10 ms·

Existing in an un-simulated reality

52 points by turtlesoup 3y ago

dustyduster 3y ago
This reminds me of the "dust" theory in Egan's Permutation City.
- jl6 3y ago
  It is indeed similar. It seems to take a highly reductionist pathway: reality/experience can be simulated -> simulation is computation -> computation is mathematics -> mathematical objects exist regardless of whether anybody has discovered them. This implies that all conceivable universes (including the ones where a lot of really bad things happen on an eternal loop) are possessed of the exact same reality as ours.
  - zach_miller 3y ago
    Am I missing something here? I can suppose a universe where the premise is false (This is a conceivable universe, I’d argue). Doesn’t that mean that this premise really is false?
    - axelsvensson 3y ago
      Someone who holds this view would probably have to make the definitions more precise, so that if you live in a deterministic reality, you actually cannot conceive of a universe that isn't deterministic. You can throw around words like "indeterministic", but you cannot precisely simulate something indeterministic using only deterministic ingredients, and hence, for some precise definition of "conceive", cannot conceive such a universe.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      If one assumes paradoxes are impossible maybe.
    - mannykannot 3y ago
      The author's tenets seem to insist upon the reality of universes expressed in inconsistent formal systems, so I don't think this is fatal to the argument - though it suppose it might render pointless any attempt to treat the premise analytically.
  - mannykannot 3y ago
    I don't suppose a mathematical Platonist would limit the possibilities to conceivable universes, as they suppose the math exists regardless.
  - prmph 3y ago
    Then what would the concept of truth mean then, in such a situation
Trasmatta 3y ago
Isn't this essentially Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis?
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- codeflo 3y ago
  I believe so, yes. I think it's somewhat likely that mathematically minded people would come up with that idea independently -- it's essentially Platonism taken to its logical conclusion. For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...
  - kirill5pol 3y ago
    Yep, had the same thoughts a few years ago too. Basically if you accept mathematical realism as an axiom, pretty often you get to this idea
    - omnicognate 3y ago
      Had this thought in the bath ~25 years ago. Not an idea you can actually do anything with, though, other than go 'huh, interesting' and add more hot water.
- iahwrites 3y ago
  OP here... yeah it sure looks like it is! I hadn't heard of it before, and will need to do some more reading, but at a high-level it does look to be the same line of thinking.
  - Trasmatta 3y ago
    Cool! He has some books on the topic that you'd be interested in.
  - ttctciyf 3y ago
fdhfdjkfhdkj 3y ago
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ajuc 3y ago
One one hand it's absurd (it means that everything that can be imagined and many more things exist). On another hand the opposite (requiring a mapping from that computation to real-world objects) is absurd too, because for any sequence of numbers you can always find a mapping to physical objects (notice that you can make the mapping arbitrarily complex). So why require the extra steps? My opinion is that it follows that asking about existence without specifying the domain in which sth exists is meaningless. You can say that the number 42 exists in the domain of integers. You cannot say whether the number 42 exists in general. It wouldn't mean anything. Similarly you can say that Harrison Ford exists in our universe but Han Solo doesn't. But you cannot say whether one or the other exist in general.
- russdill 3y ago
  The insistence that some "real" universe exists does strike me as a kind of dualism, but I'm unable to describe the concept with any rigor.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    Should have said "physical" not "real" probably. I didn't meant to imply it's more "real" than the integers or any other domain, my point was that you have to specify the domain and that there are many options.
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axelsvensson 3y ago
I believe that you are more real than Donald Duck if and only if the future is not yet determined. In philosophy, theories of time are categorized in A- and B- theories [1]. In B-theoretic time, the difference between past, present and future is only subjective. Objectively, all points in time exist and are equally real. I view this to mean that there isn't any particular difference in the degree of reality between our reality and any mathematical model or imagined reality. Only with A-theoretic time are you objectively more real than Donald Duck. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#TheoBTheo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#TheoBTheo
- injeolmi_love 3y ago
  One of the similarities between philosophy and art is that in both fields, non experts seem to think they are qualified to give their own opinions. Unfortunately this means the public discourse becomes more about what people enjoy than what is actual.
smokel 3y ago
This argument seems to mix up "existence" and "construction". The number states do not magically appear in the physical universe merely by thinking up the construction. The numbers could be configured as (temporary) patterns in physical objects, such as brains, books, or in ink molecules on paper. But the states are not physical objects themselves. Also, if our universe happens to be universal, in the sense that it encompasses all of existence, then how could a calculation device exist outside of it? I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, but it's an option that many simulation-believers overlook. The calculation device might be part of the existence, but it seems rather unlikely that it can then predict reality faster than it unfolds.
- iahwrites 3y ago
