Virtual Reality Poses the Same Riddles as the Cosmic Multiverse(nautil.us)
nautil.us
Virtual Reality Poses the Same Riddles as the Cosmic Multiverse
http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/virtual-reality-poses-the-same-riddles-as-the-cosmic-multiverse?
60 comments
Sf writers don't have the burden of having to create an internally consistent world. They're free to paper over plot holes however they like.
Given our experience with actual simulators, the fact is that simulating a world populated with intelligent beings capable of simulating another world, going into a recursive loop, requires infinite processing capacity.
My guess is that simulation indistinguishable from reality is never going to happen because it isn't possible, having nothing to do with how evolved we are.
My guess is that simulation indistinguishable from reality is never going to happen because it isn't possible, having nothing to do with how evolved we are.
But from the inside of the simulation reality is whatever the rules of the simulation say it is. Thus the observer in the simulation has no way to know whether the reality he observes corresponds to an objective reality that exists "out there" or he's living in an arbitrary reality. For example, we can create game worlds in two dimensions, and those worlds are in a sense internally consistent, but not representative of our reality.
> Given our experience with actual simulators, the fact is that simulating a world populated with intelligent beings capable of simulating another world, going into a recursive loop, requires infinite processing capacity.
This reminds me of old-timers talking about "You'll never use 640 kB of RAM!" It is rather odd when thinking about "infinity" though, but there are a couple things that I would note: 1) It's hard not to accept the concept of infinity. It's used quite a bit. 2) In order for one infinity to exist, all infinities must exist. 3) http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/24/when-hubb...
Those are galaxies...in a tiny patch of "empty space". Space is big. Really big...
Those are galaxies...in a tiny patch of "empty space". Space is big. Really big...
The simulation doesn't have to run in full detail, there could be approximations made far away from sentients. Also, the speed of the simulation doesn't need to be 1:1.
> Also, the speed of the simulation doesn't need to be 1:1.
This is what I think of when considering spacetime and relativistic effects. If you think of "matter" as being equivalent to processing power required, then the more processing required, the longer it takes to update the entire frame. So other things with less matter are updated more quickly relative to more massive segments.
This is what I think of when considering spacetime and relativistic effects. If you think of "matter" as being equivalent to processing power required, then the more processing required, the longer it takes to update the entire frame. So other things with less matter are updated more quickly relative to more massive segments.
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> But if that’s the case, we run into a paradox. The argument for living in a simulation is based on the laws of physics and logic. But if we are living a simulation, we can’t trust those laws, so we have no basis to conclude we are living in a simulation.
This is borderline nonsensical. The "laws of logic" (i.e. law of identity/non-contradiction, or propositional logic), are universal axioms that would not change regardless of whether we're in a simulation or not. The "laws of physics" could change, i.e. certain cosmological variables could be tweaked, but this wouldn't affect our ability to reason about things like this.
This is borderline nonsensical. The "laws of logic" (i.e. law of identity/non-contradiction, or propositional logic), are universal axioms that would not change regardless of whether we're in a simulation or not. The "laws of physics" could change, i.e. certain cosmological variables could be tweaked, but this wouldn't affect our ability to reason about things like this.
You're right, but I disagree with your argument that: "the 'laws of logic' are universal axioms that would not change." Axioms are not universal and have been modified or discarded throughout the progression of mathematics [0],[1],[2]. I suppose one could argue that their definition wouldn't change and whether or not one chooses to accept an axiom or not is left to the individual, though.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(mathematics)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(mathematics)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice
> You're right, but I disagree with your argument that: "the 'laws of logic' are universal axioms that would not change." Axioms are not universal and have been modified or discarded throughout the progression of mathematics [0],[1],[2]
I love that you point this out here. One of the interesting things is that even still today, as we speak, axioms and their utility are being debated. This stems from the second part of your reply:
> I suppose one could argue...
This is the fundamental reason I do not adhere to axiomatic systems in general. One could always argue any point, and so axioms from the get-go are "self-defeating". Fortunately with ibGib's logic, "self-defeating" is more equivalent to "in some given environment, some statement is not fit enough to survive." So any statement in environment X could conceivably be fit to survive in environment Y.
