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It's just a probability thought experiment. If there is only one real universe and there are (hypothetical) at least 2 simulations of universes (regardless of t

It's just a probability thought experiment. If there is only one real universe and there are (hypothetical) at least 2 simulations of universes (regardless of their fidelity) then the odds that you, an inhabitant of a universe, is in one of the simulated universes is 66%.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
This can go wrong so fast. If there are only two kinds of people, winners of lotteries and losers of lotteries, it doesn't mean I have a 50% chance of winning the lottery. The simulation has to be 'good enough' to make a thinking person (win the lottery); my mind has to be only smart enough to think of multiple universes but not perceive the obvious simulation artifacts; I have to be written (as a simulation myself) to be capable of accepting multiple universes. Since we even ask ourselves "Are we a limited simulation artifact, or a real thinking person?" the answer is right there in the question.
- ohyes 8y ago
  If you were a puddle, you would be prone to think “gee, this hole is the perfect shape for me.” When it turns out you’d fit any shape hole we put you in given sufficient quantity of water. Because the hole determines your shape, not an intrinsic property of you.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    If you were said puddle, however, what’s the difference?
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      Whether or not the puddle was made for you
      - Razengan 8y ago
        If you had said “the hole” instead of puddle and this was Reddit, I would have linked that Junji Ito short story [0]. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/ZNSaq https://imgur.com/gallery/ZNSaq
- longerthoughts 8y ago
  The lottery analogy is compelling as an argument against the parents' specific assignment of probability but I would challenge you on a couple of things: > The simulation has to be 'good enough' to make a thinking person (win the lottery); my mind has to be only smart enough to think of multiple universes but not perceive the obvious simulation artifacts Why is it necessarily true that the creator of a simulation would want to indefinitely prevent people in the simulation from recognizing that their universe is simulated? > Since we even ask ourselves "Are we a limited simulation artifact, or a real thinking person?" the answer is right there in the question. Let's go along with the notion that the simulation would want to avoid discovery of the simulation. How are you sure that you're really asking the question if you're so convinced of the answer? Is it crazy to imagine that in the hypothetical simulation a person's consciousness would be given degrees of freedom but have imposed constraints?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Since we even ask ourselves "Are we a limited simulation artifact, or a real thinking person?" the answer is right there in the question. That's a false dichotomy. Why couldn't a simulation include "thinking" and such "self-doubt"?
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  >The simulation has to be 'good enough' to make a thinking person (win the lottery); my mind has to be only smart enough to think of multiple universes but not perceive the obvious simulation artifacts; I have to be written (as a simulation myself) to be capable of accepting multiple universes. But how could we possibly know what are simulation artifacts without knowledge of the rules of the outside universe? Paraphrasing an old SMBC comic, we live in a universe with a maximum speed, a minimum temperature, and a rule that position and momentum are only knowable to certain tolerances. If I were writing a universe simulator, heck yeah forced locality of side effects within the light cone makes the simulation and memory structures much more manageable. Is that just the natural state of how things exist? Or are they constraints from simulation optimization within a parent universe where objects move infinite distances along 20 spatial dimensions as fast as they'd like? Depending on the rules outside, maybe our light speed limitations don't even help with simulation optimization and they just put that rule in here for fun to mess with us. I just don't see how we have any grounds for talking about the odds of being a simulation based on absolutely no information. Best case we can say "If I make these assumptions about the parent universe I can draw X conclusions," but that doesn't mean much.
simonh 8y ago
The problem for me is the fidelity of the simulation. It’s like running a simulation of the hardware of a computer on the computer itself. eeven if you devote all of the computer’s resources, the simulation will run incredibly slowly. If you run the simulation in a fraction of the real hardware’s resources, the simulation will either have to be extremely crude and unrealistic, or equally extremely slowly. At which point, why would anyone do this? A simulation like GTA is only useful because it is staggeringly crude, but the goals of the simulation are commensurately staggeringly modest. I just don’t see how running a simulation of our universe, in our universe, at high enough fidelity to appear real even under detailed scientific analysis, could be useful or worthwhile. I’d like to see a more credible and compelling proposal than hand waved ‘history simulation’. What’s the point of a history simulation that runs many times slower than real time? If it’s low fidelity, it will also be low accuracy, so why simulating at the physics level at all? I don’t see how it would give useful results.
- kernaussage 8y ago
  Time is relative, our perceived time must not necessarily be the same as the one the inhabitants of the simulation feel.
  - b_tterc_p 8y ago
    Additionally our perception of time as moving does not demand a simulation is moving. This could be a flat file, our experiencing of reality merely being a series of pre calculated frames with an illusory sense of self. The fact that we experience things does not mean things have happened. You can’t guarantee time hasn’t literally just started at even given moment. Every frame of existence may just be a single slice now opened up, and everything else you perceived as happening to you in some concept of recent time may be sitting in a database- not actually called upon ever.
- vidarh 8y ago
  > At which point, why would anyone do this? A game is a perfectly valid reason to do this. We're running millions of crude, low level simulations today. > I’d like to see a more credible and compelling proposal than hand waved ‘history simulation’ Civilization is a crude, low level "history simulation" that doesn't try to be accurate. Our world might be equally low level and crude by the standard of a future with vastly more computational capability. Also consider that if you're in a simulation, then you have no basis for saying anything about the size or scope of the simulation: it's not a given many people are simulated at full fidelity, for example.
Retric 8y ago
An actual universe contains vastly more computational power than all simulated universes with that universe. Which means a thinking being is vastly more likely to be in the real universe.
- davorb 8y ago
  I don't think this follows. What you are saying is basically "All Bs must be a subset of A. Therefore dogs like the sun."
  - Retric 8y ago
    Simulations are more computationally bound than the root universe. Simulating a full being vs just a mind takes a lot more computation than simply simulating a mind. Therefore from an optimization standpoint simulations are unlikely to simulate worlds nearly as complex as the real one. Either they are going to simulate minds, or they will simulate tiny subsets of the real world, or vastly less complex worlds. We are not operating as minds without body's which rules out the pure mind simulation leaving far less efficient options which must therefore simulate smaller spaces, less complex universes, and or shorter periods of time. ED: And by complexity I mean in terms of building blocks useful for simulating a universe or hosting life. Complexity that's not useful for either purpose is useless.
    - jeletonskelly 8y ago
      The bounds of the computing power isn't even worth considering because we have no knowledge of the resources, let alone the nature of the reality, in either a parent universe or parent simulation. Sure, fidelity must drop in each nested simulation, but we have no idea if we are 2 levels deep, 1000 levels deep, or in the actual real universe.
      - Retric 8y ago
        That's irrelevant as Life and computation both take resources. In a more complex universe the bacteria equivalent could be more intelligent than humans. But it does not go the other way simulations of a life form will always be less efficient than the least complex lifeforms in a parent universe.
cc-d 8y ago
When we're discussing things at the level of 'higher than our own universe', there is no reason to assume the concept of probability even exists.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