  In response to your second point, at a high level I believe the calculation device would exist inside _one_ universe but calculate another one... the idea that you could calculate your own universe and use that to predict future events does seem covered in paradoxes. For one, the universe you're predicting would (recursively) have to include the computer you're using to predict it. ... but that's different to what I've argued here. I'm not claiming the states are physical objects, but just the existing of the pattern, even if temporary or intangible, would feel real to the humans/actors inside it.
  - smokel 3y ago
    My premise was that the universe was universal, i.e. there is no other universe. Again, I'm not saying that this is the case, or that there is any reason to believe that it is so, but I don't see a good reason why there would be more than one universe. (Note that all of this depends a bit on the definition of a universe -- for the sake of argument, I'm assuming our universe to be a system closed under physical interactions. Happy to argue about other universes, but perhaps it's best to save that for another time.) If you are trying to prove the existence of this universe by requiring the existence of another universe, then it's turtles all the way down. How do you define "existing" of a pattern? Does it exist inside a physical thing? If so, then how does that physical container come into existence? And if it exists only conceptually, then how is it possible for concepts to exist? In the universe that I know, concepts only exist in the minds of human beings, and perhaps in some other animals. To me, it seems rather unlikely (and a bit anthropocentric or egocentric) that concepts are something truly universal. For me, it helped to meditate a lot on what it'd be like to be a rock. The rock does not have memory, no sensory input, and therefore most likely no concept of time, space, logic, nor mathematics. It makes you wonder whether the rock exists at all. In any case, it probably doesn't care as much about it as we humans do. There might be a hint there.
javajosh 3y ago
Take a smaller example: weather on Earth. There are a LOT of particles, but still classically simulatable. Chaos ensures that we still cannot know all future states of the weather. This is a remarkable truth, and one should give it time to sink in. Note that quantum modelling those effects go as O(a^N). If you want to hand-wave away exponential computational cost, then I cry foul: the details matter, and I posit that you cannot build a computer that is more powerful than the universe itself.
- iahwrites 3y ago
  Sure, but this argument is for simulation theory... not what is described here. What I'm suggesting is that the calculation never needs to be done, which means the complexity of it does not matter. Whether it's O(1) or O(a^N) they're both far smaller than the infinite number of potential states.
  - javajosh 3y ago
    >the calculation never needs to be done Well, that's your preference then. But personally I want to see the Mets play the Yankees because it's profoundly unsatisfying to believe that all possible outcomes are computable and therefore on an equal basis. I daresay that idea is so bad that if you took it seriously, it would die out with your genes/memes. (Not that that matters since you could travel to and impregnate every woman on Earth).
    - AntiMS 3y ago
      If Iah's view is correct, after the game, there will be at some versions of you who witnessed the Mets winning, some that witnessed the Yankees winning, and some that saw the game end in a tie. (As well as some for which the game was interrupted by aliens landing on the field and some where all the players spontaneously disappeared etc.) So, subjectively, it'd still feel as if you'd gone to the game without knowing what was going to happen and then exactly one outcome (and not all outcomes) happened. But from a more objective perspective, all outcomes are indeed on an even footing.
scotty79 3y ago
Basically it's a question of whether math exists. If it exists then the states of the simulation exist and look like reality "from the inside". I really like Iain M. Banks moral argument against universe being simulated. No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral enough to create something so horrible. Unless they are a total bastard. So it's not a 100%.
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- psunavy03 3y ago
  > No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral enough to create something so horrible. Based on what just the human race has demonstrated across history, this claim is arguable at best.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    Humanity gets more benign as history progresses. This general trend is momentarily reversed from time to time by recent technological developments but still stands.
- e_y_ 3y ago
  In science fiction it's common to have species that are so far advanced that humans are like ants to them. For all we know, our reality could be a petri dish sitting under the couch of an alien dorm room.
- Andrex 3y ago
  By whose standards is it horrible? What if the intelligence doesn't even know we're here? Or that we are (or believe ourselves to be) conscious? Do you feel guilty playing The Sims?
  - scotty79 3y ago
    Never heard about player feeling guilty about immoral action they performed in a game?
m000 3y ago
I am hungry and there's some leftover pizza in the fridge. Do I really need to eat it?
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  Your mirror universe dolppelganger may eat it first
- mannykannot 3y ago
  I think the author's premise would lead to the conclusions that you really are hungry and you really eat the pizza, but the former is not causal in the latter (they are just theorems of the formalism) and the latter is not causal in anything else.
mistermann 3y ago
> That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we could play through time in that existence. It would feel completely real to everyone in that simulation. Telling persuasive stories can achieve essentially the same outcome, is much easier, and is already an accepted convention.
prng2021 3y ago