I love that you point this out here. One of the interesting things is that even still today, as we speak, axioms and their utility are being debated. This stems from the second part of your reply:
> I suppose one could argue...
This is the fundamental reason I do not adhere to axiomatic systems in general. One could always argue any point, and so axioms from the get-go are "self-defeating". Fortunately with ibGib's logic, "self-defeating" is more equivalent to "in some given environment, some statement is not fit enough to survive." So any statement in environment X could conceivably be fit to survive in environment Y.
> This is the fundamental reason I do not adhere to axiomatic systems in general.
Apologies if this is a stupid question, but aren't all systems fundamentally axiomatic?
Apologies if this is a stupid question, but aren't all systems fundamentally axiomatic?
> Apologies if this is a stupid question
It's not, and I think we all know that ;-)
> aren't all systems fundamentally axiomatic?
Both yes and no (and others). That fact that "one could always argue..." exists (as I mention in another comment), gives us the ability to say "no". And we could digress ad nauseam with these kinds meta-statements. It comes down to the economics of your decision whether or not to continue attending any given statement. That said, here is my reasoning for shying away from the given acceptance of Mathematics and axiomatic systems in general (bear in mind I used to be a math dude...800 math SAT, 36 math ACT, 5th place in state math tourney (1st place team), 0 days of homework)
Consider the wikipedia definition of axiom:
> An axiom or postulate is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Greek axíōma (ἀξίωμα) 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident.'
With that in mind, consider this: Once I recognize that I have produced a false statement (made a mistake), then thereafter I have a non-zero probability that any statement I make is also false. This includes any statements that I make that make other statements, i.e. systems. So any axiomatic system, wherein there is at least one statement that is "taken to be true", is built on a foundation of hubris - right from the start.
So I personally have been on a long journey, where presently I am now working on the ibGib library which turns state into Goedelian numbers (content-addressable hashes of merkle trees/forests), essentially black-boxing "things" into a universe-sized fundamentally interconnected nodal network.
It's not, and I think we all know that ;-)
> aren't all systems fundamentally axiomatic?
Both yes and no (and others). That fact that "one could always argue..." exists (as I mention in another comment), gives us the ability to say "no". And we could digress ad nauseam with these kinds meta-statements. It comes down to the economics of your decision whether or not to continue attending any given statement. That said, here is my reasoning for shying away from the given acceptance of Mathematics and axiomatic systems in general (bear in mind I used to be a math dude...800 math SAT, 36 math ACT, 5th place in state math tourney (1st place team), 0 days of homework)
Consider the wikipedia definition of axiom:
> An axiom or postulate is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Greek axíōma (ἀξίωμα) 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident.'
With that in mind, consider this: Once I recognize that I have produced a false statement (made a mistake), then thereafter I have a non-zero probability that any statement I make is also false. This includes any statements that I make that make other statements, i.e. systems. So any axiomatic system, wherein there is at least one statement that is "taken to be true", is built on a foundation of hubris - right from the start.
So I personally have been on a long journey, where presently I am now working on the ibGib library which turns state into Goedelian numbers (content-addressable hashes of merkle trees/forests), essentially black-boxing "things" into a universe-sized fundamentally interconnected nodal network.
It's pretty simple: If you live inside the system and the system knows the experiments you are conducting it can modify the "results" of these experiments to fit a perceived set of axioms that hide the "true axioms".
Think of it like Geometric level of detail in video games: when the observer is viewing a character from very far away a low-polygon mesh is displayed -- this is because the mesh only takes up a few pixels of screen space for the observer so rendering a high polygon mesh or a low polygon mesh is indistinguishable.
Now when the character is closer to the observer a high polygon mesh with more detail is substituted.
The observer can never tell that this trick is happening. If they designed an experiment to test for this the universe could simply spend more time fooling the observer.
I am quite sure if we are living in a simulation it makes a lot of approximations. When we conduct complex experiments it simply computes better approximations so that our observed results fit the "axioms of physics".
Think of it like Geometric level of detail in video games: when the observer is viewing a character from very far away a low-polygon mesh is displayed -- this is because the mesh only takes up a few pixels of screen space for the observer so rendering a high polygon mesh or a low polygon mesh is indistinguishable.
Now when the character is closer to the observer a high polygon mesh with more detail is substituted.
