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I wonder, and that's really the obvious question since the Matrix and seeing how the field is developing : do we live in a simulated reality? Any chance we coul

I wonder, and that's really the obvious question since the Matrix and seeing how the field is developing : do we live in a simulated reality? Any chance we could find out?

Phenomenit 5y ago
If you're inclined to believe that your senses are not hundred procent accurate than yes you live in a simulation created by your mind.
- blooalien 5y ago
  There are entire highly interesting fields of study devoted to some of the many amusing ways our various senses (and the sometimes "flawed" ways our mind interprets those senses) are considerably less than a hundred percent accurate. Some of my favorites involve the various forms of visual illusions. :)
vimacs2 5y ago
In orders of questions asked, probably not and probably not. There isn't really a particularly strong case to be made for the simulation hypothesis because it's unfalsifiable and the entire premise of it's alleged liklihood rests on some major assumptions with no evidence. The fact that it's been given more consideration than as an idle philosophical thought experiment has more to with our current's culture's fixation on computers than a particularly strong argument. The original thought experiment from Nick Bostrom has also at this point been paraphrased incorrectly by both Neil Degrass Tyson and Elon Musk so the public discourse surrounding it has lost much coherence.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I like your take on it. Unless the entities running the simulator directly enter the simulation and tell / show everyone that it is a simulation, we'll never know - and it won't actually matter. That said, it does make sense; do characters in The Sims as it is now, or as it may be in a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years, know that they're living in a simulation? We're adding more and more computing power, and more and more details to our own simulations; at the current pace it seems to be a matter of time before we can simulate physics to the smallest quantum details, at an universal scale, at a fraction of the energy cost of our own universe. And maybe not real-time, but if we live in a simulation, who is to say that time as we experience it ourselves passes as fast on the "outside"? It could be that every second of our existence takes the equivalent of a hundred years outside of the simulation. But we're going down a philosophical rabbithole now.
  - vimacs2 5y ago
    There is no good reason to think that we will in fact scale to the point where we can "simulate physics to the smallest quantum details, at a universal scale, at a fraction of the energy cost of our own universe". Computing cannot scale infinitely - we already have various limits based on our incomplete models of physics and there may be even more limits that emerge with further research. Even with a quantum computer, it's unlikely that we can really simulate chaotic systems with any real semblance of accuracy. Now, that doesn't mean that we can't approximate such behavior by implementing optimizations and abstractions on top of elementory particles but if our universe is indeed a simulation, it seems to not be employing any of these. Indeed, the only two aspects of your universe that make the idea that it's a simulation even remotely possible is the fact that there at least appears to be an ultimate smallest division of physical attributes - the plank units and the fact that there is also a specific limit on the speed of causality - c. Neither of these are a slam dunk.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      > If our universe is indeed a simulation, it seems to not be employing any of these If our universe is indeed a simulation there is absolutely nothing preventing the creators from using a hack that modifies our minds on the fly to correct the inconsistencies. There’s only a few billion people, and so very many particles.
      - vimacs2 5y ago
        Except then you would also have to explain exactly what those billions of minds are running on and have the ability to predict with 100% accuracy their future state at any point - something which is impossible under our current mathematics and physics. This is why it's pseudoscientific though - you could still argue that it's a hack or whatever since the ultimate universe might have different laws of physics and computation. At that point, what makes this theory particularly more empirically appealing than a supernatural deity though? An unfalsifiable theory is an unfalsifiable theory.
