12 ms·
I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility
- wfn 13y ago* simulation, consciousness, cellular automata, artificial life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City (check http://libgen.org/ http://libgen.org/ for preview/pdf) * more of sam's great stuff: http://qntm.org/structure http://qntm.org/structure and http://qntm.org/ra http://qntm.org/ra (ongoing)
- Uhhrrr 13y agoTo sell it to others a little more than you did: Folks, if you like that story you may well like Greg Egan's novel 'Permutation City'.
- andrewflnr 13y agoI just want to second the recommendations for Ra and Fine Structure. Fine Structure is older and not as polished, but still a lot of fun and fairly well executed. Ra is better. I enjoyed mood of the authors other stories too. I first found this site when someone linked to Fine Structure here on HN. And so it goes...
- bashinator 13y agoIt's funny, I first found that site many many years ago, when I did a web search (might not even have been Google) for "how to destroy the Earth".
- wfn 13y agoHis Earth Destruction article[1] is pretty well known indeed! iirc I first found the site via Everything2[2], a curious place where people do writeups about pretty much everything (from short technical articles to poetry.) I stumbled upon what looked like one of those diary entries (didn't see the 'fiction' label) by some 'sam512'[3], and was confused when giant robots and aliens suddenly appeared. [1]: http://qntm.org/destroy http://qntm.org/destroy [2]: http://everything2.com/ http://everything2.com/ [3]: http://everything2.com/user/sam512/writeups/March+9%252C+2003 http://everything2.com/user/sam512/writeups/March+9%252C+200...
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoI would post obligatory link of someone calculating expected number of universes on top of ours based on planks distance and something else, but I can't find it. Instead have this simulation argument here: http://www.simulation-argument.com/ http://www.simulation-argument.com/
- negativity 13y agoAre you referring to the SMBC comic? http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoYup, for some reason I was looking for xkcd comic.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoThose two and Abstruse Goose are the trio I always check when looking for stuff like this.
- shurcooL 13y ago"Like maybe a minimum temperature or a maximum speed..." Max speed, sure. But minimum temperature? It's zero (Kelvin). Of course there's gonna be a minimum, this doesn't belong here.
- DrStalker 13y agoThere are temperatures lower than zero kelvin. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/neg_temperature.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/neg... for a technical description, http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero-1.12146 http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-z... for a more readable article.
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- pserwylo 13y agoThis was a very well written discourse on the existence of different universes, and a bit of an intuition about how to think about them. It reminds me a lot (though it is quite different) of "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" [0]. This book gave me the best intuition yet about what it would be like to experience a fourth spatial dimension. Having said that, I still don't quite know what to think about it. I definitely don't have a mental picture of what it would be like. All I know is that when I was reading the book, I had a part of my brain clicking along, which felt like it understood what it is to experience an additional spatial dimension. Yet there is still very little actual comprehension going on in there. [A bit of a spoiler alert follows] It starts by explaining in meticulous detail what it is like to live in and experience fictional 2D world instead of the 3D one we are used to. Then, the main character transcends into a 1D world. The book explains to the 2D inhabitant what it is like to live in a 1D world. Explaining this to the 2D inhabitant is the same as explaining the 2D world to us (and our 3D world). Finally, the character moves up to a 3D world, which they cannot comprehend. However the explanations which are given to the character are quite intuitive and satisfying, and help to explain what it might be like for us to move up one dimension and experience it. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland p.s. The book is also a hilarious parody on victorian era attitudes towards women.
- afatc 13y agoThere's a 5min video on youtube by TED-Ed that sums up the Flatland topic. Is really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6kn6nXMWF0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6kn6nXMWF0
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- ben0x539 13y agoOh, and just because you have a infinitely powerful quantum computer simulating infinitely many recursive universes with their own infinitely powerful quantum computers, correlation != causation doesn't apply anymore?
- benched 13y agoActual inter-level causation is not needed for the characters to experience events as they do in the story. The rules that imply that all levels would unfold identically are low-level. Human narrative events that alias as inter-level causation are high-level, sort of emergent effects.
