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This article doesn't actually explain Dust Theory to someone who hasn't read the book. I haven't found a good standalone explanation of the theory that explains

by sxp 6y ago

This article doesn't actually explain Dust Theory to someone who hasn't read the book. I haven't found a good standalone explanation of the theory that explains it in a compact manner so my recommendation to people is to read the book. Permutation City is among my top 5 favorite books because I found Dust Theory so mind blowingly amazing from a philosophical standpoint. I haven't seen it discussed elsewhere outside the lesswrong.com forums (which are famous for creating Roko's Basilisk). It's only $3 on Amazon so it's worth picking up if you're a fan of hard sci-fi that gets into the philosophy of uploading: https://www.amazon.com/Permutation-City-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00FDWCPV2 https://www.amazon.com/Permutation-City-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B... Dust Theory also provides an interesting option for people who want to achieve True Immortality. That is, immortality that can survive the heat death of the universe without violating the First or Second Laws of Thermodynamics. It also provides a hard sci-fi version of the concept of Subliming from Iain Banks' Culture novels where a civilization leaves this universe once they become sufficiently advanced. (Sublimation in the Culture books is similar to Ascension in the Stargate universe or Transcendence in Babylon 5.)

db48x 6y ago
You'd probably like Neal Stephenson's Anathem. It's a Hemn Space argument.
- foobarbecue 6y ago
  Is that the one that had hundreds of pages of monks hanging around at the beginning? I got bored and couldn't make it through
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    It is the BEST book, though. It becomes a madcap zany heist in the second half, but the 'boring' beginning bit is my favorite. I think back on 'The Book' every time I have to debug bad code... https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Book https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Book
  - ahartmetz 6y ago
    Neal Stephenson tends to cram too many side stories into his books, some of them quite boring :/ I kind of regret that I slogged through Cryptonomicon and I would advise anyone to stop reading after 200 pages if bored, the next 700 won't really be better.
    - foobarbecue 6y ago
      I enjoyed cryptonomicon but get where you're coming from! I think his books would be way better with aggressive editing. Seveneves was great but so many long lame sections should have been removed.
      - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
        Imo the third part should have just been a sequel
        foobarbecue 6y ago
        I think the third part should not have been published at all. That environmental determinist ethnography stuff felt like it was straight out of old school racist colonial philosophy. I did think their naming scheme was great though.
        X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
        Yeah I'd prefer to have not read it either, but I can't take that back. I typically suggest people read the book, but feel free to stop at the third part. It did have some weird regressive vibes, the only redeeming part to me was the idea that multiple distinct groups were able to survive and had to make major changes to adapt, the bit about the different lines descended from the eves was just weird.
    - chrisweekly 6y ago
      Strongest possible disagreement here on your 2nd sentence. I'm not a Stephenson fanatic, but IMHO Cryptonomicon kept getting better throughout.
  - db48x 6y ago
    That's probably the one. It's probably not for everyone; the first part of the book is building a whole and detailed world for the story to exist in, as well as creating an interesting and articulate main character to tell the story. One of the really good things about Anathem is that Stephenson hides a lot of clues and advanced mathematics in the early chapters. For example, there are two very good explanations of configuration spaces (aka Hemn Spaces) which might seem like a complete waste of time, but is actually foreshadowing.
  - quesera 6y ago
    That's the one. I thought it was great -- it's not unusual when reading an "epic era" Stephenson book to spend a lot of time wondering what story is being told. But he's a great writer and if you enjoy his style, you usually are rewarded with two or three books of story by the time you run out of pages.
cmehdy 6y ago
