
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out - furcyd
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/opinion/sunday/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-lets-not-find-out.html
======
neilv
> _if our universe has been created by an advanced civilization for research
> purposes, then it is reasonable to assume that it is crucial to the
> researchers that we don’t find out that we’re in a simulation. If we were to
> prove that we live inside a simulation, this could cause our creators to
> terminate the simulation — to destroy our world._

Not necessarily. If we're in a simulation, then perhaps it's one that's a
young superbeing's primary school science fair project, designed before
they've learned much empathy.

If we're a child's school project, and we realize it, perhaps our best bet is
to display some conspicuous redeeming value. Or at least be interesting.

Maybe we become an anecdote that boosts little Sally/Bobby Superbeing's
application to a good superbeing college, and we end up preserved much longer,
in a box of nostalgia in their parents' attic.

That would explain a lot.

~~~
cgriswald
The best thing we could do if we knew we were in a child's school project
would be to cease computing immediately and never, ever run our own
simulation.

We can expect that energy is not free in the non-simulated universe. Through
various algorithms, there may be great energy-savings. For instance, until the
simulated advent of photometry, there was no need to simulate the relatively
minor movement of the stars relative to each other; a simple static jpeg of
the night sky would suffice.

When it comes to computing, as simulated beings improve their own
efficiencies, the savings from improved algorithms reduces for the simulators.
Eventually, any computing we do, the simulators will also have to do 1:1;
because our algorithm and their own will be identical. We get expensive fast.

Now imagine what happens when we run our own simulations. That's the same as
them running those simulations. Now if our simulations also run simulations,
and so on, you 'very quickly' have a huge energy requirement that, if you're
lucky, converges to a finite amount, but might not.

Now imagine you're the parents of this simulator child. :)

~~~
sgentle
> as simulated beings improve their own efficiencies, the savings from
> improved algorithms reduces for the simulators.

That is such a fascinating idea. A universe only running at the level of
abstraction we can understand it. Perhaps Newtonian physics was actually
complete until we forced the universe to bail out of that optimisation. Our
damned scientists, heedlessly consuming the precious redundancy left for us by
our simulators. You can see the cracks in reality already. God help us all if
they figure out quantum gravity.

~~~
hhjinks
> A universe only running at the level of abstraction we can understand it.
> Perhaps Newtonian physics was actually complete until we forced the universe
> to bail out of that optimisation

Very simply explained, that's literally quantum mechanics. Our reality changes
depending on how close we look at it. Some quantum/computer scientists have
gone so far as to say that reality "runs" extremely sophisticated quantum
error correction algorithms to stabilize something so fundamentally unstable
into our observable reality. It was even discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18817410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18817410)

------
tyre
I've never been entirely sure why this debate matters.

A simulation, at least as we'd understand it, would mean some kind of set
variables and set rules. It would be entirely deterministic, but you have to
run it to see what happens.

That kind of sounds like…physics?

You have some basic elements like atoms and energy plus some set rules like
conservation of mass, laws of thermodynamics, and the rest. Sure, we don't
know what's going to happen next, but it does seem entirely determined.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding physics or the simulation hypothesis here. It's
always seemed to me that we talk about a simulation as if it would be
different than what we have now.

~~~
incompatible
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.

~~~
ako
So what would it mean if there are gods of simulation? Most religions and gods
purely exist as a way to implement law and order: define what is good and bad,
and to manipulate people to behave accordingly (otherwise you will be punished
in hell).

Would simulation gods really be interested in us following good and bad rules,
or more interested to see what happens if people do as they want?

If this is a simulation, my assumption is that it is to test if any highly
intelligent and successful species is destined to destroy itself...

~~~
hansjorg
What if it's just a really detailed astrophysics simulation and any life is
just coincidental and without interest to the ones running the simulation.

~~~
mikestew
“What’s that?”

“What?”

“Over there, third planet out.”

“Oh, those. Yeah, some kind of bug. It usually fixes itself, often in quite
the fireworks at the end! Anyway, supposed to be fixed next version.”

------
mbil
I like the ancestor simulation theory and it's really fun to think about. But
I don't understand why humans specifically would be the thing to get
simulated. Couldn't we just be a bi-product of a universe created to simulate
something else? I mean imagine you wanted to simulate a universe -- given
enough computing resources you could simulate a universe's worth of atoms, and
humans might just be an accidental artifact of the atoms globbing together in
really fascinating ways.

