Maki Naro and Matthew Francis make an interesting argument against the simulation hypothesis, the idea that we’re all constructs living in a super-duper computer program. I don’t believe in that nonsense at all, but I don’t know that I find his argument particularly persuasive: it rests largely on the idea that the simulation hypothesis implies that undesirable consequences must be the product of intent.
Then I look at the crude simulations we currently produce, like, say, Call of Duty, and I’d have to argue that yeah, if we were the creators of a universal simulator, it would be a shithole universe full of helpless innocents and murderous villains, all intended to be targets of a small number of privileged a-holes with superpowers, and I think that is kind of in alignment with what we see in this world.
I’d also worry about where that argument would lead: to the idea that obviously the wealthy and well-off are the player characters for whom the world was made, while being poor and sick and helpless clearly marks one as an NPC, with no real agency and only the simulated appearance of being a ‘real’ person.
What I find the more useful argument is to go back to the beginning of Naro’s comic, where he quotes Elon Musk:
That is the wrong question. He asserts The odds we’re in base reality is one in billions.
Instead we should ask, “what simulated ass did you pull those odds out of?”, because he’s got no rational justification for that claim. We could just as well claim that since we can imagine billions of gods, the odds that we evolved by way of natural mechanisms, rather than some divine fiat, is one in billions. It’s simply faulty reasoning. The responsibility does not lie on me to show why his fantasy is false, it’s on him and Nick Bostrom to demonstrate some actual evidence that it is true.
Then, of course, there’s some babbling about how if the simulation hypothesis is true, we should look for glitches in the matrix, little examples deep inside physics where we detect violations of natural law. This is exactly backwards. First you find observations that don’t fit predictions from existing theory, then you develop alternative theories to accommodate those observations — you don’t first invent an unfounded hypothesis and demand expensive, difficult, unlikely-to-succeed experiments to justify it. Especially since the simulation hypothesis is infinitely flexible and can be contorted to fit any observation made. Is there anything the promoters of this bullshit can imagine that would disprove their hypothesis? That’s what they ought to be discussing, rather than how they can twist quantum physics to support their model.
Then there’s this:
While being completely unable to imagine any test of their idea, and building it entirely on a framework of speculation, they still lock themselves into a bogus binary: civilizations will either be able to simulate a universe, or they’ll go extinct. Seriously, dude? You’re living in a non-extinct civilization that can’t simulate a universe, and you can’t imagine any other alternatives?
I also have to point out that all civilizations and species will ultimately go extinct, so this argument is basically between an inevitable and unavoidable (if undesirable) outcome, and accepting your personal, idiosyncratic, weird notion. No problem.
“You should hope that I’m right, because either we’re going to build a chrysalis made of the skins of kitty cats and puppy dogs and metamorphose into angelic beings of pure light, or you’re going to die someday.” I don’t like it, but we’re all going to die someday, and going on a rampage and slaughtering kittens and puppies is not a logical alternative at all.
One thing Naro’s comic does illustrate well, though, is the elitist psychology of tech billionaires.
I was finally convinced that we live in a simulation when Trump won. I simply cannot comprehend how anyone who’s not a racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbecile could have voted for a racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbecile. But 62 million did. 62 million! Yeah, more voted against him, but 62 million voted for him. That can only mean that 62 million people in this country are racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbeciles. But this can’t be right; I’m told by many respected commentators that most of these people are decent, hard working Americans but just disregarded all the racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist rhetoric, plus the pussy grabbing and bragging about it, to vote for a racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist because they are worried about insurance premiums or whatnot. But this can’t be right either. Who does that? In what universe this many people can blithely disregard racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist rhetoric, plus the pussy grabbing and bragging about it? So do you see my problem? Reality as is constituted makes zero sense to me. 62 million of my fellow citizens are either racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbeciles or are willing to vote for a racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbecile, which really makes them racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbeciles. I can’t escape this thought and I cannot absorb it either. Denial, disbelief, cognitive dissonance, all bundled together, driving me bonkers. Arg! Ergo, reality must be some simulation engineered by a racist, sexist, xenophobic, islamophobic, fascist imbecile. In a weird way it’s sort of comforting. Just sayin.
I don’t understand what’s wrong with generating a testable hypothesis based on pure theorizing. It’s a bad use of resources to run expensive tests if the theory is bad, but it’s perfectly sound science.
So what if we are living in a simulation? What difference does it make?
“Pure theorizing” is not science. Without some empirical foundation, it’s simply not any kind of science…and it’s disgraceful to pretend it is.
I was gonna chime in and say that this is similar bullshit to Drake’s equation, but by the end of your post I realized that it basically IS Drake’s equation. Or rather a corollary.
His reasoning is that there must be essentially infinitely many intelligent species out there, by Drake’s equation. Multiply that by the probability that a species creates a virtual reality, and you conclude that there must be many, many virtual realities out there. Only then does he ask, “If you find yourself existing, what is the probability that you exist in a virtual reality?” Since there’s only one reality, and “billions” of virtual realities, the probability is one in billions.
PZ, I’m not sure but from your last paragraph it seems you might have missed a link in Musk’s reasoning. If you accept the pure bullshit of the previous paragraph, then it becomes an obvious corollary: since we are in a virtual reality with a probability of billions to 1, it follows that this virtual world must be indistinguishable from reality (if in fact we can’t manage to distinguish it). Therefore most virtual worlds must be indistinguishable from reality, by a similar probabilistic argument, including the ones we will make — if we survive long enough to make one.
