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> I don't see any reason to assume that the "base universe" has remotely similar beings or even physics as ours There are plenty of reasons. First, it's much e

> I don't see any reason to assume that the "base universe" has remotely similar beings or even physics as ours There are plenty of reasons. First, it's much easier to just copy a known world than create a complete new physics and beings. Just that, creating s coherent set of rules governing the universe would be a major undertaking. And I'm not even convinced that there are multiple types of intelligence, ie. I think all intelligent beings are fundamentally similar to each other. Secondly, simulations similar enough seem to be more entertaining. Thirdly, mostly simulations similar enough would be useful as experiments.

ken 14y ago
As to #1, there's no reason to believe we're the first or only type of simulation. There could well be some life that said "hey, we've been running these simulations of our world for a while, but what if we tried making carbon-based life forms for fun?". I imagine that would happen a lot: I don't see everybody doing exactly the same type of thing on their computers today for fun, nor can I imagine any reason people running life sims would be any different. All I know is that (if I can trust my memory) I'm in a relatively stable physical environment. When you can simulate a lifetime in an hour on commodity hardware, there's going to be a lot of people trying crazy stuff just to see if it ends up being stable. As to #2, I'm not sure I agree. We've got lots of computer environments ourselves that aren't very lifelike at all, from Conway's Life to Sim-(fill-in-the-blank) to World of Warcraft to extremely specialized (and non-entertaining) environments. To some extent, that's because we don't have the processing power to simulate real life, but even with infinite processing power, I would guess that most simulations would not be perfectly lifelike. There are more lifelike simulations available today, but I don't think they're a majority. For #3, yes, but maybe you're assuming the main purpose of simulation would be for experiments, and therefore that they're similar to the real world. From what I've seen of my world, the most common use of computers is entertainment, and for this, being different from reality (either a little or a lot) is very important. Research will have human brains-in-a-computer first, but a decade or two later the Playstation 7 will have a lot more of them. It's like asking: you're a master-level chess computer, who are you? You might be Deep Blue in 1996, but you're far more likely to be a chess program running on somebody's PC a few years later.
andrewflnr 14y ago
In our universe, maybe it's easier to create similar simulations. In fact, it's easier to create simpler versions. Maybe the outer universe physics are more complicated. Maybe they're making stuff up for lulz. Maybe they think exotic physics are fun. Maybe their reasons are utterly incomprehensible[0]. And while you may assume that all intelligent beings are fundamentally the same, and might even be right in our layer, you don't have any evidence at all about our simulators. [0] I'm tempted to say this is most likely, but I don't think we even know enough to assign meaningful probabilities. We don't have any idea what the space of possibilities is.

ken 14y ago

As to #1, there's no reason to believe we're the first or only type of simulation. There could well be some life that said "hey, we've been running these simulations of our world for a while, but what if we tried making carbon-based life forms for fun?". I imagine that would happen a lot: I don't see everybody doing exactly the same type of thing on their computers today for fun, nor can I imagine any reason people running life sims would be any different. All I know is that (if I can trust my memory) I'm in a relatively stable physical environment. When you can simulate a lifetime in an hour on commodity hardware, there's going to be a lot of people trying crazy stuff just to see if it ends up being stable. As to #2, I'm not sure I agree. We've got lots of computer environments ourselves that aren't very lifelike at all, from Conway's Life to Sim-(fill-in-the-blank) to World of Warcraft to extremely specialized (and non-entertaining) environments. To some extent, that's because we don't have the processing power to simulate real life, but even with infinite processing power, I would guess that most simulations would not be perfectly lifelike. There are more lifelike simulations available today, but I don't think they're a majority. For #3, yes, but maybe you're assuming the main purpose of simulation would be for experiments, and therefore that they're similar to the real world. From what I've seen of my world, the most common use of computers is entertainment, and for this, being different from reality (either a little or a lot) is very important. Research will have human brains-in-a-computer first, but a decade or two later the Playstation 7 will have a lot more of them. It's like asking: you're a master-level chess computer, who are you? You might be Deep Blue in 1996, but you're far more likely to be a chess program running on somebody's PC a few years later.

andrewflnr 14y ago

In our universe, maybe it's easier to create similar simulations. In fact, it's easier to create simpler versions. Maybe the outer universe physics are more complicated. Maybe they're making stuff up for lulz. Maybe they think exotic physics are fun. Maybe their reasons are utterly incomprehensible[0]. And while you may assume that all intelligent beings are fundamentally the same, and might even be right in our layer, you don't have any evidence at all about our simulators. [0] I'm tempted to say this is most likely, but I don't think we even know enough to assign meaningful probabilities. We don't have any idea what the space of possibilities is.