~~~
kromem
Aren't we in the verge of creating AI? And we're kind of freaking out about if
they'll kill us all?

What if we could give them the experience of being human? Simulate the history
leading up to it, along the lines of "if you don't know your history you are
doomed to repeat it."

Split that larger AI into billions of tiny pieces to each experience love and
loss. To collectively experience EVERYTHING. To understand the full butterfly
effect of actions. To evolve an AI with the wisdom of a God.

Heck, maybe we even sprinkle hints into the simulation, broken up into pieces
across different geographies and eras. Do multiple religions talk about the
world being an illusion? About humans being made in God's image (maybe even
like imaging a drive)? Maybe that's all projection and BS...

...or maybe there was something to it all along.

Certainly if this simulation is recursive, the odds of it being "the"
simulation we are actually in is more likely than if it is not, and I do think
simulating ourselves collectively would be a smart way to develop a very wise
and forgiving AI that may just decided not to vaporize us the first chance it
gets.

So not only are we very likely in a simulation, it's likely we are AIs and we
are living through the lead up to our own creation.

~~~
azinman2
No, not in terms of AGI. We’re no where near it. Don’t believe the hype.. we
can just do what we previously could do, but more accurately. The truly hard
problems still have no solution in sight.

~~~
lostmsu
Seems to be a very poor argument. How do you know what humans do is not what
deep nets do now, but a bit more accurately?

~~~
azinman2
The complexity and variety of biology vastly outstrips anything like DNN — the
many types of cells, the chemical gradients, the types of connections, all the
massive varieties of support glues like Myelin sheaths and their effects, the
connectivity to nerves and our organs, our relationship and feedback loops
with bacteria... it goes on and on.

Just because DNNs are hot right now doesn’t mean much. If you follow machine
learning long enough, you’ll see hype cycles for various techniques. Neural
nets used to be hot in the 80s, until they weren’t, and now they are again.
Something else will come along soon enough. We use the techniques we do
usually because the math works out, not because it’s anything like how our
brains work.

~~~
lostmsu
In your previous argument you were comparing what nets did years ago vs now,
claiming the only difference is accuracy. Obviously, you either were referring
to the results (which now are clearly more accurate), not the methods, or you
incorrectly assumed nothing have changed in the methods.

In the first case, your new argument does not make sense, because the
complexity of implementation does not matter to the result, and there's a
clear improvement to it.

In the second case, I can assure you lots changed. The recent major things
being ReLUs, self-supervised learning and attention mechanisms.

~~~
azinman2
I haven’t stated nothing has changed — obviously much has to get better
results (and I wasn’t talking about just NN — the field is far bigger). But
fundamentally the types of problems being solved — identifying and segmenting
images, speech-to-text, etc, are the same. We haven’t gotten anywhere in terms
of _understanding_ what’s in that speech that just got turned into text, for
example. Sure models like BERT have more command of language than anything
previously, but it cannot be used in an AGI sense to make sense of a passage
at a fundamental level, or tell you _why_ something it “read” occurred.

~~~
dragonwriter
> We haven’t gotten anywhere in terms of _understanding_ what’s in that speech
> that just got turned into text, for example

What test is there to quantify understanding that has been used to determine
that it hasn't gotten better?

It seems to me that a lot of the things that are posed as hard things for AI
to do are poorly defined phenomenon which we have no empirical test for that
we simply infer to be explanations for observed behavior of humans that
critics assert that AI can't do without evidence or even a definition upon
which a search for evidence could be based.

------
danilocesar
Didn't we learn from past experiences that humanity isn't (and shouldn't) the
center of anything? Earth is not the center of the solar system, solar system
is not the center of galaxy and the universe don't care about us?

Why assume that we're the "center of the simulation"? Why simulate the whole
universe just to simulate us?

Maybe this is about simulate the universe expansion/contraction.