The whole thing is bullshit, but it all follows pretty well once you accept the bullshit premises underlying Drake’s equation.
#5 “The whole thing is bullshit, but it all follows pretty well once you accept the bullshit premises underlying Drake’s equation.”
We have a phrase locally when asked for directions “You dont want to start from here!” which sums it up really – if you start from the wrong place you are not going anywhere. I can write a program which will create me 10 billion different realities on my PC every second – doesnt mean I’m inside the overheating piece of silicon shit any more than just because an argument has two things logically linked is somehow a good one.
Wait, how does that follow? If we live in a virtual world, how do we know what reality looks like? And if it’s indistibguishable from reality, what does it even matter?
They may be twisting QM with the “observer effect” misunderstanding of QM,
I still am bamboozled into thinking the basis of QM is an argument FOR simulation theory.
Meaning, the fact that energy states are quantized, rather than continuous, strongly appear like values in computers that are represented as binary numbers with finite resolution rather than “real” numbers that require infinite resolution to represent. For example (1/3) cannot be represented accurately digitally. 0.333333… is impossible to represent exactly in a computer, only approximately. This easily leads to association with quantum mechanics.
okay, I know this idea has been ‘debunked many times’, still… I give up. Personally, I see it as in the gray zone of “maybe” (where maybe is literal, ie neither version preferred. Neither the colloquial, positive “may be”; nor the negative “may be not”, as in ‘totally neutral’)
[so tongue tied, garble dee gook]
Why is living in a simulation a good thing? After all the beings running the simulation could decide to stop it running at any time for a bunch of reasons, like it’s shown them what they want, Simulation 2.6 has just come out with new features etc.
The attraction of “simulation theory” (personally) is possibility of going all Neo, ala The Matrix
(or similar to Dr Strange ala Cumberbatch) where knowing it’s a simulation, we can find an insider hook to manipulate the sim to apparently start doing “magic” by changing the parameters to our own wishes. *twirling hands*
The simulation hypothesis absolutely depends on computers, and if you know even 1% about computers, it is a non-starter.
The idea is that you can have infinitely nested realities. OK, zip a zip file. Zip it again. Notice how it doesn’t get any smaller?
Even in the world of pure information, you can’t fit big things inside of small ones. Real reality will always be the biggest thing everywhere. Your odds of being in a simulation are the ratio of Super Marios in the universe to the number of real worlds in all the galaxies everywhere. IE effectively zero.
@19: but isn’t the difference between simulation “theory” and Matrix that the people in the Matrix are real and living in a simulation, but in simulation “theory” they are part of the simulation? That would make Neo’s magic impossible, wouldn’t it?
To those whose latest achievement is earthenware, God moulds humankind from clay. Those who rely on gears, cams and chains view her as the winder of the celestial key and argue over whether the mechanism is perfect, or whether she needs to tinker with it now and again. Those who prefer to rely in Pure Intellect™ like to postulate that we’re nought but a dream in the mind of the great philosopher. Those who’ve created computers postulate their god as a heavenly hacker.
As ever, we make our gods in our own image.
“The odds we’re in base reality is one in billions. Tell me what’s wrong with that argument.”
Okay. I’ve got a deck of cards here. I shuffle it thoroughly, and deal one card face up. It’s the three of diamonds. The odds I’d get that specific card are 1 in 56 (since I didn’t remove the jokers or the two advertising cards).
I deal a second card, which is the eight of clubs. The odds I’d get that exact sequence – 3♦ followed by 8♣ – are 1 in 3,080. A third card, the jack of diamonds. The odds for dealing the sequence [ 3♦ 8♣ J♦ ] are 1 in 166,320.
I deal the entire deck in this manner. The odds of having arrived at the exact sequence laid out on the table in front of me are 1 in 7.1099859^74 – significantly lower than a mere “one in billions” – and yet it occurred.
What’s wrong with the argument is that it simplistically assumes that odds of “one in a big number” are convincing proof that something hasn’t happened. And, as has already been pointed out, “one in billions” doesn’t appear be tied to any measurable data. (And, also, like all those “proofs” of God’s existence, it’s merely a philosophical argument unburdened by anything so mundane as evidence.)
I will believe we’re all in a simulation when someone opens up a debug console. Until then, it’s pointless speculation that’s really only useful for making amusing fiction.
PZ:
Okay, but “some” is not “all.” Scientific theorizing is not (except perhaps in rare circumstances) “purely” grounded in an empirical foundation either. You regularly find that one assumption or another eventually pops out, which not only wasn’t supported by evidence but is found to be contradicted by evidence. The latter is when many begin to insist that something is definitely wrong and needs to change, not necessarily when support isn’t yet clear or isn’t firmly established. Sometimes ideas apparently need to percolate for a long while (sometimes extremely long, like atomism for instance) before they’re even clear enough to put into the form of a testable or falsifiable hypothesis…. So one question is what those things were before/during that period, and secondly why it’s supposed to be disgraceful or shameful somehow that it went through a process like that (or why such things ought to be considered off-limits).
I would agree with qwints (if I’m interpreting them well) that such ideas can be developed through whatever (empirical or non-empirical) processes or styles of reasoning you like. Testing hypotheses against evidence is just another, different step that can happen at any time (repeatedly, one hopes, if not conclusively), independently of how you simply came up with an idea in the first place (maybe in a dream/hallucination/etc., while you were thinking about something you considered analogous, or however ideas may spawn for numerous different people who just happen to be thinking about the world).