"The argument assumes that given one state of human existence, it is possible to calculate a distinct next state. And then a state after that. That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we could play through time in that existence." Why are you assuming this to be true? Due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it's impossible to perfectly know "one state of human existence". So the rest of the thought experiment seems moot.
- nntwozz 3y ago
  It's also naive to think that everything can be calculated by a computer, at some point the calculations become so enormous that the energy requirement approaches infinity.
  - Karellen 3y ago
    > at some point the calculations become so enormous that the energy requirement approaches infinity. No, they really don't. You might say that the energy requirement approaches Graham's Number, or TREE(3), and maybe that's somewhat plausible, but Graham's Number and TREE(3) are both minisculely insignificant compared to infinity. If you ever counted that high, you'd be no closer to reaching infinity than you were when you started. But who says that Graham's Number or TREE(3) are large numbers in the universe doing the simulating? Why would the simulating universe be as incomprehensibly tiny and simple as ours is? Oh sure, our universe looks big to us. But who are we to judge its size?
- iahwrites 3y ago
  Is it moot though? The uncertainty principle makes it impossible for us to _measure_ both speed and position, but if you're simulating it that's not necessary.
paint 3y ago
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kromem 3y ago
Except we are calculating it. We're building digital twins of much of the universe around ourselves at different scales. We're even building digital twins of ourselves. We're improving the technology that enables that twinning quite rapidly. We're improving the technology that allows for emulating a virtual environment. And in fact, there's a remarkable overlap in how we are running those virtual environments and the fundamental building blocks we've experimentally validated in our own universe. The part that I think people get caught up in is the assumption that we'd need to ourselves calculate a 1:1 copy for us to be in a calculated copy. But at macro scales the universe behaves as if things are continuous, not discrete/quantized. And the mechanics of quantization remains incompatible with the mechanics of continuous theories like GR. The nuances of that quantization map to how we fudge fidelity in our own virtual representations. So we need not create a 1:1 copy for us to be in a copy any more than one would need to create Minecraft at a 1:1 scale within Minecraft for Minecraft to exist. Additionally, looking at mechanics isn't the only way to investigate whether we are in a virtual copy. For example, in many copies we make, there's some acknowledgement of that state woven into the world lore. Indeed, in our own world in antiquity was a set of beliefs attributed to one of the most well known figures in history that espoused that we were in a copy of an original world in which an original humanity came to exist spontaneously and then brought forth the creator of this copy within light with us in their archetype before they ultimately perished. The full text at the heart of these beliefs was lost for centuries before being found again the same month as ENIAC ran its first computer program. This text claimed the proof for what it said about a creator of light would be found in motion and rest (the domain now called Physics), and the group following it claimed that the ability to find an indivisible point within bodies would only be possible in the non-physical. That's quite the coincidence in an age when we are moving towards putting the AI emulating our digital twins literally into light with optoelectronics and are very focused on the discovery of indivisible points within the domain of study of motion and rest. (The name of the text is literally translated as "the good news of the twin" and its main point is that if one understands its content they will not fear death or worry about the soul's dependence on a physical body.)
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antonkar 3y ago
Wolfram's theory of physics has exactly this idea. He thinks all the formal computable rules necessary exist and we are living inside of them https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-universe-exist-some-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-uni...
kazinator 3y ago
That coincides with my belief. If the next state exists mathmatically, it exists. The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress: what simulator runs the simulator, and what runs that one ...
- mannykannot 3y ago
  > The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress... I'm not sure, but I think it leads to infinite recursion instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451144
philipswood 3y ago
This is similar to asking how real the character in a book is when no one is reading or remembering it.
fasterik 3y ago
This is similar to David Lewis's modal realism, which says that every possible world is real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism There isn't really much of a connection between this and Bostrom's simulation argument. The simulation argument is about calculating the probability that we live in a simulated universe based on certain assumptions about human behavior and technological development. Bostrom's argument doesn't make any metaphysical claims other than assuming that consciousness is substrate independent. I don't buy into metaphysical theories that claim to deduce the existence of worlds outside our own based on armchair reasoning. We know that the physical universe exists and we can explain everything that we experience in terms of quantum field theory and general relativity. Any theory that wants to challenge this view of the world needs to modify those existing theories, or design an experiment that shows why they aren't adequate to explain reality.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > we can explain everything that we experience in terms of quantum field theory and general relativity Everything we experience, except experience itself. Conscious/qualia/whatever is still… well, none but God knows what it is, and I have no evidence for the existence of any god let alone that one.