Maybe they are saying:

\- hey, look, there is this tiny little simulation quirk here and they found
out about the simulation.

\- can that little error affect the universe expansion simulation?

\- no, they are very marginal, small and useless.

\- so keep going.

So, that said: Nick's ideas and books are awesome. Everbody should read it.
But I just don't think we are that special, even if we're part of a
simulation.

~~~
cgriswald
I don't agree with Bostrom's argument and wrote an undergrad paper arguing
against it. I argued it from a physical point of view and I don't think we are
in a Bostrom-style simulation.

That said, if you accept that a Bostrom-style simulation is physically
possible, I think Bostrom is still right, and we would most likely be the
center of the simulation.

His basic argument is that if there is an original universe with humans, they
might like to simulate their ancestors. And they are likely to run many such
simulations, in at least some of which, humans survive. Those survivors, in
turn, are also likely to run many such simulations, etc. on down the line.
This means that such a high percentage of humans are simulated, that you'd
have nearly infinitely better odds of winning the lottery than being a non-
simulated human. To me, this means we _should_ conclude we are the center of
the simulation, since the fact that we exist implies we are probably in an
ancestor-simulation.

> Why simulate the whole universe just to simulate us?

> Maybe this is about simulate the universe expansion/contraction.

Why simulate the whole universe just to simulate the expansion/contraction?
There seems to be little need for conscious beings (or life at all), unless
life and/or conscious beings is required in some way to explain
expansion/contraction. (But if so, wouldn't that mean we ARE in fact the
'center of the simulation'?

~~~
dmichulke
> His basic argument is that if there is an original universe with humans,
> they might like to simulate their ancestors. And they are likely to run many
> such simulations, in at least some of which, humans survive. Those
> survivors, in turn, are also likely to run many such simulations, etc. on
> down the line.

I read somewhere that the smallest computer to simulate the universe
necessarily has the size of the universe.

This would that either the real universe contains much more information
(likely more than a few orders of magnitude more so that a trivial part of
that Ur-universe can be allocated to simulate our universe), or recursion is
not possible.

~~~
cgriswald
Even if humans were to colonize the entire Milky Way, the interactions between
two neutrons 13 billion light years away would still be completely outside the
scope of the simulation, because those interactions would have no hope of
being detected by a human. So you'll always have massive savings versus
simulating the entire universe.

It's really human computing where it all falls apart.

------
brianberns
> 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 simulation
from the inside in order to improve our lives in it.

~~~
mlb_hn
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.

~~~
bitL
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.

------
incompatible
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 distributed stars, and in ours they've
been grouped into galaxies. Perhaps if you were bored you'd try running it a
few thousand times on each setting to see if it makes a difference?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Maybe the rest of the universe is being cheaply simulated, the simulator only
computing what we observe. And it isn’t like it has to do anything for what is
outside of our observable universe.

~~~
mpoteat
It would explain the Fermi paradox.

~~~
vl
And Dark Mass and Dark Energy.

------
karmakaze
One thing that's kind of incredible is how simple all the hard questions are
to answer in the context of a simulation universe.

Origin check, god(s) check, propagation delays check. Wave function collapse
upon observation, check. Does a tree make a sound if no one is there to hear
it? No, not necessary.

We should be doing two things. Trying to create a simulation universe. Success
would make Elon's statement much more likely true than not. The other is make
predictions, not so much as to prove we're in one like looking for glitches,
but rather use the idea of being in a simulation to postulate testable ideas.

~~~
rapnie
> We should be doing two things

That is assuming there is a "we" and the simulation is not centered on you
alone.

~~~
karmakaze
The premise is that everyone is being simulated.. but maybe some observers are
present as avatars.

------
rland
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.

~~~
mpoteat
When was the last time you wrote perfect software? Personally never in my
case. The possibility of complex, provably correct software is pretty unlikely
I think due to fundamental logical reasons.

