5 ms·

Really getting quite tired of the simulation trope.

pavlov 4y ago
In the 17th century people thought the universe is a kind of clockwork because they were so impressed with the precision of those early machines. Today people think the universe is a kind of simulation because they’re so impressed with how algorithms tinged with randomness can tickle their human sensibilities and create illusions of meaning.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  That's an unfair take. Yes, people have always been using the most interesting or complex phenomena they knew as metaphors to explain the world, starting with animals and ending with computers. But it's not about being impressed, but rather finding similarities. And most importantly, bodily fluids != clockworks != systems of pipes != computers. There's a qualitative jump we've made in the last ~150 years. The tight feedback loop between math, natural sciences and engineering, that was earnestly established some centuries earlier, finally picked up speed. We're no longer "impressed" by a deer or a clockwork and saying the world must work like it. We're not imagining the universe to be like something we know - we're mapping alike concepts using precise, formal, well-tested reasoning. We're applying models to the world, and we know exactly how much fidelity they have. We chose those models to be useful, not evocative. In short, back then we were doing artistic impressions of a landscape. Nowadays, we're drawing proper maps[0]. There's a popular meme that ~150 years ago, physicists thought they had it all neatly figured out, and all that's left to do is to make numbers accurate in far decimal places - and then they stumbled on relativity, nuclear physics and quantum physics, turning everything upside down. The meme is inaccurate, and its implication - that we still don't know shit - isn't particularly convincing to me. Those new fields didn't replace our understanding of the world - they enriched it, solidified it, filled in holes. We have a more complete picture now, especially of the fundamentals. We may not have solved quantum gravity, we may not know if and what dark matter is, etc. - but we know enough to put bounds on the possible consequences and possible surprises[1]. The point I'm making is that, when we now say that e.g. the brain is a computer, it's not the same thing as people 500 years ago saying the brain is like a clockwork. We're not vaguely hinting at similarities - we're applying a specific, precise model. A model that makes concrete testable predictions. A model that can be studied to yield more understanding. A model that's tied to what we now recognize as fundamental - computation isn't some gears and belts trick, it's one of the most basic and impactful ideas in mathematics. It's similar the case of "simulation argument". Do we live in a simulation? Who knows? We're not sure if we could tell (unless it's a really hacky one) or if it would matter much. Is it possible for our universe to be a computer simulation? Probably. We know enough about physics, biology and information theory to have a justified belief it can be done, especially if it's designed around players. Decades of videogame development experience tells us how to do it; mathematics and natural sciences give it green light and say it's an engineering problem. And as a final point to this little rant: when I say that "we know" something today, it's not the same kind of knowing as we had 500 years ago, or even 200 years ago. Mathematics and natural sciences are thoroughly interwoven. The parts that we are sure of are all mutually reinforcing - if we're wrong about any one of it, it would mean we're wrong about most of the rest, across many fields and disciplines. 200 years ago, that might have been possible. Today? We've built so many technologies and processes based on our scientific models that everything we do today, every second of every single person's life on this planet, is its own experiment confirming that our models are good fit. -- [0] - Comparing maps from 500 years ago to maps today is a good exercise. The difference isn't just in accuracy - it's qualitative, as we now have a deep theoretical understanding of what maps are and how to make them, capacity to make them arbitrarily good for desired purposes, and experience in putting them to actual use. [1] - This is, sadly, what makes me very pessimistic about faster-than-light travel and certain other sci-fi dreams. We may not know enough to rule those out directly just yet, but what we do know surrounds the problem space tightly and lets us rule them out via indirect proof.
  - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
    > we're applying a specific, precise model No, we are not. We are no closer to modeling the human brain today than we were 6000 years ago.
    - politician 4y ago
      6000 years ago the Allen Institute for Brain Science didn't exist, and they specifically work on mapping the human brain. So, that's a step forward. https://alleninstitute.org/division/brain-science/ https://alleninstitute.org/division/brain-science/
      - bena 4y ago
        Yeah, I would say we've definitely come closer. But we don't know if we're closer more like how Worcester is closer than Boston is to Los Angeles or how Worcester is closer than Boston is to Springfield. Those are two very different scales.
      - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