This can go wrong so fast. If there are only two kinds of people, winners of lotteries and losers of lotteries, it doesn't mean I have a 50% chance of winning the lottery. The simulation has to be 'good enough' to make a thinking person (win the lottery); my mind has to be only smart enough to think of multiple universes but not perceive the obvious simulation artifacts; I have to be written (as a simulation myself) to be capable of accepting multiple universes. Since we even ask ourselves "Are we a limited simulation artifact, or a real thinking person?" the answer is right there in the question.

ohyes 8y ago
If you were a puddle, you would be prone to think “gee, this hole is the perfect shape for me.” When it turns out you’d fit any shape hole we put you in given sufficient quantity of water. Because the hole determines your shape, not an intrinsic property of you.
- CPLX 8y ago
  If you were said puddle, however, what’s the difference?
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Whether or not the puddle was made for you
    - Razengan 8y ago
      If you had said “the hole” instead of puddle and this was Reddit, I would have linked that Junji Ito short story [0]. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/ZNSaq https://imgur.com/gallery/ZNSaq
longerthoughts 8y ago
The lottery analogy is compelling as an argument against the parents' specific assignment of probability but I would challenge you on a couple of things: > The simulation has to be 'good enough' to make a thinking person (win the lottery); my mind has to be only smart enough to think of multiple universes but not perceive the obvious simulation artifacts Why is it necessarily true that the creator of a simulation would want to indefinitely prevent people in the simulation from recognizing that their universe is simulated? > Since we even ask ourselves "Are we a limited simulation artifact, or a real thinking person?" the answer is right there in the question. Let's go along with the notion that the simulation would want to avoid discovery of the simulation. How are you sure that you're really asking the question if you're so convinced of the answer? Is it crazy to imagine that in the hypothetical simulation a person's consciousness would be given degrees of freedom but have imposed constraints?
coldtea 8y ago
>Since we even ask ourselves "Are we a limited simulation artifact, or a real thinking person?" the answer is right there in the question. That's a false dichotomy. Why couldn't a simulation include "thinking" and such "self-doubt"?
wlesieutre 8y ago
>The simulation has to be 'good enough' to make a thinking person (win the lottery); my mind has to be only smart enough to think of multiple universes but not perceive the obvious simulation artifacts; I have to be written (as a simulation myself) to be capable of accepting multiple universes. But how could we possibly know what are simulation artifacts without knowledge of the rules of the outside universe? Paraphrasing an old SMBC comic, we live in a universe with a maximum speed, a minimum temperature, and a rule that position and momentum are only knowable to certain tolerances. If I were writing a universe simulator, heck yeah forced locality of side effects within the light cone makes the simulation and memory structures much more manageable. Is that just the natural state of how things exist? Or are they constraints from simulation optimization within a parent universe where objects move infinite distances along 20 spatial dimensions as fast as they'd like? Depending on the rules outside, maybe our light speed limitations don't even help with simulation optimization and they just put that rule in here for fun to mess with us. I just don't see how we have any grounds for talking about the odds of being a simulation based on absolutely no information. Best case we can say "If I make these assumptions about the parent universe I can draw X conclusions," but that doesn't mean much.