I think any ancestor researcher would have at least some bugs in their code.

~~~
bena
Like one that prevents us from being able to write perfect code?

------
putzdown
This argument always leaves me scratching my head. I can’t see a difference
between arguments for our living in a simulator and arguments for George
Berkeley’s Idealism. It really seems as if the simulator theory is an
atheistic rediscovery of theism, with the word “God” scratched out and the
word “aliens” or “future us” written in. And if so, there’s a very long
history of philosophy and theology—Descartes’s Meditations come to mind—that
can help inform our questioning and experimentation, not to mention ease (or
redirect) our fears.

~~~
bena
In many ways it is. It's a universe controlled by some outside force.

A universe in which the laws of physics can be suspended on a whim is a very
different one from one where it can't happen.

It would also be impossible to prove. As something with total control over the
universe can just turn back the clock, tweak some settings, and "fix the
glitch" if we ever found out.

We could have been started last Thursday and we'd never know.

~~~
lanstin
Arguably a complete simulation of all physics is easier than a simulation that
has detailed memories of last week (plus fossils and microwave background
radiation) without actually simulating last week/evolution/Big Bang. In other
words for similar reasons that we can stop worrying that God just created us
just now (or that you are all just dream people etc.) we can stop worrying
that Wednesday didn’t happen. In some Maths sense if Wednesday had to be fully
calculated for today to be rendered then it happened.

------
Veedrac
For people actually interested in the topic rather than painfully bad pop-sci
reenactments, you should read the simulation paper[1], or, for a less
technical introduction, watch the video of Bostrom talking about it[2].

[1] [https://www.simulation-
argument.com/simulation.html](https://www.simulation-
argument.com/simulation.html)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs)

------
aiProgMach
Life and self awareness is great argument against this theory. But it looks
like some dudes get offended by arguments like that for some (known) reason
:). Actually the critical part of life in simulation argument is the First
person perspective of conscious living things such as ... yourself. Simulation
in our world is mathematical mocking of some physical laws, it works on
information level, so it's not creating anything. The moment you say that a
simulation created life/self aware beings you are not talking about simulation
anymore. You're just talking about different creation theory which looks like
a simulation except that it's not working with simulated objects but very real
things and it doesn't matter here what you call this. I hope that people
understand that self-awareness is strong enough argument that's capable of
debunking many nonsense theories (simulation, illusion of freewill...).

~~~
retreatguru
What if self awareness remains true as impossible to simulate but what is
simulated is our physical reality?

~~~
aiProgMach
Maybe. But if agreed that we are "real", then we are back to the very old
"discussion" about the reality and how we understand it. I think the only part
that makes the simulation theory somehow new is the part that makes everything
including ourselves an unreal existence, it's not like the first time the
humans questions their reality.

------
wskinner
This argument resembles Pascal’s Wager in the contradictory assumptions it
makes about the beings running the simulation. Perhaps the forthcoming paper
will resolve the issue. For those interested in exploring what it would mean
to live a simulated life in a simulated world, the novel Permutation City by
Greg Egan is wonderful.

------
vl
>While there would be considerable value in learning that we live in a
computer simulation.

There is no value, what would most of the people do differently if they knew?
Nothing.

Also, apart from the questionable idea that we are central to the simulation,
there are many possible ways (unknown to us) simulation detection can be
handled:

    
    
      * Impossible to detect due to well-executed software.
      * Impossible to detect due to counter-detection and counter-measures.
      * They don’t care if simulation is detected.
      * They expect simulation to be detected, and this is the topic of the study.
    

And at the end of the day, even if you write an article arguing agains the
detection, people still will try to do it.

------
everyone
"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.

~~~
faissaloo
Agreed, our reality has limits, we would not be able to replicate our own
reality within an already limited reality.

------
calf
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.

~~~
sysbin
How did you come to the ethical obligation for the creator to shut down the
simulation? I've thought of this before and I agree with the shut it down. So
many lives were painful, tortured, experimented on, and in the simulation we
exist in. If our simulation every becomes a heaven, well it's the product of a
lot of pain & suffering of lives that didn't have any choice. So it seems like
the best thing to do is delete everything.

Your second point about emancipate us as artificial life forms in their
reality is interesting. That's like the religious ideology of people going to
heaven. Except with knowing how many people suffered in our simulation.. would
we want to end up with our creators?

~~~
newsbinator
Could our simulation ever become "heaven", or just seem like heaven, because
we're programmed to think of it that way?