Anyway, the simulation argument isn’t “purely” theoretical, if we take that to mean that we have no evidence whatsoever of intelligent agents making simulations of any sort, because of course we do have evidence like that. You weren’t incapable of coming up with an example of your own, like Call of Duty, and there’s no shortage of still very crude but somewhat better examples. That’s a piece of evidence, which you took to be suggestive about what we can already do, what simulations would be like in some relevant respects, what the creators of those simulations may or may not be intending, and so on. If that kind of stuff is on the table for you or me or others who don’t believe we’re in a simulation, then I don’t see why it can’t just as well form some part of the case made by its proponents.
The fact that they’re extrapolating very wildly from what the evidence implies looks like the major problem to me, not that they (and we) have none whatsoever and therefore can’t be using this thing which supposedly doesn’t exist. I mean, in a lot of important senses, this isn’t like Newton thinking this gravity stuff here on Earth is the same thing that’s responsible for planetary motion; but in a much more bullshitty way, it is taking mundane facts about us here and supposing those may apply on a more universal scale. That’s not always the wrong approach to take, and it can (understandably, I think) be a little tricky for some people to see why it doesn’t work well in this particular case.
I’d say it’s more like the Boltzmann Brain problem. Not so many fudge-factor variables doing most of the work, like the Drake equation. It’s also specifically about the apparent odds of being in a reality vs. an illusory reality, where (unlike aliens on other planets) there’s uncertainty about whether you can even distinguish between the two. Illusory situations are supposed to be more frequent than real ones, so we’re encouraged to adhere to something like the Copernican principle and consider ourselves to be in an illusory situation. All of the same basic building blocks in both cases. In contrast, an alien civilization wouldn’t be illusory, and you’re not led to believe that evidence like your memories and “direct” sensory experiences and so on could be consistent with either scenario.
Isn’t it overwhelmingly likely that we’re simulated Boltzmann brains (in a vat, in an evil demon’s dream, etc.)?
slithey tove @8:
The spectra of complicated systems with many moving parts (like the sun) can certainly be continuous. Even spectral lines of atoms have a natural width. So, not so readily amenable to digitalization…
Daz @ 13:
Yep, and that’s all this nonsense ever was, and remains.
You can have analog computers anyway. Our brains might be a good example, but there are also plenty of notable examples of the technological sort. And there’s no need for computers (in the most general sense) to use binary or to have nearly any other features which (most of) our modern computers happen to have.
#16: Nor would I ever argue that theory is unimportant, or that you can do everything with just data.
However, you must have an evidence-based reason for advancing a hypothesis, and there has to be some logical necessity to advance your explanation. That “Call of Duty” exists is no more an argument for the necessity of our existence being a simulation than the fact that some insects metamorphose implies that humans must be capable of metamorphosis.
consciousness razor @ 16, that’s what I was getting at.
PZ, I just disagree about the validity of using abstract reasoning to generate hypothesis. Think about Galileo’s split rock connected by a string or Newton’s cannonball or Einstein’s train – they’re all abstract thought experiments that did real scientific work despite not being initially based on empirical observation.
Rule #1: Never trust a probability calculation done by a simulated entity or Boltzmann brain regarding its own existence. End of discussion.
And here he crosses into blatantly religious argument.
“We should be hopeful that this is God’s creation, because otherwise… either we’re gonna be a part of a grand plan, or life is temporary and ultimately meaningless.”
He may as well have said “I believe it to be true because I want it to be true.”
Thought experiments are fine, providing they lead to an understanding of the data.
Nothing in the simulation idea (it isn’t a theory) leads to any understanding of reality. It is a thought experiment without any data, before or after, to back it up.
Just to be totally clear, I think simulation arguments fail on evidential and logical grounds.
But if you agree that properly-done science isn’t always, from the beginning and at every step, grounded in empirical evidence, then you’ve bought into that and now we’re “just haggling about the price” as they say. You should be haggling, of course, because it’s important that we get a good deal. But pretending like we’re above it all and have some idealized, perfect version of science at our disposal isn’t the way to go.
I don’t even know what field to put this in — cosmology, computer science, cognitive science, all of the above?? — but whatever it is isn’t good, reliable science. It just seems exaggerated to claim it’s completely unsupported by anything in the world. Or that it’s “nonsense.” Or that it’s just as unwarranted as claiming “humans must be capable of metamorphosis.” We actually do have abundant evidence that we’re not capable of metamorphosis (never mind what we must be capable of), and we don’t have anything convenient like that to appeal to which would contradict a simulation. The trouble is that there are only extremely unimpressive little bits that could hint that maybe we’re in a simulation, which are nowhere near enough to rationally support a conclusion like that.
#22
But they were based on empirical observation! Newton’s cannonball for example was based on the observed phenomenon of gravity, in which propelled objects were found to fall in a parabolic curve. His theorising was simply an extension of those observations.
Hold up.
You can’t just equivocate between simulating a universe and creating one. A simulation models a universe. A sufficiently advanced simulation models a universe with significant detail. But none of them actually create a universe. Call of Duty is consequence-free not because the NPCs “deserve” to be killed but because they aren’t real; they’re just depictions. There doesn’t seem to be any qualitative difference between a computer simulation of a universe, a picture of a universe, and simply imagining a universe, so why would the first one be considered an actual physical universe whose depicted inhabitants might be real people who think and wonder about the nature of their universe?