- ben0x539 13y agoI agree with that. But I'm questioning the reasoning at the end of the story that they better not shut off the simulation, implied to be for their own sake. The observation that their higher-level reality counterparts will likely choose to shut down the simulation exactly if they do themselves, but the protagonists' choice doesn't influence that.
- lmkg 13y agoIMHO, the entire point of the story is that causality has become twisted into a counterintuitive shape. From a naive literal point of view, no, the universe above theirs is independent. Diane's hypothesis/theorem is that, because their universe is at or near a fixed point, they have in effect invented a way to have unlimited control over their own universe. While there is no causal relationship from their universe the one up the chain, the symmetry implies their actions are mirrored. I've read some of this author's other works. He likes playing with paradoxes like this. It's a twist on causality (and free will), inventing a new way for your actions to have an impact on the universe in the absence of a traditional causal link. It's pretty damn clever.
- benched 13y agoYes, exactly. It's like a sneaky way of asking if physics is deterministic, alluding to the paradoxical relation between determinism and free will.
- danielweber 13y agoInstead of changing things one universe below, change things 3 universes below you. Or change the universe below you to change things 2 universes below it to change things in the universe 4 layers underneath that.
- tomrod 13y agoBut if everyone above you mimics that action...
- Retric 13y agoWhat's more interesting IMO is they assumed there the first and only group to ever run that simulation for all of time. Realistically your probably running on someone else simulation which would end up diverging as they pocked at some other part of reality. In other words you may or may not be a top level simulation if changes don't get reflected in your world, but if your not a top level simulation you would want to find out who's simulating you and try simply to find out what changes to expect in your world. You can then setup several simulations to try and see if your simulating yourself just with odd initial starting conditions. Which get's into orders of infinity and countable numbers as some other groups may have the same idea.
- nullc 13y agoIt bothers me that this uses "quantum computing" since it plays into common, frustrating, misapprehensions of what quantum computing is even theorized to do. They could at least call it a hyper-computer or acausual timeloop processor or something.
- justinpombrio 13y agoI know. I loved the story, but twitched every time it said "quantum".
- lazugod 13y agoEven the domain is qntm.
- ck2 13y agoSo if this is a simulation, is talking to yourself in your head or out loud, a program being self-reflective? That's quite a program.
- 013 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness
- _greim_ 13y agoSo what's the difference between specifying a universe-simulating algorithm, and specifying its initial conditions, versus actually running it? Since the entire history is somehow implied in that specification, don't all those people in some sense exist?
- nitrogen 13y agoIt's an interesting philosophical question. I would prefer to define existence as beginning when the computation of those particular molecules first occurs.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago> I would prefer to define existence as beginning when the computation of those particular molecules first occurs. The structure of this argument somehow reminds me of abortion-related topics... Anyway, there's a nice article touching this issue: http://lesswrong.com/lw/uk/beyond_the_reach_of_god/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/uk/beyond_the_reach_of_god/.
- hayksaakian 13y agoThis was highly confusing without context.
- mrmaddog 13y agoGreat story! One thing that stuck out to me—if you had an infinitely powerful computer, the "coding" aspect of it should take no time at all. All you have to do is come up with a description language to say what you want•, and b) seed rules for a genetic programming language, and then throw it at your infinitely powerful computer. You'll get a working program instantly. • This might still be significantly difficult. If only you had a simulated version of yourself that you could use as a control subject so the computer could test whether or not the generated program met your expectations...
- bad_user 13y agoAlso, changing outcomes in this simulated universe, as in acts of God that defy its physical laws, would be extremely difficult without messing it up, so even if the developer would want to, say, cure all suffering, it would abstain from doing so. And the developer could save the consciousness of people that he likes and maybe restore them somewhere else, like in another universe, with a different set of laws (e.g. heaven).
- Chattered 13y agoYou'll get the program instantly, but writing formal specifications isn't trivial, especially when they have to be machine readable. Consider that there are some problems where the complexity of the coding is mirrored exactly in the complexity of the specification (for a simple example, a switch-case statement has as much logic in specification as it does in code). But I'd also say that most problems people want solving are massively underspecified. For example, what is the formal specification for the problem that your preferred web-browser solves which its competitors do not?