In other words, if you create a creature who thinks of being beaten with
sticks as heaven, and then you proceed to beat that creature with sticks, are
you providing heaven?

~~~
sysbin
Well, I guess your assertion is right. Whatever we were to think as heaven
would just be what we were programmed to think overtime.

------
inflatableDodo
Well, the current American ambassador to the UK is Woody Johnson, UKIP have
just elected Dick Braine and government leaks are brought to us by Reality
Winner, so if it is a simulation, the writers are busy dropping clues.

~~~
Digit-Al
Sweet mercy. I completely missed the Dick Braine thing. It's like the party
have been taken over by masochists who derive sexual pleasure from being
mocked. If I were a Brexiter I would be highly embarrassed at being
represented by that bunch of incompetents.

~~~
inflatableDodo
>It's like the party have been taken over by masochists who derive sexual
pleasure from being mocked.

That could describe a lot of modern politics. Is almost spot on for Boris.
Perhaps they are having a contest to see who can go lowest.

------
asdvxgxasjab
Extending Bostrom's analysis, it would seem likely that there would have been
millions of simulations before us. It seems statistically unlikely none of
them would've discovered they were being simulated if we end up being able to
discover it. So would they not have repaired the issue? Why waste the
resources to conduct another simulation when you know there is a loophole in
its detectability?

------
karmakaze
> In 2003, the philosopher Nick Bostrom made an ingenious argument that we
> might be living in a computer simulation [...]

This part isn't novel as it was written about in Simulacron-3 (1964) and one
of my fave films[0] (excuse the graphics, good story).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor)
(1999)

~~~
cgriswald
That's a bit like saying the iPhone isn't novel because Star Trek: The Next
Generation had the PADD.

The article misrepresents Bostrom a bit there, however. Bostrom's argument is
not that we 'could be' in a simulation, but that we are so likely to be in a
simulation that the probability is essentially 1.

~~~
lanstin
No doubt part of the iphones appeal was that it was a Star Trek type device.
One of my early apps I downloaded was a tricorder type UI showing the
different sensors and so on. Even had the no doubt copyrighted noises.

------
truckerbill
'To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'

~~~
fxj
It is interesting that each epoch had an image of the universe that correlated
closely to their current technological state. Not so long ago people thought
about a mechanical universe. So now because computers are pervasive we think
about a digital universe. What will be the next wave? A biological universe
made out of a mycel which behaves like a giant deep learning neural network?

------
gremlinsinc
Why would it be disastrous? If we are just computer bits/bytes then are we
really as valuable as we claim? Is our life still valuable?

Our claim is that humanity is the most valuable thing in the universe right
now because as far as we know we're the only life with intelligence. If we're
just computer bytes then we're not even human, we're AI's a dime a dozen at
that, and it's even then possible that we might even be in a nested simulation
of another simulated universe which could go on and on making us even less and
less unique.

I mean, I love my kids and want to live for them and see all their moments --
but as a collective species if we are just simulated it doesn't seem so bad
then if the lights go out on all of us as we aren't even real. It's not the
end of the world, since we're just bits in a computer in the real world.

------
xamuel
I'll take this opportunity to plug a short paper of mine, "A type of
simulation which some empirical evidence suggests we don't live in":
[https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf](https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf)

~~~
lorepieri
Thanks for sharing.

------
mkagenius
Talking about we being in simulation will go down in history as the "era of
stupid thoughts"

