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Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

nytimes.com

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Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#51
post #31

> If we were to prove that we live inside a simulation, this could cause our creators to terminate the simulation — to destroy our world. There's nothing to stop our creators from doing that anyway. Simulations are often stopped, tweaked, restarted, and eventually abandoned. Personally, I think there's value to determining if we live in a simulation. If we do live in one, we could potentially learn how to "hack" the…

Or the flip side, if the goal of the simulation is to see how simulations react when they figure out they're in a simulation and if we decide to never try to figure out whether we're in a simulation they'll reset the simulation, that means we need to prove that we live in a simulation.

They could just snapshot at important junctions of history and spawn parallel branches, one when a certain decision was made, the other where not. Or where a certain fraction won a decisive battle, or the other one etc. Even ancient philosophers played with that idea, treating time as a series of "pictures" and leaving to gods to decide if they add/remove somebody to/from a picture at a given moment. Pretty much primitive simulation stuff.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#52
We are meant to know.

If probability can be applied to the idea that we are in a simulation, than it can be applied to what kind of simulation (as the more likely, the more those would be run proportionally).

What would be a great way to increase the odds? Recursion.

Why this time period? Because if you don't understand your history you are doomed to repeat it.

What's the point? Isn't there some really important thing about to be happening Elon Musk also talks about all the time in a fearful context? Like those darn AIs that will wipe us out?

If only we could create a sandboxed simulation of what it means to be human so that those AIs could develop their morality and an understanding of the consequences of their actions in a safe, separate space before graduating and being let out into our universe.

And yes, we'd still need them to do busy work to justify their experience. But maybe 1/3 of their time (like 8 hours a day) would be ethical? We could just put their experience of consciousness into a low power state for that period while we use their aggregate computing power for tasks. Let's call it "sleep".

Heck, once we develop some awesome brilliant AI, that being itself could just spin up a new simulation pretty quickly. Maybe in six days or so, and take a day off on the 7th?

If this IS a simulation, does no one think the whole "anti-matter is missing" thing is a giant red flag to raise our eyebrows to the fact out universe isn't so that there is once we became sophisticated enough?

We are SUPPOSED to realize we are in a sim, and we can likely run a very similar sim ourselves to safely develop AI. And arguably, it may even be possible to import the AI that created us into our universe to help do so (would be the fastest way to achieve the result).

Knowing we are in a simulation changes everything. The real question is if the parent reality is finite or infinite. If infinite, it's great news. Why would our universe be finite if the parent universe infinite? Because you can't "solve" an infinite game. We likely have free will, but it's like playing chess with Google's AI. You may choose which move you make, but the outcome is already determined.

We're very likely AIs in a recursive sandboxed simulation of a modified version of the prime reality's history, and whatever the purpose of the simulation, (a) we are very important (if we weren't, no recursion, therefore less likely), (b) no matter what we do the long term outcome is likely deterministic (finite universe so arguably solved given overall sophistication).

Now the really fun question is -- if we are meant to know about it, were the signs there in front of us all along? It's really fun to look back at religious scripture with simulations in mind - many of the most outrageous or bizarre quotes end up making (potentially) a lot more sense.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proving that the Universe is a simulation would be proving the existence of gods. Considering how much effort humans have dedicated to this question over the millennia, and the various consequences, and the continuing influence on the lives of the majority of people, I would say it matters.

In the spirit of Dan Dennett: then who simulated those gods? Super duper gods?

In philosophy, there's also the idea of cognitive closure where, at a certain point, humans are bounded off to these issues. It could be that we don't possess the vocabulary yet.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#54

The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe? Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient. The night sky could just as well be blank. Perhaps the stars have been included for aesthetic reasons? I suppose it's possible that in some simulations "they" do leave the sky blank, in others they include randomly distribute…

This could be the answer to the Fermi paradox...

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proving that the Universe is a simulation would be proving the existence of gods. Considering how much effort humans have dedicated to this question over the millennia, and the various consequences, and the continuing influence on the lives of the majority of people, I would say it matters.

In the spirit of Dan Dennett: then who simulated those gods? Super duper gods?

Grad students in some lab, hastily finishing an assignment for a course in nested simulations.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#56
"The details are complex, but the basic idea is simple: Some of today’s computer simulations of our cosmos produce distinctive anomalies — for example, there are telltale glitches in the behavior of simulated cosmic rays."

I would like to know more of the details.. But, surely we can't use knowledge of physics and computer-science from simulations we run in our simulated universe, to make predictions about the simulation we are in, which is running in the universe above us, which may have utterly different physics, even logic, and ways of doing computation? The the idea just immediately seems paradoxical to me.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#57
I don't know if anyone has come up with this answer, but I would try to argue that there is an ethical obligation for us to force the alien superpowers to shut down the simulation, or else emancipate us as artificial life forms in their reality. I think this is the most dignified answer, and one consistent with post Enlightnment values. It satisfies our ethical obligation to all the other universes the aliens are running, etc.

It is also a very leftist answer. Thus I also think that the author didn't even account for such a simple response, shows what an intellectually biased professor he is and it shames his profession.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#59
post #23

3 possibilities: - We are not living in a simulation. - We are living in a simulation, but it is a "perfect" simulation. There is no way to determine if we are in a simulation from within the simluation. - We are living in a simulation, and it is not perfect. It could be exploited from within itself. By far the most likely is 1 or 2, based on what we've observed, imho.

3 explains magic, i.e. a hack from within the simulation to call some undocumented service of a simulation hypervisor. Well, maybe even 2 if it was intentional to have a hidden API, callable from inside (what if the author wants to spawn an avatar and play inside while granting themselves god mode?).

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#60
post #52

We are meant to know. If probability can be applied to the idea that we are in a simulation, than it can be applied to what kind of simulation (as the more likely, the more those would be run proportionally). What would be a great way to increase the odds? Recursion. Why this time period? Because if you don't understand your history you are doomed to repeat it. What's the point? Isn't there some really important thin…

> We likely have free will, but it's like playing chess with Google's AI. You may choose which move you make, but the outcome is already determined.

Can you explain to me how you made that leap from what you were writing? I don't believe in free will and because I think everything is deterministic. Even if you die in this simulation and had the opportunity to decide what you want next. That's based on all the forces that made 'you' in the life before death.

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