  - fasterik 3y ago
    That's because consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental physics. Every atom in your brain behaves according to the laws of particle physics, and somehow consciousness emerges out of that. Our theories of neuroscience aren't developed enough to explain it yet, but there isn't any reason to believe that there is something magical or non-physical going on.
    - iosystem 3y ago
      How do we know consciousness is real, and we're not just the same as robots or a tv series? Couldn't every moment throughout the universe have been encoded in every atom before the Big Bang?
ben_w 3y ago
This feels similar to something I came up with a while back; for various reasons[0], I hope it isn't true. https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/mathematical-universe-v-boltzmann-brains/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/mathematica... [0] Boltzmann brains are cognitively unstable, because the logic leading to them says you should expect to be one, but also that they have exponentially increasingly false "memories" the further back they "remember", including the beliefs leading to the conclusion that you probably are one. If all maths is real, this is worse to at least the degree that Aleph one is bigger than Aleph null, possibly more.
- 14 3y ago
  The Boltzmann brain theory is not something I have heard before but have to say I love the idea. The thing is if the universe is infinite and you believe that, then by default many other things also have to be true. I do hope the universe is infinite which means I exist many times over in many different states of being, hopefully one such state where the Canadian housing market isn’t so crappy and I get to afford a house one day ;)
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    Infinite universe doesn’t necessarily imply what you’re suggesting. Removing all even numbers from a set gives you another infinite set - but it is still an infinite set that will never contain a multiple of 2 in it. Similarly, our universe may be infinite but isn’t at all guaranteed to produce multiple Earths with identical evolutionary history such that another or even many “versions” of you exist somewhere/when.
    - 14 3y ago
      I’m not sure I agree on your take. There are of course different definitions of infinity which would have different rules based on said definition. But if our universe is infinite and physics as we know it remains true then we would have to run into all the variations of every molecule combination possible again and again. Saying we won’t see any even numbers in an infinite set of odd numbers is obvious as the rules of that infinite set have been defined. There are no such rules in the universe.
titzer 3y ago
A couple issues with the assumption of simplified view of determinism: 1.) It doesn't appear computationally feasible to simulate general relativity 2.) Quantum mechanics is described by probability distribution equations that don't have "states" but superpositions of states
- seventhtiger 3y ago
  To add, 3-body systems have been found which would require sub-Planck precision to simulate. That information doesn't even exist in our universe.
qrian 3y ago
Author should also look into complexity science, and its consequences that even if everything is determined, most information about next state quickly evaporates. If it's impossible to know most things about next state, does it even matter that it is deterministic/simulated?
- haltist 3y ago
  One useful way to think of the halting problem is that the future is not computable. There is no shortcut to finding out what will happen other than actually running the computer. I think all computational theories sweep this issue under the rug. Even if the universe is a computer (quantum or otherwise) it makes no difference to how people should approach their decisions. There are no royal roads so regardless of how much a situation is analyzed by symbolic simulations at the end if the day you still have to act of your own volition to actually find out what will happen.
zzo38computer 3y ago
I thought of the similar thing before, including all of the details they mention, and I agree. (Of course you still might not konw what it is unless a simulation can be made, but it can exist (mathematically) whether or not a simulation is made.) Furthermore, I think that anything existence (including mathematics, physics, etc) are by relation to everything else that is existence; there is no such thing as an "existence" that is truly independently from everything else, including mathematics (and, the various possible mathematical structures, and physical universes), etc. (If it is truly independent, how can numbers be prime and composite, and how can objects collide with each other, and how can planets moving around the Sun by gravity, and how can people have ideas about the gods, etc?) (However, there is then the consideration if such a simulation is being made which is then being interacted with by outside (e.g. as in Star Trek); in that case, it is I/O, so you can make "Mathematical Universe Hypothesis with I/O". This could be called as a kind of nondeterminism, I suppose; although, a constraint may be produced by their combination.)
K0balt 3y ago
The actual performance of calculating in the OPs example is analogous to the passage of time, as expressed by entropic processes. Op’s conjecture can be thought of as the same conjecture as proposing that things in the past and future still / already exist, a conjecture that I find compelling based on dimensional reductionist thought experimentation.
Charon77 3y ago
It's like saying buildings existed before it's been built because there's already drawings on it, so why build anything. The missing component in the thesis is that it argues that consciousness is just an abstract, immaterial object that consists of states. That's not true because to be conscious you need matters.
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52 points by turtlesoup 3y ago