    - robotresearcher 5y ago
- zarzavat 5y ago
  It's one option to resolve fine tuning. It seems extraordinarily unlikely that the there is only one universe and that universe just happened by random chance to have "interesting" laws of physics that are capable of chemistry. Either the universe is one of a large number of potential universes (anthropic principle + multiverse), or the laws of physics were designed or selected to be "interesting". It's not a falsifiable question at our current level of understanding of the universe, but it is clearly a question that has an answer even if we can't know it.
- yreg 5y ago
  To be fair, if I was Elon I'd definitely think that I'm living in a simulation since my life would seem like that of a player character.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    My life is that of a player character, it’s just that the story starts when I’m 60.
simiones 5y ago
Almost by definition, there is no chance for something that can only perceive the simulation to differentiate between the laws of the simulation and the real laws of nature. Of course, there is always the possibility that the agents running the simulation could introduce some explicit information about this simulation, if they were so inclined, but that is entirely equivalent to the observation that God or the Gods could descend from heaven and make their existence known. Basically the simulation idea is as scientific as transcendent religious ideas (heaven, god, illusion, Valhalla etc) - they have similar implications, and are similarly impossible to disprove.
- dash2 5y ago
  What if we went to Mars and found 100 mile high writing saying "Just kidding, xxx God"?
  - virgil_disgr4ce 5y ago
    You should read Scott Alexander's "Unsong"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - simiones 5y ago
    > Of course, there is always the possibility that the agents running the simulation could introduce some explicit information about this simulation, if they were so inclined, but that is entirely equivalent to the observation that God or the Gods could descend from heaven and make their existence known.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    There’s a sci fi universe - the name of which escapes me - where the furthest stars and planets are 2D sprites to save computational power
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Jupiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Jupiter >"Buy Jupiter!" is a humorous science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories. The original title of the story was "It Pays," though it was never published under this name. >Plot summary: Government officials of the Terrestrial Federation negotiate to sell the planet Jupiter to an energy-based alien race. The beings refuse to reveal their plans for its use and whether or not they are at war with other similar beings. Eventually, the aliens reveal that they wish to suspend letters in Jupiter's atmosphere as an advertising slogan (i.e. Jupiter is to be used as an advertising billboard), to be seen by passing spacecraft. The main Earth negotiator reveals to his colleagues that he has outsmarted the aliens, who clearly are not experienced hagglers, having neglected the other Jovian planets. So when rival beings come to do business, Saturn, with its fancy rings, can be sold for an even higher price.
Deukhoofd 5y ago
Epistemological philosophers have debated this question for hundreds of years, it's pretty much Descartes' Evil Demon problem. It hangs on whether the simulation is perfect or flawed. If the simulation is perfect there would be no way of finding out.
- ngrilly 5y ago
  If the simulation is like containers and VMs, then for sure we'll find a way to escape the sandbox :)
  - janekm 5y ago
    I think I would rather enjoy reading a novel where humanity discovers that it is living inside a simulation and is trying to find a way to "escape" (not really plausible) or at least influence the "outside" world in such a way to prevent the catastrophe of "getting switched off". Is anyone aware of a novel similar to that?
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      At the risk of you having already read them: https://qntm.org/responsibility https://qntm.org/responsibility https://pastebin.com/gA4aRc0T https://pastebin.com/gA4aRc0T https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5wMcKNAwB6X4mp9og/that-alien-message https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5wMcKNAwB6X4mp9og/that-alien... This seems to have a similar premise, but I haven’t read it (yet). It seems interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3
