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I have a number of points to make. The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. If that

I have a number of points to make. The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. If that were the case, the fundamental constants could change in value each time a quantum measurement took place. The universe might be infinite in extent (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) even though at any time you can only see a finite part of it, so even though the probability of life in any galaxy might be vanishingly small, as long as it's finite you can expect life to emerge somewhere. Supposing our universe is a simulation, possibly running inside another simulation, etc. At some level there still must be a ground reality in which the first simulation was made. So, there needs to be at least one level, which appeared out of nowhere, or always existed, in which computers can be built to run the simulation. I'd rather not have to repeat the same points I made in an argument I had here previously, as no one seems to change their mind about these things, but I can't see any way that NPCs in a virtual reality/simulated universe can be conscious - even though they might appear to be - so I think that if we're in a simulation, consciousness must be based in the universe which is not a simulation. It might be possible for the fundamental constants (and, indeed, the laws of physics) to be fine-tuned, but only in a simulation, by its programmers. The idea of a creator God (of any non-simulated universe) has no explanatory power. All it does is hide complexity inside something supernatural. How would this god appear out of nothing?

ubernostrum 10y ago
The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. It's more generally accepted now that the values of the constants were contingent on conditions in the very early universe. This doesn't mean that a fork off of, say, our world right now would get different constants, but that in the early-universe time period there would be forks getting different values, which then evolved completely differently. In this view we exist in one which happened to get the "right" constants. The universe might be infinite in extent (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) even though at any time you can only see a finite part of it, so even though the probability of life in any galaxy might be vanishingly small, as long as it's finite you can expect life to emerge somewhere. We don't have evidence of the universe being infinite in extent, though. So, there needs to be at least one level, which appeared out of nowhere, or always existed, in which computers can be built to run the simulation. Again, the claim in the simulation argument is not "uncreated universes are impossible". It's that "an uncreated universe capable of giving rise to simulations is a less specific requirement and therefore more likely to occur". The idea of a creator God Which I explicitly said I wasn't talking about. For someone who's tired of repeating himself you sure seem fine with making me do it.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  > It's more generally accepted now that the values of the constants were contingent on conditions in the very early universe. Cite? I'm unaware of any such consensus. > We don't have evidence of the universe being infinite in extent, though. The universe's density seems to be very close to the critical density: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/Critical+Density http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/Critical+Density http://www.space.com/24309-shape-of-the-universe.html http://www.space.com/24309-shape-of-the-universe.html http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    When I was doing my thesis work I was reading papers which argued that quite a few, and perhaps all, of the "fundamental" constants were free to take on values during a brief period in the early history of the universe and took on their observed values due to contingency or chance of conditions which obtained in the early universe. This seemed relatively uncontroversial and was often repeated by reputable sources. Certainly nobody seemed to be arguing that the particular values we observe are logically-necessary consequences of physics, and in fact people typically observed that physics as we understand it works just fine with different values; it just gives rise to different behavior. But at any rate you seem not to be a particularly pleasant interlocutor, and like you I'm tired of repeating myself.
    - DonaldFisk 10y ago
