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Existing in an un-simulated reality

iahwrites.substack.com

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Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#51

Post by 14 »

ben_w wrote: post #48

This feels similar to something I came up with a while back; for various reasons[0], I hope it isn't true. https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/mathematica... [0] Boltzmann brains are cognitively unstable, because the logic leading to them says you should expect to be one, but also that they have exponentially increasingly false "memories" the further back they "remember", including the beliefs leading to…

The Boltzmann brain theory is not something I have heard before but have to say I love the idea. The thing is if the universe is infinite and you believe that, then by default many other things also have to be true. I do hope the universe is infinite which means I exist many times over in many different states of being, hopefully one such state where the Canadian housing market isn’t so crappy and I get to afford a house one day ;)

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#52

Post by Andrex »

scotty79 wrote: post #15

Basically it's a question of whether math exists. If it exists then the states of the simulation exist and look like reality "from the inside". I really like Iain M. Banks moral argument against universe being simulated. No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral enough to create something so horrible. Unless they are a total bastard. So it's not a 100%.

By whose standards is it horrible?

What if the intelligence doesn't even know we're here? Or that we are (or believe ourselves to be) conscious?

Do you feel guilty playing The Sims?

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#53

Post by iosystem »

fasterik wrote: post #50
ben_w wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can explain everything that we experience in terms of quantum field theory and general relativity Everything we experience, except experience itself. Conscious/qualia/whatever is still… well, none but God knows what it is, and I have no evidence for the existence of any god let alone that one.

That's because consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental physics. Every atom in your brain behaves according to the laws of particle physics, and somehow consciousness emerges out of that. Our theories of neuroscience aren't developed enough to explain it yet, but there isn't any reason to believe that there is something magical or non-physical going on.

How do we know consciousness is real, and we're not just the same as robots or a tv series? Couldn't every moment throughout the universe have been encoded in every atom before the Big Bang?

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#54

Post by mannykannot »

m000 wrote: post #17

I am hungry and there's some leftover pizza in the fridge. Do I really need to eat it?

I think the author's premise would lead to the conclusions that you really are hungry and you really eat the pizza, but the former is not causal in the latter (they are just theorems of the formalism) and the latter is not causal in anything else.

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#55

Post by mcronce »

iosystem wrote: post #53
fasterik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental physics. Every atom in your brain behaves according to the laws of particle physics, and somehow consciousness emerges out of that. Our theories of neuroscience aren't developed enough to explain it yet, but there isn't any reason to believe that there is something magical or non-physical going on.

How do we know consciousness is real, and we're not just the same as robots or a tv series? Couldn't every moment throughout the universe have been encoded in every atom before the Big Bang?

That's certainly possible, but it doesn't make your experiences any less real

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#56

Post by mannykannot »

kazinator wrote: post #36

That coincides with my belief. If the next state exists mathmatically, it exists. The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress: what simulator runs the simulator, and what runs that one ...

> The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress...

I'm not sure, but I think it leads to infinite recursion instead:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451144

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#57

Post by TheBlight »

fasterik wrote: post #43

This is similar to David Lewis's modal realism, which says that every possible world is real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism There isn't really much of a connection between this and Bostrom's simulation argument. The simulation argument is about calculating the probability that we live in a simulated universe based on certain assumptions about human behavior and technological development. Bostrom's argum…

>we can explain everything that we experience in terms of quantum field theory and general relativity.

Dark matter would like a word.

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#58

Post by Ycombigatorz »

scotty79 wrote: post #15

Basically it's a question of whether math exists. If it exists then the states of the simulation exist and look like reality "from the inside". I really like Iain M. Banks moral argument against universe being simulated. No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral enough to create something so horrible. Unless they are a total bastard. So it's not a 100%.

[dead]

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#59

Post by Ycombigatorz »

iosystem wrote: post #53
fasterik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental physics. Every atom in your brain behaves according to the laws of particle physics, and somehow consciousness emerges out of that. Our theories of neuroscience aren't developed enough to explain it yet, but there isn't any reason to believe that there is something magical or non-physical going on.

How do we know consciousness is real, and we're not just the same as robots or a tv series? Couldn't every moment throughout the universe have been encoded in every atom before the Big Bang?

How do you know that when you touch a chair that that sensation is real?

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#60

Post by mannykannot »

jl6 wrote: post #4
dustyduster wrote: post #2

This reminds me of the "dust" theory in Egan's Permutation City .

It is indeed similar. It seems to take a highly reductionist pathway: reality/experience can be simulated -> simulation is computation -> computation is mathematics -> mathematical objects exist regardless of whether anybody has discovered them. This implies that all conceivable universes (including the ones where a lot of really bad things happen on an eternal loop) are possessed of the exact same reality as ours.

I don't suppose a mathematical Platonist would limit the possibilities to conceivable universes, as they suppose the math exists regardless.
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