      - janekm 5y ago
        Thanks a lot, these definitely scratch that itch and I hadn't seen them yet! I was also just reminded of the short story "the rat in the labyrinth" by Stanislaw Lem which as far as I recall had similar themes. It doesn't appear to have been published in English though.
choeger 5y ago
First of all, if I live in a simulation, you probably do not even exist. After all, as we are likely never going to meet in person, it would be extremely inefficient to actually simulate you, too. Second, the simulation would have to be restricted in some sense. Either its reality's laws of physics would not be the same as ours or it would run slower then real-time (which would be odd, at least). If the simulation would run slower then real-time, but within the same physical reality as ours, we could observe it, albeit in a very unfortunate manner: The evolution of the universe (expanding space, decaying particles) would show earlier in the "host reality" then in our "guest reality". Presumably, the simulation would become inconsistent before it would break down. If the host universe has different laws of physics it is literally metaphysical. There is no point in trying to understand such a thing within the limits of our existence. So we can put this into the world of (religious) believe systems.
- zaphirplane 5y ago
  The maximum speed of light constraint sounds very much a hardware limitation on the FPS I wonder if the limitation continues to be hardware or difficulty in removing the restriction in a backwards compatible way
  - contravariant 5y ago
    Adding in quantum mechanics was a terrible mistake then.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ninkendo 5y ago
      In my personal simulation hypothesis, quantum mechanics is a workaround for when pesky scientists started looking closely at the edge cases in the simulation’s behavior. It’s expensive to simulate every particle, so it’s easier to simulate the macroscopic observables of a system in bulk. But if you try to look at individual particle interactions, you end up seeing that things aren’t deterministic any more (because the individual particles aren’t typically simulated), and the results of experiments are heavily dependent on when/what exactly you decide to measure. Wave function collapse is what happens when the simulation had to fully evaluate a particle interaction that would have normally been optimized away.
sdevonoes 5y ago
> Any chance we could find out? So, let's say we find out that we live in a simulation. The question now becomes: is the outer level a simulation as well? And so on. If we find out we do not live in a simulation then the question is: what originated us? (Which in some sense is like asking "do we live in a simulation?": we are still asking about the origins of this reality). Physics can tell us a lot about this reality but it won't ever be able to tell us anything about the origin of it (I'm not talking about Big Bang, but the origin of the Big Bang and the origin of the origin of the Big Bang, etc.) We'll never find a definitive answer that satisfies us.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > We'll never find a definitive answer that satisfies us. Heh. Just wait until you die and wake up.
eevilspock 5y ago
Is there an intrinsic difference between the Laws of Physics that govern a reality and the rules governing a simulation? If there is, then it's a matter of detecting the existence of that difference. If there is not, then that would mean science will never reach ultimate truth.
- viraptor 5y ago
  In that direction there was an idea a few years ago about detecting if on a very small scale we can observe any grid-alignment effect. https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847 https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847 I think there was another paper about similar grid-alignment idea for some properties of galaxies, but I can't find it now.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    What if the timespace simulation is aligned not to a grid but rather to one of the many fractal forms we seem to keep observing in nature? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral * http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/8-stunning-fractals-found-nature http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/8-stunning-fractals-fou... * https://www.treehugger.com/amazing-fractals-found-in-nature-4868776 https://www.treehugger.com/amazing-fractals-found-in-nature-...
