Your yearly dose of is-the-universe-a-simulation

Post by beefield » Wed, Mar 22, 2017, 8:19 AM UTC

Gupie wrote: post #38

snowwrestler wrote: post #6

Here's what I wrote in a comment here last year about the Bostrom simulation argument specifically: The simulation argument, going back to Bostrom, relies on two flaws. 1) It leverages our optimism to corrupt our understanding of statistics and logic. It essentially says that if you think humanity doesn't destroy itself, then our descendants will probably try to simulate us. But of course if you just take a statistic…

Why does it need to be a complete simulation? At the extreme, it could be a simulation in which you alone are the only conscious entity. Nothing outside your immediate proximity is simulated.

Post by AnonNo15 » Wed, Mar 22, 2017, 8:20 AM UTC

teraflop wrote: post #54

AnonNo15 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can answer the "why" question. Provided, our descendants will be able to empathize with their ancestors (rather big "if"), they can use the simulation to reverse the death and resurrect every person who ever lived. As for verifying the accuracy of the simulation, you only need information about the initial state of the universe (think CMB radiation) and partial information about past states of the universe to repro…

You're using words like "only", "partial" and "a selected region" but you're still talking about staggering amounts of information, on any humanly achievable scale. A single human body contains on the order of 10^27 atoms. If you just wanted to record the state of someone's mind, with sufficient fidelity to be worthy of the term "resurrection", you could probably get away with a coarser granularity. But you're talkin…

Post by jobigoud » Wed, Mar 22, 2017, 8:21 AM UTC

karpathy wrote: post #59

snowwrestler wrote: post #6

Here's what I wrote in a comment here last year about the Bostrom simulation argument specifically: The simulation argument, going back to Bostrom, relies on two flaws. 1) It leverages our optimism to corrupt our understanding of statistics and logic. It essentially says that if you think humanity doesn't destroy itself, then our descendants will probably try to simulate us. But of course if you just take a statistic…

The thing I always found perplexing about the idea of an ancestral simulation is - how do you initialize that? E.g. suppose we are in the year 3,000 and we have super advanced computers and I'd like to simulate the year 2017. How do I lay out all the humans/their brains/animals/trees/rocks/etc, without access to the snapshot of the state? And some attempts at patching this, e.g. by simulating physics backwards from a…

Post by AnonNo15 » Wed, Mar 22, 2017, 8:26 AM UTC

karpathy wrote: post #59

snowwrestler wrote: post #6

Here's what I wrote in a comment here last year about the Bostrom simulation argument specifically: The simulation argument, going back to Bostrom, relies on two flaws. 1) It leverages our optimism to corrupt our understanding of statistics and logic. It essentially says that if you think humanity doesn't destroy itself, then our descendants will probably try to simulate us. But of course if you just take a statistic…

The thing I always found perplexing about the idea of an ancestral simulation is - how do you initialize that? E.g. suppose we are in the year 3,000 and we have super advanced computers and I'd like to simulate the year 2017. How do I lay out all the humans/their brains/animals/trees/rocks/etc, without access to the snapshot of the state? And some attempts at patching this, e.g. by simulating physics backwards from a…

Post by AnonNo15 » Wed, Mar 22, 2017, 8:29 AM UTC

visarga wrote: post #55

baddox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first sentence is precisely Bostrom's argument, which is pretty much the canonical argument for the simulation hypothesis.

And thus we open the door again for Intelligent Design. If we live in a simulation, then we could be the creation of an intelligent and powerful designer.