
Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? (2003) - theunamedguy
http://simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
======
Udo
The simulation argument is an interesting intellectual exercise, and I'd
charitably expand the definition of such simulations to universes of an
artificial nature in general, but it's still just a thought experiment about
something which cannot be falsified. Granted, it's a fascinating one, but it
shares too many traits with _The Invisible Dragon in my Garage_ to be of
profound scientific value.

It's worth taking into account that people tend to have two entirely separate
ideas about the nature of any such simulation.

The first one is a Matrix-like universe: a world designed from the ground up
to be an illusion specifically for us - a computer program so idiosyncratic as
to be utterly implausible, which only cares about deceiving human minds into
living in an artificial environment. This is the concept of a computer
simulation always invoked by the popular media whenever this subject comes up.

The second one, which is what scientists usually mean, is an actual simulation
that merely runs the basic processes of physics from which all the other
things in the universe emerge - and these include accidentally, among other
things and quite marginally, intelligent life forms such as humans. It's
merely an uncaring physics simulation indistinguishable from a "natural"
universe.

In the end both of these are scientifically barren concepts. The Matrix is an
implausible just-so story with quasi-religious undertones, and it's a concept
that exhibits quite a few glaring holes the closer you look at its practical
implications - holes which seem like they are in disagreement with daily
observation and hence should lend themselves to falsification. The cold
physics simulation on the other hand, while it doesn't share the intellectual
weaknesses of the Matrix, gets us rapidly to a point where we might ask what
difference it makes at all whether the fabric of reality is running on an
artificial or "natural" substrate if there is no hope of ever finding out.

~~~
tvmalsv
I don't remember who authored the following, but I thought it was amusing
enough years ago to toss it into my interesting-quotes.txt:

I recall reading a science fiction story that involved the first human
spaceship to reach the edge of the universe. When they tried to go through
they bounced off, it was impenatrable.

Then we cut to 2 higher dimensional beings, and one says, "On that run it took
life only 14.7 gigayears to reach the edge."

The other one says, "Great! Let's do another run. Sterilize the medium."

~~~
Udo
:D That's a very funny story!

When I imagine an intelligent life form simulating the universe, it might as
well be a simple creature just pushing little stones from cell to cell across
a coordinate system drawn into the sand of an impossibly huge plain, using a
few very simple rules about where stones move on every single cell. And when
the creature gets to the last stone in the grid, it starts the same thing
again from the top.

This is also not my idea, I don't remember where I heard it first. But it's
appealing for several reasons. It illustrates that no intelligence is
necessary to run the universe. More fundamentally, however, it shows how a
higher-dimensional being might very well have no real concept of what goes on
in here. ;)

~~~
nvader
You're thinking of [http://xkcd.com/505/](http://xkcd.com/505/)

------
tjradcliffe
No: [http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1220](http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1220)

Or if we are, the universe simulating us has completely different physics from
the one we live in, which have to be fully specified before the "argument"
becomes remotely plausible.

~~~
shawnhermans
That doesn't prove or disprove anything. The author assumes the simulation
would have to simulate the entire known universe at the level of detail we
observe. That is absurd. A simulation wouldn't need to simulate the entire
universe, just what I am observing at that exact moment.

Think of it is lazy evaluation. The rules are all known, but they are not
evaluated until needed. If we have one single person, how hard would it be to
simulate every single input to that one person? You wouldn't need to simulate
an entire universe to do that.

Going back to what the author had to say, you wouldn't have to simulate the
state of every atom at every time. You only need to simulate when it is
measured. Interestingly, this syncs up with what we know about the quantum
world where measurement causes the state of the wave function to collapse.

Additionally, the author seems to assume the universe exists outside of
himself. He seems to trust the measurements and insights of scientific facts I
doubt that he has confirmed via his own observation. Even if he did confirm
all of them, this still doesn't prove the universe exists outside of what he
directly observes with his own senses.

By analogy, imagine you are a character in a video game. The video game
doesn't render the entire universe of the game. Only the portion of the game
the character is in at that moment. From the character's point of view, the
laws are consistent. The character could even try to postulate some universal
laws. Try to determine the size of their universe.

