
Is our world a simulation? Why some scientists say it's more likely than not - danielmorozoff
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/simulated-world-elon-musk-the-matrix
======
snowwrestler
The simulation argument, going back to Bostrom, relies on two flaws.

1) It leverages our optimism to corrupt our understanding of statistics and
logic. It essentially says that if you think humanity doesn't destroy itself,
then our descendants will probably try to simulate us. But of course if you
just take a statistical view of the potential future ordered states of the
universe, there are FAR more potential future states in which we don't exist,
than states in which we do. The chances we are living in a simulation now are
equally as small.

2) Bostrom hypothesizes that our descendants will try to simulate us. But it
is impossible to completely simulate a system from inside that system--that's
basic thermodynamics. So simulation proponents argue that our simulated
reality is running in a more complex universe than we experience. But if that
is the case, then the beings running the simulation are not our descendants!
They're the descendants of whatever more complex beings came before them. Once
again the central logic of the argument fails.

------
Mikeb85
Don't want to make any judgements on the nature of reality, but I find it
amusing that we went from thinking a pantheon of gods made the world, to a
single god, to no god, and back to the idea that reality may be simulated by
something/someone.

It's Intro to Philosophy all over again...

~~~
napsterbr
I'm completely new to philosophy but I'd like to read a little bit about it.
Any chance you or some HNer could recommend a starting point?

~~~
Fezzik
I highly recommend the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps Podcast
__:[http://historyofphilosophy.net](http://historyofphilosophy.net). It gives
a great cursory overview of (many of) the seminal events and is a great diving
board to see what you may like to explore - the corpus of what you can study
is gigantic.

 __As a degree holder in Philosophy I would have killed for a podcast like
this; I have no affiliation with the podcast or its producers.

------
smoyer
If you are trying to simulate a large universe full of self-aware intelligent
being who at some point also try run these simulations. And if these
simulations eventually become N layers deep. At some point one of these
generations is going to run into the limits of the simulation engine's
computing power.

Since each supervising intelligence is watching the layers below them (and
indeed started the simulation) they obviously know that those sub-layers are
simulations but they don't know whether they themselves are simulations.
Unfortunately, even the simulation that hits the limits can't tell whether
they are computational limits or simply facets of their universe.

My short opinion ... It's turtles all the way down. At least until it stops
but the question here is whether there are any turtles up.

~~~
anindha
As we exponentially create more worlds the base computing power can also
increase exponentially if Moore's Law holds. Just keeping adding servers haha.

------
cjhanks
Have any of Terrile's friends and family taken him to a therapist? For him to
be so certain of such an improvable (and largely irrelevant) fact seems like a
sign of mental illness to me.

------
type0
It is simulation, the reality as we perceive is the simulation of our own
brain, it is completely that when we dream and it is partially simulation when
we're awake.

~~~
dragonbonheur
Why would you say the brain simulates reality rather than interprets it? A
sundial doesn't need to simulate the sun's nuclear, gravitational and magnetic
processes to cast a shadow...

~~~
type0
The brain doesn't work like sun dial. Because it doesn't strictly interprets,
even when we only try to observe the reality we unconsciously fill in the
gaps. Ever wondered why humans are so susceptible to false memories? We create
our own reality in our brain thus it's simulated. Of course we take in stimuli
but the brain doesn't just interpret them. When we see, we already simulate
the projection in our retina, there is a lot of processing that happens before
impulses get send to the hemispheres by the optic nerve (eyes are part of the
brain anatomically speaking). That processing in the retina isn't just
interpretation, nerve cells actively suppress or amplify the signals depending
on what is happening to the surrounding ones, as well as what happened shortly
before that. I would argue that even on this basic level it's already a
simulation of the reality. Interpretation is the higher order reasoning that
your frontal lobe and lymbic system might do to decide what and how to act
when you see a lion jumping at you.

------
internaut
A repost.

Some speculations on the distant future.

> If we aren’t actually living through a simulation, Mr Musk said, then all
> human life is probably about to come to an end and so we should hope that we
> are living in one. “Otherwise, if civilisation stops advancing, then that
> may be due to some calamitous event that stops civilisation,” he said at the
> Recode conference.

I don't know why we should hope for that because any civilization in a layer
in the stack of sims could be destroyed, which would destroy all nested sims
beneath.

In fact you should hope you're further up the stack as much as possible
because then the probability of destruction is lower.

However since this is about simulations it is more than likely that the
physical parameters are not identical to those of the higher level simulation.
Time could be experienced differently in different sims just like how animals
have different lifespan ranges.

> computing technology has advanced so quickly that at some point in the
> future it will become indistinguishable from real life

That is probably the case but we still cannot say so definitively. Since a
simulation is not identical to the one higher than it we should also make a
line between distinguishablity to observers and actuality. This is probably
where the look, don't look 'testing' comes into play.

> “The full-on-crazy version of the merge is we get our brains uploaded into
> the cloud. I’d love that. We need to level up humans, because our
> descendants will either conquer the galaxy or extinguish consciousness in
> the universe forever. What a time to be alive!”

I must admit I don't believe it happens like that. I do believe 'leveling up'
is real, since we've done it before several times in our evolutionary past.

I think we're missing a piece here and that piece is the past which is
biology. We have not begun to explore the possibilities of genetic
modification of humans. I don't see the point of being an immortal brain or a
EM without the ability to manipulate, use actuators in the physical reality.

Very seriously what is a 'neo-sapiens'? I think we have a good idea of what it
would be in terms of intellectual prowess, being able to coordinate and
understand vast quantities of information basically. What is much less clear
to me is A: what does such a creature look like?

Perhaps, borrowing from my favorite science fiction book, we stop consuming
food completely and simply obtain nourishment via water absorption and
photosynthesize like plants only on a different level. That would massively
improve our ecology surrounding us to improve our odds of survival. We'd still
have qualia, sensation, to help us learn, just mediated by our technologies
instead of being prompted indirectly by physical processes like injections or
bars of chocolate.

I suspect traits like socialization, conflict, emotion and instinct have every
reason to continue to exist long into our evolutionary future. It is just that
we shall develop new ones. Goodbye old problem, hello new problems.

I also predict the QWERTY keyboard continues to exist for many thousands of
years, like some kind of vestigial limb from millions of years ago as we were
flapping about in the ocean. If you can't use CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot your
latest simulation creation then you've got to wonder if you have the same
values as future-you.

