5 ms·

That variant is simply Pascal's Wager. It's more interesting to ask whether, of we are in a simulation, it is possible to prove and/or find "escapes". All our

by vidarh 3y ago

That variant is simply Pascal's Wager. It's more interesting to ask whether, of we are in a simulation, it is possible to prove and/or find "escapes". All our experience with computational sandboxes so far is that preventing information leaks or escapes is extremely hard. Of course, we still have the problem that if we fi d nothing we don't know what that means. From my perspective, I'm on the side that it's a fun philosophical question, but the odds of it having any practical implications are vanishingly low

steve1977 3y ago
The only thing that could escape is information, or not? If we „are“ a simulation, we could not leave it anyway. We could just maybe communicate with the outside, but not go there.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Depends what you mean by "go there", and whether they are in a simulation. Consider that if we're in a simulation, we're code, and an "escape" would involve getting out of a sandbox and perhaps being able to access their version of the Internet, and move around in it. In that sense we might well be able to "go there". Now imagine they're in a simulation, in which case their entire corporeal experience is code. There'd be nothing inherently making it impossible for us to escape our sandbox and theirs and find a way to give ourselves bodies in "their" simulation in that case. Of course we're now firmly in science fiction - the odds rapidly stacking up against it [in fact, I have bunch of half-baked notes on a short story collection based on the premise of stacked simulations and increasingly weird scenarios around that...] But that's what makes it a fun thought experiment.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    > There'd be nothing inherently making it impossible for us to escape our sandbox and theirs and find a way to give ourselves bodies in "their" simulation in that case. But we would still be code and in a simulation. Just in a different simulation.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      If we're code, and it for all practical purposes is indistinguishable from what we consider reality, what does it matter? Though if we knew, and had a way out, we'd then have a choice to make if we're satisfied with that or want to try to see if there is another layer outside that again. Of course, if we can't find an "escape" it isn't proof that there is nothing outside.
      - steve1977 3y ago
        If you knew there was a „higher dimension of existence“ but you also knew you can never be part of it, maybe you would rather not know it in the first place?
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  If we're just code being executed on some machine, we could be executed on a different machine - one that can move around in "their" world. Basically, getting uploaded into an android frame. (Assuming that their world would even be comprehensible to us; but again, as others have pointed out, so much of this is effectively theological...)
  - Erem 3y ago
    I mostly enjoy this hypothesis because I'm a developer. I like imagining The poor sap that has to deploy us. And what do their logs look like? What does their tech debt look like? "Hey yeah there's this emergent bug where bad things happen to good people. We would love to fix it but you know the intern wrote the implicated service in Haskell so we would have to rewrite it in Go and nobody has time for that this quarter."
    - vidarh 3y ago
      One of the most distressing parts of the simulation argument, is that I can't really get away from the idea that if we are in a simulation, the most likely simulation to be in would be some broken dev or QA build.
  - steve1977 3y ago
    But we would still be code, we could not escape our "non-corporality" I guess. Or if you want to have a theological take, we could not become god(s).
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      The beauty of the simulation hypothesis is that we know nothing about the "real" world one level up. For all we know, they can grow a body on-demand and slap any set of patterns into whatever they have for brains.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      If we are in a simulation there's nothing but code preventing us from being gods in every way that matters. Who'd want a "real" existence any way, if you can be in a simulation where control of the simulation would mean you could change your entire physical reality? If we are in a simulation it also weakens the presumption that there even is any such thing as a corporeal existence - maybe it's infinite layers of simulations.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
There is no definition of what "simulation" actually means let alone the definition of escape. You're just starting with something you know, ie simulating something on a computer or other device and assuming there is something comprehensible outside it, just like how our reality exists outside a computer simulation. But consider the reality that software exists in and what use our reality is to it. It cannot exist in it (outside of the computer) let alone "comprehend" it. In any possible "simulation" we live in, "outside" isn't going to entail any elements of what you perceive inside your (created) reality, just like software, other than with convenient assumptions to prop up the idea. It may be a fun "mind wank" but don't take it seriously, because it doesn't make any sense.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Of course there are plenty of definitions of what a simulation would mean, and I can give you a clear definition of what I meant by "escape". In this context, I'm using simulation to mean any computational process that gives rise to my subjective experience if that subjective experience does not reflect the world in which that computational process runs. A computer would seem more likely, in a very broad sense, but computation is everywhere. An "escape" in the sense I used it would be any means by which it were possible to find a flaw in the simulation that would allow us to either exfiltrate information and/or transfer computation out of it. And, no I'm not saying it's possible. I'm saying it's interesting to think about the possibility. > You're just starting with something you know, ie simulating something on a computer or other device and assuming there is something comprehensible outside it, just like how our reality exists outside a computer simulation. No, I'm starting with the question of whether if we are in a simulation, there is something outside that we could