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On whether we're living in a simulation

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Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#131

Post by JohnFen »

jncfhnb wrote: post #113
me_me_me wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much cleaner versions is: Atheism is lack of beliefe in deity due to lack of evidence of any such/any deity. This pushes the burden of proof onto believers.

This line of thinking is useful for rejecting others who are pushing specific beliefs, but is demonstrably flawed for making conclusions about things that are intrinsically impossible to observe.

The thing is that it isn't a conclusion at all -- it's more of a suspension of arriving at a conclusion due to a lack of evidence supporting one.

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#132

Post by afpx »

jncfhnb wrote: post #95
afpx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it depend on what type of simulation? For example, if it’s an optimization problem, couldn’t you tell statistically by looking at macroscopic events?

No, that doesn’t make any sense. You can’t map simulated universes to your conception of current algorithms.

Yeah I’m being dumb. I was thinking of MCTS with infinite depth where the path through time that’s taken (wave function collapse) is the optimal path for some reward function (maybe complexity?).

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#133

Post by jncfhnb »

b112 wrote: post #121
jncfhnb wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lazy algorithm and generator functions

Even gzip will store lots of zeros in a tiny, tiny space. If a region of space isn't observed, it's a big fat load of null. If it is observed up close, whatever persistent storage you use for that space can be wiped, when the observer ceases to exist. Even now, when we observe close planetary systems, it isn't as if we are looking at all the atoms. We certainly aren't observing all the space on the planets. It's all…

Eh, you can’t really guarantee that internal actors can observe things in any meaningful fashion that requires data storage. You can’t guarantee that you’re actually experiencing anything you believe yourself to be from the perspective of an outside observer.

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#134

Post by countWSS »

Simulation theory is the Flat Earth Matrix, its far more likely we're manipulated and have limited understanding of multi-dimensional reality, with some aliens in another dimension running the show with reality itself being more malleable than we like to admit: imagine that time travel and timeline manipulation outside of 3D universe would look much easier and appear as 'miracles' to people who don't understand the technology.

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#135

Post by steve1977 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #83
steve1977 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

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...)

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).

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#136

Post by lukan »

Aerroon wrote: post #123
lukan wrote: post #7

"If they say, maybe you should live your life differently, just from knowing that you might be in a simulation, I respond: I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I have a vague feeling that this discussion predates the 80 or so years we’ve had digital computers! Why not just join the theologians in that earlier discussion, rather than pretending that this is something distinctive about computers? Is it relevantly dif…

> Is it relevantly different here if you’re being dreamed in the mind of God or being executed in Python? Yes. Simulations have limitations. Think about Conway's Game of Life. You have complete control over the simulation - you determine the starting positions and you can mess with its memory while it's running to alter the current state. However, you cannot always predict what the end result of the simulation is wit…

"It will have some limitations that even the creator couldn't know to control. This is quite different from what the Christian god is treated as."

I don't know. God became angry at his creations quite often and took action - see the great flood for example. Or right at the beginning with Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit and the banishment out of Eden. So apparently he also could not forsee the consequence of his actions. Which is of course at odds with the concept of allmighty and allknowing. (The common answer I was given to that is, because he gave humans true free will.) But here we are already deep within theological realms.

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#137

Post by steve1977 »

vidarh wrote: post #47
steve1977 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

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'…

> 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.

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#139

Post by mmcdermott »

jncfhnb wrote: post #103
vidarh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ph…

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 l…

> 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.

Re: On whether we're living in a simulation

#140

Post by scruple »

bowsamic wrote: post #66
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with that. He did write books, and was cutting edge at some point. We don't dismiss every scientist who isn't making a ground breaking discovery every year. Sometimes you want to go on the lecture circuit and relax some.

I agree but it really upsets some people when someone else gets off the academic treadmill

Thank you for spelling this out. I've seen the GP opinion multiple times and it never connected for me before.
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