The observer can never tell that this trick is happening. If they designed an experiment to test for this the universe could simply spend more time fooling the observer.
I am quite sure if we are living in a simulation it makes a lot of approximations. When we conduct complex experiments it simply computes better approximations so that our observed results fit the "axioms of physics".
I like your video game view of mesh counts, and I assume you're also including clipping as a special case of a 0-count mesh. And since we're programmers, I think there is another very useful vocabulary to use when talking about this: Eager vs lazy.
When I open a tree view, it doesn't have to eagerly evaluate all of the contents of each node. It gives you the nodes that you are looking at and you have a decision as to what you want to open. This is precisely analogous to what you "pay attention to". So the "tricks" that you mention could be thought of in terms of lazy evaluations.
When I open a tree view, it doesn't have to eagerly evaluate all of the contents of each node. It gives you the nodes that you are looking at and you have a decision as to what you want to open. This is precisely analogous to what you "pay attention to". So the "tricks" that you mention could be thought of in terms of lazy evaluations.
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No, what you're saying is that the simulation would mess with our observations - but our basic logical axioms are not dependent on observations to be valid - that's why they're axioms! They are used as valid starting points in reasoning, and nothing the simulation does could change that.
Yes you're right about what I meant. Though I think you're incorrect about the idea that any axiom could exist within a simulated universe.
We have to get back to the relationship between consciousness ... does an axiom even exist if it is not fathomed by some conscious being?
If you believe that it does not exist absent an observer then it is certainly possible that particular axioms simply cannot exist within the universe -- they cannot be fathomed because time itself might slow down to infinity when such things are fathomed.
We have to get back to the relationship between consciousness ... does an axiom even exist if it is not fathomed by some conscious being?
If you believe that it does not exist absent an observer then it is certainly possible that particular axioms simply cannot exist within the universe -- they cannot be fathomed because time itself might slow down to infinity when such things are fathomed.
Yeah but if we're living in a simulation, we have no idea of what the laws of physics actually are or if it even makes sense to talk about such a thing. Logic doesn't really help at that point.
Logic is just reasoning based on rules of validity. So while you're comments are true to a degree, they're also not entirely accurate as it would depend on context; ie on what you're applying the "laws of logic" to.
In this instance the author is discussing logical reasoning in relation to our understanding of the laws of physics. If our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong then our logical deductions based on those laws would equally be wrong.
In this instance the author is discussing logical reasoning in relation to our understanding of the laws of physics. If our understanding of the laws of physics is wrong then our logical deductions based on those laws would equally be wrong.
You only have evidence that they're "universal" in this particular universe. Have you tested the laws of logic outside this universe? If so, congratulations, you've answered the whole question. No? Yeah, that's what I thought.
All the evidence comes from inside the universe. All the evidence is suspect. There is no progress that can be made on this question without, effectively, divine revelation. Which would still be suspect.
All the evidence comes from inside the universe. All the evidence is suspect. There is no progress that can be made on this question without, effectively, divine revelation. Which would still be suspect.
What's going to happen to the universe if it breaks these "laws"? Is someone going to give it a ticket?
And why would the universe need to conform to what makes sense to us small-brained monkeys?
And why would the universe need to conform to what makes sense to us small-brained monkeys?
I always find it curious that people can consider ideas that they have personally been aware of only for several decades to be ultimately universal.
logic is culture written over the carefully cultivated emotional state of certainty. It doesn't even have coherent transferrable meaning from one real world context to another, let alone across the cosmic multiverse.
It's just kicking the can from "God" to "Aliens". Expecting sense from nonsense is the first problem here. This isn't even metaphysics, it's just amusing bullshit that was born from the classic:
Journalist: "So, is it possible that X is true?"
Scientist: "It's far more likely that A, B, C...Z are true, but we can't quite rule out X."
Headline: "Scientists discover X!"
Journalist: "So, is it possible that X is true?"
Scientist: "It's far more likely that A, B, C...Z are true, but we can't quite rule out X."
Headline: "Scientists discover X!"
What's amazing to me is that this question of a simulated reality would not have even been possible to comprehend 150 years ago.
Without our understanding of computers, networks, and virtual reality, a simulated universe theory would be very difficult to come about (not sure if someone actually did theorize this back then, but even if they did, the vast majority would have no idea what they were talking about).
