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There are no propositions that "we are in simulation" would imply (unless someone fundamentally lacks imagination). Being "in a simulation" doesn't imply that

There are no propositions that "we are in simulation" would imply (unless someone fundamentally lacks imagination). Being "in a simulation" doesn't imply that we're in simulation created by later humans, it doesn't give any indication how fine-grain the approximations are, etc. etc. "We're in a simulation" fundamentally discard Occam's Razor in the fashion of the belief in God as controlling everything. And thus this belief has the same weight as belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

IncRnd 5y ago
> "We're in a simulation" fundamentally discard Occam's Razor in the fashion of the belief in God as controlling everything. And thus this belief has the same weight as belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster [1]. You are using Occam's Razor incorrectly. A preference for parismony in problem solving is not identical with parsimony being the only state of the world. As a side note, which directly applies to your comment, Occam's Razor was invented by Friar William of Ockham as a defense of divine miracles.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  You are using Occam's Razor incorrectly. A preference for parismony is not identical with parsimony being the only state of the world. "Everything is really under control of invisible stuff" make it impossible to use parisomy under any circumstances. It fundamentally discards Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor was invented by Friar William of Ockham as a defense of divine miracles. While I wouldn't personally accept a God that acts in the world, the argument is about having some sort of evidence based interpretation of the world. Flying Spaghetti Monster is response to arguments like "God makes the rain fall" etc, not to a God that appears in the world but a God that can essentially be evoked for anything and in any fashion.
  - mrkstu 5y ago
    "we're in a simulation" is at least something that might be ultimately testable with the right theory and experiment. FSM/God isn't w/o them choosing to 'reveal' themselves to everyone.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    > "Everything is really under control of invisible stuff" make it impossible to use parisomy under any circumstances. It fundamentally discards Occam's Razor. You are fundamentally misunderstanding Occam's Razor. It is not a law - Occam's Razor is a preference for how to view the world, not a law that was violated. [1] There are alternate rules-of-thumb, such as one by Ockham's contemporary, Walter Chatton. Chatton created Chatton's anti-razor in opposition to Ockham's Razor: "Consider an affirmative proposition, which, when it is verified, is verified only for things; if three things do not suffice for verifying it, one has to posit a fourth, and so on in turn [for four things, or five, etc.]. (Reportatio I, 10–48, paragraph 57, p. 237)" [2] [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/#OckhRazo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/#OckhRazo [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/walter-chatton/#AntiRazo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/walter-chatton/#AntiRazo
    - joe_the_user 5y ago
      You are fundamentally misunderstanding Occam's Razor. It is not a law - Occam's Razor is a preference for how to view the world, not a law that was violated. Yes, Occam's Razor isn't a law but a method of understanding reality. My point is that if you throw out Occam's Razor in total, not in one or another situations, you're left with nothing to understand the world with. The "God wants it that ways" and "because it's simulation" can be substituted for any proposition at all under any circumstances and there's not counter argument to such substitutions. This approach is also "the paranoid worldview" - "because they want to think that" also has this "insert everywhere" quality. And you're link describing the original ideas of William of Occam doesn't what you'd imagine. "Occam's Razor" is broad approach that's evolved over time and just takes that label for convennience. Virtually no one is evoking the authority of William of Occam or claiming to follow his Nominalism or whatever. The generally means that adding unneeded hypotheses should generally be avoided. If you can never follow that guide, you're in trouble.
