Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

santafe.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 112 posts

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#51

Post by turtleyacht »

morpheos137 wrote: post #30

These models get things backwards. The universe is a wave function in logic space. It appears discrete and quantized because integers composed of primes are logically stable information entropy minimal nodes. In other words the universe is the way it is because it depends on math. Math does not depend on the universe. Logic is its own "simulation." Math does not illuminate physics, rather physics illuminates math. Th…

Think the leakage is if the simulation were a manufactured emulation, like humans trying to mirror natural laws through technology.

An emergent simulation, nature borne out of nature, may not have those same defects.

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#52

Post by nick__m »

Borg3 wrote: post #21
ericpauley wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also a little silly for the same reasons discussions of theoretical computability often are: time and space requirements. In practice the Universe, even if computable, is so complex that simulating it would require far more compute than physical particles and far more time than remaining until heat death.

Hehe yeah.. For me, its just inverted search for the God. There must be somethink behind it, if its not God, then it must be simulation! Kinda sad, I would expect more from scientist. The big riddle of Universe is, how all that matter loves to organize itself, from basic particles to Atoms, basic molecues, structured molecues, things and finally live.. Probably unsolvable, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt research an…

For me the biggest riddle is: why something instead of nothing ?

That's the question that prevent me from being atheist and shift me to agnosticism.

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#53

Post by jsenn »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #39
estearum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, agreed. The actual real riddle is consciousness. Why does it seems some configurations of this matter and energy zap into existence something that actually (allegedly) did not exist in its prior configuration.

I'd argue that it's not that complicated. That if something meets the below five criteria, we must accept that it is conscious: (1) It maintains a persisting internal model of an environment, updated from ongoing input. (2) It maintains a persisting internal model of its own body or vehicle as bounded and situated in that environment. (3) It possesses a memory that binds past and present into a single temporally exte…

If you remove the terms "self", "agency", and "trivially reducible", it seems to me that a classical robot/game AI planning algorithm, which no one thinks is conscious, matches these criteria.

How do you define these terms without begging the question?

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#54

Post by dllthomas »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #39
estearum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, agreed. The actual real riddle is consciousness. Why does it seems some configurations of this matter and energy zap into existence something that actually (allegedly) did not exist in its prior configuration.

I'd argue that it's not that complicated. That if something meets the below five criteria, we must accept that it is conscious: (1) It maintains a persisting internal model of an environment, updated from ongoing input. (2) It maintains a persisting internal model of its own body or vehicle as bounded and situated in that environment. (3) It possesses a memory that binds past and present into a single temporally exte…

> so it's no surprise that we're not Boltzmann Brains

I think I agree you've excluded them from the definition, but I don't see why that has an impact on likelihood.

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#55

Post by analog31 »

shtzvhdx wrote: post #46

This all assumes there's no computation beyond a Turing machine, right? Therefore, this assumes reality is a simulation on a finite set of rationals? So, as long as one believes in continuum, this is just toying around?

We've yet to propose an experiment that demonstrates the inadequacy of IEEE floats if used carefully. The simulation only needs to be good enough.

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#56

Post by CuriouslyC »

empiricus wrote: post #37
CuriouslyC wrote: post #7

The simulation hypothesis takes something reasonable, that reality is "virtual," and runs it into absurdity. If the universe isn't "real" in the materialist sense, that does not imply that there's a "real" universe outside of the one we perceive, nor does it imply that we're being "simulated" by other intelligences. The path of minimal assumptions from reality not being "real" is idealism. We're not simulated, we're…

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. What do you mean by "something reasonable, that reality is virtual"? In many ways, by definition, reality is what is real not virtual. I have other questions, but this is a good start :)

When I say that reality isn't "real" (which is awkward for sure) what I'm referring to is that we have a perception of space and time which is absolute and inviolable, when it's likely space and time (as we understand them) are artifacts of our perceptual lens, and "reality" is based on something more akin to consensus than immutable laws. From this perspective you could view physics more as a communication/consistency protocol for consciousness than the raw nature of the universe.

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#57

Post by blovescoffee »

vasco wrote: post #40
bananaflag wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this sort of self-reflection is exactly what makes Gödel/Turing/etc impossibility results work ("strange loops" and all that).

Can you explain further? Maybe I'm too out of this scope but if you want to simulate Universe X plus the computer Y that simulates X then you'd need at least 1 extra bit of memory (likely way more) to encompass the simulation plus the computation running the simulation (X+Y). The computer running the simulation by definition is not part of the simulation, so how can it be that it can truly simulate itself?

Not quite, compression enables you to simulate / represent / encode x data with less than x memory.

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#59

Post by senkora »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #7

The simulation hypothesis takes something reasonable, that reality is "virtual," and runs it into absurdity. If the universe isn't "real" in the materialist sense, that does not imply that there's a "real" universe outside of the one we perceive, nor does it imply that we're being "simulated" by other intelligences. The path of minimal assumptions from reality not being "real" is idealism. We're not simulated, we're…

Yep, might as well go straight to the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis:

> Tegmark's MUH is the hypothesis that our external physical reality is a mathematical structure. That is, the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is mathematics — specifically, a mathematical structure. Mathematical existence equals physical existence, and all structures that exist mathematically exist physically as well. Observers, including humans, are "self-aware substructures (SASs)". In any mathematical structure complex enough to contain such substructures, they "will subjectively perceive themselves as existing in a physically 'real' world".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

Re: New mathematical framework reshapes debate over simulation hypothesis

#60

Post by lascargroup »

vasco wrote: post #40
bananaflag wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this sort of self-reflection is exactly what makes Gödel/Turing/etc impossibility results work ("strange loops" and all that).

Can you explain further? Maybe I'm too out of this scope but if you want to simulate Universe X plus the computer Y that simulates X then you'd need at least 1 extra bit of memory (likely way more) to encompass the simulation plus the computation running the simulation (X+Y). The computer running the simulation by definition is not part of the simulation, so how can it be that it can truly simulate itself?

Roughly speaking, Gödel encoded (or “simulated”) the formal part of mathematics within arithmetic (using operations such as addition and multiplication), and constructed a sentence that says “this sentence is unprovable” within that simulation.
Post reply on HN