That being said, what possibilities are we neglecting now due to our limited knowledge? In 200 years, it may be obvious we're living in a totally different type of universe.
In my opinion, we really won't have good idea of what kind of universe we're living in for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There will be many cycles of scientific consensus overthrown in the coming centuries as we discover new layers of reality and technology.
Without our understanding of computers, networks, and virtual reality, a simulated universe theory would be very difficult to come about (not sure if someone actually did theorize this back then, but even if they did, the vast majority would have no idea what they were talking about).
That being said, what possibilities are we neglecting now due to our limited knowledge? In 200 years, it may be obvious we're living in a totally different type of universe.
In my opinion, we really won't have good idea of what kind of universe we're living in for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There will be many cycles of scientific consensus overthrown in the coming centuries as we discover new layers of reality and technology.
A Turing-machine based simulated reality certainly would have been incomprehensible, but pre-20th century philosophers have thought about the idea of the world not being "real" in some sense. I would even conjecture that the universal experience of dreaming, and the fact that we often can't tell when we're dreaming, would have probably inspired this line of thought going back possibly even pre-homo sapiens.
Of course, Plato's cave is the most famous writing about the idea of a "simulated" reality from antiquity, in the sense that it discusses the idea that prisoners who spent their entire lives in a cave would assume that the cave they see is the only reality.
Of course, Plato's cave is the most famous writing about the idea of a "simulated" reality from antiquity, in the sense that it discusses the idea that prisoners who spent their entire lives in a cave would assume that the cave they see is the only reality.
Indeed, what I find much more fascinating is that these ideas are not new at all, but each generation frames it in a new technological light.
It's like how the brain used to be an ocean, then it was a windmill, then it was a steam engine, then it was a computer, and now it's a GPU cloud. I wonder what will come first: humans finally understanding what a brain is, or making one.
It's like how the brain used to be an ocean, then it was a windmill, then it was a steam engine, then it was a computer, and now it's a GPU cloud. I wonder what will come first: humans finally understanding what a brain is, or making one.
True, the dream world makes sense as an analogy. They just wouldn't know how it was technically possible to create a "virtual dream" world.
The Hindu cosmology with its concept of Brahman has Plato lapped.
> What's amazing to me is that this question of a simulated reality would not have even been possible to comprehend 150 years ago.
I love this, but I would rather phrase it that it would have been much more expensive to communicate the ideas as efficiently back in the day. This both captures the essence of what you're saying (which is something I totally agree with and was just thinking of yesterday when thinking of the idiom "shave the yak"), as well as speaks to some of the critics of your statement that say you're not giving enough props to philosophers of old.
Btw, I don't want to be pushy or start a flame war, but actually reading the Bible and thinking in exactly this mindset of "what if I were a hyperdimensional population planting seeds for training 'simulacra'/AI characters" is incredible. I was never religious before a couple years ago, and let me tell you, the logic in the actual Bible (not the dogmatic interpretations still memetically floating around today) is awesome.
I'll give one example, and again I ask forbearance and patience of anyone who get their hackles raised: God's name. When he's speaking to Moses, Moses says "Who should I tell them is giving me this message to lead them out of Egypt?" God replies "I am who I am" (which is also a multi-layered phrase "I am what I am", and "I will be who/what I will be"). Yahweh ("LORD") is actually "I am". So this is the fundamental, recursively self-defining "Name" of God. When reading it, it just seems weird and out of place. But when reading it in context of today's understandings of the magnitude of the size of the "Universe" (vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big) combined with the prospects of computation and "What if I were to program a universe that is designed to itself program universes?" (and many other reasons), I've done a 180.
The hard part is 1) Getting over existing, dogmatic interpretations and all of the negative connotations associated with them. and 2) Actually believing it. The interesting thing is, the actual Bible repeatedly talks about the practitioners of the religions not understanding and not getting it. It's a theme both in the Old and New Testaments (It's why the Jews crucified Jesus, after all).
I love this, but I would rather phrase it that it would have been much more expensive to communicate the ideas as efficiently back in the day. This both captures the essence of what you're saying (which is something I totally agree with and was just thinking of yesterday when thinking of the idiom "shave the yak"), as well as speaks to some of the critics of your statement that say you're not giving enough props to philosophers of old.