If we exist, then we aren’t the products of a simulation, unless you want to stretch the definition to the point where anything we make, build, or do is a “simulation.”
Chinese Universe Hypothesis:
Suppose we are in a “simulation” and our entire universe is the product of a computer program.
Have someone in the “base reality” print out the program and execute it by hand. Has that person created a second universe? If the computer stops running, can our universe be continued indefinitely by “base reality” people manually running the program on paper for generation after generation?
See also: XKCD Rock Universe.
Daz@13
I was thinking the same thing – in the 18th century accurate mechanical watches and clocks were cutting-edge technology so thinkers of the time imagined the universe as a vast finely-tuned watch and God as a watchmaker. Today, computer simulations are cutting edge technology so thinkers imagine the universe as a vast simulation and God as the programmer.
On a different note, though, I’m not sure what’s BS about the Drake equation. It’s just a way of trying to figure out how common intelligent life is, and we don’t even know the values of most of the variables. It doesn’t say that intelligent life is common or rare.
This sounds to me like a nerds extrapolation of John Searle’s Brains in a vat problem, which had nothing to do with the issues at hand.
Simply an extension, eh?
Note that many thought experiments are not like this, yet they are often accepted in theoretical sciences. At first I thought “Galileo’s split rocks” was a misplaced reference to Newton’s rotating spheres connected by a cord,* which nobody can do since it requires a universe with only two spheres (or a whole lot of empty space nearby that we also don’t have). However, Newton’s bucket argument that reaches the same conclusion is easy enough, which doesn’t imply the former is a bad argument.
* But it was apparently Galileo’s falling spheres at Pisa, which may not be a real experiment either. I’m sure Galileo’s ship was going way past the actual observational evidence too, because believe it or not he did not test literally all physical phenomena in a 16th/17th- century boat. How could he be so brazen as to think he could generalize so much from whatever scant observations he did make? I don’t know. It’s simply an extension. We evidently don’t tend to complain much about it (or even notice) in certain cases.
@springa73 #30: I don’t the Drake equation is BS, but the calculations are. There are simply too many unknown factors, reducing any answer to pure guesswork.
If it’s simulated well enough, being in a simulated universe isn’t qualitatively different from being in a non-simulated one. It would be different for you, if you have a perspective outside of a simulation, but the question is about what things will be like for someone inside it, if there can be someone inside it. I have no clue what special sauce you’d have to pour on them to make them have the kinds of rich realistic experiences we have, but there’s no reason to believe that kind of sauce couldn’t be a feature of a simulation.
@32, it was a reference to the idea that Galileo supposedly disproved Aristotle by asking whether two halves of a rock tied together by string would fall at the speed of the whole or the half. I can find a ton of sites relating the anecdote, but can’t seem to find an original source so it might just be something passed around in physics classes.
I’m reminded of this Onion article: http://www.theonion.com/article/video-game-character-wondering-why-heartless-god-a-274
@31: For pedantry’s sake, I must point out that Searle is associated with the Chinese Room. Brain in a Vat is due to Gilbert Harman.
stevewatson #37
Maybe in your simulation…
qwints #35:
It’s in his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences. (I can’t find a way to link to the relevant part of the page. A search for “So far as I remember, Aristotle inveighs against the ancient view” (without the quotes) should get you to the right place.)
On the topic of Musk, saw this bizarre question begging from him in a meme on LinkedIn:
It would be cute if it was used as a humorous example of a child reasoning poorly, yet arriving at the correct conclusion. But apparently adults such as himself and many other people think this is some great quote to share? As if it’s good reasoning? Terrible philosophers.
I have to admit that it worries me more than a little that a person as prone to logical fallacies as Musk thinks he can build a rocket to take people to Mars. I mean even when the most careful people on the planet are put in charge of such an enterprise, the success rate is only ~50%.
Right, I figured that out. The physics lore has it* that perhaps he actually dropped it/them from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But at first I thought it might be a reference to a different (unperformed) thought experiment by Newton, about rotating spheres, two hypothetical things also connected by a hypothetical string but put to different use. (Even more fun with two things + a string!)
*But teh all-knowing wiki suggests otherwise:
And it wasn’t originally from the book Daz cited:
So, after still not doing the real experiment (probably?), he published it some decades later in 1638 in the Two New Sciences.
@14, John Small Berries
That’s not what odds mean. You’re supposed to first place your bet on a sequence of cards you have written down, then shuffle, then see if the shuffled cards come out exactly like your written list. That is highly unlikely. See?
existence is a simulation is just too cute of an hypothesis for me to be taken it in any way seriously.
“it yields nothing useful man, pass me the bong man!”
while there may be some truth in the idea from eastern thought that reality as we normally experience it is a kind of illusion. We can and have found out many things about the nature that were not always seen as apparent before we found them out. That is not the same as a simulation but it does sometimes lead to new ways of doing things or doing new things based on our deeper understanding of the true nature of reality
it does not however change reality
I thought one of the things we use science for is to help us avoid the illusions our mind is attracted to, which seems to rooted in our ability to see and attraction to patterns. that we can see patterns where they do not exist has so many examples as to be common place. this idea of a simulation is just such an illusionary pattern
uncle frogy
#26: I didn’t say humans undergo metamorphosis. I said we could undergo metamorphosis, if we had a properly constructed chrysalis made from butchered cute little animals.