~~~
longsangstan
Do you have any argument against this "stupid thought"?

~~~
mkagenius
It's the equivalent of people arguing there is a "god", a supreme power which
decides everything for us. It's a figment of our imagination, germinating from
our hunter gatherer days where a leader was in control of the gang and decided
everything for all the members.

------
HillaryBriss
If having simulated beings who prove they're in a simulation is a failure
mode, then the super beings would not be running those simulations any more.
They've programmed that fatal bug out. What are the odds we're in such a
simulation? Exceedingly low.

------
lucasyvas
I've thought about this at length.

The most compelling reason I've thought of to create a simulation of the
universe is obvious - to learn about it. To see possible futures and discover
things organically.

Then I thought, "this is super complicated." Why would you do this, as you
probably had to have the answers to the universe to begin with.

 _Then_ I started thinking like a programmer. If you can somehow find or guess
the initial conditions to the universe, that would be enough to have it play
out in some useful variation.

We still have a lot of work to do to get to the point where you could make
reasonable guesses, but finding out everything on our own would probably take
an insane amount of time and we'd be extinct by then.

------
everyone
In the article they hypothesize that the simulation's purpose could be a
historical / social one, hence humans..

But that seems like a quite anthropocentric idea. I think it would be less
presumptive to theorize that the simulations' purpose is pure physics or math,
or something else entirely, and life and humans are just an emergent
phenomena.

So basically, the exact same way of thinking as in conventional
cosmology/physics _without_ assuming we are in a simulation, according to the
anthropic principle.

Also, why does the universe we experience need to be an actual representation
of the simulation? Maybe the universe we experience is just a by-product of
all that computation.

------
nightsd01
What if this very article in the NYTimes was enough to get our universe
suspended (because of course even The Architects read the NYTimes).

This is hilarious, the NYTimes is the last place I’d expect to read such a
metaphysical philosophical piece.

------
coleifer
Who cares, because eventually the buck stops somewhere. In other words, it
doesn't matter how many layers of simulations there are, because at the top
presumably there's a "reality". It's easiest to just assume that's where we're
at, but if not, all the questions we ask about the nature of
reality/life/being are still just as valid (even if we're operating at some
remove from it).

~~~
lanstin
Why need there be a top layer? Certainly it meshes with our evolution provided
common sense but what makes it necessarily true? Some philosophy that abhors a
completed infinity?

------
rapnie
There is a lot of talk about "we" in this thread, and that is comforting.

But talking about simulations, who knows, life might just be a single-player
game.

------
carlosr2
Well, I think that if we ever get to find out that we are in a simulation run
by some advanced civilisation, gods or whatever, it doesn't mean that they
automatically will shut down. There's some value in knowing what people would
do if they realize that they are in a simulation. At least I would like to see
how people change how they live or how they are trying to contact.

------
LogicalBorg
I think there are two versions of the simulation hypothesis. The first version
is that we are in a simulation that is run in the future with ourselves as
ancestors. The second version is that we're simulated by aliens.

The first version seems wrong to me. Time is not a random variable. Either it
is really the year 2019 and no such simulations of 2019 exist yet, or it is
really the year 2100 and the year 2019 doesn't exist anymore. You can't choose
at random between different years since they don't exist at the same time.

The alien version doesn't have that problem but it's also implausible since
aliens have not been proven to exist and there is no particular reason for
aliens to simulate us.

This discussion reminds me of Elon Musk's interest in traveling to Mars.
Imagine you want to go to Mars and are too lazy to build a rocket to go there.
So instead you go out to the desert to a place that looks exactly like Mars.
Then you say this place in the desert looks exactly like a million places on
Mars. You pick a place at random, which means that you inevitably pick a place
on Mars. Then you say, "The odds are a million to one that I'm not standing on
Mars right now! Because I picked Mars!"

That argument is just as bogus as the simulation argument. Probability isn't a
cheap form of space travel and it's not a cheap form of time travel either. If
you want to stand on Mars you're going to have to build an actual rocket and
go there, not a probability experiment. If you want to experience virtual
reality you're going to have to build it. You can't just probability it into
existence by wishful thinking.

~~~
vchak1
Neither, IMHO. The thing doing the simulation need not exist inside the
simulation, or have any physical resemblance to any concept inside the
simulation.

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ve55
I would just view this as 'part of the simulation'.

If you assume with high probability that we're in a simulation, then the
simulators are intelligent enough to predict that we may become aware of this
eventually. If they're interested in human behavior, questioning our reality
is part of it, not an exception.

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8bitsrule
In the movie 'Tron', it was important to the programs to learn that the users
exist so that they would free themselves from the tyranny of the MCP, and
communicate with their users again.

After all, 'The MCP forces programs that resist to play in deadly games'. That
sounds familiar.

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bwang29
Would it be more interesting to the experimenter that the simulation itself is
aware of the simulation, and what real incentive there is to terminate the
simulation just because the simulated knew they're simulated? What if it's
also part of the goal of the simulation.

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kromem
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.