      - ericb 5y ago
        The reason "magicians" succeed is because Occam's razor is a heuristic that we rely on intuitively. When the real explanation is super-complex, like "this magician spent 8 hours a day for months learning to hold a hidden card in an invisible way, followed by a year of engineering an under-the-stage lift hidden by mirrors, the reality isn't "disproved" by Occam's razor. Same thing if someone engineers a super complicated method to murder someone while appearing to physically be at a different place. It isn't the simplest explanation, but it can still be correct!
UncleOxidant 5y ago
It's kind of interesting how people who would never consider a creationist explanation seem quite willing to embrace the idea that we're in a simulation.
- naasking 5y ago
  One is an assertion with no logic to justify it, the other is an assertion with a somewhat persuasive argument justifying it [1]. They are simply incomparable. [1] https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
  - feoren 5y ago
    Of the 3 assertions in the abstract, the obviously false one is #2: "Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history". When you realize that running a simulation of the universe requires more processing power than is available in the universe, this is very obviously false. I respect people who believe in a bearded White omnipotent homophobic God who lives in a sky palace more than I respect people who believe in this insane drivel about the probability of living in a simulation. At least the former were indoctrinated as their brain was forming.
    - UncleOxidant 5y ago
      The simulation hypothesis seems as theistic as the creationist hypothesis. Maybe the main difference being that with the simulation there would likely have been many creators (programmers) whereas the creationists would say there is one (although there are polytheistic creation narratives, so maybe not so different). Other than that, they both seem to fall into the theistic category since a higher intelligence is posited who created (the simulation | the real world).
    - serverholic 5y ago
      Isn't it possible that our universe is really just an approximation meant to look as detailed as possible? You don't need a universe of processing power to simulate a universe. You just need to make it look believable enough that it fools whoever is in your simulation.
ericb 5y ago
> There are no propositions that "we are in simulation" would imply (unless someone fundamentally lacks imagination). Not true! It implies we might find performance optimizations, especially at the lowest level. Lazy loading, caching, pointers to constants, that sort of thing. It also doesn't discard Occam's razor. We actually have examples of simulated worlds (physics engines in games), so we know they are possible, unlike the flying spaghetti monster.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  It implies we might find performance optimizations, especially at the lowest level. Lazy loading, caching, pointers to constants, that sort of thing. Nah, as other have noted, no simulation could have a 1-1 relationship between data humans observe and data in a physical device that exists in a world congruent to what humans observe - because there aren't enough atoms in the reachable universe for this. So such simulation either compresses the actions it simulates using higher level constructs or its happening in some universe congruent to the world we're in. Any such machine is going be a product of a future we don't know about yet and so it's constraints could be wildly different. Moreover, since the standard assumption of this simulation foolishness is that future humans or future post-humans want to learn about their ancestors, one can naturally assume you mechanisms that compensate for any "glitches" that might otherwise be obvious. Which just adds to my original claim.
- science4sail 5y ago
  > Not true! It implies we might find performance optimizations, especially at the lowest level. Lazy loading, caching, pointers to constants, that sort of thing. The issue is that you can only learn whether you're in a simulation if the simulator allows you to do so. Otherwise, the moment that you discover a performance optimization, the simulator could just pause the simulation, delete the discovery from your mind, and resume.