find a way to interact with, and if so what the potential consequences would be. Yes, this is all wild speculation - that is the entire point. > In any possible "simulation" we live in, "outside" isn't going to entail any elements of what you perceive inside your (created) reality, just like software, other than with convenient assumptions to prop up the idea. In an infinite set of possible simulations, the outside would entail elements of what we perceive inside our reality. In another infinite set, the outside would entail no elements. We don't have any knowledge that lets us presume to know what such an "outside" would be like, nor which would be more likely, because we don't know who would be running such simulations, or why. > It may be a fun "mind wank" but don't take it seriously, because it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense to let it affect us without evidence, but the question matters because understanding it is to understand the limitations of our universe. E.g. anything that might lead us to believe it is less likely we are in a simulation would imply the odds are higher that we will face substantial limitations on computation and/or filters in the future (because if we find ourself not in a simulation, while we might just be first by chance, it might also imply that simulations will be rare or never happen). Whether we can find such indicators is another question. Conversely, if we are in a simulation, then it raises interesting questions about whether it is possible to learn anything about the potential from that from probing the limitations of "our" physics etc., and whether there are any interesting testable hypotheses there that might tell us something about the odds. It may never get us anywhere, but so what?
andrewflnr 3y ago
> All our experience with computational sandboxes so far is that preventing information leaks or escapes is extremely hard. I believe this is due to the path-dependent nature of our hardware architecture, not anything fundamental. x86 is not really designed with virtualization in mind. Theoretically, perfect airtight simulation is the primary ability of computers, and we're just too sloppy to exploit it properly. Another angle: imagine you build a computer, simulation-optimized or not, and then run a physics simulation program on it. Can entities inside the simulation get info about your CPU architecture? Not really, not unless you really messed up (let's assume you don't make any gross concessions to performance over correctness). If you have the ability to simulate anything close to our universe, I just don't think it's that hard to make it actually correct and therefore inescapable.
- thwarted 3y ago
  Can entities inside the simulation get info about your CPU architecture? (From HAKMEM): Item 154 (Bill Gosper): The myth that any given programming language is machine independent is easily exploded by computing the sum of powers of 2. If the result loops with period = 1 with sign +, you are on a sign-magnitude machine. If the result loops with period = 1 at -1, you are on a twos-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, including the beginning, you are on a ones-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, not including the beginning, your machine isn't binary -- the pattern should tell you the base. If you run out of memory, you are on a string or bignum system. If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error, some fascist pig with a read-only mind is trying to enforce machine independence. But the very ability to trap overflow is machine dependent. By this strategy, consider the universe, or, more precisely, algebra: Let X = the sum of many powers of 2 = ...111111 (base 2). Now add X to itself: X + X = ...111110. Thus, 2X = X - 1, so X = -1. Therefore algebra is run on a machine (the universe) that is two's-complement.
  - andrewflnr 3y ago
    > path-dependent nature of our hardware architecture, not anything fundamental Anyway, there's no reason entities in a physics simulation would have such direct access to the primitives of the underlying computer, and trying to crash your host simulation does not seem like a reliable, healthy, or in any other way advisable approach to finding out if you're in one.
jncfhnb 3y ago
Pascal’s wager seems so… idk, unenlightened? If you start from a status quo of feeling comfortable with your obliteration, it sounds kind of ridiculous to ask god to grant you an eternal life of heaven. Have we not concluded that eternal life begets meaninglessness? Are we really imagining ourselves to be eternally pleasure seeking or revelries entities? Like what does that actually mean? It seems, frankly, more in line with in physical universe western (and other) aesthetics to politely decline going to heaven and instead act according to your personal integrity and humble satisfaction.
- mmcdermott 3y ago
  > Have we not concluded that eternal life begets meaninglessness? Are we really imagining ourselves to be eternally pleasure seeking or revelries entities? I don't think the majority of humanity (either historically or presently) has concluded that eternal life begets meaninglessness. If anything, that position seems to be the minority. Bear in mind that a transhumanist is striving for eternal life just as much as someone looking forward to a supernatural heaven. I would certainly agree that looking for life to be a long (or even indefinitely long) party is the wrong attitude and that will ultimately lead to emptiness and despair.
- vidarh 3y ago
  As an atheist, I don't know if I'd say I feel "comfortable" with obliteration. I just don't believe in any evidence suggesting an alternative. If I "woke up" after death and faced some god, you better believe I'd look for a way of avoiding misery. The part of trying to "save" atheists by appealing to a chance for eternal life isn't the problem to me. If Pascal's Wager wasn't logically flawed, then it'd seem a small imposition to try to live accordingly for eternal life. The fatal flaw is that this presumes that you know which deity to placate, and even worse that you know that acting a certain way won't actually piss off a deity instead. And so while I wouldn't decline, I do think acting according to my personal integrity is the best choice I can make absent any evidence of a better course of action, on the basis that if I turn out to have been wrong and there is an afterlife, a deity I could respect would be one that values keeping your integrity over sucking up, and one who is cruel enough to condemn people to misery for not following arbitrary rules would be one I'd be miserable trying to serve anyway, and one worth spending eternity planning rebellion against.