I finished the book last night. It's not a long read in terms of pages, but in the first half particularly it took me quite a few stops to ponder about what had been laid in few sentences. Greg Egan is awesome. (Sort-of SPOILERS underneath) I can actually grasp the Dust theory thing pretty well as I followed Durham's realizations, however I somehow can't fathom the "more practical" TVC universe stuff, and perhaps you can enlighten me: - TVC starts with borrowed compute but somehow connects to the Dust Theory, right? - The whole "TVC is software and compute-based" at first (some software is even implanted in it), but somehow becomes a self-expanding thing as the story needs it simply by being a mathematical object, am I understanding this correctly? - Why would a few minutes of compute offer Durham any more relief than a second of it, a theoretical proof of it, or a billion years of it? Since they are even in a position to kickstart something computable, it mathematically exists, therefore by the Dust theory they don't even need to start it in order for everything in the book to happen. Admittedly, that makes for a much shorter book (or a billion trillion other scenarios and then some, whatever floats one's boat) - Why would the TVC Durham enjoy the continuation while the "flesh" Durham wouldn't? I guess I'm getting personal there, but isn't part of the understanding of this wholeness of existence also the acceptance that whatever currently unsatisfactory situation is but one amongst infinity anyway, and pain is as powerful as you want an illusion to be? (in his case, alienation from society, or lack of purpose once he feels validated). This is the part where I think the book really crosses into Buddhist concepts at times. I really liked the book, and like a lot of good books it left me with more questions and wonder than I started with. For me, it does make the sound of one hand clapping. :)
- lachlan-sneff 6y ago
  I read Permutation City a year or two ago, so bear with me. I believe they run the computation on physical computers so that the people running in the simulation can, at any point, check if their reality is a descendant of the initial garden-of-eden configuration.
  - cmehdy 6y ago
    I think I can see it: they write the software without having a clear proof (that, say, it is mathematically inconsistent and will crash). Then they execute it for long enough for its self-test phase(s) to be reasonably validated (with all the resources they can get in the "normal" world), therefore practically reassuring themselves that there's a mathematically valid outcome (in a "formal verification" sense), which ensures at least one configuration existing with their wishes (the Garden-of-Eden one). It does have the side effect of ensuring the reality that exists also has a way to know the Garden of Eden configuration (provided the people scanned are/were made aware of it prior to the scan, since it's made clear that there's no guaranteed way to know what happened to the "flesh person" after a scan when you're "reborn virtual".
_xerces_ 6y ago
How about this explanation? Simulation, Consciousness, Existence Hans Moravec, 1998 https://outline.com/JHCE77 https://outline.com/JHCE77
3pt14159 6y ago
Almost a decade ago I independently invented the same idea. Discussion was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727750 It's a pretty simple theory, which I ultimately reject even to this day. If it were true, however, the expanse of existence is truly terrifying. This theory leads to any possible existence existing, short of maybe self-contradiction[0]. Well, so if that is true, then there exists a relation of beings where one of the beings is both powerful and has motives that are purely antithetical to the others. Think "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" kinda bad, only armed with Knuth's up notation and applied to pain and suffering. A hell that's truly beyond comprehension. If this theory is correct, then all beings eventually find themselves in this hell. Note that this isn't argumentum ad consequentiam. I'm not saying that since this is such a horrific outcome that it's clearly false. I'm saying that if it is true, it is a horror beyond all horrors. Though I suppose there is always a chance that a being that found themself in such a situation could always randomly pop out into some other, better existence by sheer chance. Thinking about it is useful, but ultimately there are too many degrees of freedom to come to any practical conclusions. [0] An existence arising that stops the existence of the vast randomness leading to all existences, for example.
- jbotz 6y ago
  > This theory leads to any possible existence existing, [...] This statement maybe superficially correct, but I interpret it differently. Every possible existence may exist, but not every imaginable existence. For something to exist in this manner, it has to be possible to generate it in a logically consistent manner from some initial conditions and simple rules, and while that allows for a "terrifying expanse of existences" we can't say which imagninable existences can actually be thus generated, any more than you can look at a random jumble of dots and say whether those could have been generated by one of Wolfram's one-dimensional automata without generating all possible patterns from those automata and seeing if one matches. The fact that you can imagine a hell beyond all horrors is not proof that any world-generating automaton would ever generate it... even in an infinite Universe it may not actually be a "possible existence". Infinity != Everything.
  - 6y ago
tgvaughan 6y ago
Permission City is grand. It made me realise just how silly the standard "are we living in a simulated reality?" questions are. Max Tegmark took these ideas further, and iirc cites Egan as partial inspiration for his type 4 multiverse. (I'm sure philosophers will groan and say that none of this is new, but it doesn't stop these from being incredibly fun and compelling ideas!)

