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I'm taking "being a simulation" to mean something like "implementable by a universal Turing machine". If "simulation" is just an alleged property everything is

I'm taking "being a simulation" to mean something like "implementable by a universal Turing machine". If "simulation" is just an alleged property everything is meant to have (ie., sim = "seeming-as-if real but actually being a... dream, ..."). Then the argument against it is simply pragmatic: rather than add "seeming-as-if" to everything we say, drop it. Adding it can make no difference, which is stipulated by this definition of "simulation". You could also make a kind of rationality argument: consider the family of all such seeming-as-if properties, say S; and the family of all real properties R. Given conditioning on S essentially makes all claims false, eg., P(I am a human awake on earth | S) = 0 Ditching the S properties is equivalent, essentially, to reasoning being possible. So if we are in a simulation essentially every judgement we make is false. So to beleieve we're in a simulation, ie., to condition on being in one, prevents any thought/reasoning/etc. To actually believe we're in a simulation, in this sense, you'd be completely incapable of essentially any thought wahtsoever.

vidarh 5y ago
Well this is basically the philosophical argument between George Berkeley's subjective idealism[1] vs. philosophical materialism (though Berkeley as far as I remember - it's been a couple of decades - at least thought minds were real, and if in a simulation that is also not a given), so it's a well trodden area of philosophy going back to the 18th century, with parts of the ideas dating back much further. You're right that since we can't falsify the general idea of simulation, it makes sense to simply discount it in most discourse, because we just have to act as if the world is real. (EDIT: I'll add that "implementable by a universal Turing machine" or not does not change any of this in either direction) This is the most straightforward rejection of Berkeley's idealism as well. But that is different from discounting the possibility. Because while we can't falsify the hypothesis that we're in a simulation, as I've expanded on in another comment too, if we are in one there's at least a possibility that we are in one where the hypothesis that we are not in one can be falsified (e.g. a doorway could open in front of me to let me "exit" the simulation; as wildly unlikely as it is; or we could travel into space and hit a literal wall, or an infinite number of other things) Going further, it's in particular different from discounting the possibility because of details of the world, because all of what we think we know is a product of processes that if we are in a simulation could have been manipulated or outright manufactured. So you're right that in our day to day lives it makes sense to just not worry about whether we are in a simulation or not and act as if we're not. I don't agree that a belief in one would affect our ability to reason, though, as we are good at compartmentalising and saying exactly what we're saying here: As long as / until we can tell we're in a simulation, you just go on acting as if you're not. Whether you believe you're in one or not doesn't really make a difference as long as you have no evidence either way. [1] https://philosophybreak.com/articles/george-berkeley-subjective-idealism-the-world-is-in-our-minds/ https://philosophybreak.com/articles/george-berkeley-subject...
- mjburgess 5y ago
  The only way we could "continue to reason" is if there were a systematic way of taking claims about the environment, say C and translating them into some "neutral language", C'. This was Husserl's project. But it's a failure. Consider the case where realism is true: the environment causes us to enter a brain state which is ambiguious, so we cannot recover perfect information about the enviroment. Eg., light hits our eyes from a 3D room in a largely 2D way so we get depth perception wrong. A common occurance. This means that there is a metaphysics, say R, where if R is true then all descriptions derivative/about anything metal may be systematically false. In this sense realism is a scepticism about the "netural language" idealism presumes. Since this scepticism is at least coherent/possible, there is no neutral language. ie., the global sceptic says P(I am human|Scepticism) = 0 for a particualr Scepticism, eg., "youre in a dream" etc. The idealist says: let's translate to a neutral language. P(Perceptions seem as if human|Scepticism) = 1 The realist says this is not 1, and may be zero, eg., when P(Perceptions seem as-if human|AmbiguousBrainState) = 0 So realism offers a scepticism that idealism cannot overcome. There is no neutral language. And so reasoning does become impossible. Eg., consider the claim "the object is 1m away" has to be translated to "perceptions seem as-if objects are 1m away" but in the case of an ambgious perception there is no fact about what "seems as-if" -- so you loose the ability to even talk about objects being at any distnace. And since perceptions are bascially always ambigous there is no means by which you can translate objective claims into neutral subjective ones. The choice to reason becomes the choice of a domain (of concepts) with which to interpret claims. A priori there is no neutral choices (eg., Idealism is NOT neutral!) -- so any sceptical choice becomes a decline to reasoning as such or a positive claim about the way the world is.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    > The only way we could "continue to reason" is if there were a systematic way of taking claims about the environment, say C and translating them into some "neutral language", C'. By this argument, we can't continue to reason, as we can't falsify the hypothesis that we might be in a simulation. We clearly can continue to reason, on the basis of working within a set of assumptions / axioms that presume that what appears to be physical reality is physical reality. That we can't disprove that it isn't physical reality is irrelevant.