      The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constan...) states: "The complete standard model requires 25 fundamental dimensionless constants (Baez, 2011). At present, their numerical values are not understood in terms of any widely accepted theory and are determined only from measurement." Paul Dirac, and a few others argued that the relative strengths of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces between elementary particles (e.g. within the hydrogen atom) is directly related to the age of the universe, i.e. that gravity is still becoming weaker, rather than acquiring its current strength close to the big bang. I'm interested in this subject - in particular the proposed mechanism and dimensionless constants involved, but can't find any papers arguing the conditions in the early universe determine their values.
ozy 10y ago
> but I can't see any way that NPCs in a virtual reality/simulated universe can be conscious If in the future we have even faster computers, and ability to scan all the molecules in your brain (at good enough resolution, but not beyond Heisenberg). Then we simulate the chemistry going on. Do we now have consciousness in a computer? It is hard to see how billions of neurons together create consciousness. Just like how it hard to see how computer can be conscious. But claiming "impossible" is quite a strong claim. How do you support it? If our universe is a simulation, it is one of atoms or quantum fields/gravity or something that gives rise to those. Anything else we see is build from those things. Therefor consciousness seems like an effect grounded in this universe.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  The previous discussion with naasking is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11823781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11823781 At this point I have nothing further to add.
  - state_less 10y ago
    It might be worth trying on the idea that you don't exist. At least not in the way you might imagine. Consider where your consciousness goes when you fall asleep and aren't dreaming. Or when you're put under for surgery. I don't know if you've been put under, but for me one moment they were putting the mask over my face, and the next moment I awoke and the surgery was finished. I didn't experience any passage of time. You could say I wasn't here or didn't exist during that period. It seems like certain things have to be occurring in the brain to say that you are awake, conscious and here. So this consciousness has certain dependencies, now what are they? Can we deactivate certain parts of your brain and you still feel here? I think so, but if we take away enough, you're no longer here. And I think if we add them back, your experience becomes more vivid and here, like slowly coming to in the morning, or when a deaf person has a hearing implant added so they can hear again. So having the feeling of being here is a higher order thought, depending on the hardware faculties to be functioning. And that hardware can be substituted for non-biological equipment and you can be conscious of the readings of the sensor. It also comes in degrees, meaning we can be more or less here. Which is to say, maybe the NPC doesn't have to be biological. It just needs to have the same dependencies to exist that exist now for you. You couldn't be reading this in your sleep, you read it when all the dependencies exist to say, "hmmm, that's interesting but my left frontal lobe says..." PS. I hear you have nothing further to add, but my own left frontal lobe was compelled to chat. Apologies if it disturbed you, have a good one.
roywiggins 10y ago
> The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. If that were the case, the fundamental constants could change in value each time a quantum measurement took place. You can replace Many-Worlds with Eternal Inflation and you get an infinity of bubble universes, and my understanding is those universes would span every possible set of constants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation > In 1983, inflation was shown to be eternal leading a multiverse in which space is broken up into bubbles or patches whose properties differ from patch to patch spanning all physical possibilities.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  In other words, if you replace what I was discussing, and what I assumed the OP was as well, with something quite different, my original point no longer stands.
  - roywiggins 10y ago
    I mean that you don't need Many-Worlds to generate the requisite multiverse to explain the apparent fine-tuning of the observed constants. Eternal inflation does the job nicely, and the argument that our universe isn't so unlikely applies exactly as well to a Many-Worlds multiverse as it does to an Inflationary one.
    - DonaldFisk 10y ago
      Everett's many-worlds interpretation is nothing to do with fine-tuning, but as you point out, eternal inflation might be worth looking at. I found this paper, which looks interesting: https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0407213v3.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0407213v3.pdf My interest in the subject predates this - when actively researching the subject I developed a scalar-tensor theory consistent with Dirac's Large Number Hypothesis, and preferred the idea that there's only one possible set of physical laws. I was never happy with the Anthropic Principle.