by sxp 6y ago

db48x 6y ago

You'd probably like Neal Stephenson's Anathem. It's a Hemn Space argument.

foobarbecue 6y ago
Is that the one that had hundreds of pages of monks hanging around at the beginning? I got bored and couldn't make it through
- sdenton4 6y ago
  It is the BEST book, though. It becomes a madcap zany heist in the second half, but the 'boring' beginning bit is my favorite. I think back on 'The Book' every time I have to debug bad code... https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Book https://anathem.fandom.com/wiki/Book
- ahartmetz 6y ago
  Neal Stephenson tends to cram too many side stories into his books, some of them quite boring :/ I kind of regret that I slogged through Cryptonomicon and I would advise anyone to stop reading after 200 pages if bored, the next 700 won't really be better.
  - foobarbecue 6y ago
    I enjoyed cryptonomicon but get where you're coming from! I think his books would be way better with aggressive editing. Seveneves was great but so many long lame sections should have been removed.
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
      Imo the third part should have just been a sequel
      - foobarbecue 6y ago
        I think the third part should not have been published at all. That environmental determinist ethnography stuff felt like it was straight out of old school racist colonial philosophy. I did think their naming scheme was great though.
        X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
        Yeah I'd prefer to have not read it either, but I can't take that back. I typically suggest people read the book, but feel free to stop at the third part. It did have some weird regressive vibes, the only redeeming part to me was the idea that multiple distinct groups were able to survive and had to make major changes to adapt, the bit about the different lines descended from the eves was just weird.
  - chrisweekly 6y ago
    Strongest possible disagreement here on your 2nd sentence. I'm not a Stephenson fanatic, but IMHO Cryptonomicon kept getting better throughout.
- db48x 6y ago
  That's probably the one. It's probably not for everyone; the first part of the book is building a whole and detailed world for the story to exist in, as well as creating an interesting and articulate main character to tell the story. One of the really good things about Anathem is that Stephenson hides a lot of clues and advanced mathematics in the early chapters. For example, there are two very good explanations of configuration spaces (aka Hemn Spaces) which might seem like a complete waste of time, but is actually foreshadowing.
- quesera 6y ago
  That's the one. I thought it was great -- it's not unusual when reading an "epic era" Stephenson book to spend a lot of time wondering what story is being told. But he's a great writer and if you enjoy his style, you usually are rewarded with two or three books of story by the time you run out of pages.

cmehdy 6y ago

I finished the book last night. It's not a long read in terms of pages, but in the first half particularly it took me quite a few stops to ponder about what had been laid in few sentences. Greg Egan is awesome. (Sort-of SPOILERS underneath) I can actually grasp the Dust theory thing pretty well as I followed Durham's realizations, however I somehow can't fathom the "more practical" TVC universe stuff, and perhaps you can enlighten me: - TVC starts with borrowed compute but somehow connects to the Dust Theory, right? - The whole "TVC is software and compute-based" at first (some software is even implanted in it), but somehow becomes a self-expanding thing as the story needs it simply by being a mathematical object, am I understanding this correctly? - Why would a few minutes of compute offer Durham any more relief than a second of it, a theoretical proof of it, or a billion years of it? Since they are even in a position to kickstart something computable, it mathematically exists, therefore by the Dust theory they don't even need to start it in order for everything in the book to happen. Admittedly, that makes for a much shorter book (or a billion trillion other scenarios and then some, whatever floats one's boat) - Why would the TVC Durham enjoy the continuation while the "flesh" Durham wouldn't? I guess I'm getting personal there, but isn't part of the understanding of this wholeness of existence also the acceptance that whatever currently unsatisfactory situation is but one amongst infinity anyway, and pain is as powerful as you want an illusion to be? (in his case, alienation from society, or lack of purpose once he feels validated). This is the part where I think the book really crosses into Buddhist concepts at times. I really liked the book, and like a lot of good books it left me with more questions and wonder than I started with. For me, it does make the sound of one hand clapping. :)