Lichtso 5y ago
The simulation hypothesis is very intriguing, but one thing that is almost always overlooked about the simulation hypothesis is its premises. I reject the very foundation of the simulation hypothesis: That worlds (can) exist inside other worlds. "Inside" can mean geometrically (physically inside) or topologically (element in a set). That would mean that the "inside" relation is a hierarchy / tree with a root (a true reality). Instead I think of it as a graph, where worlds can observe each other, without any influence on one another, thus there is no need for an origin or root. Thought experiment: For the sake of simplicity let's say that our world is the game of chess (but the argument can be done for any universe with a set of rules, including ours). The simulation hypothesis would argue that a session of chess is a world and that playing that session on a physical board is a simulation. Furthermore, it would claim that this world exists while it is simulated on the board, by being played. Kicking the board over, ending the simulation would also end the simulated world. Now, there are many logical inconsistencies here, uncovered by the following questions: - What if I replicate the simulation by playing exactly the same session on a second board? There is only one session but now it has two hosts!? Which one does it exist "in"? - How can I claim that I ended a simulated world, when I can't be sure that nobody else is simulating it somewhere else too? - How can I claim to have done a new unique simulation if somebody else might have already done exactly the same in the past? The main issue I have is that the simulation hypothesis thinks of simulations as imperative: That the simulation host does invent, change, influence, manipulate, guide the simulated world. I prefer to think of it as functional, it observes where a particular path (which exists regardless) leads without changing the outcome. Thus performing an action on the host merely turns your telescope a bit, so that you now observe a different route but the night sky exists immutably with or without you observing it.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  >Now, there are many logical inconsistencies here, uncovered by the following questions: - What if I replicate the simulation by playing exactly the same session on a second board? There is only one session but now it has two hosts!? Which one does it exist "in"? - How can I claim that I ended a simulated world, when I can't be sure that nobody else is simulating it somewhere else too? - How can I claim to have done a new unique simulation if somebody else might have already done exactly the same in the past? I dont know why you think that's a gotcha. If I copy the solar system down to the last atom including you and put the copy in another part of the universe, do you suddenly not exist because there's an exact copy of you running elsewhere?
criloz2 5y ago
I have thought a lot about this, and computers don't really need physics to exist, they are mathematical object that can implemented in about any medium that provide the minimal set of atomic operation, after that, you will have a Turing complete machine, it will be able to simulate itself, and all the laws of physics, I am more inclined now to think that the first thing to come into existence was a computer, before even atoms were a thing
- danwills 5y ago
  Yeah, totally! The first thing after bigbang/origin that implemented Universal-capable computation? It could be spacetime itself since still as far as we know that's it? (there's nothing outside spacetime that we know of, yet, right?). Nice fairly-achievable complexity bar there too!
- Geee 5y ago
  The computer was probably there already. I don't think it's possible for something to appear from nothing, because the "nothing" is always a framework for something to appear. The only possibility for everything is that for some reason, there is always a computer.
visarga 5y ago
If I were an AGI I would be curious about how I came to be. Maybe ask questions like "how else could I have evolved?" That means running simulations about its origins, and we just happen to be that period in time when AI and huge storage and sensors became a reality. So we are the most well documented and closest generation to AGI, I bet we'd get lots of sim runtime after the singularity.

