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It has admittedly been a long time since I've read the book, so my recollection of it may be a bit hazy, but: > Why would a few minutes of compute offer Durham

It has admittedly been a long time since I've read the book, so my recollection of it may be a bit hazy, but: > 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) I'd guess for "flesh" Durham's assurance that the simulation worked as well as he thought it would. It's one thing to be pretty sure it'll work in theory, but I'd imagine it'd be quite a bit more reassuring to see it in action. Of course, TVC-Durham gets to see that it works subjectively, but from outside the TVC universe the only way you can verify that it's working is to run the simulation and observe the result. I don't think they had enough compute power to run a billion years of the simulation, and a few seconds is too short to e.g. see people interacting within it.

cmehdy 6y ago
It makes sense, thanks. I guess I hadn't really thought about the fact that having a program written isn't having a program that is mathematically verified (as we likely all know, this is a particularly costly procedure and can hardly be done on extremely complex pieces of software - otherwise everyone would do it). So they run it long enough to "feel" like it is valid enough. And then they can't afford more. From a software engineer point of view though, it's a bit short-sighted isn't it? I can't imagine anyone writing anything beyond a calculator app (and even that..) would be certifying to you that formal verification could work on their program by simply running it for a while. Durham could have bootstrapped further cash to keep things running once in a while for show and dedicate the rest of his life to mathematically proving as many chunks as possible. But that might just be me obsessing over the concept more than Durham himself..
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  Well, part of what Durham wanted to demonstrate to himself was that he didn't need to be running the simulation for the TVC version of him to have a subjective experience of the simulation, right? And TVC-Durham has Durham's memories as of the last brain scan, so that's also "him" in a sense. So the fact that TVC-Durham knows that the simulation isn't being run on the outside is valuable knowledge as well. It's sort of a balance between flesh-Durham having assurance that the simulation works, and TVC-Durham having assurance that his subjective experience of the TVC universe is going to continue.

cmehdy 6y ago

It makes sense, thanks. I guess I hadn't really thought about the fact that having a program written isn't having a program that is mathematically verified (as we likely all know, this is a particularly costly procedure and can hardly be done on extremely complex pieces of software - otherwise everyone would do it). So they run it long enough to "feel" like it is valid enough. And then they can't afford more. From a software engineer point of view though, it's a bit short-sighted isn't it? I can't imagine anyone writing anything beyond a calculator app (and even that..) would be certifying to you that formal verification could work on their program by simply running it for a while. Durham could have bootstrapped further cash to keep things running once in a while for show and dedicate the rest of his life to mathematically proving as many chunks as possible. But that might just be me obsessing over the concept more than Durham himself..

ryukafalz 6y ago
Well, part of what Durham wanted to demonstrate to himself was that he didn't need to be running the simulation for the TVC version of him to have a subjective experience of the simulation, right? And TVC-Durham has Durham's memories as of the last brain scan, so that's also "him" in a sense. So the fact that TVC-Durham knows that the simulation isn't being run on the outside is valuable knowledge as well. It's sort of a balance between flesh-Durham having assurance that the simulation works, and TVC-Durham having assurance that his subjective experience of the TVC universe is going to continue.