ubernostrum 10y ago

The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. It's more generally accepted now that the values of the constants were contingent on conditions in the very early universe. This doesn't mean that a fork off of, say, our world right now would get different constants, but that in the early-universe time period there would be forks getting different values, which then evolved completely differently. In this view we exist in one which happened to get the "right" constants. The universe might be infinite in extent (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) even though at any time you can only see a finite part of it, so even though the probability of life in any galaxy might be vanishingly small, as long as it's finite you can expect life to emerge somewhere. We don't have evidence of the universe being infinite in extent, though. So, there needs to be at least one level, which appeared out of nowhere, or always existed, in which computers can be built to run the simulation. Again, the claim in the simulation argument is not "uncreated universes are impossible". It's that "an uncreated universe capable of giving rise to simulations is a less specific requirement and therefore more likely to occur". The idea of a creator God Which I explicitly said I wasn't talking about. For someone who's tired of repeating himself you sure seem fine with making me do it.

DonaldFisk 10y ago
> It's more generally accepted now that the values of the constants were contingent on conditions in the very early universe. Cite? I'm unaware of any such consensus. > We don't have evidence of the universe being infinite in extent, though. The universe's density seems to be very close to the critical density: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/Critical+Density http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/Critical+Density http://www.space.com/24309-shape-of-the-universe.html http://www.space.com/24309-shape-of-the-universe.html http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_concepts.html
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  When I was doing my thesis work I was reading papers which argued that quite a few, and perhaps all, of the "fundamental" constants were free to take on values during a brief period in the early history of the universe and took on their observed values due to contingency or chance of conditions which obtained in the early universe. This seemed relatively uncontroversial and was often repeated by reputable sources. Certainly nobody seemed to be arguing that the particular values we observe are logically-necessary consequences of physics, and in fact people typically observed that physics as we understand it works just fine with different values; it just gives rise to different behavior. But at any rate you seem not to be a particularly pleasant interlocutor, and like you I'm tired of repeating myself.
  - DonaldFisk 10y ago
    The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constan...) states: "The complete standard model requires 25 fundamental dimensionless constants (Baez, 2011). At present, their numerical values are not understood in terms of any widely accepted theory and are determined only from measurement." Paul Dirac, and a few others argued that the relative strengths of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces between elementary particles (e.g. within the hydrogen atom) is directly related to the age of the universe, i.e. that gravity is still becoming weaker, rather than acquiring its current strength close to the big bang. I'm interested in this subject - in particular the proposed mechanism and dimensionless constants involved, but can't find any papers arguing the conditions in the early universe determine their values.

ozy 10y ago

> but I can't see any way that NPCs in a virtual reality/simulated universe can be conscious If in the future we have even faster computers, and ability to scan all the molecules in your brain (at good enough resolution, but not beyond Heisenberg). Then we simulate the chemistry going on. Do we now have consciousness in a computer? It is hard to see how billions of neurons together create consciousness. Just like how it hard to see how computer can be conscious. But claiming "impossible" is quite a strong claim. How do you support it? If our universe is a simulation, it is one of atoms or quantum fields/gravity or something that gives rise to those. Anything else we see is build from those things. Therefor consciousness seems like an effect grounded in this universe.

DonaldFisk 10y ago
The previous discussion with naasking is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11823781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11823781 At this point I have nothing further to add.
- state_less 10y ago
  It might be worth trying on the idea that you don't exist. At least not in the way you might imagine. Consider where your consciousness goes when you fall asleep and aren't dreaming. Or when you're put under for surgery. I don't know if you've been put under, but for me one moment they were putting the mask over my face, and the next moment I awoke and the surgery was finished. I didn't experience any passage of time. You could say I wasn't here or didn't exist during that period. It seems like certain things have to be occurring in the brain to say that you are awake, conscious and here. So this consciousness has certain dependencies, now what are they? Can we deactivate certain parts of your brain and you still feel here? I think so, but if we take away enough, you're no longer here. And I think if we add them back, your experience becomes more vivid and here, like slowly coming to in the morning, or when a deaf person has a hearing implant added so they can hear again. So having the feeling of being here is a higher order thought, depending on the hardware faculties to be functioning. And that hardware can be substituted for non-biological equipment and you can be conscious of the readings of the sensor. It also comes in degrees, meaning we can be more or less here. Which is to say, maybe the NPC doesn't have to be biological. It just needs to have the same dependencies to exist that exist now for you. You couldn't be reading this in your sleep, you read it when all the dependencies exist to say, "hmmm, that's interesting but my left frontal lobe says..." PS. I hear you have nothing further to add, but my own left frontal lobe was compelled to chat. Apologies if it disturbed you, have a good one.

roywiggins 10y ago

> The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. If that were the case, the fundamental constants could change in value each time a quantum measurement took place. You can replace Many-Worlds with Eternal Inflation and you get an infinity of bubble universes, and my understanding is those universes would span every possible set of constants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation > In 1983, inflation was shown to be eternal leading a multiverse in which space is broken up into bubbles or patches whose properties differ from patch to patch spanning all physical possibilities.

DonaldFisk 10y ago
In other words, if you replace what I was discussing, and what I assumed the OP was as well, with something quite different, my original point no longer stands.
- roywiggins 10y ago
  I mean that you don't need Many-Worlds to generate the requisite multiverse to explain the apparent fine-tuning of the observed constants. Eternal inflation does the job nicely, and the argument that our universe isn't so unlikely applies exactly as well to a Many-Worlds multiverse as it does to an Inflationary one.
  - DonaldFisk 10y ago
    Everett's many-worlds interpretation is nothing to do with fine-tuning, but as you point out, eternal inflation might be worth looking at. I found this paper, which looks interesting: https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0407213v3.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0407213v3.pdf My interest in the subject predates this - when actively researching the subject I developed a scalar-tensor theory consistent with Dirac's Large Number Hypothesis, and preferred the idea that there's only one possible set of physical laws. I was never happy with the Anthropic Principle.