lachlan-sneff 6y ago
I read Permutation City a year or two ago, so bear with me. I believe they run the computation on physical computers so that the people running in the simulation can, at any point, check if their reality is a descendant of the initial garden-of-eden configuration.
- cmehdy 6y ago
  I think I can see it: they write the software without having a clear proof (that, say, it is mathematically inconsistent and will crash). Then they execute it for long enough for its self-test phase(s) to be reasonably validated (with all the resources they can get in the "normal" world), therefore practically reassuring themselves that there's a mathematically valid outcome (in a "formal verification" sense), which ensures at least one configuration existing with their wishes (the Garden-of-Eden one). It does have the side effect of ensuring the reality that exists also has a way to know the Garden of Eden configuration (provided the people scanned are/were made aware of it prior to the scan, since it's made clear that there's no guaranteed way to know what happened to the "flesh person" after a scan when you're "reborn virtual".

_xerces_ 6y ago

How about this explanation? Simulation, Consciousness, Existence Hans Moravec, 1998 https://outline.com/JHCE77 https://outline.com/JHCE77

3pt14159 6y ago

Almost a decade ago I independently invented the same idea. Discussion was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727750 It's a pretty simple theory, which I ultimately reject even to this day. If it were true, however, the expanse of existence is truly terrifying. This theory leads to any possible existence existing, short of maybe self-contradiction[0]. Well, so if that is true, then there exists a relation of beings where one of the beings is both powerful and has motives that are purely antithetical to the others. Think "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" kinda bad, only armed with Knuth's up notation and applied to pain and suffering. A hell that's truly beyond comprehension. If this theory is correct, then all beings eventually find themselves in this hell. Note that this isn't argumentum ad consequentiam. I'm not saying that since this is such a horrific outcome that it's clearly false. I'm saying that if it is true, it is a horror beyond all horrors. Though I suppose there is always a chance that a being that found themself in such a situation could always randomly pop out into some other, better existence by sheer chance. Thinking about it is useful, but ultimately there are too many degrees of freedom to come to any practical conclusions. [0] An existence arising that stops the existence of the vast randomness leading to all existences, for example.

jbotz 6y ago
> This theory leads to any possible existence existing, [...] This statement maybe superficially correct, but I interpret it differently. Every possible existence may exist, but not every imaginable existence. For something to exist in this manner, it has to be possible to generate it in a logically consistent manner from some initial conditions and simple rules, and while that allows for a "terrifying expanse of existences" we can't say which imagninable existences can actually be thus generated, any more than you can look at a random jumble of dots and say whether those could have been generated by one of Wolfram's one-dimensional automata without generating all possible patterns from those automata and seeing if one matches. The fact that you can imagine a hell beyond all horrors is not proof that any world-generating automaton would ever generate it... even in an infinite Universe it may not actually be a "possible existence". Infinity != Everything.
- 6y ago

tgvaughan 6y ago

Permission City is grand. It made me realise just how silly the standard "are we living in a simulated reality?" questions are. Max Tegmark took these ideas further, and iirc cites Egan as partial inspiration for his type 4 multiverse. (I'm sure philosophers will groan and say that none of this is new, but it doesn't stop these from being incredibly fun and compelling ideas!)