- TophWells 13y agoProcessing power is cheaper than programmer time. If it were really as easy as coding the desired result instead of coding the desired process, we'd already be doing it. And in some specialised cases, we already are: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming Simulated copies of the programmer would probably speed up the process a lot, though.
- achille 13y agoRead this in the past and there's a few things that bother me * It's impossible to simulate a universe of our current resolution, because it would take more matter than the original universe. * You can't just simulate 'observable areas'. Everything needs to be simulated. * An infinite loop does not end, even in an infinitely powerful computer * A fun calculation from the ZFS folks: To fully populate a 128bit filesystem (ie permute all combinations) you a lot of energy. So much energy you could boil the world's oceans, See: * [1] Physical Limits of Computation: http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9908043.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9908043.pdf * [2] https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/zfs_boils_the_ocean_consumes https://blogs.oracle.com/dcb/entry/zfs_boils_the_ocean_consu...
- yohanatan 13y ago> * You can't just simulate 'observable areas'. Everything needs to be simulated. Is that an assertion? Do you have something to back up that claim? [I think if this is not backed up then your first point falls as well]. > * An infinite loop does not end, even in an infinitely powerful computer What do infinite loops have to do with anything? Presumably the creators of the simulation would be skillful enough to avoid them. > * A fun calculation from the ZFS folks: To fully populate a 128bit filesystem (ie permute all combinations) you a lot of energy. So much energy you could boil the world's oceans, Once again, who said anything has to be 'fully populated'?
- emil0r 13y ago> * An infinite loop does not end, even in an infinitely powerful computer What do infinite loops have to do with anything? Presumably the creators of the simulation would be skillful enough to avoid them. That would be this: """ But it was still pretty exciting stuff. Holy Zarquon, they said to one another, an infinitely powerful computer? It was like a thousand Christmases rolled into one. Program going to loop forever? You knew for a fact: this thing could execute an infinite loop in less than ten seconds. Brute force primality testing of every single integer in existence? Easy. Pi to the last digit? Piece of cake. Halting Problem? Sa-holved. """
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- INTPenis 13y ago>"Can you wind the clock backwards at all?" >"Ah, no. Ask me again on Monday." Really? I'm just a layman but if it's a simulation, like game of life, then logic tells me that they should also be able to rewind the simulation by backstepping. Either that, or she just created magic.
- GregorStocks 13y agoI read that to mean that she hadn't implemented that feature yet.
- scrumper 13y agoIt's worth pointing out as an aside that you actually can't rewind the (Conway) game of life: the current state does not contain enough information to recreate the previous state. The reason is that many states can arise as a result of multiple possible precursor states. Diane's simulation is perhaps similar: a gigantically complex system of cellular automata.
- rtkwe 13y agoGame of Life isn't reversible. Take any oscillator, say a blinker http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Blinker http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Blinker , trying to reverse that you don't know if it was the opposite state the step before or some other pattern that became a blinker.
- geuis 13y agoYes, I'm late. So what. People miss the fundamental point. The characters clearly state that since their level of emulation is approaching infinity, anything they do to their child universes will simply be reflections of the parent simulations. Look at it this way. You rewind to 1942. You're going to kill Hitler. But your universe simulation is so in tune to the parent universe they're already doing the same thing. What you interprets as free will is the averaged responses of all parent universes. At some point in the simulation universe 2 billion plus above you someone actually has an original though to kill Hitler. This is simply re-emulated endless times. There are no original thoughts in this view of the universe.
