the state after is 9, and so forth. As you do this universe in your head, where does the outside universe "impinge" on it? There is a problem, however. All future states are well-defined in the universe I've given even if nobody in our universe or any other is calculating them. It is trivially obvious that the human mind is an emergent property of its neural firings (of the brain), and that replacing some part of it with a black box that interacted with the rest would leave it with the same emergent properties, even if this black box were modeling in a different medium. The question is, if you can model the whole thing over a well-defined program that did not require non pseudorandom entropy, then it would be similar (just start with more complex data than 1 or 2, and more complicated rules than double and subtract one) - so in order for these states to exist, would anyone have to actually calculate it, or is it enough for these states to be mathematically defined? What I am saying is that it is a statistical certainty that within a thousand years we can create a deterministic model of a brain in a VR, where the brain reports consciousness. (this is 100.000% absolutely necessarily true and not open to debate. The brain is a couple of pounds of stufd, with just a few hundred billion neurons or fewer - I bet we could practically have the hardware to model one today.) Does this mean that that model already exists? (before anyone chose to calculate it)? This is similar to asking whether the quintillionth prime exists. Yes, of course it exists. Really? Even if nobody calculates it? Then what is to say that we might not exist without anyone calculating us? Perhaps the states of the universe, like the quintillionth prime, exist without anyone calculating it. Perhaps there is no underlying reality at all, just as there is not an underlying reality in which the quintillionth prime is embedded.

SiddarthaBuddha 10y ago
> this is 100.000% absolutely necessarily true and not open to debate That sounds completely absurd to me given that we can't even agree on a definition for consciousness.