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You don't add any energy from a simulation that is running a simulation. The higher-level simulation has to devote some portion of its own resources to running

You don't add any energy from a simulation that is running a simulation. The higher-level simulation has to devote some portion of its own resources to running the lower-level simulation, and that cannot grow larger than all the resources available in the higher-sim universe. If the lower-level sim has more simulated resources, that just means a resource in the higher-level sim has to be multiplexed somehow. In terms of simulations like our own universe, if we simulate a universe twice as large as our own, using half the resources in our universe for the sim, and reserving the other half for us to continue to live in, then barring any shortcuts or optimizations and assuming multiplexing by time, the sim will advance one simulated second for every four real seconds. All that simulated energy is already tied up in the simulation hardware we built in our universe. If we are living in a simulation, then the parent universe won't ever have to spend more on our simulation than the maximums they set when starting it. Unless we break out of the simulation and hack our own simulator to allocate more resources, of course. We can't up the requirements from within, because the parent could just start multiplexing some resource without any simulated person ever noticing. Also we have no way to know whether the resources of a simulator-parent are infinite or not, or the aleph numbers of any infinite resources they may have. We think we might have an infinite universe, but the portion of it we can observe is finite (but very large, encompassing many galaxies), bounded by our light cone and the expansion of spacetime. If quantum effects are really just lazy evaluation in the simulator, the simulator should be able to prune everything we cannot observe.

cgriswald 8y ago
That’s really no different than (2). I’m specifically talking about ancestor simulations in which the world of the sim is largely identical to the real world. Changing from infinite resources to finite is a big change. And having the simulation run more slowly than real time probably defeats the point. Imagine waiting for 600+ years for the simulation to complete to find out what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln hadn’t been assasssinated.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  I argue that the distinction is effectively pointless, because human imagination can already simulate our reality. Have you ever had a particularly vivid dream? Ever daydreamed about punching that smug customer in the face, or launching a rocket at that ass in front of you in traffic? What would happen if you had a dream about having a particularly vivid dream? If you dream in that dream that you're having another dream, does your real brain cook itself from using too much processing power? If you dream that someone else is having a dream, does that matter at all to your simulation? It's entirely possible that you never have to simulate that at all, because the dreamer forgets all about their dream when they wake up, and that branch just gets pruned. By that standard, the (1) simulation would halt the instant some random animal ancestor fell asleep. The (3) simulation could not model anyone that made a decision based on a portentious dream--such as the dream about seven fat kine and seven lean kine found in a millennia-old book with some cultural significance. Only a (2) simulation has any chance of producing meaningful results. And given the predictability of events, you would need to run that Lincoln simulation hundreds of times to learn anything from it, and many times more if you want any reasonable degree of precision. Nobody wants to wait 1000 years just to find out with 95% confidence what Lincoln might have eaten for breakfast a month after not being assassinated. You could prune more extensively if you had a specific question you wanted answered. Even if you just want to wander around in a simulated Lincoln-unassassinated Earth, the sim could still prune based on what you decide to look at. The sim would probably have to simulate Lincoln's impact on journalism regardless of whether you read a newspaper or not, but if you never stop to smell the flowers, it could probably prune Lincoln's impact on gardening. An ancestor simulation has a great advantage over an alien simulation, because it can play back recordings of real observations rather than simulating or randomizing results from scratch.
  - cgriswald 8y ago
    I think we are talking about apples and oranges. The dream metaphor is inapt, because your brain is consciously experiencing only 'level' of that dream. There is only one "you". In the case of the simulations, each 'level' is independently conscious. The idea behind ancestor simulations is that the simulated people are conscious. If we aren't talking about that, then of course there is no chance we are in such a simulation. So, you can't really skip what Lincoln had for breakfast, because Lincoln has to experience it and because it can affect him. Maybe the chef poisons him. Maybe it gives him the runs and he cuts a speech short. Maybe he has an allergic reaction and misses an important meeting. In any case, if you could prune it and we are in a simulation, then none of us would ever have the experience of having breakfast.

cgriswald 8y ago

That’s really no different than (2). I’m specifically talking about ancestor simulations in which the world of the sim is largely identical to the real world. Changing from infinite resources to finite is a big change. And having the simulation run more slowly than real time probably defeats the point. Imagine waiting for 600+ years for the simulation to complete to find out what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln hadn’t been assasssinated.

logfromblammo 8y ago
I argue that the distinction is effectively pointless, because human imagination can already simulate our reality. Have you ever had a particularly vivid dream? Ever daydreamed about punching that smug customer in the face, or launching a rocket at that ass in front of you in traffic? What would happen if you had a dream about having a particularly vivid dream? If you dream in that dream that you're having another dream, does your real brain cook itself from using too much processing power? If you dream that someone else is having a dream, does that matter at all to your simulation? It's entirely possible that you never have to simulate that at all, because the dreamer forgets all about their dream when they wake up, and that branch just gets pruned. By that standard, the (1) simulation would halt the instant some random animal ancestor fell asleep. The (3) simulation could not model anyone that made a decision based on a portentious dream--such as the dream about seven fat kine and seven lean kine found in a millennia-old book with some cultural significance. Only a (2) simulation has any chance of producing meaningful results. And given the predictability of events, you would need to run that Lincoln simulation hundreds of times to learn anything from it, and many times more if you want any reasonable degree of precision. Nobody wants to wait 1000 years just to find out with 95% confidence what Lincoln might have eaten for breakfast a month after not being assassinated. You could prune more extensively if you had a specific question you wanted answered. Even if you just want to wander around in a simulated Lincoln-unassassinated Earth, the sim could still prune based on what you decide to look at. The sim would probably have to simulate Lincoln's impact on journalism regardless of whether you read a newspaper or not, but if you never stop to smell the flowers, it could probably prune Lincoln's impact on gardening. An ancestor simulation has a great advantage over an alien simulation, because it can play back recordings of real observations rather than simulating or randomizing results from scratch.
- cgriswald 8y ago
  I think we are talking about apples and oranges. The dream metaphor is inapt, because your brain is consciously experiencing only 'level' of that dream. There is only one "you". In the case of the simulations, each 'level' is independently conscious. The idea behind ancestor simulations is that the simulated people are conscious. If we aren't talking about that, then of course there is no chance we are in such a simulation. So, you can't really skip what Lincoln had for breakfast, because Lincoln has to experience it and because it can affect him. Maybe the chef poisons him. Maybe it gives him the runs and he cuts a speech short. Maybe he has an allergic reaction and misses an important meeting. In any case, if you could prune it and we are in a simulation, then none of us would ever have the experience of having breakfast.