Since puppy dogs have skins, this idea is well founded on empirical evidence.
But don’t you know? It’s simulations all the way down.
If turtles (per some myths) = simulations, what underneath both?
What I see, is that the simulation idea is either a philosophical debating argument, or a *look over there* argument by godbots trying to avoid their lack of conclusive physical evidence for their inane philosophical/theological claims. Either way, enjoy your sherry and insubstantial claims, while I enjoy my grog over in the corner with people talking about reality.
Has anyone introduced Musk to Roko’s Basilisk?
@Nerd of Redhead: Surely you realize that there is no bottom (underneath) to an infinite series.
Just ask the GOD over Djinn. (Hofstadter reference.)
ahcuah, the natural numbers are an infinite series, the bottom is zero (or one, depending on definition).
(Also, recursion is not a sequence)
—
On topic, I’m with Erlend Meyer @3; the conceit makes no difference.
Also, I agree with those who note that speculating (it’s not even a hypothesis) that we’re in a simulated reality is no different to speculating we’re in a created reality — it’s goddism “lite”.
(Bah)
Infinite series of what? I was a math minor years ago. Sounds like you think an infinite series is:
10 X=X+1: GOTO 10.
At some point in reality, you reach the initial value of X (like absolute zero).
That is my point.
If I was making a total universe simulation, one of the first things I would do is make it impossible for the sub-routines to conceive of themselves as being in a simulation.
chigau, why?
In passing, SF has dealt with this issues before, but a very good one is Greg Egan’s Permutation City.
(Oldie, but a goodie. Still holds up)
Oh, jeez. Morons abound.
Nobody said anything about the natural numbers. How about the integers: X=X-1? How low does they go?
And recursion can be a sequence if you label each level. Duh. (And yeah, I was being cavalier about the difference between a series and a sequence. Sue me.)
And one more thing, for the math minor. Doctorate in physics here.
And finally, to be horribly pedantic. The whole point of the “all the way down” joke is that there is no bottom!. Moron.
PS. Did anybody get (and understand!) the Hofstadter reference?
Same as X=X+1. DuH. Not applicable.
Doctorate in Chemistry here. Dont’ be overly arrogant, which you are.
Wrong asshole. Infinitely regressive on the bottom is meaningless to reality. Only with the proper boundary conditions does reality come into play.
Also, not all infinities are of the same size. Positive integars < all integars < rational numbers < real numbers;.
Try using real skepticism to overly fantastic claims. It keeps you bounded in reality.
ahcuah @55:
Yes. Does anybody have to recognize your self-perceived cleverness?
[OT]
ahcuah:
I said something about the natural numbers (also applies to the cardinal numbers!).
So, yes.
The integers include negative numbers; a different category to the natural numbers. Terminology matters.
(Also, x=x – 1 is an abstraction of a sequence until an initial x is provided)
No; a sequence is a simple enumeration, a recursion is a process which requires an auxiliary stack.
When programming, a recursive function without a base case generates a stack overflow.
Not being wrong, here. Beats you.
Heh. You really missed Nerd’s own point, which is that abstractions are not reality.
(Corollary: reality is not an abstraction)
FFS.
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Summer2009/ABjorndahl/extension.html
Gee, if IIRC, anything negative of X=Y=Z=T=0 is unattainable by present physics, there is definitely a boundary condition on reality.
Now, does anybody want to change to their attitude?
More idiocy.
Of course an infinite regression to infinity is meaningless to reality. That’s the whole point. How can you miss that?
Let me explain in horrific detail for the explanation-impaired:
When talking about turtles all the way down, the whole point of the joke is that having the earth carried on the back of a turtle, which is carried on the back of another turtle, and on to infinity, is stupid.
The whole point of my original comment is that one can take the same view of simulations (for once one starts making up stuff, why assume that there is just one level of simulation?). After all, once one claims that our universe is a simulation, one can easily claim that the universe doing the simulation is also a simulation. Just like turtles. It leads you nowhere. It’s making fun of Elon Musk.
If Nerd’s whole point is that abstraction is not reality, he hid it really well in Basic CS-speak. But it’s irrelevant to turtles. Because turtle-6 sits on turtle-5, and turtle-1547392 sits on turtle-1547391. Ad infinitum. That’s the point, with turtles, and with simulations. It is just as silly to say we are in a simulation as it is to say the earth rests on the back of a turtle. Because if you don’t like this one, there is always one more.
Finally, for the “Nerd”, who says, “Also, not all infinities are of the same size. Positive integars < all integars < rational numbers < real numbers." Doctorate in chemistry you may have, but you sure are ignorant here. The sizes of the positive integers, all integers, and rational numbers are all the same. (Learn some basic math!) The real numbers are, however, a higher level of infinity, so you managed to get that right. (Somebody really needs to read Hofstadter, or any other decent book on the subject.)
PS
Categories. Consider speed vs. velocity: a scalar vs. a vector.
(There can be a negative velocity, but not a negative speed)
—
More to the point: you claimed “Surely you realize that there is no bottom (underneath) to an infinite series.”, and I provided an example of an infinite series with a bottom.
(A single counterexample counters any universal claim; but that’s logic, not physics)
John Morales #53
Because according to all the tropes, once one realises that
,
all breaks loose!!!
@Morales: “More to the point: you claimed ‘Surely you realize that there is no bottom (underneath) to an infinite series.’, and I provided an example of an infinite series with a bottom.”