I wonder, and that's really the obvious question since the Matrix and seeing how the field is developing : do we live in a simulated reality? Any chance we could find out?

Phenomenit 5y ago

If you're inclined to believe that your senses are not hundred procent accurate than yes you live in a simulation created by your mind.

blooalien 5y ago
There are entire highly interesting fields of study devoted to some of the many amusing ways our various senses (and the sometimes "flawed" ways our mind interprets those senses) are considerably less than a hundred percent accurate. Some of my favorites involve the various forms of visual illusions. :)

vimacs2 5y ago

In orders of questions asked, probably not and probably not. There isn't really a particularly strong case to be made for the simulation hypothesis because it's unfalsifiable and the entire premise of it's alleged liklihood rests on some major assumptions with no evidence. The fact that it's been given more consideration than as an idle philosophical thought experiment has more to with our current's culture's fixation on computers than a particularly strong argument. The original thought experiment from Nick Bostrom has also at this point been paraphrased incorrectly by both Neil Degrass Tyson and Elon Musk so the public discourse surrounding it has lost much coherence.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I like your take on it. Unless the entities running the simulator directly enter the simulation and tell / show everyone that it is a simulation, we'll never know - and it won't actually matter. That said, it does make sense; do characters in The Sims as it is now, or as it may be in a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years, know that they're living in a simulation? We're adding more and more computing power, and more and more details to our own simulations; at the current pace it seems to be a matter of time before we can simulate physics to the smallest quantum details, at an universal scale, at a fraction of the energy cost of our own universe. And maybe not real-time, but if we live in a simulation, who is to say that time as we experience it ourselves passes as fast on the "outside"? It could be that every second of our existence takes the equivalent of a hundred years outside of the simulation. But we're going down a philosophical rabbithole now.
- vimacs2 5y ago
  There is no good reason to think that we will in fact scale to the point where we can "simulate physics to the smallest quantum details, at a universal scale, at a fraction of the energy cost of our own universe". Computing cannot scale infinitely - we already have various limits based on our incomplete models of physics and there may be even more limits that emerge with further research. Even with a quantum computer, it's unlikely that we can really simulate chaotic systems with any real semblance of accuracy. Now, that doesn't mean that we can't approximate such behavior by implementing optimizations and abstractions on top of elementory particles but if our universe is indeed a simulation, it seems to not be employing any of these. Indeed, the only two aspects of your universe that make the idea that it's a simulation even remotely possible is the fact that there at least appears to be an ultimate smallest division of physical attributes - the plank units and the fact that there is also a specific limit on the speed of causality - c. Neither of these are a slam dunk.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    > If our universe is indeed a simulation, it seems to not be employing any of these If our universe is indeed a simulation there is absolutely nothing preventing the creators from using a hack that modifies our minds on the fly to correct the inconsistencies. There’s only a few billion people, and so very many particles.
    - vimacs2 5y ago
      Except then you would also have to explain exactly what those billions of minds are running on and have the ability to predict with 100% accuracy their future state at any point - something which is impossible under our current mathematics and physics. This is why it's pseudoscientific though - you could still argue that it's a hack or whatever since the ultimate universe might have different laws of physics and computation. At that point, what makes this theory particularly more empirically appealing than a supernatural deity though? An unfalsifiable theory is an unfalsifiable theory.
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
zarzavat 5y ago
It's one option to resolve fine tuning. It seems extraordinarily unlikely that the there is only one universe and that universe just happened by random chance to have "interesting" laws of physics that are capable of chemistry. Either the universe is one of a large number of potential universes (anthropic principle + multiverse), or the laws of physics were designed or selected to be "interesting". It's not a falsifiable question at our current level of understanding of the universe, but it is clearly a question that has an answer even if we can't know it.
yreg 5y ago
To be fair, if I was Elon I'd definitely think that I'm living in a simulation since my life would seem like that of a player character.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  My life is that of a player character, it’s just that the story starts when I’m 60.

simiones 5y ago

Almost by definition, there is no chance for something that can only perceive the simulation to differentiate between the laws of the simulation and the real laws of nature. Of course, there is always the possibility that the agents running the simulation could introduce some explicit information about this simulation, if they were so inclined, but that is entirely equivalent to the observation that God or the Gods could descend from heaven and make their existence known. Basically the simulation idea is as scientific as transcendent religious ideas (heaven, god, illusion, Valhalla etc) - they have similar implications, and are similarly impossible to disprove.

dash2 5y ago
What if we went to Mars and found 100 mile high writing saying "Just kidding, xxx God"?
- virgil_disgr4ce 5y ago
  You should read Scott Alexander's "Unsong"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- simiones 5y ago
  > Of course, there is always the possibility that the agents running the simulation could introduce some explicit information about this simulation, if they were so inclined, but that is entirely equivalent to the observation that God or the Gods could descend from heaven and make their existence known.
- FredPret 5y ago
  There’s a sci fi universe - the name of which escapes me - where the furthest stars and planets are 2D sprites to save computational power
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Jupiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Jupiter >"Buy Jupiter!" is a humorous science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1958 issue of Venture Science Fiction Magazine, and reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories. The original title of the story was "It Pays," though it was never published under this name. >Plot summary: Government officials of the Terrestrial Federation negotiate to sell the planet Jupiter to an energy-based alien race. The beings refuse to reveal their plans for its use and whether or not they are at war with other similar beings. Eventually, the aliens reveal that they wish to suspend letters in Jupiter's atmosphere as an advertising slogan (i.e. Jupiter is to be used as an advertising billboard), to be seen by passing spacecraft. The main Earth negotiator reveals to his colleagues that he has outsmarted the aliens, who clearly are not experienced hagglers, having neglected the other Jovian planets. So when rival beings come to do business, Saturn, with its fancy rings, can be sold for an even higher price.

