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Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? (2003)
- briholt 12y agoSo, in summary either (1) no, we don't; (2) no, we don't; or (3) yes, we do.
- cnp 12y agoAuthor of this book as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dangers,_Strategies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dange...
- aceperry 12y agoMaybe I am. Don't unplug the computer!
- miduil 12y agoYes, but reboot the computer - updates are available. :)
- jimmaswell 12y agohttp://www.pbfcomics.com/111/ http://www.pbfcomics.com/111/
- r3bl 12y agoLets be honest, we all admire those servers running a couple of years without ever rebooting. Maybe our universe is inside one of them? :)
- Alterlife 12y agoI don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility. http://qntm.org/responsibility http://qntm.org/responsibility (that's the title of the incredible short story linked above)
- curiously 12y agoWell I don't believe we are in a computer simulation per say but I think there are certain properties that certainly make it seem like we are. For example, I believe that conciousness can transcend to anything. We could just be some collective consciousness. When we are born we have no memory of our previous life. When we die we have no memory of our current one. So this suggest to me that it is entirely possible that we are continually living in different bodies, different animals, different entities that collectively make up reality. For instance, I learned that even animals take drugs to get high when they are stressed. That they feel affection and love just like humans. This tells me that our conciousness is overrated. It also suggests to me that it could entirely be possible that we live in some giant cess pool of conciousness, some network of consciousness that is constantly reproducing and dying like cells. so if our concousness lives through different bodies over time, then it is entirely possible that the current reality we live is also a transient state of being. it scares me how I came to know this and I'm not even on drugs or have done drugs in a long time.
- element11 12y agoI really like this comment. There is a deepness in our lives that everyone can feel, a love that transcends everything. Such a thing can't be simulated.
- BuckRogers 12y agoCare to explain? This sounds like wishful thinking. When love is merely a chemical reaction and all of your emotions are, why can't this be simulated in some way?
- vikiomega9 12y agoOr that the biological imperative that we share is common across all animals. The fact that drugs were found by said animal implies trial and error. But then again, what constitutes a drug? In a world where drugs that induce sensation of the level of say cocaine were absent, some other milder drug would apply as a suitable substitute to relieving stress. But really, I can't fathom how you connect collective consciousness to having no memory of a previous life or the one that follows. Apologies if I'm gravely mistaken.
- logn 12y agoWe could be living in a multi-verse world. That's partly what the LHC experiments are trying to discern. If there are infinitely many universes then I think it would make it less likely we're in a simulation even if we are able to create our own simulation.
- throwaway420 12y ago> If there are infinitely many universes then I think it would make it less likely we're in a simulation I'm not sure how this logically follows...why would this make it less likely?
- logn 12y agoSay there are 100 universes. Suppose each universe has 1 in 100 chance of making simulations and if they do they make 100. Your chances then of living in a simulation are ~50%. It's much different than assuming a single universe in which case the advent of simulations almost assures that you're living in one (assuming the author's line of reasoning). Edit: in summary the pace at which new universes arise could rival or exceed the pace at which simulations could be created.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- frozenport 12y agoYes, but the cardinality of the multiverse is hard to grasp. There are uncountably infinite universes, just as there are uncountably many points in time. Every breath streams endless bifurcation.
- drdeca 12y agomaybe measures would be more applicable than cardinalities? If there are $\mathfrak{c}$ universes, it can still be meaningful I think to say that one in ten of them contain a simulation (though, $\mathfrak{c}$ might not be the right cardinality? Maybe $2^{\mathfrak{c}}$ would be closer? I'm not sure.) I suppose there is also the question as to whether to consider two identical simulations in two different universes to be the same simulation or not, and how to take that into account when considering the chances that one is in a simulation or not.
- tjradcliffe 12y agoNo: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1220 http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1220 Or if we are, the universe simulating us has completely different physics from the one we live in, which have to be fully specified before the "argument" becomes remotely plausible.