Seriously? You’re arguing semantics?
It was clear from context that the turtles (or simulations) could go on forever.
Here, let me fix that for you: “Surely you realize there is no bottom to the infinite series of turtles that could be standing on top of each other.”
Are you now happy with your pedant award?
ahcuah
nice hat
nice shades
have a nice day
ahcuah, we crossed, but OK.
Thanks for the clarification.
That said, note that the original thesis includes that aspect: if a simulation of reality is possible, then the cardinality of simulations can vastly exceed the cardinality of base reality (that being unity), and the logic of the implication that any given perceived reality is a simulation being therefore vastly greater than zero follows.
(Which, again, leads me to endorsing Erlend Meyer @3)
—
PS in Accelerando (Charlie Stross), there is a mention of an advanced society investigating that possibility via examination of a timing channel attack.
@Morales.
Re:
Interesting as a solution to Zeno’s paradox. But it does require convergence. However, (theoretically, whatever “theoretically” could mean in this context), each additional turtle needs to be larger than the turtle that sits on it, and it’s hard to see anything other than each new universe containing a simulation somehow needs to be, in some sense, larger than the simulation that sits on it.
ONLY IN YOUR DELUSIONAL FUCKWITTED MIND.
Show me boundary conditions, or all you have is unrealistic /mathematics/philosophy. To be dismissed without evidence, as you present no evidence….,
Turtles all the way down, aka infinite regress, is a cosmological argument. Hofstadter merely reused the analogy to make the same point. There is no man/god/djin behind the curtain. I suppose these guys in the OP think they are having a very a deep philosophical/ intellectual discussion, but all I can see is people arguing over the finer details of a well known logical fallacy.
@Morales
OK, that’s a really interesting comment!
And I agree with your endorsement of Erlend Meyer @3.
Unevidenced, but asserted bullshit, dismissed as fuckwittery.
Either put up on your boundary conditions, or shut the fuck up as an abject loser.
To win, you must commit yourself to being wrong.
From the Nerd-in-Chief:
You clearly don’t get it.
This is not mathematics/philosophy. It’s telling a joke.
And I’ve already debased myself in trying to explain a joke.
Have fun playing with yourself.
Thank you for acknowledging you are full of bullshit.
Welcome to reality.
ahcuah @66, yeah.
In short, the simulation
conjecturehypothesis is the opposite of a simpler explanation.(“Accounting” for the known by supposing a vastly greater unknown!)
Morales @73: +1. Exactly.
To the Nerd:
For Pete’s sake.
“Turtles all the way down” is a well-known joke.
“Simulations all the way down” was just playing on that joke.
Get a life.
You too. Dont’ be an asshole in a skeptical argument.
YOU come across as stupid. Stop being stupid. That means acknowledging the total unevidenced argument is nothing.
Pfft. You disqualified yourself when you said, “Positive integars < all integars < rational numbers".
What's an "integar"?
And "That means acknowledging the total unevidenced argument is nothing."
Do you even understand the whole "turtles all the way down" paradigm?
Go play in traffic.
Easy fuckwit, show with scientific evidence, you are right. Or all I will say, is unevicdenced opininon cand and will dismissed wihtout evidence.
Show a link to evidence to back your assertions.
or you are nothing but a liar and bullshitter.
Your choice. Show, with evidence, you are right. Or shut the fuck up.
So, you somehow think a joke ought to be provable with scientific evidence?
It is to laugh.
Oh please Ahcuah, you started it with your claim that there was no bottom to an infinite series, while ignoring Nerd’s point that the argument itself is philosophical wanking. Claiming Nerd is stupid or John Morales is a pedant for pointing out your error is not convincing anyone of your intellectual superiority.
^ Oh for fuck sake, always preview :(
What Joke? You made a positive claim. That isn’t a joke. Either acknowledge you were trolling us, or show us the evidence to back your claim. No response I will take as an admission you were trolling us.
Never, ever, troll us without a at least a similcron smile to acknowledge you aren’t being serious.
Make up your mind as to what mistake you made….
Sigh.
My original comment:
If you don’t get it, just admit it.
Tethys:
Of course, what I meant to say was that there is no bottom to that infinite series. (The “turtles all the way down” infinite series; you do understand that, right?).
And further, the whole “turtles all the way down” point is premised on the argument that it’s nothing more than philosophical wanking. Do you understand that, too?
The Nerd’s whole stream of comments is based on not getting the “turtles all the way down” paradigm. Not getting an obvious joke is the worst possible excuse for being a jackass.
We all get it. Your continued insistence that you are smarter than everyone else here is annoying as fuck.
Double sigh.
Do I really, really have to explain this in horrifying detail.
Look at the Wikipedia entry, Turtles all the way down. I took that and substituted the word “simulations” for “turtles”, which emphasizes the problems with thinking we’re in a simulation.
If you didn’t get that, then you really are in a competition for being a moron.
Tethys:
Nerd #47
ahchah #85
I see no evidence Nerd is the person who is not getting it. Your comment about infinite series not having bottoms was simply wrong, and comical coming from someone who then boasted about his doctoral in physics. It might have been a joke, but there was no indication you wrote it as a joke. You two are actually in agreement, so why are you engaged in a pissing match?
Tethys,
As I already pointed out, what I should have said (and which really was obvious from context) was that “there is no bottom to that infinite series.” Of course there is no bottom to the infinite series of “turtles all the way down”. Right? Can you agree to that?