I am not saying the philosophers are right or wrong. I'm just saying there is
a lot more to the philosophy than the article covers.

~~~
tjradcliffe
> A simulation wouldn't need to simulate the entire universe, just what I am
> observing at that exact moment.

How do you know this? I've run a lot of simulations, and to get things exactly
right anywhere you need to compute everything everywhere. That at least is my
experience.

You've simply asserted that that is not the case, doing precisely what I'm
critiquing the original argument for: imagining a case where there's no
problem, and then asserting that case as a matter of fact.

As to Cartesian skepticism, it isn't even a self-consistent position: you want
me to take your argument seriously while simultaneously asserting that I don't
even know you exist.

------
uptown
I doubt anybody would bother programming Chia Pets in a simulation, so I'm
going with no.

~~~
odie88
Just because I was curious: Chia Pet mod for The Sims 1 with over 15k
downloads
[http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/7806](http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/7806)

------
O____________O
_(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant
number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)_

I've always thought this part was, by far, the most likely. It would be
unethical to create a simulation in which the simulated beings were
sophisticated enough to be self-aware and capable of significant suffering.
It's the same thing that's caused me to shift from "I don't believe in god" to
"I believe there probably isn't a god". For example, infants have been raped
in Africa due to the virgin cleansing myth, and every year thousands of people
kill themselves due to unmanageable misery. Not to mention the way that so
many people die of "natural" causes, e.g. drowning in their own phlegm only to
be revived by hospital staff for another go-around.

~~~
ccvannorman
>It would be unethical to create a simulation in which the simulated beings
were sophisticated enough to be self-aware and capable of significant
suffering

Well .. is it though?

What if everything is so blissful and boring in the future that people
intentionally torture themselves for decades at a time by experiencing "Earth-
sim" so that they can build character / enjoy the utopia they've created? Or
maybe this simulation is the rehabilitation track for criminals? There are a
number of reasons to "suffer" and suffering shouldn't be cast out as unethical
because we don't like it in the current context.

~~~
O____________O
_There are a number of reasons to "suffer" and suffering shouldn't be cast out
as unethical because we don't like it in the current context._

Please do provide some reasons why raping a day-old newborn infant wouldn't be
considered unethical.

------
tessierashpool
protip: if you substitute "in a computer simulation" with "inside some dude's
dream," you discover a vast amount of prior research on this topic was
conducted by everybody who ever smoked their first joint.

------
ccvannorman
One of my favorite books, Idlewilde, is about a simulation that we created for
just 9 people because the rest died of an incurable disease, and these 9 would
need to repopulate the human race. A very good reason to have a simulation in
my opinion. The book handles the wakeup in a pretty interesting way.

The best part is nested simulations -- if you're toying around with
simulations like Oculus Rift and then you wake up from Earth-sim, it starts to
become a game of "where the actual f_k am I really?"

------
hartator
I think I am the only one who think humans will never manage to build
something that complex.

Come on: (1) We still have to use humans for motion capture in order to make
3d realistic. (2) We still haven't come up with an IA to chat with. (3) We
still haven't figure out what's the smallest unit in the matter, if matter is
a thing.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
The reason you're the only one who thinks we can't is because you're limiting
the possibility of building something like that with todays technology.

1\. I'm not sure this is the case anymore but it certainly makes things
easier. Regardless, why do you think 3d motion can't improve?

2\. We have some but nothing that is a true AI. Many AI experts think a true
AI, most likely modeled after the human brain once better understood, is going
to happen in the next 50-100 years [from last I read, I am certainly no
expert]. Why do you think this can't happen when most seem to think it
eventually will?

3\. Every year science makes progress to test, image and discover things that
are very small. Right now string theory is a possibility that strings may be
smaller than atoms. Why do you think this cannot or will not be either proven
or disproven, ever?

------
briholt
So, in summary either (1) no, we don't; (2) no, we don't; or (3) yes, we do.

------
cnp
Author of this book as well:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dange...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dangers,_Strategies)

------
cayblood
For further exploration of some of the ramifications of this hypothesis, see
[http://www.new-god-argument.com/](http://www.new-god-argument.com/)

------
aceperry
Maybe I am.

 _Don 't_ unplug the computer!

~~~
miduil
Yes, but reboot the computer - updates are available. :)

~~~
r3bl
Lets be honest, we all admire those servers running a couple of years without
ever rebooting. Maybe our universe is inside one of them? :)

------
curiously
Well I don't believe we are in a computer simulation per say but I think there
are certain properties that certainly make it seem like we are.

