3 ms·

Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

2 points by tysone 7y ago

caymanjim 7y ago
It's quite a leap to assume that our simulation would end just because we discovered it were a simulation. That presumes that something is monitoring the thoughts of individuals, or our species as a whole. It presumes that the simulation is so small in scale that only humans are being simulated (vs say an entire universe or some other large-scale experiment that involves more than human sentience). It presumes that any simulation-runner wouldn't be curious to see how the discovery altered our behavior. I like the simulation hypothesis as a mind game, and I even have some semblence of religious attraction to the idea as an origin story that I could accept on faith, but I don't buy the "ancestor simulation" at all. Why ancestors? Who cares about simulating ancestors? If we're in a simulation, I'd find it easier to believe that we're being simulated by an intelligence vastly different from ourselves, and the complete evolutionary history is all part of the simulation. The idea that in a few thousand years humans will build some elaborate recreation of this narrow point in time and simulate their own history is about as absurd as The Matrix.
- ksaj 7y ago
  If its true, then I would generally believe the way you describe it. But in our quaint little petri dish, all of our practical AI and Alife technology studies have been in the direction of making technology appear and act more human, or at least like what we know of in nature in our particular time and cultural frame. So it isn't such a big leap to think that if we are indeed part of a simulation, we're not all that different from our creators. We'd probably be damn near exactly like them once we've been "mastered" and well out of the beta version we must surely be in right now. Think about adversarial networks. Who's to say that all the bad in the world isn't simply one of those? Maybe "they" were or still are trying to solve it, and we're the hoped method of discovering a solution? We build off of what we know. So would "they." *Note: I feel I should point out in case it isn't clear - I don't believe any of this. But if it were true and we are all part of a simulation, I think it would be a lot like how we handle exactly the same subject in technology right now.

2 points by tysone 7y ago

It's quite a leap to assume that our simulation would end just because we discovered it were a simulation. That presumes that something is monitoring the thoughts of individuals, or our species as a whole. It presumes that the simulation is so small in scale that only humans are being simulated (vs say an entire universe or some other large-scale experiment that involves more than human sentience). It presumes that any simulation-runner wouldn't be curious to see how the discovery altered our behavior. I like the simulation hypothesis as a mind game, and I even have some semblence of religious attraction to the idea as an origin story that I could accept on faith, but I don't buy the "ancestor simulation" at all. Why ancestors? Who cares about simulating ancestors? If we're in a simulation, I'd find it easier to believe that we're being simulated by an intelligence vastly different from ourselves, and the complete evolutionary history is all part of the simulation. The idea that in a few thousand years humans will build some elaborate recreation of this narrow point in time and simulate their own history is about as absurd as The Matrix.

ksaj 7y ago
If its true, then I would generally believe the way you describe it. But in our quaint little petri dish, all of our practical AI and Alife technology studies have been in the direction of making technology appear and act more human, or at least like what we know of in nature in our particular time and cultural frame. So it isn't such a big leap to think that if we are indeed part of a simulation, we're not all that different from our creators. We'd probably be damn near exactly like them once we've been "mastered" and well out of the beta version we must surely be in right now. Think about adversarial networks. Who's to say that all the bad in the world isn't simply one of those? Maybe "they" were or still are trying to solve it, and we're the hoped method of discovering a solution? We build off of what we know. So would "they." *Note: I feel I should point out in case it isn't clear - I don't believe any of this. But if it were true and we are all part of a simulation, I think it would be a lot like how we handle exactly the same subject in technology right now.