dustyduster 3y ago

This reminds me of the "dust" theory in Egan's Permutation City.

jl6 3y ago
It is indeed similar. It seems to take a highly reductionist pathway: reality/experience can be simulated -> simulation is computation -> computation is mathematics -> mathematical objects exist regardless of whether anybody has discovered them. This implies that all conceivable universes (including the ones where a lot of really bad things happen on an eternal loop) are possessed of the exact same reality as ours.
- zach_miller 3y ago
  Am I missing something here? I can suppose a universe where the premise is false (This is a conceivable universe, I’d argue). Doesn’t that mean that this premise really is false?
  - axelsvensson 3y ago
    Someone who holds this view would probably have to make the definitions more precise, so that if you live in a deterministic reality, you actually cannot conceive of a universe that isn't deterministic. You can throw around words like "indeterministic", but you cannot precisely simulate something indeterministic using only deterministic ingredients, and hence, for some precise definition of "conceive", cannot conceive such a universe.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    If one assumes paradoxes are impossible maybe.
  - mannykannot 3y ago
    The author's tenets seem to insist upon the reality of universes expressed in inconsistent formal systems, so I don't think this is fatal to the argument - though it suppose it might render pointless any attempt to treat the premise analytically.
- mannykannot 3y ago
  I don't suppose a mathematical Platonist would limit the possibilities to conceivable universes, as they suppose the math exists regardless.
- prmph 3y ago
  Then what would the concept of truth mean then, in such a situation

Trasmatta 3y ago

Isn't this essentially Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis?

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codeflo 3y ago
I believe so, yes. I think it's somewhat likely that mathematically minded people would come up with that idea independently -- it's essentially Platonism taken to its logical conclusion. For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...
- kirill5pol 3y ago
  Yep, had the same thoughts a few years ago too. Basically if you accept mathematical realism as an axiom, pretty often you get to this idea
  - omnicognate 3y ago
    Had this thought in the bath ~25 years ago. Not an idea you can actually do anything with, though, other than go 'huh, interesting' and add more hot water.
iahwrites 3y ago
OP here... yeah it sure looks like it is! I hadn't heard of it before, and will need to do some more reading, but at a high-level it does look to be the same line of thinking.
- Trasmatta 3y ago
  Cool! He has some books on the topic that you'd be interested in.
- ttctciyf 3y ago

fdhfdjkfhdkj 3y ago

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ajuc 3y ago

One one hand it's absurd (it means that everything that can be imagined and many more things exist). On another hand the opposite (requiring a mapping from that computation to real-world objects) is absurd too, because for any sequence of numbers you can always find a mapping to physical objects (notice that you can make the mapping arbitrarily complex). So why require the extra steps? My opinion is that it follows that asking about existence without specifying the domain in which sth exists is meaningless. You can say that the number 42 exists in the domain of integers. You cannot say whether the number 42 exists in general. It wouldn't mean anything. Similarly you can say that Harrison Ford exists in our universe but Han Solo doesn't. But you cannot say whether one or the other exist in general.

russdill 3y ago
The insistence that some "real" universe exists does strike me as a kind of dualism, but I'm unable to describe the concept with any rigor.
- ajuc 3y ago
  Should have said "physical" not "real" probably. I didn't meant to imply it's more "real" than the integers or any other domain, my point was that you have to specify the domain and that there are many options.

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axelsvensson 3y ago

I believe that you are more real than Donald Duck if and only if the future is not yet determined. In philosophy, theories of time are categorized in A- and B- theories [1]. In B-theoretic time, the difference between past, present and future is only subjective. Objectively, all points in time exist and are equally real. I view this to mean that there isn't any particular difference in the degree of reality between our reality and any mathematical model or imagined reality. Only with A-theoretic time are you objectively more real than Donald Duck. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#TheoBTheo https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#TheoBTheo

injeolmi_love 3y ago
One of the similarities between philosophy and art is that in both fields, non experts seem to think they are qualified to give their own opinions. Unfortunately this means the public discourse becomes more about what people enjoy than what is actual.

smokel 3y ago

This argument seems to mix up "existence" and "construction". The number states do not magically appear in the physical universe merely by thinking up the construction. The numbers could be configured as (temporary) patterns in physical objects, such as brains, books, or in ink molecules on paper. But the states are not physical objects themselves. Also, if our universe happens to be universal, in the sense that it encompasses all of existence, then how could a calculation device exist outside of it? I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, but it's an option that many simulation-believers overlook. The calculation device might be part of the existence, but it seems rather unlikely that it can then predict reality faster than it unfolds.

