5 ms·

The crux of this article appears to be: > it seems reasonable to allow that simulations, as experienced by their inhabitants, could have entirely different mod

The crux of this article appears to be: > it seems reasonable to allow that simulations, as experienced by their inhabitants, could have entirely different models of math, physics, and even consistency. Which is a (shallow, informal) restatement of Hilary Putnam's work on externalism and its many responses. Just read some of that instead. Software developers (or worse, tech entrepreneurs) often assume they have something to add to the discussion of simulationism just because computation is the simulation substrate du jour in Bostrom's work. But the philosophical discussion goes back directly to Descartes and indirectly even further. It's broad, complex, and not something a dilettante can just jump into after a teenage diet of scifi. (This doesn't apply to Bostrom himself - the article's objection is a subset of his #2 option. If the "necessary overlap in metaphysics" is impossible or prohibitively expensive future civilizations are not likely to run them.)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gfodor 7y ago
This type of dismissive comment reeks of elitism. Einstein was a patent clerk. Big, important ideas can come from anyone. They usually come from outsiders connecting the dots between different areas. This isn’t me defending the writer of this article’s argument.
- morelisp 7y ago
  It's not elitism to say this article is bad, go read about that instead. When Einstein was a patent clerk he organized a reading group to study Poincare and Mach. His annus mirabilis was six years after his first published paper. It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. This isn't an outsider connecting the dots; like most responses to Bostrom from non-philosophers it's barely on the right side of crankery. It's 13 years after "dabblers and blowhards" and this site still hasn't developed the requisite self-awareness.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. It's also not something we expected from TFA (to "revolutionize the field") We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer, and we got that.
    - morelisp 7y ago
      > We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer Well, I didn't want that. And you apparently didn't want my thought regarding comments on the simulation hypothesis either. My complaint is not that the article doesn't "revolutionize" the argument, but that it shows little to no engagement with the existing body of philosophy before, after, or even around it. Statements like: > In the Western tradition, we have a deep assumption of the universality of mathematical truth. reveals a view that seems disengaged from any developments philosophy after the early 20th century other than Bostrom's. A stretched analogy: If someone posted an article about how no one's ever pointed out how bad it is that PHP variable names start with $ and this is difficult to type on many keyboards, and this is a key reason to avoid PHP, they would not be taken seriously - even though their conclusion, that other languages should generally be preferred to PHP, is probably valid.
      - gfodor 7y ago
        If someone posted such a thing, a mature, reasonable person would respond to the person’s ignorance with empathy for their interest in the subject and useful information. The idea that someone can post an article on the Internet, have it be read by someone because it was linked on HN (perhaps completely without their awareness or endorsement), and have someone like yourself insult and demean them due to what you see as ignorance should be embarrassing for you. Have you considered the possibility the author wrote this article in part to enable them to have a way to get an informed audience to enlighten them further on a subject they are interested in?
      - 7y ago
coldtea 7y ago
>Software developers (or worse, tech entrepreneurs) often assume they have something to add to the discussion of simulationism just because computation is the simulation substrate du jour in Bostrom's work. But the philosophical discussion goes back directly to Descartes and indirectly even further. It's broad, complex, and not something a dilettante can just jump into after a teenage diet of scifi. So what? People should stop thinking for themselves and relegate it to the pros, lest they repeat informally something already investigated and rejected? One could also point out how openness and encouragement of layman participation and collaboration with field outsiders have also been discussed extensively, and point people to read the relevant papers/books instead of your comment...
- morelisp 7y ago
  > People should stop thinking for themselves and relegate it to the pros, lest they repeat informally something already investigated and rejected? I didn't say anything about thinking. But yes, maybe many programmers (and celebrities and entrepreneurs - also called out by the article itself) should think more and publicly speak less.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - fourthark 7y ago
    Why?
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    Maybe you should have said read more then speak from a more informed place.
  - iainmerrick 7y ago
    Here’s something I’m curious about, hopefully without coming across as too negative: what is the purpose of philosophical work such as Bostrom’s? As an argument it may or may not be convincing, but it’s not obviously actionable. It’s hard to see how it could be tested. You seem to be saying that amateur philosophers shouldn’t jump in with their own naive takes on it, as they don’t have the required educational background. I can certainly believe that, but it takes away another avenue by which we non-philosophers can potentially engage with the work. If there has been any notable followup or rebuttal, it hasn’t made nearly as much of an impact in the public consciousness (and of course the simulation argument is a pretty niche thing in the first place). How does, or should, this simulation argument affect the average person? How might it affect us in future? What does it change?
rst 7y ago
That is the crux of the argument -- which seems to ignore that Bostrom restricts his argument to considering "ancestor simulations", which would be rigged to at least look to the inhabitants like they have the same physics as the ancestral word, by hypothesis.
dang 7y ago
Would you please communicate your knowledge without being a jerk on HN? This sort of supercilious putdown is poison here, regardless of how much more you know than other people. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- arbitrage 7y ago
  Would you please stop policing the way other people think, talk, and feel? You're not the arbiter of right and wrong, intellect and folly.
  - dang 7y ago
    Well that's for sure. What I am is responsible for the site guidelines. It's my job to ask people to follow them, and to try to prevent HN from poisoning itself, as internet forums historically have—or at least to stave that off a little longer: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... In this case, I commented more harshly than I usually do because it's important for authors to be able to come here to contribute and not be met with garden-variety, albeit highbrow, toxicity. That makes HN strictly worse: it disincentivizes thoughtful people to participate and encourages hostility and snark. Feedback loops like that are all too easy to get going and they're an existential threat to this place. michaelfeathers has been a good HN contributor in the past, as well as a distinguished author on software topics. Who cares if his blog post was "shallow, informal"? That's what blog posts are for. If someone else has deeper and more formal knowledge of a topic, that's wonderful: it puts them in a position to teach something to the rest of us here, which is obviously in the spirit of this site. If people want to play the intellectual bully, though, they should find another place to do that.
- morelisp 7y ago
  I reject the claim anything I wrote is a "putdown". The harshest word I used is 'shallow' and the meanest claim "after a teenage diet of scifi", more than justified when the only work cited is _Flatland_.
tapland 7y ago
Ok, boomer. The line between being a helpful person contributing to discussion and an ass showing off is not that thin. Your comment could have been lovely and useful if it enabled readers to delve deeper and learn more. But maybe some should share their knowledge more and rant less about teenage dillitanti.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gfodor 7y ago