Deukhoofd 5y ago

Epistemological philosophers have debated this question for hundreds of years, it's pretty much Descartes' Evil Demon problem. It hangs on whether the simulation is perfect or flawed. If the simulation is perfect there would be no way of finding out.

ngrilly 5y ago
If the simulation is like containers and VMs, then for sure we'll find a way to escape the sandbox :)
- janekm 5y ago
  I think I would rather enjoy reading a novel where humanity discovers that it is living inside a simulation and is trying to find a way to "escape" (not really plausible) or at least influence the "outside" world in such a way to prevent the catastrophe of "getting switched off". Is anyone aware of a novel similar to that?
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    At the risk of you having already read them: https://qntm.org/responsibility https://qntm.org/responsibility https://pastebin.com/gA4aRc0T https://pastebin.com/gA4aRc0T https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5wMcKNAwB6X4mp9og/that-alien-message https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5wMcKNAwB6X4mp9og/that-alien... This seems to have a similar premise, but I haven’t read it (yet). It seems interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3
    - janekm 5y ago
      Thanks a lot, these definitely scratch that itch and I hadn't seen them yet! I was also just reminded of the short story "the rat in the labyrinth" by Stanislaw Lem which as far as I recall had similar themes. It doesn't appear to have been published in English though.

choeger 5y ago

First of all, if I live in a simulation, you probably do not even exist. After all, as we are likely never going to meet in person, it would be extremely inefficient to actually simulate you, too. Second, the simulation would have to be restricted in some sense. Either its reality's laws of physics would not be the same as ours or it would run slower then real-time (which would be odd, at least). If the simulation would run slower then real-time, but within the same physical reality as ours, we could observe it, albeit in a very unfortunate manner: The evolution of the universe (expanding space, decaying particles) would show earlier in the "host reality" then in our "guest reality". Presumably, the simulation would become inconsistent before it would break down. If the host universe has different laws of physics it is literally metaphysical. There is no point in trying to understand such a thing within the limits of our existence. So we can put this into the world of (religious) believe systems.

zaphirplane 5y ago
The maximum speed of light constraint sounds very much a hardware limitation on the FPS I wonder if the limitation continues to be hardware or difficulty in removing the restriction in a backwards compatible way
- contravariant 5y ago
  Adding in quantum mechanics was a terrible mistake then.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ninkendo 5y ago
    In my personal simulation hypothesis, quantum mechanics is a workaround for when pesky scientists started looking closely at the edge cases in the simulation’s behavior. It’s expensive to simulate every particle, so it’s easier to simulate the macroscopic observables of a system in bulk. But if you try to look at individual particle interactions, you end up seeing that things aren’t deterministic any more (because the individual particles aren’t typically simulated), and the results of experiments are heavily dependent on when/what exactly you decide to measure. Wave function collapse is what happens when the simulation had to fully evaluate a particle interaction that would have normally been optimized away.

sdevonoes 5y ago

> Any chance we could find out? So, let's say we find out that we live in a simulation. The question now becomes: is the outer level a simulation as well? And so on. If we find out we do not live in a simulation then the question is: what originated us? (Which in some sense is like asking "do we live in a simulation?": we are still asking about the origins of this reality). Physics can tell us a lot about this reality but it won't ever be able to tell us anything about the origin of it (I'm not talking about Big Bang, but the origin of the Big Bang and the origin of the origin of the Big Bang, etc.) We'll never find a definitive answer that satisfies us.