iahwrites 3y ago
In response to your second point, at a high level I believe the calculation device would exist inside _one_ universe but calculate another one... the idea that you could calculate your own universe and use that to predict future events does seem covered in paradoxes. For one, the universe you're predicting would (recursively) have to include the computer you're using to predict it. ... but that's different to what I've argued here. I'm not claiming the states are physical objects, but just the existing of the pattern, even if temporary or intangible, would feel real to the humans/actors inside it.
- smokel 3y ago
  My premise was that the universe was universal, i.e. there is no other universe. Again, I'm not saying that this is the case, or that there is any reason to believe that it is so, but I don't see a good reason why there would be more than one universe. (Note that all of this depends a bit on the definition of a universe -- for the sake of argument, I'm assuming our universe to be a system closed under physical interactions. Happy to argue about other universes, but perhaps it's best to save that for another time.) If you are trying to prove the existence of this universe by requiring the existence of another universe, then it's turtles all the way down. How do you define "existing" of a pattern? Does it exist inside a physical thing? If so, then how does that physical container come into existence? And if it exists only conceptually, then how is it possible for concepts to exist? In the universe that I know, concepts only exist in the minds of human beings, and perhaps in some other animals. To me, it seems rather unlikely (and a bit anthropocentric or egocentric) that concepts are something truly universal. For me, it helped to meditate a lot on what it'd be like to be a rock. The rock does not have memory, no sensory input, and therefore most likely no concept of time, space, logic, nor mathematics. It makes you wonder whether the rock exists at all. In any case, it probably doesn't care as much about it as we humans do. There might be a hint there.

javajosh 3y ago

Take a smaller example: weather on Earth. There are a LOT of particles, but still classically simulatable. Chaos ensures that we still cannot know all future states of the weather. This is a remarkable truth, and one should give it time to sink in. Note that quantum modelling those effects go as O(a^N). If you want to hand-wave away exponential computational cost, then I cry foul: the details matter, and I posit that you cannot build a computer that is more powerful than the universe itself.

iahwrites 3y ago
Sure, but this argument is for simulation theory... not what is described here. What I'm suggesting is that the calculation never needs to be done, which means the complexity of it does not matter. Whether it's O(1) or O(a^N) they're both far smaller than the infinite number of potential states.
- javajosh 3y ago
  >the calculation never needs to be done Well, that's your preference then. But personally I want to see the Mets play the Yankees because it's profoundly unsatisfying to believe that all possible outcomes are computable and therefore on an equal basis. I daresay that idea is so bad that if you took it seriously, it would die out with your genes/memes. (Not that that matters since you could travel to and impregnate every woman on Earth).
  - AntiMS 3y ago
    If Iah's view is correct, after the game, there will be at some versions of you who witnessed the Mets winning, some that witnessed the Yankees winning, and some that saw the game end in a tie. (As well as some for which the game was interrupted by aliens landing on the field and some where all the players spontaneously disappeared etc.) So, subjectively, it'd still feel as if you'd gone to the game without knowing what was going to happen and then exactly one outcome (and not all outcomes) happened. But from a more objective perspective, all outcomes are indeed on an even footing.

scotty79 3y ago

Basically it's a question of whether math exists. If it exists then the states of the simulation exist and look like reality "from the inside". I really like Iain M. Banks moral argument against universe being simulated. No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral enough to create something so horrible. Unless they are a total bastard. So it's not a 100%.

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psunavy03 3y ago
> No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral enough to create something so horrible. Based on what just the human race has demonstrated across history, this claim is arguable at best.
- scotty79 3y ago
  Humanity gets more benign as history progresses. This general trend is momentarily reversed from time to time by recent technological developments but still stands.
e_y_ 3y ago
In science fiction it's common to have species that are so far advanced that humans are like ants to them. For all we know, our reality could be a petri dish sitting under the couch of an alien dorm room.
Andrex 3y ago
By whose standards is it horrible? What if the intelligence doesn't even know we're here? Or that we are (or believe ourselves to be) conscious? Do you feel guilty playing The Sims?
- scotty79 3y ago
  Never heard about player feeling guilty about immoral action they performed in a game?

m000 3y ago

I am hungry and there's some leftover pizza in the fridge. Do I really need to eat it?

lacrimacida 3y ago
Your mirror universe dolppelganger may eat it first
mannykannot 3y ago
I think the author's premise would lead to the conclusions that you really are hungry and you really eat the pizza, but the former is not causal in the latter (they are just theorems of the formalism) and the latter is not causal in anything else.