        6000 years ago they had dudes (whole tribes, actually!) who practiced ritual trepanation for reasons unknown to us. This "mapping the human brain" is no different and no more scientific. The human brain is an information processing machine, and the science of information and its structure was discovered less than 100 years ago. We don't even have a name yet for this science! And our baby steps in this scientific field are nowhere close to beginning to study the brain. To use an analogy, we discovered how to make paper airplanes, but that gets us no closer to building a supersonic jetliner.
        TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > 6000 years ago they had dudes (whole tribes, actually!) who practiced ritual trepanation for reasons unknown to us. I'd thought it was established it was done for medical reasons - people realized that it sometimes helps with conditions nothing else helps with. Arguably most of the things humanity did until the last few hundred years was based on empirical correlations and stores to help remember them (but lacking predictive power). It's only recently that we've developed proper theoretical understanding of most things we do, in form of specific, tested theorems with lots of predictive power. > This "mapping the human brain" is no different and no more scientific. It is different because nowadays we do have proper science - and more importantly, we know how proper science looks like. So even if we still know very little, we at least know what can and what cannot be done with that knowledge. > (...) the science of information and its structure was discovered less than 100 years ago. > We don't even have a name yet for this science! Isn't that just "information theory"? > To use an analogy, we discovered how to make paper airplanes, but that gets us no closer to building a supersonic jetliner. IMO that would be a good analogy for the clockwork age. Today, we not only know how to make paper airplanes, but more importantly, we can imagine a supersonic jetliner being a thing, we have justified confidence that there's a path from here to being able to build one, and that studying the phenomena behind the flight of a paper airplane are important steps towards building a supersonic jetliner.
- CuriouslyC 4y ago
  I think simulation is a hamfisted word for the modern take on something that people have been considering for a long time. The idea that the universe could be "virtual" and conscious experience is more "real" than physical phenomenon have been actively discussed in philosophical literature since the 16th century, and it was certainly a topic of conversation long before that.
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    I think there's a fundamental difference and 2 different subject here. On a universe level, it's impossible to tell if the entire thing is just a simulation. However, I don't think our conscious experience is any different from a physics event happening elsewhere in our universe. If the universe is indeed simulated, we just happen to evolve naturally in that simulation, and there is no special need to simulate our consciousness specifically - that's a little narcissistic to think about.
    - CuriouslyC 4y ago
      Totally agree, the people who think we're living in the matrix, all atomic minds plugged into a made up reality haven't thought about the problem enough.
Sakos 4y ago
It's fun to think or fantasize about. Maybe chill a bit?
- kenmorechalfant 4y ago
  Have you considered that fun is not always without side effects? The same machine that came up with physics, calculus and evolution came up with God and the MCU. God and the MCU are fun ideas too but just look at how much damage they've done to the world.
  - nwallin 4y ago
    MCU? ...Marvel Cinematic Universe?
  - Sakos 4y ago
    God? As in the concept millions of people use to oppress others? Yeah, totally a fun idea.
  - angelbar 4y ago
    Thanos?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fartsucker69 4y ago
poor you, mentally weak hackernews reader
skylabmelody 4y ago
Really getting quite tired of the misuse of the word trope.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  That's fair. Although in my defense the previous comment was spinning a narrative story.
Aperocky 4y ago
Simulation or not, the difference might not matter to us anyways. We can observe the laws of physics as it applies to the universe, but why they are there is far less clear, something we may never know.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  That's exactly why we're tired of simulationism. Short of the simulation runners talking to us, it's impossible in principle to take the least step toward figuring out if it's true or false.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    It also encourages sloppy and superstitious thinking where coincidences become proof that it's The Matrix. People just can't let go of wanting some kind of God and for the random nonsense in the Universe to make sense.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      Exactly, it just leads to infinite regress, as every layer can also be contained within another layer as simulation, so it's uninteresting.
      - edgyquant 4y ago
        What you’re describing is the actual reason for Occam’s razor.
        b800h 4y ago
        It's also part of a decent proof for the existence of God, specifically an extension of the Kalām Cosmological Argument.
    - Aperocky 4y ago
      > People just can't let go of wanting some kind of God The reverse is also true. While the inability to determine why the laws of physics are there is not evident that there must be some reason that they are there, one can conjecture a causal relation with some kind of entity that affected it. Either that be God, or the playful intern that happened to create UniverseSandbox#9971