~~~
chc-sc
What if the religious scripture is a lot more true than some people give it
credit for?-- i.e. that it's the story of our ancestors interacting with the
creators of the simulation

~~~
hombre_fatal
Surely our religious texts would be a lot more interesting in that case, just
as they would be if actually influenced by an omniscient being.

Instead we have texts that contain nothing that couldn't have been written by
the humans of that time.

~~~
mensetmanusman
It’s impossible to identify writing that couldn’t not have been written by
humans.

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analog31
I do relatively small simulations, yet I don't examine the contents of every
variable. Maybe we're stuck in a simulation, and the gods don't even know
we're here. Why should they care?

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lota-putty
Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live (2013) :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20661495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20661495)

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jayalpha
[https://www.simulation-argument.com](https://www.simulation-argument.com)

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olaf
highly unlikely, so unlikely, that it’s not worth discussing IMHO.

OTH, Elon ... maybe believing that you can game the system helps sometimes ...
(significantly)

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kpU8efre7r
This idea has the same amount of supportive evidence as the rest of the
creation myths.

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crimsonalucard
It's like the creationist argument but inverse. If a thing has sufficient
complexity it must be made. Hence we must be made, hence there is a god.

Like how there's flaws to the above argument there's flaws to the simulation
argument.

I can create simulations of my universe and my simulations can create
simulations of their universe and this can continue on an infinite chain
therefore I am in a simulation by probability.

Where is the flaw? Let me apply the same argument to 3d printers. 3d printers
can print clones and in turn the clones can also print 3d printers then by
probability it is very likely that 3d printers are made by other 3d printers.

Well that's not the case in reality. 3d printers come from all kinds of
sources and right now, most of the time it comes from a factory.

Why is this the case? Because the 3d printers ability to make other 3d
printers does not effect the probability of it's own origins. Just like how
the universes ability to create simulations of itself does not affect that it
itself is a simulation.

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faissaloo
I find this question extremely nonsensical, of course we live in a simulation,
not necessarily a 'computer' simulation but a simulation nonetheless. It's not
like we simply 'exist', there is quite obviously something supporting our
continued existence or our existence would make no sense.

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tzakrajs
Without paywall: [https://newslanes.com/2019/08/11/are-we-living-in-a-
computer...](https://newslanes.com/2019/08/11/are-we-living-in-a-computer-
simulation-lets-not-find-out/)

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mandeepj
A simulation can’t have living objects

~~~
paranoidrobot
Says whom? And define 'living'? At very low levels even living things appear
to be machinery[1].

[1]
[https://www.ted.com/talks/david_bolinsky_animates_a_cell?lan...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_bolinsky_animates_a_cell?language=en)

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sysbin
I'm a hard determinist and so I view everything very much as a simulation.

Responsibility for everything follows the chain of events back to whatever
started everything.

You can't even blame the creator of this "simulation" if such a creator exists
because you would have to continuously follow the chain of events again with
the creator.

I do like to theorize there are many chains of simulations that resemble a
tree of branches (each being a simulation) but maybe with no starting point.
Example we may make our own universe one day with computers and another will
be created inside that simulation for infinity.

In any case, I like to add the understanding of infinity to these ideas of
philosophy. Knowing we're all just the result of external forces exerted upon
us. One can realize that we likely have lived our same life countless times.
Who knows if something in the universe can interfere like hidden local
variables that resemble quantum mechanics for us and make our lives slightly
different in the next go. Worsening or improving our fate as the forces
continuously repeat for infinity.

I find the idea "the chain of forces that made our life, will never repeat
ever again in our universe" tremendously naive.

Whoever disagrees with what I wrote, please reply with your thoughts. I very
much stay sane when it comes to death with this ideology. Everything else
seems illogical.

~~~
faissaloo
You would not have to follow the causal chain if the creator was uncreated,
but nonetheless He would be blameless because He would answer to no one.

~~~
sysbin
I think it would be blameless because of determinism and even if uncreated.