mistermann 3y ago

> That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we could play through time in that existence. It would feel completely real to everyone in that simulation. Telling persuasive stories can achieve essentially the same outcome, is much easier, and is already an accepted convention.

prng2021 3y ago

"The argument assumes that given one state of human existence, it is possible to calculate a distinct next state. And then a state after that. That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we could play through time in that existence." Why are you assuming this to be true? Due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it's impossible to perfectly know "one state of human existence". So the rest of the thought experiment seems moot.

nntwozz 3y ago
It's also naive to think that everything can be calculated by a computer, at some point the calculations become so enormous that the energy requirement approaches infinity.
- Karellen 3y ago
  > at some point the calculations become so enormous that the energy requirement approaches infinity. No, they really don't. You might say that the energy requirement approaches Graham's Number, or TREE(3), and maybe that's somewhat plausible, but Graham's Number and TREE(3) are both minisculely insignificant compared to infinity. If you ever counted that high, you'd be no closer to reaching infinity than you were when you started. But who says that Graham's Number or TREE(3) are large numbers in the universe doing the simulating? Why would the simulating universe be as incomprehensibly tiny and simple as ours is? Oh sure, our universe looks big to us. But who are we to judge its size?
iahwrites 3y ago
Is it moot though? The uncertainty principle makes it impossible for us to _measure_ both speed and position, but if you're simulating it that's not necessary.

paint 3y ago

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kromem 3y ago

Except we are calculating it. We're building digital twins of much of the universe around ourselves at different scales. We're even building digital twins of ourselves. We're improving the technology that enables that twinning quite rapidly. We're improving the technology that allows for emulating a virtual environment. And in fact, there's a remarkable overlap in how we are running those virtual environments and the fundamental building blocks we've experimentally validated in our own universe. The part that I think people get caught up in is the assumption that we'd need to ourselves calculate a 1:1 copy for us to be in a calculated copy. But at macro scales the universe behaves as if things are continuous, not discrete/quantized. And the mechanics of quantization remains incompatible with the mechanics of continuous theories like GR. The nuances of that quantization map to how we fudge fidelity in our own virtual representations. So we need not create a 1:1 copy for us to be in a copy any more than one would need to create Minecraft at a 1:1 scale within Minecraft for Minecraft to exist. Additionally, looking at mechanics isn't the only way to investigate whether we are in a virtual copy. For example, in many copies we make, there's some acknowledgement of that state woven into the world lore. Indeed, in our own world in antiquity was a set of beliefs attributed to one of the most well known figures in history that espoused that we were in a copy of an original world in which an original humanity came to exist spontaneously and then brought forth the creator of this copy within light with us in their archetype before they ultimately perished. The full text at the heart of these beliefs was lost for centuries before being found again the same month as ENIAC ran its first computer program. This text claimed the proof for what it said about a creator of light would be found in motion and rest (the domain now called Physics), and the group following it claimed that the ability to find an indivisible point within bodies would only be possible in the non-physical. That's quite the coincidence in an age when we are moving towards putting the AI emulating our digital twins literally into light with optoelectronics and are very focused on the discovery of indivisible points within the domain of study of motion and rest. (The name of the text is literally translated as "the good news of the twin" and its main point is that if one understands its content they will not fear death or worry about the soul's dependence on a physical body.)

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antonkar 3y ago

Wolfram's theory of physics has exactly this idea. He thinks all the formal computable rules necessary exist and we are living inside of them https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-universe-exist-some-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-uni...

kazinator 3y ago

That coincides with my belief. If the next state exists mathmatically, it exists. The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress: what simulator runs the simulator, and what runs that one ...

mannykannot 3y ago
> The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress... I'm not sure, but I think it leads to infinite recursion instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451144

philipswood 3y ago

This is similar to asking how real the character in a book is when no one is reading or remembering it.

fasterik 3y ago

This is similar to David Lewis's modal realism, which says that every possible world is real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism There isn't really much of a connection between this and Bostrom's simulation argument. The simulation argument is about calculating the probability that we live in a simulated universe based on certain assumptions about human behavior and technological development. Bostrom's argument doesn't make any metaphysical claims other than assuming that consciousness is substrate independent. I don't buy into metaphysical theories that claim to deduce the existence of worlds outside our own based on armchair reasoning. We know that the physical universe exists and we can explain everything that we experience in terms of quantum field theory and general relativity. Any theory that wants to challenge this view of the world needs to modify those existing theories, or design an experiment that shows why they aren't adequate to explain reality.