vidarh 5y ago

Well this is basically the philosophical argument between George Berkeley's subjective idealism[1] vs. philosophical materialism (though Berkeley as far as I remember - it's been a couple of decades - at least thought minds were real, and if in a simulation that is also not a given), so it's a well trodden area of philosophy going back to the 18th century, with parts of the ideas dating back much further. You're right that since we can't falsify the general idea of simulation, it makes sense to simply discount it in most discourse, because we just have to act as if the world is real. (EDIT: I'll add that "implementable by a universal Turing machine" or not does not change any of this in either direction) This is the most straightforward rejection of Berkeley's idealism as well. But that is different from discounting the possibility. Because while we can't falsify the hypothesis that we're in a simulation, as I've expanded on in another comment too, if we are in one there's at least a possibility that we are in one where the hypothesis that we are not in one can be falsified (e.g. a doorway could open in front of me to let me "exit" the simulation; as wildly unlikely as it is; or we could travel into space and hit a literal wall, or an infinite number of other things) Going further, it's in particular different from discounting the possibility because of details of the world, because all of what we think we know is a product of processes that if we are in a simulation could have been manipulated or outright manufactured. So you're right that in our day to day lives it makes sense to just not worry about whether we are in a simulation or not and act as if we're not. I don't agree that a belief in one would affect our ability to reason, though, as we are good at compartmentalising and saying exactly what we're saying here: As long as / until we can tell we're in a simulation, you just go on acting as if you're not. Whether you believe you're in one or not doesn't really make a difference as long as you have no evidence either way. [1] https://philosophybreak.com/articles/george-berkeley-subjective-idealism-the-world-is-in-our-minds/ https://philosophybreak.com/articles/george-berkeley-subject...

mjburgess 5y ago
The only way we could "continue to reason" is if there were a systematic way of taking claims about the environment, say C and translating them into some "neutral language", C'. This was Husserl's project. But it's a failure. Consider the case where realism is true: the environment causes us to enter a brain state which is ambiguious, so we cannot recover perfect information about the enviroment. Eg., light hits our eyes from a 3D room in a largely 2D way so we get depth perception wrong. A common occurance. This means that there is a metaphysics, say R, where if R is true then all descriptions derivative/about anything metal may be systematically false. In this sense realism is a scepticism about the "netural language" idealism presumes. Since this scepticism is at least coherent/possible, there is no neutral language. ie., the global sceptic says P(I am human|Scepticism) = 0 for a particualr Scepticism, eg., "youre in a dream" etc. The idealist says: let's translate to a neutral language. P(Perceptions seem as if human|Scepticism) = 1 The realist says this is not 1, and may be zero, eg., when P(Perceptions seem as-if human|AmbiguousBrainState) = 0 So realism offers a scepticism that idealism cannot overcome. There is no neutral language. And so reasoning does become impossible. Eg., consider the claim "the object is 1m away" has to be translated to "perceptions seem as-if objects are 1m away" but in the case of an ambgious perception there is no fact about what "seems as-if" -- so you loose the ability to even talk about objects being at any distnace. And since perceptions are bascially always ambigous there is no means by which you can translate objective claims into neutral subjective ones. The choice to reason becomes the choice of a domain (of concepts) with which to interpret claims. A priori there is no neutral choices (eg., Idealism is NOT neutral!) -- so any sceptical choice becomes a decline to reasoning as such or a positive claim about the way the world is.
- vidarh 5y ago
  > The only way we could "continue to reason" is if there were a systematic way of taking claims about the environment, say C and translating them into some "neutral language", C'. By this argument, we can't continue to reason, as we can't falsify the hypothesis that we might be in a simulation. We clearly can continue to reason, on the basis of working within a set of assumptions / axioms that presume that what appears to be physical reality is physical reality. That we can't disprove that it isn't physical reality is irrelevant.