Btw, I don't want to be pushy or start a flame war, but actually reading the Bible and thinking in exactly this mindset of "what if I were a hyperdimensional population planting seeds for training 'simulacra'/AI characters" is incredible. I was never religious before a couple years ago, and let me tell you, the logic in the actual Bible (not the dogmatic interpretations still memetically floating around today) is awesome.
I'll give one example, and again I ask forbearance and patience of anyone who get their hackles raised: God's name. When he's speaking to Moses, Moses says "Who should I tell them is giving me this message to lead them out of Egypt?" God replies "I am who I am" (which is also a multi-layered phrase "I am what I am", and "I will be who/what I will be"). Yahweh ("LORD") is actually "I am". So this is the fundamental, recursively self-defining "Name" of God. When reading it, it just seems weird and out of place. But when reading it in context of today's understandings of the magnitude of the size of the "Universe" (vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big) combined with the prospects of computation and "What if I were to program a universe that is designed to itself program universes?" (and many other reasons), I've done a 180.
The hard part is 1) Getting over existing, dogmatic interpretations and all of the negative connotations associated with them. and 2) Actually believing it. The interesting thing is, the actual Bible repeatedly talks about the practitioners of the religions not understanding and not getting it. It's a theme both in the Old and New Testaments (It's why the Jews crucified Jesus, after all).
What's amazing to me is that this question of a simulated reality would not have even been possible to comprehend 150 years ago.
I don't think you're giving enough credit to thinkers of the past. They didn't have the technology that lets us play with some of these ideas more directly, but they were still very capable of thinking through the philosophical ramifications. Descartes' Meditations comes to mind: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/#3...
I don't think you're giving enough credit to thinkers of the past. They didn't have the technology that lets us play with some of these ideas more directly, but they were still very capable of thinking through the philosophical ramifications. Descartes' Meditations comes to mind: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/#3...
I remember in one Plato dialogue a reference to the dream in a dream in a .. concept. I m sure it goes back to earlier religious thoughts too especially Asian ones.
Given my bad knowledge of history, it seems -
Back in Tesla's day - which was also Einstein's, and so many others - the dominate paradigm was of waves and resonance, and we got physics made of waves and resonances.
Nowadays, it seems like the dominate paradigm is one of information and computation, and so we get lots of physics - and weird, have-baked speculations - considering the world from those perspectives.
No clue what the next paradigm will be, but if I had to bet, I'd bet one whatever comes out of quantum computing (probabilities and ???? ?).
Back in Tesla's day - which was also Einstein's, and so many others - the dominate paradigm was of waves and resonance, and we got physics made of waves and resonances.
Nowadays, it seems like the dominate paradigm is one of information and computation, and so we get lots of physics - and weird, have-baked speculations - considering the world from those perspectives.
No clue what the next paradigm will be, but if I had to bet, I'd bet one whatever comes out of quantum computing (probabilities and ???? ?).
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Descartes pretty much got it.
If we live in a simulated universe and cant tell that the universe is simulated then what bearing does the question have when we can't answer it. The person that wrote this article is conflating the idea of VR technology and mixing it with the brain in a jar .
Somewhat related, but isn't saying "we live in a simulation" just another way to say "there is a god"?
More or less yes - unless the simulation itself is auto-generated by some other mindless program. (In which case we can eventually find God recursively.)
or unless we are the ones running the simulation and enjoying the experience of non virtual reality )
If the simulation and programmer were both physical, most would not say the programmer was God, if thats what you mean.
What if the programmer and the system performing the simulation are one and the same?
I have to assume this has been well trod elsewhere, but nothing that I've seen, and this is the second or third recent HN article about the whole "maybe we're in a simulation" thing, so I'm going to ask in good faith:
How is this not just... religion?
How is this not just... religion?
If its a falsifiable claim its not religion. Supposedly its a falsifiable claim.
How do you think that could be falsified? (Honest question, I have tried to come up with a way to falsify this theory, but haven't figured out anythig.)
But what is the difference between being in a simulation of reality and being in reality? Is there any difference?
No, it's not falsifiable. Santa Claus is actually more believable since there are many children who can swear they've seen him.