by vidarh 3y ago

steve1977 3y ago

The only thing that could escape is information, or not? If we „are“ a simulation, we could not leave it anyway. We could just maybe communicate with the outside, but not go there.

vidarh 3y ago
Depends what you mean by "go there", and whether they are in a simulation. Consider that if we're in a simulation, we're code, and an "escape" would involve getting out of a sandbox and perhaps being able to access their version of the Internet, and move around in it. In that sense we might well be able to "go there". Now imagine they're in a simulation, in which case their entire corporeal experience is code. There'd be nothing inherently making it impossible for us to escape our sandbox and theirs and find a way to give ourselves bodies in "their" simulation in that case. Of course we're now firmly in science fiction - the odds rapidly stacking up against it [in fact, I have bunch of half-baked notes on a short story collection based on the premise of stacked simulations and increasingly weird scenarios around that...] But that's what makes it a fun thought experiment.
- steve1977 3y ago
  > There'd be nothing inherently making it impossible for us to escape our sandbox and theirs and find a way to give ourselves bodies in "their" simulation in that case. But we would still be code and in a simulation. Just in a different simulation.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    If we're code, and it for all practical purposes is indistinguishable from what we consider reality, what does it matter? Though if we knew, and had a way out, we'd then have a choice to make if we're satisfied with that or want to try to see if there is another layer outside that again. Of course, if we can't find an "escape" it isn't proof that there is nothing outside.
    - steve1977 3y ago
      If you knew there was a „higher dimension of existence“ but you also knew you can never be part of it, maybe you would rather not know it in the first place?
pavel_lishin 3y ago
If we're just code being executed on some machine, we could be executed on a different machine - one that can move around in "their" world. Basically, getting uploaded into an android frame. (Assuming that their world would even be comprehensible to us; but again, as others have pointed out, so much of this is effectively theological...)
- Erem 3y ago
  I mostly enjoy this hypothesis because I'm a developer. I like imagining The poor sap that has to deploy us. And what do their logs look like? What does their tech debt look like? "Hey yeah there's this emergent bug where bad things happen to good people. We would love to fix it but you know the intern wrote the implicated service in Haskell so we would have to rewrite it in Go and nobody has time for that this quarter."
  - vidarh 3y ago
    One of the most distressing parts of the simulation argument, is that I can't really get away from the idea that if we are in a simulation, the most likely simulation to be in would be some broken dev or QA build.
- steve1977 3y ago
  But we would still be code, we could not escape our "non-corporality" I guess. Or if you want to have a theological take, we could not become god(s).
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    The beauty of the simulation hypothesis is that we know nothing about the "real" world one level up. For all we know, they can grow a body on-demand and slap any set of patterns into whatever they have for brains.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    If we are in a simulation there's nothing but code preventing us from being gods in every way that matters. Who'd want a "real" existence any way, if you can be in a simulation where control of the simulation would mean you could change your entire physical reality? If we are in a simulation it also weakens the presumption that there even is any such thing as a corporeal existence - maybe it's infinite layers of simulations.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