This type of dismissive comment reeks of elitism. Einstein was a patent clerk. Big, important ideas can come from anyone. They usually come from outsiders connecting the dots between different areas. This isn’t me defending the writer of this article’s argument.

morelisp 7y ago
It's not elitism to say this article is bad, go read about that instead. When Einstein was a patent clerk he organized a reading group to study Poincare and Mach. His annus mirabilis was six years after his first published paper. It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. This isn't an outsider connecting the dots; like most responses to Bostrom from non-philosophers it's barely on the right side of crankery. It's 13 years after "dabblers and blowhards" and this site still hasn't developed the requisite self-awareness.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >It's not impossible to for someone to swoop in and revolutionize a field with no background knowledge, but it's vanishingly rare in one as old as philosophy of mind, and Einstein is not an example of such a thing in physics. It's also not something we expected from TFA (to "revolutionize the field") We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer, and we got that.
  - morelisp 7y ago
    > We just wanted to read a thought regarding the Simulation Argument that occurred to a fellow developer Well, I didn't want that. And you apparently didn't want my thought regarding comments on the simulation hypothesis either. My complaint is not that the article doesn't "revolutionize" the argument, but that it shows little to no engagement with the existing body of philosophy before, after, or even around it. Statements like: > In the Western tradition, we have a deep assumption of the universality of mathematical truth. reveals a view that seems disengaged from any developments philosophy after the early 20th century other than Bostrom's. A stretched analogy: If someone posted an article about how no one's ever pointed out how bad it is that PHP variable names start with $ and this is difficult to type on many keyboards, and this is a key reason to avoid PHP, they would not be taken seriously - even though their conclusion, that other languages should generally be preferred to PHP, is probably valid.
    - gfodor 7y ago
      If someone posted such a thing, a mature, reasonable person would respond to the person’s ignorance with empathy for their interest in the subject and useful information. The idea that someone can post an article on the Internet, have it be read by someone because it was linked on HN (perhaps completely without their awareness or endorsement), and have someone like yourself insult and demean them due to what you see as ignorance should be embarrassing for you. Have you considered the possibility the author wrote this article in part to enable them to have a way to get an informed audience to enlighten them further on a subject they are interested in?
    - 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