Because the word "religion" has different semantic connotations. Just because I propose a question that has no falsifiable answer does not mean I have suddenly invented a religion. If I start actually marketing my non-falsifiable answers to you, then you could say I am on the road to making it into a religion.
Because it is metaphysics. Philosophy.
Its not quite a religion yet. More like just a "faith".
I always figured that religion was what happened after a particular metaphysics/philosophy came up with a guess about something unobservable through science and people started taking that guess seriously.
It usually takes the form of making up a bunch of rules for everyone to follow to keep from angering a postulated deity, but not always.
In this case you can observe this particular "faith" hatching into a minor religion (almost in toy/model style) with Roko's Basilisk.
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko's_basilisk
I always figured that religion was what happened after a particular metaphysics/philosophy came up with a guess about something unobservable through science and people started taking that guess seriously.
It usually takes the form of making up a bunch of rules for everyone to follow to keep from angering a postulated deity, but not always.
In this case you can observe this particular "faith" hatching into a minor religion (almost in toy/model style) with Roko's Basilisk.
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko's_basilisk
> any given person should rationally conclude he or she is made of ones and zeros rather than flesh and blood
This statement presumes that "flesh and blood" are already not "ones and zeros". It also relates to my view that the conflation of "information" and 1s and 0s is very misleading. 1s and 0s are a view of information. The things on my hard drive are not 1s and 0s, otherwise what would I call corrupted locations?
This statement presumes that "flesh and blood" are already not "ones and zeros". It also relates to my view that the conflation of "information" and 1s and 0s is very misleading. 1s and 0s are a view of information. The things on my hard drive are not 1s and 0s, otherwise what would I call corrupted locations?
I dont understand the simulation argument. If I have a quantum computer, dont I have to use at least N particles to simulate an N particle system? What am I gaining by using a physical system to simulate a physical system?
No you could use more coarse grained representations of distant objects or less frequently observed objects. If our Universe is a simulation, for example, given that the speed of information is limited, there's no reason to completely simulate, say, whatever is happening in the Andromeda galaxy right now. If we send an observer there, the simulation could just lazily produce more fine-grained renderings.
Say you had a computer operating near planck scale (or some max bound on physical density of a computer system), could you use that to represent more information than would fit in the physical space?
The simulation argument is "If we ever create a simulation, we'll create more, so we're probably in one of those simulations, unless we were first or are unique at cosmic scales." Would lazy loading make it harder to simulate our own universe at similar scales (harder to build a simulation in a simulation?)
At some point, unless we're living in a limited simulation that can itself not be fully simulated, aren't we getting something for nothing? And if it is in fact limited, how do you show that?
Edit: basically what zerofries said...
The simulation argument is "If we ever create a simulation, we'll create more, so we're probably in one of those simulations, unless we were first or are unique at cosmic scales." Would lazy loading make it harder to simulate our own universe at similar scales (harder to build a simulation in a simulation?)
At some point, unless we're living in a limited simulation that can itself not be fully simulated, aren't we getting something for nothing? And if it is in fact limited, how do you show that?
Edit: basically what zerofries said...
I think you're asking, if we took all the matter in the Universe and converted it into a giant computer, would we be able to fully simulate our own Universe?
I think the answer is that if our Universe is currently, say, nested N levels deep in a simulation hierarchy, the Universe we currently observe may appear much more vast than it actually is, but since the speed of information is limited, we could never prove this. So while the number of estimated atoms in the observable Universe is something like 4×10^79, the actual number of simulated particles may be far, far less. Certainly, the information that comes to us via the light from distant galaxies is incredibly coarse grained and time-lagged, and if we're in a simulation it may well be that no finer grained representation actually exists (assuming there are no observers in those galaxies).
I don't actually know if I believe the simulation argument, and all of this is currently (perhaps forever) non-falsifiable. By the time we're able to even send an observer to some distant galaxy ~5 billion light years away, the Universe would have expanded even more, making the galaxy even further away. But the limitations imposed on the speed of information via light cones seems to make it very computationally feasible to simulate a Universe that appears much larger and detailed than it actually is. So in other words, the inhabitants of Universe at level N of the simulation hierarchy should be able to simulate a lower-entropy coarse approximation of their Universe at level N + 1, that would be indistinguishable from Universe N to the simulated inhabitants of N + 1, provided that sufficient restrictions on the speed of information and the number of observers is enforced.