For example, I believe that conciousness can transcend to anything. We could
just be some collective consciousness. When we are born we have no memory of
our previous life. When we die we have no memory of our current one. So this
suggest to me that it is entirely possible that we are continually living in
different bodies, different animals, different entities that collectively make
up reality.

For instance, I learned that even animals take drugs to get high when they are
stressed. That they feel affection and love just like humans. This tells me
that our conciousness is overrated. It also suggests to me that it could
entirely be possible that we live in some giant cess pool of conciousness,
some network of consciousness that is constantly reproducing and dying like
cells.

so if our concousness lives through different bodies over time, then it is
entirely possible that the current reality we live is also a transient state
of being.

it scares me how I came to know this and I'm not even on drugs or have done
drugs in a long time.

~~~
Udo
_> For example, I believe that conciousness can transcend to anything._

That's a religious argument unconnected to the question of whether our
universe is simulated or not.

 _> When we are born we have no memory of our previous life._

This presumes there _is_ such a thing as previous lives to begin with,
something for which no scientific evidence exists. Barring that, the problem
becomes the same as the question "why does a computer program I just wrote
have no memory of its previous existence?".

 _> So this suggest to me that it is entirely possible that we are continually
living in different bodies_

Step back a moment from this logical jump and try to imagine how someone
without your spiritual background might parse this conclusion. It comes from
out of nowhere, some might even say it's the opposite of what one would expect
to follow an observation like "When we die we have no memory of our current
one.".

 _> That they feel affection and love just like humans. This tells me that our
conciousness is overrated._

These observations about animals are not new, in fact most pet owners are
likely to see this as a trivial truism.

 _> so if our concousness lives through different bodies over time_

Another non sequitur. This observation doesn't follow from your chain of
arguments, it follows from a premise you started out with.

 _> then it is entirely possible that the current reality we live is also a
transient state of being_

Everything is transient, our existence is as ephemeral as the configuration of
our environment - this fact does not in itself mean anything. It sounds like
you're reserving a special place for humans or intelligent life in general,
but in actual fact the universe doesn't care about the existence of life one
way or the other. The presumption that consciousness is a basic physical force
constitutes a fundamental category error, it runs counter to everything we
know about physics.

In any case, this has no bearing on whether the universe is simulated or not:
the basic building blocks of reality do not make special exceptions for
brains. There is absolutely no expected difference between a mind running
within a computer-like system and a mind running on the "real" universe,
whatever that may be.

~~~
curiously
I really don't think a logical, academic review of what I think the reality is
of much use when in fact the very subject of what we are discussing is so
strange and hard to fathom in our heads but I'll play.

to me, if we were to believe that our our idea of ourselves is actually not
unique, that we are just a very large variation of the basic properties of
consciousness (something we can't really quite put a finger on), then it can
be said that we are in a simulation, for the same reason, you dream, you
daydream.

Our brain frequently runs simulations during these period of rest and animals
do as well. Why is it that we can be so convinced of our dreams as if it were
real? Why is it that they by themselves have no real beginning or an end, sort
of like our own existence? What if your life is just an episode of a dream?
Who's running the simulations? Why is it not just one continuous flowing
state? Why does it need to be disparate and seemingly discontinuous?

My view is that this is actually the most efficient state a simulation can
reach. If it was one giant cesspool of initial variables in one bubble it
would be pretty obvious for the inhabitants of the simulation to figure out
the walls quickly and before long question what's outside of it. The same
reason that we can realize we are dreaming and experience lucid dreaming. But,
we can't for the love of god find this wall in our own reality because our
brain through years of evolution by previous consciousness, have been designed
to find safety in numbers, fight or flight reflexes, gather or horde scarce
goods. Only when our innate animal like instincts are squelched can we
experience reality in it's rawest and purest form, something buddhist tibetian
monks often frequent, a higher form of understanding where they are able to
feel the whole range of human experiences without actually doing them because
they realize that it's actually our own consciousness that trap us into
realities that we create for ourselves.

Knowing that we can and create simulations of our own through dreaming, out of
will, help of substances or even meditation, it shows that at the outer level
our reality can be fluid and can take many different shapes or forms.

In the end, our own intelligence, our ability to find patterns out of chaos,
traps us into thinking that something that doesn't follow a rigid set of rules
or lack of data automatically mean that they don't exist, when in fact, such
narrow mindedness can only come from the choice to view reality and oneself
with the same set of practices used in laboratory or whatever environment
where such mentality has been useful.