And as to the Nerd-in-Chief, you need to ask him why he didn’t get the original “But don’t you know? It’s simulations all the way down.” He’s the one who seemed to think I was making “insubstantial claims” when I was mocking the whole simulation idea.
(Note: merely mentioning is not “boasting”, particularly when confronted with some other claim.)
Re Gallileo+Pisa:
in 1586 Simon Stevin and Johan de Groot (Hugo’s daddy) did similar drop tests in Delft.
Mocking asshole? All I saw was somebody agreeing that there were “whatever” all the way down. Your idea of sarcasm is in need of a big adjustment. Like a smiley similcron.
There is a “top”: the Earth bounds it from “above.” Of course I have no idea why it should make a difference whether we call it the “bottom” or the “top.”
“All the way down” is such a cliché that one oughtn’t need more. A smiley is just overkill.
I apologize for being too subtle for you.
@34, consciousness razor:
Except the whole point is that you can’t be in a simulated universe because a simulated universe isn’t physically real. It’s only a model.
Snidepology? For when you are in the wrong, but refuse to admit it because superior. I still note that your entire premise on Nerd’s level of knowledge (and subsequent comments) was based on missing his brief summation of the turtle’s all the way down argument at 47.
What does that mean? When I make a computer program, I’ve made something physically real. It isn’t an abstraction or a concept which is unrealized. A computer has an extent in spacetime where things move around and EM fields change, components get hot, and so forth.
Jake Harban:
To answer your previous questions:
Yes. If it does all of the same things as the first, then it does all of those same things.
No, not ours, because the computer instantiates one and people executing it by hand instantiate a second one, just as you said.
You shouldn’t take Searle’s Chinese room argument too seriously.
ahcuah @94:
You must be new here. Nerd is the resident simpleton, who will just keep repeating the same meaningless phrases about evidence, science, and wanking at you.
It’s weird, but people here leap to his defense even though he embarrasses the whole site with his ignorance. And don’t bother using his catchphrases to respond to other people, because they will suddenly and miraculously realize how idiotic they are and complain about them.
Nerd is an idiot all the way down.
Title sounds good.
You’re not giving games enough credit. Even in those with hack stories, the rich and powerful are usually the bad guys the small group of resistance around the player characters have to fight against. And you wouldn’t believe how many rich and arrogant NPCs get knocked on their asses as part of even the weakest storylines. If life was a simulation, then people like Trump would be the NPC villains that need to be deposed so that the player and their NPC friends and family can live freely.
…more generally: There’s enjoyment in facing and overcoming the obstacles placed before you in the games. If you were rich and famous, you’d basically be running around with the cheat codes on and what fun is that?
Saganite:
The fun is in doing better at the game because of the cheat codes; why do you imagine they exist in the first place?
Cheat codes often give you access to whole areas of the game you otherwise would never experience — just like being wealthy in real life, in fact.
for an example of wanking see #100
miles @99
“You must be new here.”
Actually, no. I’ve followed PZ from back in the old talk.origins days.
I just rarely make it down into the comments, and even rarely add anything of my own. (And now you can see why :-) )
if this is a simulation it is a simulation I preceive, all others are then just part of the simulation
I am the center of it.
if thinking that existence is a simulation has a payoff then that is it. very much the same kind of payoff as all the Middle Easter based religions
it puts the man front and center and the personal ego one of the most precious things of all.
hence the fascination with both
uncle frogy
@97, consciousness razor:
The computer is physically real. The components that change state as it executes the simulation program are physically real. But the universe simulated by the program is not physically real.
Although who knows— right now, I’m thinking of a perfect universe. The idea is a function of chemical and electrical activity which is physically real, occurring in my brain which is physically real. You could argue that the universe itself is still just an idea, but if that were true then the universe wouldn’t exist meaning it would not be perfect. Since it is perfect, it must be physically real.
Jake Harban:
What sort of work is the word “physically” doing in the phrase “physically real”? You can’t mean that, as the program in our physical world is executed, its operations don’t correspond to any existing thing/process in our world (which of course we know exists). So what do you mean?
A simulation of the sort we’re talking about is supposed to have properties such that a person in it (since it’s designed to include such things) would consciously experience the world they inhabit, with features like ours, different parts interacting in some spatiotemporal dimensions, according to certain physical laws and so forth. It could of course be designed with very different physics from ours (although that’s not the premise of the simulation argument), but everything that happens in it corresponds to specific things happening in our universe — so you shouldn’t think it just pops out of the void or whatever you’re imagining, but instead that it supervenes on events in our world that pertain to the operations of that computing system.
Let’s keep it simple, just to get to the point of your reality issue: you have a simulated rock on a hill, and the rock rolls down the hill according to the physics of its world. Do you have a problem with that so far? Why (and in what sense) is something like that supposed to be impossible? Where did a conclusion like that come from?
Do you think the problem has more to do with your intuitions about conscious people and whether they could be simulated? That is, is this about whether any computer/machine could be conscious? (Just forget about a whole simulated world it can interact with, since you can let it interact directly with ours however you like.) I mean, you did bring up the Chinese room bullshit, so maybe that’s the deeper problem for you.
Your ontological argument about an imaginary perfect universe is just silly and irrelevant. It’s not the claim about or the thought of a simulation which is doing anything or entailing the existence of anything.