But intuitively it seems there should be a limitation here, in that as N increases the level of nested computational resources available would need to decrease, until you hit a low entropy "leaf Universe". But that doesn't really affect the probabilistic angle of the simulation argument.
I think the answer is that if our Universe is currently, say, nested N levels deep in a simulation hierarchy, the Universe we currently observe may appear much more vast than it actually is, but since the speed of information is limited, we could never prove this. So while the number of estimated atoms in the observable Universe is something like 4×10^79, the actual number of simulated particles may be far, far less. Certainly, the information that comes to us via the light from distant galaxies is incredibly coarse grained and time-lagged, and if we're in a simulation it may well be that no finer grained representation actually exists (assuming there are no observers in those galaxies).
I don't actually know if I believe the simulation argument, and all of this is currently (perhaps forever) non-falsifiable. By the time we're able to even send an observer to some distant galaxy ~5 billion light years away, the Universe would have expanded even more, making the galaxy even further away. But the limitations imposed on the speed of information via light cones seems to make it very computationally feasible to simulate a Universe that appears much larger and detailed than it actually is. So in other words, the inhabitants of Universe at level N of the simulation hierarchy should be able to simulate a lower-entropy coarse approximation of their Universe at level N + 1, that would be indistinguishable from Universe N to the simulated inhabitants of N + 1, provided that sufficient restrictions on the speed of information and the number of observers is enforced.
But intuitively it seems there should be a limitation here, in that as N increases the level of nested computational resources available would need to decrease, until you hit a low entropy "leaf Universe". But that doesn't really affect the probabilistic angle of the simulation argument.
> if our Universe is currently, say, nested N levels deep in a simulation hierarchy
Maybe the simulation hierarchy is like a neural net - where hierarchy represents more abstraction and meaning - the higher we go, the more exotic the universes and more capable of carrying meaning by integrating information from below. Such a neural-net hierarchical universe could be seen as "God".
Maybe the simulation hierarchy is like a neural net - where hierarchy represents more abstraction and meaning - the higher we go, the more exotic the universes and more capable of carrying meaning by integrating information from below. Such a neural-net hierarchical universe could be seen as "God".
This is something that ibGib is a great tool for: understanding relationships and "heirarchies", and understanding that a containment relationship is only one way for viewing information. We find it easy to work with, since we're used to files and folders. But the more I use ibGib, the more comfortable I am with just having things related to each other.
This is precisely a neural network, and it's especially interesting when you consider each person as a node in a larger network. You have your inputs and your outputs and a bunch of layers sitting in between, i.e. you take an ANN, draw a circle around it and connect it to other ANNs ad nauseam.
This is precisely a neural network, and it's especially interesting when you consider each person as a node in a larger network. You have your inputs and your outputs and a bunch of layers sitting in between, i.e. you take an ANN, draw a circle around it and connect it to other ANNs ad nauseam.
Ok so that might apply one level deep, but not 2+ levels, which I think the simulation argument is mostly based on (the more levels the higher the probability your universe is a nested universe).
>If I have a quantum computer, dont I have to use at least N particles to simulate an N particle system?
If we're in a simulation, we can't assume too much about the host reality's physics. Quantum computers or something else capable of simulating quantum physics simply could be easy to make in the host reality.
>What am I gaining by using a physical system to simulate a physical system?
We run simulations all the time for entertainment and research.
If we're in a simulation, we can't assume too much about the host reality's physics. Quantum computers or something else capable of simulating quantum physics simply could be easy to make in the host reality.
>What am I gaining by using a physical system to simulate a physical system?
We run simulations all the time for entertainment and research.
SF authors have explored these fascinating concepts without falling into such holes in logic: such as presuming that a technology capable of simulating an incomprehensible volume of intelligence was simultaneously too lazy to leverage that intelligence to not cut corners in the simulation.
That said, I do subscribe to the school that says we must conclude one of the following:
a) civilization in the abstract generally does not progress to the point of being able to simulate itself, or
b) we are the the first civilization ever, or
c) we are a simulation