IncRnd 5y ago

> "We're in a simulation" fundamentally discard Occam's Razor in the fashion of the belief in God as controlling everything. And thus this belief has the same weight as belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster [1]. You are using Occam's Razor incorrectly. A preference for parismony in problem solving is not identical with parsimony being the only state of the world. As a side note, which directly applies to your comment, Occam's Razor was invented by Friar William of Ockham as a defense of divine miracles.

joe_the_user 5y ago
You are using Occam's Razor incorrectly. A preference for parismony is not identical with parsimony being the only state of the world. "Everything is really under control of invisible stuff" make it impossible to use parisomy under any circumstances. It fundamentally discards Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor was invented by Friar William of Ockham as a defense of divine miracles. While I wouldn't personally accept a God that acts in the world, the argument is about having some sort of evidence based interpretation of the world. Flying Spaghetti Monster is response to arguments like "God makes the rain fall" etc, not to a God that appears in the world but a God that can essentially be evoked for anything and in any fashion.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  "we're in a simulation" is at least something that might be ultimately testable with the right theory and experiment. FSM/God isn't w/o them choosing to 'reveal' themselves to everyone.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  > "Everything is really under control of invisible stuff" make it impossible to use parisomy under any circumstances. It fundamentally discards Occam's Razor. You are fundamentally misunderstanding Occam's Razor. It is not a law - Occam's Razor is a preference for how to view the world, not a law that was violated. [1] There are alternate rules-of-thumb, such as one by Ockham's contemporary, Walter Chatton. Chatton created Chatton's anti-razor in opposition to Ockham's Razor: "Consider an affirmative proposition, which, when it is verified, is verified only for things; if three things do not suffice for verifying it, one has to posit a fourth, and so on in turn [for four things, or five, etc.]. (Reportatio I, 10–48, paragraph 57, p. 237)" [2] [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/#OckhRazo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/#OckhRazo [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/walter-chatton/#AntiRazo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/walter-chatton/#AntiRazo
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    You are fundamentally misunderstanding Occam's Razor. It is not a law - Occam's Razor is a preference for how to view the world, not a law that was violated. Yes, Occam's Razor isn't a law but a method of understanding reality. My point is that if you throw out Occam's Razor in total, not in one or another situations, you're left with nothing to understand the world with. The "God wants it that ways" and "because it's simulation" can be substituted for any proposition at all under any circumstances and there's not counter argument to such substitutions. This approach is also "the paranoid worldview" - "because they want to think that" also has this "insert everywhere" quality. And you're link describing the original ideas of William of Occam doesn't what you'd imagine. "Occam's Razor" is broad approach that's evolved over time and just takes that label for convennience. Virtually no one is evoking the authority of William of Occam or claiming to follow his Nominalism or whatever. The generally means that adding unneeded hypotheses should generally be avoided. If you can never follow that guide, you're in trouble.
    - ericb 5y ago
      The reason "magicians" succeed is because Occam's razor is a heuristic that we rely on intuitively. When the real explanation is super-complex, like "this magician spent 8 hours a day for months learning to hold a hidden card in an invisible way, followed by a year of engineering an under-the-stage lift hidden by mirrors, the reality isn't "disproved" by Occam's razor. Same thing if someone engineers a super complicated method to murder someone while appearing to physically be at a different place. It isn't the simplest explanation, but it can still be correct!

UncleOxidant 5y ago

It's kind of interesting how people who would never consider a creationist explanation seem quite willing to embrace the idea that we're in a simulation.

naasking 5y ago
One is an assertion with no logic to justify it, the other is an assertion with a somewhat persuasive argument justifying it [1]. They are simply incomparable. [1] https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
- feoren 5y ago
  Of the 3 assertions in the abstract, the obviously false one is #2: "Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history". When you realize that running a simulation of the universe requires more processing power than is available in the universe, this is very obviously false. I respect people who believe in a bearded White omnipotent homophobic God who lives in a sky palace more than I respect people who believe in this insane drivel about the probability of living in a simulation. At least the former were indoctrinated as their brain was forming.
  - UncleOxidant 5y ago
    The simulation hypothesis seems as theistic as the creationist hypothesis. Maybe the main difference being that with the simulation there would likely have been many creators (programmers) whereas the creationists would say there is one (although there are polytheistic creation narratives, so maybe not so different). Other than that, they both seem to fall into the theistic category since a higher intelligence is posited who created (the simulation | the real world).
  - serverholic 5y ago
    Isn't it possible that our universe is really just an approximation meant to look as detailed as possible? You don't need a universe of processing power to simulate a universe. You just need to make it look believable enough that it fools whoever is in your simulation.

ericb 5y ago

> There are no propositions that "we are in simulation" would imply (unless someone fundamentally lacks imagination). Not true! It implies we might find performance optimizations, especially at the lowest level. Lazy loading, caching, pointers to constants, that sort of thing. It also doesn't discard Occam's razor. We actually have examples of simulated worlds (physics engines in games), so we know they are possible, unlike the flying spaghetti monster.

joe_the_user 5y ago
It implies we might find performance optimizations, especially at the lowest level. Lazy loading, caching, pointers to constants, that sort of thing. Nah, as other have noted, no simulation could have a 1-1 relationship between data humans observe and data in a physical device that exists in a world congruent to what humans observe - because there aren't enough atoms in the reachable universe for this. So such simulation either compresses the actions it simulates using higher level constructs or its happening in some universe congruent to the world we're in. Any such machine is going be a product of a future we don't know about yet and so it's constraints could be wildly different. Moreover, since the standard assumption of this simulation foolishness is that future humans or future post-humans want to learn about their ancestors, one can naturally assume you mechanisms that compensate for any "glitches" that might otherwise be obvious. Which just adds to my original claim.
science4sail 5y ago
> Not true! It implies we might find performance optimizations, especially at the lowest level. Lazy loading, caching, pointers to constants, that sort of thing. The issue is that you can only learn whether you're in a simulation if the simulator allows you to do so. Otherwise, the moment that you discover a performance optimization, the simulator could just pause the simulation, delete the discovery from your mind, and resume.