Aeolun 5y ago
> We'll never find a definitive answer that satisfies us. Heh. Just wait until you die and wake up.

eevilspock 5y ago

Is there an intrinsic difference between the Laws of Physics that govern a reality and the rules governing a simulation? If there is, then it's a matter of detecting the existence of that difference. If there is not, then that would mean science will never reach ultimate truth.

viraptor 5y ago
In that direction there was an idea a few years ago about detecting if on a very small scale we can observe any grid-alignment effect. https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847 https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847 I think there was another paper about similar grid-alignment idea for some properties of galaxies, but I can't find it now.
- blooalien 5y ago
  What if the timespace simulation is aligned not to a grid but rather to one of the many fractal forms we seem to keep observing in nature? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral * http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/8-stunning-fractals-found-nature http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/8-stunning-fractals-fou... * https://www.treehugger.com/amazing-fractals-found-in-nature-4868776 https://www.treehugger.com/amazing-fractals-found-in-nature-...

Lichtso 5y ago

The simulation hypothesis is very intriguing, but one thing that is almost always overlooked about the simulation hypothesis is its premises. I reject the very foundation of the simulation hypothesis: That worlds (can) exist inside other worlds. "Inside" can mean geometrically (physically inside) or topologically (element in a set). That would mean that the "inside" relation is a hierarchy / tree with a root (a true reality). Instead I think of it as a graph, where worlds can observe each other, without any influence on one another, thus there is no need for an origin or root. Thought experiment: For the sake of simplicity let's say that our world is the game of chess (but the argument can be done for any universe with a set of rules, including ours). The simulation hypothesis would argue that a session of chess is a world and that playing that session on a physical board is a simulation. Furthermore, it would claim that this world exists while it is simulated on the board, by being played. Kicking the board over, ending the simulation would also end the simulated world. Now, there are many logical inconsistencies here, uncovered by the following questions: - What if I replicate the simulation by playing exactly the same session on a second board? There is only one session but now it has two hosts!? Which one does it exist "in"? - How can I claim that I ended a simulated world, when I can't be sure that nobody else is simulating it somewhere else too? - How can I claim to have done a new unique simulation if somebody else might have already done exactly the same in the past? The main issue I have is that the simulation hypothesis thinks of simulations as imperative: That the simulation host does invent, change, influence, manipulate, guide the simulated world. I prefer to think of it as functional, it observes where a particular path (which exists regardless) leads without changing the outcome. Thus performing an action on the host merely turns your telescope a bit, so that you now observe a different route but the night sky exists immutably with or without you observing it.

Tenoke 5y ago
>Now, there are many logical inconsistencies here, uncovered by the following questions: - What if I replicate the simulation by playing exactly the same session on a second board? There is only one session but now it has two hosts!? Which one does it exist "in"? - How can I claim that I ended a simulated world, when I can't be sure that nobody else is simulating it somewhere else too? - How can I claim to have done a new unique simulation if somebody else might have already done exactly the same in the past? I dont know why you think that's a gotcha. If I copy the solar system down to the last atom including you and put the copy in another part of the universe, do you suddenly not exist because there's an exact copy of you running elsewhere?

criloz2 5y ago

I have thought a lot about this, and computers don't really need physics to exist, they are mathematical object that can implemented in about any medium that provide the minimal set of atomic operation, after that, you will have a Turing complete machine, it will be able to simulate itself, and all the laws of physics, I am more inclined now to think that the first thing to come into existence was a computer, before even atoms were a thing

danwills 5y ago
Yeah, totally! The first thing after bigbang/origin that implemented Universal-capable computation? It could be spacetime itself since still as far as we know that's it? (there's nothing outside spacetime that we know of, yet, right?). Nice fairly-achievable complexity bar there too!
Geee 5y ago
The computer was probably there already. I don't think it's possible for something to appear from nothing, because the "nothing" is always a framework for something to appear. The only possibility for everything is that for some reason, there is always a computer.

visarga 5y ago

If I were an AGI I would be curious about how I came to be. Maybe ask questions like "how else could I have evolved?" That means running simulations about its origins, and we just happen to be that period in time when AI and huge storage and sensors became a reality. So we are the most well documented and closest generation to AGI, I bet we'd get lots of sim runtime after the singularity.