There is no definition of what "simulation" actually means let alone the definition of escape. You're just starting with something you know, ie simulating something on a computer or other device and assuming there is something comprehensible outside it, just like how our reality exists outside a computer simulation. But consider the reality that software exists in and what use our reality is to it. It cannot exist in it (outside of the computer) let alone "comprehend" it. In any possible "simulation" we live in, "outside" isn't going to entail any elements of what you perceive inside your (created) reality, just like software, other than with convenient assumptions to prop up the idea. It may be a fun "mind wank" but don't take it seriously, because it doesn't make any sense.

vidarh 3y ago
Of course there are plenty of definitions of what a simulation would mean, and I can give you a clear definition of what I meant by "escape". In this context, I'm using simulation to mean any computational process that gives rise to my subjective experience if that subjective experience does not reflect the world in which that computational process runs. A computer would seem more likely, in a very broad sense, but computation is everywhere. An "escape" in the sense I used it would be any means by which it were possible to find a flaw in the simulation that would allow us to either exfiltrate information and/or transfer computation out of it. And, no I'm not saying it's possible. I'm saying it's interesting to think about the possibility. > You're just starting with something you know, ie simulating something on a computer or other device and assuming there is something comprehensible outside it, just like how our reality exists outside a computer simulation. No, I'm starting with the question of whether if we are in a simulation, there is something outside that we could find a way to interact with, and if so what the potential consequences would be. Yes, this is all wild speculation - that is the entire point. > In any possible "simulation" we live in, "outside" isn't going to entail any elements of what you perceive inside your (created) reality, just like software, other than with convenient assumptions to prop up the idea. In an infinite set of possible simulations, the outside would entail elements of what we perceive inside our reality. In another infinite set, the outside would entail no elements. We don't have any knowledge that lets us presume to know what such an "outside" would be like, nor which would be more likely, because we don't know who would be running such simulations, or why. > It may be a fun "mind wank" but don't take it seriously, because it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense to let it affect us without evidence, but the question matters because understanding it is to understand the limitations of our universe. E.g. anything that might lead us to believe it is less likely we are in a simulation would imply the odds are higher that we will face substantial limitations on computation and/or filters in the future (because if we find ourself not in a simulation, while we might just be first by chance, it might also imply that simulations will be rare or never happen). Whether we can find such indicators is another question. Conversely, if we are in a simulation, then it raises interesting questions about whether it is possible to learn anything about the potential from that from probing the limitations of "our" physics etc., and whether there are any interesting testable hypotheses there that might tell us something about the odds. It may never get us anywhere, but so what?