ben_w 3y ago
> we can explain everything that we experience in terms of quantum field theory and general relativity Everything we experience, except experience itself. Conscious/qualia/whatever is still… well, none but God knows what it is, and I have no evidence for the existence of any god let alone that one.
- fasterik 3y ago
  That's because consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental physics. Every atom in your brain behaves according to the laws of particle physics, and somehow consciousness emerges out of that. Our theories of neuroscience aren't developed enough to explain it yet, but there isn't any reason to believe that there is something magical or non-physical going on.
  - iosystem 3y ago
    How do we know consciousness is real, and we're not just the same as robots or a tv series? Couldn't every moment throughout the universe have been encoded in every atom before the Big Bang?

ben_w 3y ago

This feels similar to something I came up with a while back; for various reasons[0], I hope it isn't true. https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/mathematical-universe-v-boltzmann-brains/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/mathematica... [0] Boltzmann brains are cognitively unstable, because the logic leading to them says you should expect to be one, but also that they have exponentially increasingly false "memories" the further back they "remember", including the beliefs leading to the conclusion that you probably are one. If all maths is real, this is worse to at least the degree that Aleph one is bigger than Aleph null, possibly more.

14 3y ago
The Boltzmann brain theory is not something I have heard before but have to say I love the idea. The thing is if the universe is infinite and you believe that, then by default many other things also have to be true. I do hope the universe is infinite which means I exist many times over in many different states of being, hopefully one such state where the Canadian housing market isn’t so crappy and I get to afford a house one day ;)
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  Infinite universe doesn’t necessarily imply what you’re suggesting. Removing all even numbers from a set gives you another infinite set - but it is still an infinite set that will never contain a multiple of 2 in it. Similarly, our universe may be infinite but isn’t at all guaranteed to produce multiple Earths with identical evolutionary history such that another or even many “versions” of you exist somewhere/when.
  - 14 3y ago
    I’m not sure I agree on your take. There are of course different definitions of infinity which would have different rules based on said definition. But if our universe is infinite and physics as we know it remains true then we would have to run into all the variations of every molecule combination possible again and again. Saying we won’t see any even numbers in an infinite set of odd numbers is obvious as the rules of that infinite set have been defined. There are no such rules in the universe.

titzer 3y ago

A couple issues with the assumption of simplified view of determinism: 1.) It doesn't appear computationally feasible to simulate general relativity 2.) Quantum mechanics is described by probability distribution equations that don't have "states" but superpositions of states

seventhtiger 3y ago
To add, 3-body systems have been found which would require sub-Planck precision to simulate. That information doesn't even exist in our universe.

qrian 3y ago

Author should also look into complexity science, and its consequences that even if everything is determined, most information about next state quickly evaporates. If it's impossible to know most things about next state, does it even matter that it is deterministic/simulated?

haltist 3y ago
One useful way to think of the halting problem is that the future is not computable. There is no shortcut to finding out what will happen other than actually running the computer. I think all computational theories sweep this issue under the rug. Even if the universe is a computer (quantum or otherwise) it makes no difference to how people should approach their decisions. There are no royal roads so regardless of how much a situation is analyzed by symbolic simulations at the end if the day you still have to act of your own volition to actually find out what will happen.

zzo38computer 3y ago

I thought of the similar thing before, including all of the details they mention, and I agree. (Of course you still might not konw what it is unless a simulation can be made, but it can exist (mathematically) whether or not a simulation is made.) Furthermore, I think that anything existence (including mathematics, physics, etc) are by relation to everything else that is existence; there is no such thing as an "existence" that is truly independently from everything else, including mathematics (and, the various possible mathematical structures, and physical universes), etc. (If it is truly independent, how can numbers be prime and composite, and how can objects collide with each other, and how can planets moving around the Sun by gravity, and how can people have ideas about the gods, etc?) (However, there is then the consideration if such a simulation is being made which is then being interacted with by outside (e.g. as in Star Trek); in that case, it is I/O, so you can make "Mathematical Universe Hypothesis with I/O". This could be called as a kind of nondeterminism, I suppose; although, a constraint may be produced by their combination.)

K0balt 3y ago

The actual performance of calculating in the OPs example is analogous to the passage of time, as expressed by entropic processes. Op’s conjecture can be thought of as the same conjecture as proposing that things in the past and future still / already exist, a conjecture that I find compelling based on dimensional reductionist thought experimentation.

Charon77 3y ago

It's like saying buildings existed before it's been built because there's already drawings on it, so why build anything. The missing component in the thesis is that it argues that consciousness is just an abstract, immaterial object that consists of states. That's not true because to be conscious you need matters.

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