- catshirt 12y ago"The great thing about the human imagination is that it has no problem imagining contradictions." ah yes, and science is always free of such contradiction. the author invests so much energy laughing at the simulation theory, only to conclude that he cannot disprove it? considering how much the author apparently hates philosophy, he managed to write a rather philosophical article. "Or if we are, the universe simulating us has completely different physics from the one we live in" i kind of feel like, with all due respect, no shit? why explore such profound philosophy within the constraints of science as we know it today?
- shawnhermans 12y agoThat doesn't prove or disprove anything. The author assumes the simulation would have to simulate the entire known universe at the level of detail we observe. That is absurd. A simulation wouldn't need to simulate the entire universe, just what I am observing at that exact moment. Think of it is lazy evaluation. The rules are all known, but they are not evaluated until needed. If we have one single person, how hard would it be to simulate every single input to that one person? You wouldn't need to simulate an entire universe to do that. Going back to what the author had to say, you wouldn't have to simulate the state of every atom at every time. You only need to simulate when it is measured. Interestingly, this syncs up with what we know about the quantum world where measurement causes the state of the wave function to collapse. Additionally, the author seems to assume the universe exists outside of himself. He seems to trust the measurements and insights of scientific facts I doubt that he has confirmed via his own observation. Even if he did confirm all of them, this still doesn't prove the universe exists outside of what he directly observes with his own senses. By analogy, imagine you are a character in a video game. The video game doesn't render the entire universe of the game. Only the portion of the game the character is in at that moment. From the character's point of view, the laws are consistent. The character could even try to postulate some universal laws. Try to determine the size of their universe. I am not saying the philosophers are right or wrong. I'm just saying there is a lot more to the philosophy than the article covers.
- uptown 12y agoI doubt anybody would bother programming Chia Pets in a simulation, so I'm going with no.
- odie88 12y agoJust because I was curious: Chia Pet mod for The Sims 1 with over 15k downloads http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/7806 http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/7806
- catshirt 12y agodepending on the constraints and circumstances of the simulation and it's parent, maybe the absence of chia pets would trigger some sort of undesirable self-awareness. like a switch in your dreams that doesn't turn the lights on or off.
- tessierashpool 12y agoprotip: if you substitute "in a computer simulation" with "inside some dude's dream," you discover a vast amount of prior research on this topic was conducted by everybody who ever smoked their first joint.
- hartator 12y agoI think I am the only one who think humans will never manage to build something that complex. Come on: (1) We still have to use humans for motion capture in order to make 3d realistic. (2) We still haven't come up with an IA to chat with. (3) We still haven't figure out what's the smallest unit in the matter, if matter is a thing.
- Udo 12y ago> I think I am the only one who think humans will never manage to build something that complex. The universe is impossibly large, but it's not fundamentally complex. All complexity is emergent, not built in. The universe may very well run on a few very simple rules of data transformation, like a collection of cellular automata. I don't think any physicist would argue in favor of the universe's complexity in connection with the simulation idea. In my opinion a better implausibility argument could instead be constructed from the enormous size and the apparent wastefulness of calculating every single simulation tick (which may well be equal to Planck time).
- BinaryIdiot 12y agoThe reason you're the only one who thinks we can't is because you're limiting the possibility of building something like that with todays technology. 1. I'm not sure this is the case anymore but it certainly makes things easier. Regardless, why do you think 3d motion can't improve? 2. We have some but nothing that is a true AI. Many AI experts think a true AI, most likely modeled after the human brain once better understood, is going to happen in the next 50-100 years [from last I read, I am certainly no expert]. Why do you think this can't happen when most seem to think it eventually will? 3. Every year science makes progress to test, image and discover things that are very small. Right now string theory is a possibility that strings may be smaller than atoms. Why do you think this cannot or will not be either proven or disproven, ever?
