Does the simulation hypothesis also apply to those running the simulation?
Does the simulation hypothesis also apply to those running the simulation?
If it does, then they are just as likely as the sims to be in a simulation, as are the ones running their simulation, and so on to infinity. It’s simulations all the way down.
If it does, then they are just as likely as the sims to be in a simulation, as are the ones running their simulation, and so on to infinity. It’s simulations all the way down.
Comments (36)
However we don’t know if it goes back into infinite or if it still originates from a true natural world.
It’s extremely intriguing to think about though right? The potential for infinite and finite are both there!
Quoting Mark Dennis
Not so much. Rather pointless, actually.
It's bad philosophy drawn from pop culture. Another sign of the end times, I suppose, in that it distracts from substantial thinking.
I can live without that kind of satisfaction.
(anyone get the Clanad reference?)
Have you read Quantum philosophy by Roland Omnes or any of the works of Michael Lockwood?
Experiments; include double slit and quantum eraser variants of these.
It's just act, given the preponderance of theological discussion on these forums, millenarianism seems appropriate.
Not so much.
Have you read any real physics?
A better ancestor to the simulation hypothesis is Descartes's daemon.
Yes, however this is due to the difficulty in determining and interpreting test outcomes due to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. Unfortunately those pesky electrons keep superpositioning themselves/teleporting themselves around the atoms at every point until we look and we can’t really figure out the behaviour without imagining that the electrons are slipping into other dimensions. (Dimensions not parallel universes, that to me is nonsense).
- @“banno”
Hahaha! Have to agree with you there. Little arsehole/arseholes are probably contributing to global warming in there own stupid reality leaving the computer on for so long... saying that though it could have only been five minutes there, I dunno.
The simulation hypothesis is a self-sorting problem. As the name implies, it only applies to yourself. It asks whether or not what you, personally, experience is the result of a simulation (an ancestor simulation, specifically). So you can't apply the hypothesis to those running the simulation (they could presumably apply it to themselves, and their conclusions may or may not be different).
Thanks for that point, but I don’t quite understand. Do you mean that the simulation hypothesis only applies to sims because sims came up with it, and therefore is limited to that specific simulation?
The simulation hypothesis is a new take on an old question: is what I experience [I]real[/i]. You can't ask that question for other people, because you only have access to your own experience. In that sense, it's not about whether "the world", or some part of it, is being simulated, but rather about whether you can trust your senses.
I suppose I hold a different conception of self. I think it’s more about reality in general, basically wether what we experience is real. I can access reality directly by virtue of the fact that I am also my senses, and there is no buffer between sense and reality.
Isn't what we experience always simply in our heads? Our experience is real whether or not we are being simulated.
I don't quite understand what you mean by "buffer" between the senses and reality. Do you mean that the senses directly inform us of "objective" reality, without any distortions, additions etc.?
What I mean is I do not believe I am some little being in the head viewing my experience, or that I am viewing any experience at all, but that I am also the senses, the entirety of the body, and I am directly interacting with the world. By “buffer” I mean the assumption that there is some distortion, veil or other barrier between me and reality.
Right. I can see why the simulation hypothesis wouldn't make any sense to you from that perspective.
But, even if you are your senses, you can still get things wrong. Maybe you're missing some channels (like extra spatial dimensions) or you're constructing patterns that aren't really there. From an epistemological perspective, there is therefore still a difference between your experience and whatever that experience is based on. If it were otherwise, you'd not experience the world, you'd be the world.
True, my senses do not receive all the data and my brain is equally as fallible. But when I give primacy to direct interaction it becomes more about how I experience than what I experience, more about experiencing reality than experiencing experience. To me, the notion of experiencing experience is a form of solipsism and seek to avoid it.
We could reformulate the simulation hypothesis as "your sensory input is modified by some intelligence outside of yourself".
Does it really make sense to call them "simulations" because "simulation" only makes sense if there is a "reality" to compare it to.
I’m skeptical of terms like “sensory input”, “experience” or “phenomenon”. I think leaving it at “reality is a simulation” suffices to make sense of the argument.
That’s a good point. I suppose future humans might use historical records to recreate a reality. I’m not sure what landscape non-human beings would use as a model.
So long as you recognize it's talking about your subjective reality. As a metaphor, the reasoning for the simulation theory imagines every human that lives in any version of the early 21st century, real and simulated, in a long line, and the first X people in that line lived in the "real" 21st century, while the rest experienced only a simulation. The question it then asks is whether you are among the first X people or the rest. That's why I called it a "self-sorting" problem earlier.
I hold that there is only one reality, and anything “subjective” is merely the point and position from which it is viewed.
I appreciate the clarification of “self-sorting problem”. That makes sense in context of Bostrom’s argument, that we are able to believe or not that we are simulated.
I still can’t see how the argument would not apply to the original people, however.
That doesn't make any sense to me. But I lean towards a constructivist stance on reality.
Quoting NOS4A2
It would apply to them if they asked themselves the same question. But the logic no longer works if, instead of sorting yourself, you're trying to sort other people, too.
It’s a pretty common take on reality, that it exists independently of us. What can you not make sense of?
These sorts of questions can apply to all people instead of just the one asking it. There is no point in retreating into solipsism,
Quoting NOS4A2
There would be no such thing as simulations - only a reality where Big Bangs would be the creation of a new universe by previous entities in pre-existing universes, ad infinitum. Do the "simulations" that we create in computer systems qualify as other universes? If not, then how would you know that this is universe is a simulation?
What confuses me is having no notion of a "subjective" reality that every individual lives in. After all, any information we process must be in our heads.
Quoting NOS4A2
Going back to my metaphor with a long line of people: You can ask yourself where you are in the line of people. But if you ask where everyone is in the line, you no longer have a line that's already given. What you're trying to do is take an observers point of view and figure out what the line looks like from the outside. And if you had that kind of information, that would make the problem moot, but usually, with questions like this one, that's exactly the problem: You don't have information on how the line looks from the outside.
The second sentence doesn't follow from the first. That everyone is equally likely to be in a simulation isn't that everyone is in a simulation. If we consider a lottery with 1,000,000 to 1 odds and 1,000,000 unique tickets then the owner of each ticket has a good reason to believe that they haven't won even though 1 ticket is in fact a winner.
It’s just the idea that all individuals live within one reality, and that each individual can directly view and interact with that reality. I don’t believe there is a subjective reality, nor do I require subjectivity as an explanatory principle. I don’t want to venture too far off topic, but this sort of metaphysics underlies my questions regarding the simulation hypothesis.
Couldn’t I venture outside the line and look at it from a different angle?
Fair point. My statement “it’s simulations all the way down” is sort of a joke, but I see what you mean.