It didn’t take long for another rich dude to come up with something at least as stupid as Krazy Kurzweil’s ‘Singularity’. I wonder if it will morph into some sort of Hubbardian church.
@109, consciousness razor:
What I mean is that running a simulation program creates a simulation (ie, a depiction) of things but doesn’t create them.
You have a simulated rock rolling down a simulated hill according to the physics of its world, but no physical rock rolled down a physical hill— a physical computer performed a set of calculations which functionally depicted a rock rolling down a hill, but neither the rock nor the hill ever actually existed.
Except that’s the problem. There are no people in it. A simulation depicts people and calculates what they would do in a hypothetical scenario where they exist, but it doesn’t physically create people.
Even if you assume a computer can accurately simulate a universe, you can’t conclude that the simulated universe has actual physical reality such that actual people can think about the nature of their surroundings.
There is no “inside perspective” on the simulation; you cannot see the simulated world from the inside because it only exists as a set of depictions and ideas in the base reality. That I am consciously aware of my existence proves I am not a simulation.
It’s a question of definition. If a person is conscious, they aren’t a simulation. That a sufficiently powerful computer could give rise to a conscious non-simulated person is a logically consistent claim but definitely an extraordinary one. Especially considering the conclusion that if a conscious person can be created by a computer, it can also be created by performing calculations on pen and paper.
Well that’s a completely different thing from the simulation hypothesis; that an AI can be conscious is probably impossible to prove but technically less extraordinary than the claim that the entire universe is the emergent property of a computer program.
Wait, we are trading dumb jokes about the simulation hypothesis, right?
Jake Harban:
You clearly don’t grasp the issues at hand.
If it’s a simulation, then the simulants are not depicted, they’re simulated. And people are born and grow and think and have ideas, they have feelings and emotions, experience a physical world etc (that’s what it means to be a person!).
Issue at hand is that, from their perspective, the simulation is indeed reality and they are indeed physical beings. Only from outside the simulation can one contend otherwise.
Heh. You’ve just granted consciousness razor’s point, and incidentally vitiated your previous claim.
@112, John Morales:
Except they don’t have a perspective if they aren’t real.
Suppose I showed you a universe simulation running on my computer, with people in it who, in their simulated thoughts, perceive themselves as physical beings and the simulated universe as their reality.
Then, I intervene in the simulation and kill one of them horribly.
Does that make me a murderer?
I’m not sure you understood consciousness razor’s point and I know you didn’t understand mine.
Jake Harban:
As John Morales said, there’s apparently a lot that you don’t grasp. Your misconceptions about the definition of the word “simulation” and its implications are not an argument, just an expression of your confusion.
Your computer isn’t big enough or powerful enough to run the kind of simulation we’re talking about, nor is it programmed to do anything like that, since that is wildly beyond the scope of any computer hardware/software (or any other equivalent system) that currently exists. But assuming you will (eventually) understand this….
If by your own hypothesis it is a fact that they perceive themselves, in any sense at all as being whatever type of thing they perceive themselves to be, then they are self-aware. Their perceptions may not be veridical (they may not know about the simulation or have any concept of them, for instance) but they certainly exist. As Descartes noted, one thing you cannot coherently do is doubt the fact of your own existence, because doubting as such is not something a nonexistent thing could actually do, since nonexistent things do precisely nothing.
So, you are killing something which is self-aware and alive in the relevant sense (albeit not a biological organism). That’s murder. The characters in any video game you choose (Call of Duty, let’s say) do not even come close to meeting these criteria, so you should have something entirely different in mind when trying to understand this point.
Similarly, if a Biblical god actually flooded the planet, it would be a mass-murderer. That’s what a moral person means by claiming this would’ve been bad/evil/harmful (if the flood had happened as the Bible says it does). It makes no difference that this god exists in some other “realm” from ours or has another sort of existence which is different from the entities it killed. It’s incoherent to think of them as non-entities on the basis that they are real entities which (by your arbitrary conventions) don’t fit into some abstract category of entities yet do fit into some other one. It makes no difference if you subscribe to Berkeleyan idealism or whatever it may be, and have defined this “god” to be the only fundamental thing which exists, because real things are real even if they’re not fundamental in the sense you think we’re supposed to care about. Those kinds of distinctions simply do not matter here.
Jake Harban:
petitio principii
Yes it can. Do not confuse the limitations of one particularly common number format (IEEE-754 floating point) with a fundamental limitation on computers as a whole. It is trivial to represent any rational number with a structure of two integer types, one for the numerator and the other for the denominator. And before you object that that’s two parts instead of just one and will need a complicated algorithm to perform computations with, I will remind you that IEEE-754 defines three parts in its standard, the mantissa, the exponent, and the sign bit, and it’s algorithms are probably more complicated than the “rational number” format’s would ever in order to manipulate the exponent part.
But you knew that I’m sure, since you wouldn’t be making such absolute pronouncements with half-assed knowledge, right?
Similar arguments have been used to falsely convict people as well. A witness describes some combination of hair, skin color, build, facial features, etc (all standard things), then the prosecutor puts on the stand some statistician that says “the odds of any person randomly chosen off the street in this city matching all these characteristics in the description is millions to one. The defendant matches this description. Therefore the defendant is guilty.” I shouldn’t have to spell out to most of you why this argument is a crock of shit, but apparently it (and not other evidence AT ALL) was enough to convince some juries. It’s been a while since I read it, so i don’t remember the reference.