3 ms·

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. C

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.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    The solipsistic argument says that I can't ever really tell if you are really a conscious being or just a simulation of a conscious being. I can't tell if the real world actually exists, or if I am a brain in a jar being fed simulated sensory data. And we don't need the experience of having breakfast if we have the memory of having breakfast. If you copied one memory of me having breakfast, randomized a few variables, and replayed it to me later, it would be unlikely to impact any of the impactful decisions I make later. Since you're running a simulation, you can choose whether or not my breakfast needs to be simulated in detail or elided over after identifying a decision node that might be significantly impacted by my breakfast. I honestly probably wouldn't do anything differently if you swapped gravlax and bagels for eggs and toast. So you can usually replay a partially memoized breakfast sequence as it happens, and revise the simulation, overwriting my memory and that of all witnesses, if it turns out later that my breakfast might have an impact on something else. So every day, I have memoized breakfast routine. At 3 PM one day, there is a potential for a hangry conversation at work that might get me fired. Now you can backtrack, copy all my variables from this morning into the breakfast simulator engine, and this time everything is simulated in detail. Then you patch the detail results over the rough results, and I can't tell the difference, other than the fact that I can now remember significant details of my breakfast, rather than a blur of things I usually eat in the morning. You might not be able to skip Lincoln's breakfast, but you could skip a few million other breakfasts. So that leads to the existential horror. Do I actually still exist if I'm not doing something meaningful to an external observer right now? Maybe most of me is just a slipshod model of a generic person, that exists solely to produce some initialization variables for a detailed simulation of some-guy-on-the-Internet replying to you, and then after I'm done, I'll just go back to being an NPC with no personality of my own.

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.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  The solipsistic argument says that I can't ever really tell if you are really a conscious being or just a simulation of a conscious being. I can't tell if the real world actually exists, or if I am a brain in a jar being fed simulated sensory data. And we don't need the experience of having breakfast if we have the memory of having breakfast. If you copied one memory of me having breakfast, randomized a few variables, and replayed it to me later, it would be unlikely to impact any of the impactful decisions I make later. Since you're running a simulation, you can choose whether or not my breakfast needs to be simulated in detail or elided over after identifying a decision node that might be significantly impacted by my breakfast. I honestly probably wouldn't do anything differently if you swapped gravlax and bagels for eggs and toast. So you can usually replay a partially memoized breakfast sequence as it happens, and revise the simulation, overwriting my memory and that of all witnesses, if it turns out later that my breakfast might have an impact on something else. So every day, I have memoized breakfast routine. At 3 PM one day, there is a potential for a hangry conversation at work that might get me fired. Now you can backtrack, copy all my variables from this morning into the breakfast simulator engine, and this time everything is simulated in detail. Then you patch the detail results over the rough results, and I can't tell the difference, other than the fact that I can now remember significant details of my breakfast, rather than a blur of things I usually eat in the morning. You might not be able to skip Lincoln's breakfast, but you could skip a few million other breakfasts. So that leads to the existential horror. Do I actually still exist if I'm not doing something meaningful to an external observer right now? Maybe most of me is just a slipshod model of a generic person, that exists solely to produce some initialization variables for a detailed simulation of some-guy-on-the-Internet replying to you, and then after I'm done, I'll just go back to being an NPC with no personality of my own.