I will say that even the latter situation is actually a simulation of it's
own, but much much worse kind, it's created and rigorously maintained by other
consciousnesses aimed at supressing all other views.

Quantumn theory suggests that we live in our own simulation create by us,
religious texts also suggests the same thing, you shape your own reality but
at the end of the day, it's lacking the same solid walls as the one you
create, it must be that the most efficient simulation is also one where every
possible permutation is achievable, that our collective human race is
literally a race towards achieving some enlightened status as a whole, that
through experiencing life in the myriad of lives, that our collective
consciousness will improve and become efficient, that it outlives all things
biological, it continues beyond even our own planet, maybe we are truly one
with the universe and everything it represents, we are simply the creation,
not of an external super intelligent aliens, not future versions of us running
Matrix 2.0 for shits and giggles but because it simply is the way it is
designed, the same way we discover math in our own reality, and how it reveals
answers, it must be that we are the simulation, not the simulatees or
simulators.

~~~
Udo
> _I really don 't think a logical, academic review of what I think the
> reality is of much use [...]_

If the line of reasoning precludes itself from factual considerations, there
might be very little point in discussing it other than perhaps for
entertainment. Because if we're consigning ourselves to exchanging arbitrary
stuff we simply made up, this becomes a collaborative fiction thread. Not that
this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do feel we should mark it as such. But
even in fiction there are rules - readers expect a certain amount of logical
consistency.

> _our idea of ourselves is actually not unique, that we are just a very large
> variation of the basic properties of consciousness (something we can 't
> really quite put a finger on), then it can be said that we are in a
> simulation, for the same reason, you dream_

Just because these statements appear in the same sentence doesn't mean they're
connected. If I understood correctly, you're asserting that: a) the human
experience is not unique, neither on the individual nor on the species level
and b) this experience is a variation of the basic properties of consciousness
even though nobody has any idea what that even means and _therefore_ c) it
follows that we are living in a simulation in which d) we're all daydreaming.
It's not difficult to see at which junctions your audience loses the ability
to follow along.

> _Only when our innate animal like instincts are squelched can we experience
> reality in it 's rawest and purest form, something buddhist tibetian monks
> often frequent_

It's true we can't much trust our senses and unaided intuitions at all. That's
why we have very cool sensors and mathematical models. You can't meditate your
way to scientific discovery.

> _such narrow mindedness can only come from the choice to view reality and
> oneself with the same set of practices used in laboratory or whatever
> environment where such mentality has been useful_

This is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what goes on in a
laboratory. The scientific process is not a mechanism designed to confirm
arbitrary postulates.

> _Quantumn theory suggests that we live in our own simulation create by us_

Here the onus would be on you to show how you came to that conclusion.

~~~
curiously
okay so what do you suggest or want out of this discussion? I'm afraid I don't
have answer to all your questions.

------
logn
We could be living in a multi-verse world. That's partly what the LHC
experiments are trying to discern. If there are infinitely many universes then
I think it would make it less likely we're in a simulation even if we are able
to create our own simulation.

~~~
throwaway420
> If there are infinitely many universes then I think it would make it less
> likely we're in a simulation

I'm not sure how this logically follows...why would this make it less likely?

~~~
logn
Say there are 100 universes. Suppose each universe has 1 in 100 chance of
making simulations and if they do they make 100. Your chances then of living
in a simulation are ~50%. It's much different than assuming a single universe
in which case the advent of simulations almost assures that you're living in
one (assuming the author's line of reasoning).

Edit: in summary the pace at which new universes arise could rival or exceed
the pace at which simulations could be created.

~~~
frozenport
Yes, but the cardinality of the multiverse is hard to grasp. There are
uncountably infinite universes, just as there are uncountably many points in
time. Every breath streams endless bifurcation.

~~~
drdeca
maybe measures would be more applicable than cardinalities?

If there are $\mathfrak{c}$ universes, it can still be meaningful I think to
say that one in ten of them contain a simulation (though, $\mathfrak{c}$ might
not be the right cardinality? Maybe $2^{\mathfrak{c}}$ would be closer? I'm
not sure.)

I suppose there is also the question as to whether to consider two identical
simulations in two different universes to be the same simulation or not, and
how to take that into account when considering the chances that one is in a
simulation or not.