In the 17th century people thought the universe is a kind of clockwork because they were so impressed with the precision of those early machines. Today people think the universe is a kind of simulation because they’re so impressed with how algorithms tinged with randomness can tickle their human sensibilities and create illusions of meaning.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
That's an unfair take. Yes, people have always been using the most interesting or complex phenomena they knew as metaphors to explain the world, starting with animals and ending with computers. But it's not about being impressed, but rather finding similarities. And most importantly, bodily fluids != clockworks != systems of pipes != computers. There's a qualitative jump we've made in the last ~150 years. The tight feedback loop between math, natural sciences and engineering, that was earnestly established some centuries earlier, finally picked up speed. We're no longer "impressed" by a deer or a clockwork and saying the world must work like it. We're not imagining the universe to be like something we know - we're mapping alike concepts using precise, formal, well-tested reasoning. We're applying models to the world, and we know exactly how much fidelity they have. We chose those models to be useful, not evocative. In short, back then we were doing artistic impressions of a landscape. Nowadays, we're drawing proper maps[0]. There's a popular meme that ~150 years ago, physicists thought they had it all neatly figured out, and all that's left to do is to make numbers accurate in far decimal places - and then they stumbled on relativity, nuclear physics and quantum physics, turning everything upside down. The meme is inaccurate, and its implication - that we still don't know shit - isn't particularly convincing to me. Those new fields didn't replace our understanding of the world - they enriched it, solidified it, filled in holes. We have a more complete picture now, especially of the fundamentals. We may not have solved quantum gravity, we may not know if and what dark matter is, etc. - but we know enough to put bounds on the possible consequences and possible surprises[1]. The point I'm making is that, when we now say that e.g. the brain is a computer, it's not the same thing as people 500 years ago saying the brain is like a clockwork. We're not vaguely hinting at similarities - we're applying a specific, precise model. A model that makes concrete testable predictions. A model that can be studied to yield more understanding. A model that's tied to what we now recognize as fundamental - computation isn't some gears and belts trick, it's one of the most basic and impactful ideas in mathematics. It's similar the case of "simulation argument". Do we live in a simulation? Who knows? We're not sure if we could tell (unless it's a really hacky one) or if it would matter much. Is it possible for our universe to be a computer simulation? Probably. We know enough about physics, biology and information theory to have a justified belief it can be done, especially if it's designed around players. Decades of videogame development experience tells us how to do it; mathematics and natural sciences give it green light and say it's an engineering problem. And as a final point to this little rant: when I say that "we know" something today, it's not the same kind of knowing as we had 500 years ago, or even 200 years ago. Mathematics and natural sciences are thoroughly interwoven. The parts that we are sure of are all mutually reinforcing - if we're wrong about any one of it, it would mean we're wrong about most of the rest, across many fields and disciplines. 200 years ago, that might have been possible. Today? We've built so many technologies and processes based on our scientific models that everything we do today, every second of every single person's life on this planet, is its own experiment confirming that our models are good fit. -- [0] - Comparing maps from 500 years ago to maps today is a good exercise. The difference isn't just in accuracy - it's qualitative, as we now have a deep theoretical understanding of what maps are and how to make them, capacity to make them arbitrarily good for desired purposes, and experience in putting them to actual use. [1] - This is, sadly, what makes me very pessimistic about faster-than-light travel and certain other sci-fi dreams. We may not know enough to rule those out directly just yet, but what we do know surrounds the problem space tightly and lets us rule them out via indirect proof.
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  > we're applying a specific, precise model No, we are not. We are no closer to modeling the human brain today than we were 6000 years ago.
  - politician 4y ago
    6000 years ago the Allen Institute for Brain Science didn't exist, and they specifically work on mapping the human brain. So, that's a step forward. https://alleninstitute.org/division/brain-science/ https://alleninstitute.org/division/brain-science/
    - bena 4y ago
      Yeah, I would say we've definitely come closer. But we don't know if we're closer more like how Worcester is closer than Boston is to Los Angeles or how Worcester is closer than Boston is to Springfield. Those are two very different scales.
    - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
      6000 years ago they had dudes (whole tribes, actually!) who practiced ritual trepanation for reasons unknown to us. This "mapping the human brain" is no different and no more scientific. The human brain is an information processing machine, and the science of information and its structure was discovered less than 100 years ago. We don't even have a name yet for this science! And our baby steps in this scientific field are nowhere close to beginning to study the brain. To use an analogy, we discovered how to make paper airplanes, but that gets us no closer to building a supersonic jetliner.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > 6000 years ago they had dudes (whole tribes, actually!) who practiced ritual trepanation for reasons unknown to us. I'd thought it was established it was done for medical reasons - people realized that it sometimes helps with conditions nothing else helps with. Arguably most of the things humanity did until the last few hundred years was based on empirical correlations and stores to help remember them (but lacking predictive power). It's only recently that we've developed proper theoretical understanding of most things we do, in form of specific, tested theorems with lots of predictive power. > This "mapping the human brain" is no different and no more scientific. It is different because nowadays we do have proper science - and more importantly, we know how proper science looks like. So even if we still know very little, we at least know what can and what cannot be done with that knowledge. > (...) the science of information and its structure was discovered less than 100 years ago. > We don't even have a name yet for this science! Isn't that just "information theory"? > To use an analogy, we discovered how to make paper airplanes, but that gets us no closer to building a supersonic jetliner. IMO that would be a good analogy for the clockwork age. Today, we not only know how to make paper airplanes, but more importantly, we can imagine a supersonic jetliner being a thing, we have justified confidence that there's a path from here to being able to build one, and that studying the phenomena behind the flight of a paper airplane are important steps towards building a supersonic jetliner.
CuriouslyC 4y ago
I think simulation is a hamfisted word for the modern take on something that people have been considering for a long time. The idea that the universe could be "virtual" and conscious experience is more "real" than physical phenomenon have been actively discussed in philosophical literature since the 16th century, and it was certainly a topic of conversation long before that.
- Aperocky 4y ago
  I think there's a fundamental difference and 2 different subject here. On a universe level, it's impossible to tell if the entire thing is just a simulation. However, I don't think our conscious experience is any different from a physics event happening elsewhere in our universe. If the universe is indeed simulated, we just happen to evolve naturally in that simulation, and there is no special need to simulate our consciousness specifically - that's a little narcissistic to think about.
  - CuriouslyC 4y ago
    Totally agree, the people who think we're living in the matrix, all atomic minds plugged into a made up reality haven't thought about the problem enough.