>Software developers (or worse, tech entrepreneurs) often assume they have something to add to the discussion of simulationism just because computation is the simulation substrate du jour in Bostrom's work. But the philosophical discussion goes back directly to Descartes and indirectly even further. It's broad, complex, and not something a dilettante can just jump into after a teenage diet of scifi. So what? People should stop thinking for themselves and relegate it to the pros, lest they repeat informally something already investigated and rejected? One could also point out how openness and encouragement of layman participation and collaboration with field outsiders have also been discussed extensively, and point people to read the relevant papers/books instead of your comment...

morelisp 7y ago
> People should stop thinking for themselves and relegate it to the pros, lest they repeat informally something already investigated and rejected? I didn't say anything about thinking. But yes, maybe many programmers (and celebrities and entrepreneurs - also called out by the article itself) should think more and publicly speak less.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fourthark 7y ago
  Why?
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  Maybe you should have said read more then speak from a more informed place.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  Here’s something I’m curious about, hopefully without coming across as too negative: what is the purpose of philosophical work such as Bostrom’s? As an argument it may or may not be convincing, but it’s not obviously actionable. It’s hard to see how it could be tested. You seem to be saying that amateur philosophers shouldn’t jump in with their own naive takes on it, as they don’t have the required educational background. I can certainly believe that, but it takes away another avenue by which we non-philosophers can potentially engage with the work. If there has been any notable followup or rebuttal, it hasn’t made nearly as much of an impact in the public consciousness (and of course the simulation argument is a pretty niche thing in the first place). How does, or should, this simulation argument affect the average person? How might it affect us in future? What does it change?

rst 7y ago

That is the crux of the argument -- which seems to ignore that Bostrom restricts his argument to considering "ancestor simulations", which would be rigged to at least look to the inhabitants like they have the same physics as the ancestral word, by hypothesis.

dang 7y ago

Would you please communicate your knowledge without being a jerk on HN? This sort of supercilious putdown is poison here, regardless of how much more you know than other people. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

arbitrage 7y ago
Would you please stop policing the way other people think, talk, and feel? You're not the arbiter of right and wrong, intellect and folly.
- dang 7y ago
  Well that's for sure. What I am is responsible for the site guidelines. It's my job to ask people to follow them, and to try to prevent HN from poisoning itself, as internet forums historically have—or at least to stave that off a little longer: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... In this case, I commented more harshly than I usually do because it's important for authors to be able to come here to contribute and not be met with garden-variety, albeit highbrow, toxicity. That makes HN strictly worse: it disincentivizes thoughtful people to participate and encourages hostility and snark. Feedback loops like that are all too easy to get going and they're an existential threat to this place. michaelfeathers has been a good HN contributor in the past, as well as a distinguished author on software topics. Who cares if his blog post was "shallow, informal"? That's what blog posts are for. If someone else has deeper and more formal knowledge of a topic, that's wonderful: it puts them in a position to teach something to the rest of us here, which is obviously in the spirit of this site. If people want to play the intellectual bully, though, they should find another place to do that.
morelisp 7y ago
I reject the claim anything I wrote is a "putdown". The harshest word I used is 'shallow' and the meanest claim "after a teenage diet of scifi", more than justified when the only work cited is _Flatland_.

tapland 7y ago

Ok, boomer. The line between being a helpful person contributing to discussion and an ass showing off is not that thin. Your comment could have been lovely and useful if it enabled readers to delve deeper and learn more. But maybe some should share their knowledge more and rant less about teenage dillitanti.