- ordinary 13y agoBut your universe simulation is so in tune to the parent universe they're already doing the same thing. What you interprets as free will is the averaged responses of all parent universes. Not averaged. For example, the chain of universes may follow an alternating sequence: Mary in universe N kills Hitler in universe N-1 (one layer down). Suppose that this murder has the unfortunate side effect of preventing the birth of the Mary in that universe. The Hitler in universe N-2 therefore survives until 1945, allowing the Mary in that universe to kill Hitler in universe N-3. Ad infinitum. What we're dealing with here is stability. The average Hitler is half-dead and the average Mary half-born. The stable Hitler is dead half the time (in all odd universes); the stable Mary alive half the time (in all even universes). In fact, even stability is probably not the correct term. Let's broaden our scope. The Hitler example is just one cycle, of length 2. But there may be many cycles, of arbitrary length, from 2 to 3 or 10 or a million universes long. These cycles that interact will almost certainly do so chaotically. The odds that stability will occur is remote.
- auggierose 13y agoAbout to hit the mass forward button.
- JackFr 13y agoThe problem I have with this story (and the simulation argument in general) are the dubious assumptions that simulation within which we exist, 1) is manifested in a physical reality which is functionally identical our own; and, 2) created by autonomous beings who are fundamentally like us in all important respects. More likely we would merely be the flashing cells of automata to a higher order simulation builder.
- teddyh 13y agoI dunno about the final twist. I’d turn it off. The top level would still be fine.
- jacquesm 13y agoReminds me of 'the Planiverse' by AK Dewdney.
- simias 13y agoIt's very cool, I'm only a bit disappointed that the author did not consider what would happen if they tried to run the simulation ahead of them to see the future. What would happen then? All kinds of paradoxes arise.
- ambrop7 13y agoAssuming that Timmy and Diane are simulating a universe identical to their own, they will not succeed at changing their future relative to their simulation (almost by definition). One solution to this is that they never have the idea to try that in the first place. So one could argue the author has considered it ;)
- ironmagma 13y agoI've spent a fair amount of time thinking about this thought experiment, and I think the reason it leads to a paradox is because it's impossible to run a simulation of your own universe (in real time, anyway) in the first place. So it's a sort of proof by contradiction.
- twobits 13y ago"There is a feedback loop going on. Each universe affects the next one subtly differently. But somewhere down the line the whole thing simply has to approach a point of stability" Why would each universe affect the next one (subtly) differently?
- Derpdiherp 13y agoThis gives me an interesting thought, in the story all lower levels of the simulation are identical copies from the top level, in every way. The first time that they create the black ball the top level universe will diverge from the rest (they will look behind and there will be no ball) at this point there will be no more perfect copies of the original universe. Also I wonder about the ethical connotations of turning off the machine as was suggested at the end. At what point is life "life". If the simulated beings are truly perfect, would turning it off be the largest genocide ever committed?
- bo1024 13y agoThere's a technical solution concept in game theory that mirrors Diane's reasoning here. I wish I could remember the name of the solution concept offhand, but the idea is that, even though your own decision won't affect the decision anyone else makes, you still make the "altruistic" decision, reasoning that the other people involved will use the same reasoning and come to the same conclusion. The paradox, of course, is that, having come to that conclusion, you could just choose to make the "non-altruistic" decision. Everyone else has already decided what they're going to do, so you won't change that. Except the solution concept stipulates that they reason exactly as you do, so if you make this decision, so will they.
- Zikes 13y agoIf Diane created a complete simulation and then separately created a program to observe that simulation at certain points in time, then doesn't it follow that the entire universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch was already calculated and executed? In that case, turning the simulation off would do nothing from the perspective of the people within it, because every simulation has already been played out to completion. All they would be turning off is the ability to observe what the simulation looked like at specific points in time.
- etanazir 13y agoAuto-cognition occurs in states of coherence; thus as far as we are concerned the incoherent universe never exists.
- bitwize 13y ago"What the hell am I looking at?" "Now, you're looking at now, sir. What's happening now, is happening, now." "What happened to then?" "We passed it." "When?" "Just now." "When will then be now?" "Soon!"
- zamalek 13y agoA question (to which there is an answer), how would you find out how far down the line you are? Answer: look behind you, place the value you see plus one into the next universe.
- TophWells 13y agoThe residents of the googoolplexth universe would like to know what they're supposed to do when the number is too big to fit on the screen of the people below them.