Sakos 4y ago

It's fun to think or fantasize about. Maybe chill a bit?

kenmorechalfant 4y ago
Have you considered that fun is not always without side effects? The same machine that came up with physics, calculus and evolution came up with God and the MCU. God and the MCU are fun ideas too but just look at how much damage they've done to the world.
- nwallin 4y ago
  MCU? ...Marvel Cinematic Universe?
- Sakos 4y ago
  God? As in the concept millions of people use to oppress others? Yeah, totally a fun idea.
- angelbar 4y ago
  Thanos?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

fartsucker69 4y ago

poor you, mentally weak hackernews reader

skylabmelody 4y ago

Really getting quite tired of the misuse of the word trope.

lamontcg 4y ago
That's fair. Although in my defense the previous comment was spinning a narrative story.

Aperocky 4y ago

Simulation or not, the difference might not matter to us anyways. We can observe the laws of physics as it applies to the universe, but why they are there is far less clear, something we may never know.

andrewflnr 4y ago
That's exactly why we're tired of simulationism. Short of the simulation runners talking to us, it's impossible in principle to take the least step toward figuring out if it's true or false.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  It also encourages sloppy and superstitious thinking where coincidences become proof that it's The Matrix. People just can't let go of wanting some kind of God and for the random nonsense in the Universe to make sense.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Exactly, it just leads to infinite regress, as every layer can also be contained within another layer as simulation, so it's uninteresting.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      What you’re describing is the actual reason for Occam’s razor.
      - b800h 4y ago
        It's also part of a decent proof for the existence of God, specifically an extension of the Kalām Cosmological Argument.
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    > People just can't let go of wanting some kind of God The reverse is also true. While the inability to determine why the laws of physics are there is not evident that there must be some reason that they are there, one can conjecture a causal relation with some kind of entity that affected it. Either that be God, or the playful intern that happened to create UniverseSandbox#9971