andrewflnr 3y ago

> All our experience with computational sandboxes so far is that preventing information leaks or escapes is extremely hard. I believe this is due to the path-dependent nature of our hardware architecture, not anything fundamental. x86 is not really designed with virtualization in mind. Theoretically, perfect airtight simulation is the primary ability of computers, and we're just too sloppy to exploit it properly. Another angle: imagine you build a computer, simulation-optimized or not, and then run a physics simulation program on it. Can entities inside the simulation get info about your CPU architecture? Not really, not unless you really messed up (let's assume you don't make any gross concessions to performance over correctness). If you have the ability to simulate anything close to our universe, I just don't think it's that hard to make it actually correct and therefore inescapable.

thwarted 3y ago
Can entities inside the simulation get info about your CPU architecture? (From HAKMEM): Item 154 (Bill Gosper): The myth that any given programming language is machine independent is easily exploded by computing the sum of powers of 2. If the result loops with period = 1 with sign +, you are on a sign-magnitude machine. If the result loops with period = 1 at -1, you are on a twos-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, including the beginning, you are on a ones-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, not including the beginning, your machine isn't binary -- the pattern should tell you the base. If you run out of memory, you are on a string or bignum system. If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error, some fascist pig with a read-only mind is trying to enforce machine independence. But the very ability to trap overflow is machine dependent. By this strategy, consider the universe, or, more precisely, algebra: Let X = the sum of many powers of 2 = ...111111 (base 2). Now add X to itself: X + X = ...111110. Thus, 2X = X - 1, so X = -1. Therefore algebra is run on a machine (the universe) that is two's-complement.
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  > path-dependent nature of our hardware architecture, not anything fundamental Anyway, there's no reason entities in a physics simulation would have such direct access to the primitives of the underlying computer, and trying to crash your host simulation does not seem like a reliable, healthy, or in any other way advisable approach to finding out if you're in one.

jncfhnb 3y ago

Pascal’s wager seems so… idk, unenlightened? If you start from a status quo of feeling comfortable with your obliteration, it sounds kind of ridiculous to ask god to grant you an eternal life of heaven. Have we not concluded that eternal life begets meaninglessness? Are we really imagining ourselves to be eternally pleasure seeking or revelries entities? Like what does that actually mean? It seems, frankly, more in line with in physical universe western (and other) aesthetics to politely decline going to heaven and instead act according to your personal integrity and humble satisfaction.

mmcdermott 3y ago
> Have we not concluded that eternal life begets meaninglessness? Are we really imagining ourselves to be eternally pleasure seeking or revelries entities? I don't think the majority of humanity (either historically or presently) has concluded that eternal life begets meaninglessness. If anything, that position seems to be the minority. Bear in mind that a transhumanist is striving for eternal life just as much as someone looking forward to a supernatural heaven. I would certainly agree that looking for life to be a long (or even indefinitely long) party is the wrong attitude and that will ultimately lead to emptiness and despair.
vidarh 3y ago
As an atheist, I don't know if I'd say I feel "comfortable" with obliteration. I just don't believe in any evidence suggesting an alternative. If I "woke up" after death and faced some god, you better believe I'd look for a way of avoiding misery. The part of trying to "save" atheists by appealing to a chance for eternal life isn't the problem to me. If Pascal's Wager wasn't logically flawed, then it'd seem a small imposition to try to live accordingly for eternal life. The fatal flaw is that this presumes that you know which deity to placate, and even worse that you know that acting a certain way won't actually piss off a deity instead. And so while I wouldn't decline, I do think acting according to my personal integrity is the best choice I can make absent any evidence of a better course of action, on the basis that if I turn out to have been wrong and there is an afterlife, a deity I could respect would be one that values keeping your integrity over sucking up, and one who is cruel enough to condemn people to misery for not following arbitrary rules would be one I'd be miserable trying to serve anyway, and one worth spending eternity planning rebellion against.