simonh 8y ago

The problem for me is the fidelity of the simulation. It’s like running a simulation of the hardware of a computer on the computer itself. eeven if you devote all of the computer’s resources, the simulation will run incredibly slowly. If you run the simulation in a fraction of the real hardware’s resources, the simulation will either have to be extremely crude and unrealistic, or equally extremely slowly. At which point, why would anyone do this? A simulation like GTA is only useful because it is staggeringly crude, but the goals of the simulation are commensurately staggeringly modest. I just don’t see how running a simulation of our universe, in our universe, at high enough fidelity to appear real even under detailed scientific analysis, could be useful or worthwhile. I’d like to see a more credible and compelling proposal than hand waved ‘history simulation’. What’s the point of a history simulation that runs many times slower than real time? If it’s low fidelity, it will also be low accuracy, so why simulating at the physics level at all? I don’t see how it would give useful results.

kernaussage 8y ago
Time is relative, our perceived time must not necessarily be the same as the one the inhabitants of the simulation feel.
- b_tterc_p 8y ago
  Additionally our perception of time as moving does not demand a simulation is moving. This could be a flat file, our experiencing of reality merely being a series of pre calculated frames with an illusory sense of self. The fact that we experience things does not mean things have happened. You can’t guarantee time hasn’t literally just started at even given moment. Every frame of existence may just be a single slice now opened up, and everything else you perceived as happening to you in some concept of recent time may be sitting in a database- not actually called upon ever.
vidarh 8y ago
> At which point, why would anyone do this? A game is a perfectly valid reason to do this. We're running millions of crude, low level simulations today. > I’d like to see a more credible and compelling proposal than hand waved ‘history simulation’ Civilization is a crude, low level "history simulation" that doesn't try to be accurate. Our world might be equally low level and crude by the standard of a future with vastly more computational capability. Also consider that if you're in a simulation, then you have no basis for saying anything about the size or scope of the simulation: it's not a given many people are simulated at full fidelity, for example.

Retric 8y ago

An actual universe contains vastly more computational power than all simulated universes with that universe. Which means a thinking being is vastly more likely to be in the real universe.

davorb 8y ago
I don't think this follows. What you are saying is basically "All Bs must be a subset of A. Therefore dogs like the sun."
- Retric 8y ago
  Simulations are more computationally bound than the root universe. Simulating a full being vs just a mind takes a lot more computation than simply simulating a mind. Therefore from an optimization standpoint simulations are unlikely to simulate worlds nearly as complex as the real one. Either they are going to simulate minds, or they will simulate tiny subsets of the real world, or vastly less complex worlds. We are not operating as minds without body's which rules out the pure mind simulation leaving far less efficient options which must therefore simulate smaller spaces, less complex universes, and or shorter periods of time. ED: And by complexity I mean in terms of building blocks useful for simulating a universe or hosting life. Complexity that's not useful for either purpose is useless.
  - jeletonskelly 8y ago
    The bounds of the computing power isn't even worth considering because we have no knowledge of the resources, let alone the nature of the reality, in either a parent universe or parent simulation. Sure, fidelity must drop in each nested simulation, but we have no idea if we are 2 levels deep, 1000 levels deep, or in the actual real universe.
    - Retric 8y ago
      That's irrelevant as Life and computation both take resources. In a more complex universe the bacteria equivalent could be more intelligent than humans. But it does not go the other way simulations of a life form will always be less efficient than the least complex lifeforms in a parent universe.

cc-d 8y ago

When we're discussing things at the level of 'higher than our own universe', there is no reason to assume the concept of probability even exists.