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> In 2003 Bostrom imagined a technologically adept civilization that possesses immense computing power and needs a fraction of that power to simulate new realit
by jl6 6y ago
> In 2003 Bostrom imagined a technologically adept civilization that possesses immense computing power and needs a fraction of that power to simulate new realities with conscious beings in them. Given this scenario, his simulation argument showed that at least one proposition in the following trilemma must be true: First, humans almost always go extinct before reaching the simulation-savvy stage. Second, even if humans make it to that stage, they are unlikely to be interested in simulating their own ancestral past. And third, the probability that we are living in a simulation is close to one.
The setup to the trilemma always felt like begging the question. That’s a really, really big if.
- titzer 6y agoBostrom's reasoning about the second one is faulty, because simulations cost computational power. In a competitive environment (particularly an economic one), it is more profitable to devote computational resources to predicting the future as opposed to peering into the past (at least to any level of detail that would give rise to consciousness). So by Bostrom's (specious) argument that there are more simulated worlds than real ones, then it's more likely that we'd be living in a simulation of the future than the past. But since in our known past we've never had the computational resources to simulate a world to the level of detail we perceive, then it's a contradiction. There are other, better arguments. Like, it appears that simulating our universe is computationally intractable because of the complexity of quantum mechanics. Instead it would make sense to simulate simpler worlds that don't have quantum mechanics, which of course would look completely different. Another argument from quantum mechanics is that the outcome of most particle reactions is entirely probabilistic, i.e. relies on tons of randomness. It would be dumb to design a simulation based so thoroughly on randomness, because you cannot make conclusions based on the outcome of a single run. Instead, you'd do Monte Carlo simulations, i.e. billions up billions of runs, building a probability distribution, which would make it even more computationally intractable. That'd be completely stupid because you can't even trust your inferences without covering a sufficient amount of the probability space, and that's a problem entirely of your creation. I am extremely skeptical of people who seriously believe that this insane reality is a simulation. They usually don't know much physics, nor computer science. A simulated world would look completely different just from the basic engineering perspective.
- daniel957 6y agoCompetition doesn’t imply rationality.
- titzer 6y agoThe best way to win a competition of wits is to get smarter, i.e. make a better model that makes better predictions.
- v7p1Qbt1im 6y agoBy the time humans are able to create universe scale simulations, post-scarcity might well have been achieved. So finite computational resources — or indeed economic competition — might not be a thing anymore.
- penteract 6y agoIf we would simulate realities different to our own, then it seems possible that we might be simulated by realities different to our own, perhaps with very different computational constraints.
- jl6 6y agoThe phrase “a fraction” in Bostrom’s setup means a small portion, meaning it wouldn’t need large scale planning and agreement across the civilization to use it. Any rando could do it. And in general, randos aren’t bound by notions of rationality. Some would launch simulations just because they could, or for no reason at all. I still think the setup is such an enormous assumption as to beg the entire question.