- egypturnash 12y agoAh, but how do you know you're not just used to a pale shadow of what REAL motion is outside of the simulation? hits the bong again
- Udo 12y agoThe simulation argument is an interesting intellectual exercise, and I'd charitably expand the definition of such simulations to universes of an artificial nature in general, but it's still just a thought experiment about something which cannot be falsified. Granted, it's a fascinating one, but it shares too many traits with The Invisible Dragon in my Garage to be of profound scientific value. It's worth taking into account that people tend to have two entirely separate ideas about the nature of any such simulation. The first one is a Matrix-like universe: a world designed from the ground up to be an illusion specifically for us - a computer program so idiosyncratic as to be utterly implausible, which only cares about deceiving human minds into living in an artificial environment. This is the concept of a computer simulation always invoked by the popular media whenever this subject comes up. The second one, which is what scientists usually mean, is an actual simulation that merely runs the basic processes of physics from which all the other things in the universe emerge - and these include accidentally, among other things and quite marginally, intelligent life forms such as humans. It's merely an uncaring physics simulation indistinguishable from a "natural" universe. In the end both of these are scientifically barren concepts. The Matrix is an implausible just-so story with quasi-religious undertones, and it's a concept that exhibits quite a few glaring holes the closer you look at its practical implications - holes which seem like they are in disagreement with daily observation and hence should lend themselves to falsification. The cold physics simulation on the other hand, while it doesn't share the intellectual weaknesses of the Matrix, gets us rapidly to a point where we might ask what difference it makes at all whether the fabric of reality is running on an artificial or "natural" substrate if there is no hope of ever finding out.
- tvmalsv 12y agoI don't remember who authored the following, but I thought it was amusing enough years ago to toss it into my interesting-quotes.txt: I recall reading a science fiction story that involved the first human spaceship to reach the edge of the universe. When they tried to go through they bounced off, it was impenatrable. Then we cut to 2 higher dimensional beings, and one says, "On that run it took life only 14.7 gigayears to reach the edge." The other one says, "Great! Let's do another run. Sterilize the medium."
- O____________O 12y ago(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof) I've always thought this part was, by far, the most likely. It would be unethical to create a simulation in which the simulated beings were sophisticated enough to be self-aware and capable of significant suffering. It's the same thing that's caused me to shift from "I don't believe in god" to "I believe there probably isn't a god". For example, infants have been raped in Africa due to the virgin cleansing myth, and every year thousands of people kill themselves due to unmanageable misery. Not to mention the way that so many people die of "natural" causes, e.g. drowning in their own phlegm only to be revived by hospital staff for another go-around.
- ccvannorman 12y ago>It would be unethical to create a simulation in which the simulated beings were sophisticated enough to be self-aware and capable of significant suffering Well .. is it though? What if everything is so blissful and boring in the future that people intentionally torture themselves for decades at a time by experiencing "Earth-sim" so that they can build character / enjoy the utopia they've created? Or maybe this simulation is the rehabilitation track for criminals? There are a number of reasons to "suffer" and suffering shouldn't be cast out as unethical because we don't like it in the current context.
- O____________O 12y agoThere are a number of reasons to "suffer" and suffering shouldn't be cast out as unethical because we don't like it in the current context. Please do provide some reasons why raping a day-old newborn infant wouldn't be considered unethical.
- swatow 12y agoThere's a Greg Egan novel where one character is invited to work to help build such a simulation. The character is shocked that the simulation creator was aware of the issue of suffering, and had plans to minimize suffering in the simulation. They found this more shocking then if the creator hadn't thought of the issue
- ccvannorman 12y agoOne of my favorite books, Idlewilde, is about a simulation that we created for just 9 people because the rest died of an incurable disease, and these 9 would need to repopulate the human race. A very good reason to have a simulation in my opinion. The book handles the wakeup in a pretty interesting way. The best part is nested simulations -- if you're toying around with simulations like Oculus Rift and then you wake up from Earth-sim, it starts to become a game of "where the actual f_k am I really?"
- cayblood 12y agoFor further exploration of some of the ramifications of this hypothesis, see http://www.new-god-argument.com/ http://www.new-god-argument.com/