If we're in a simulation, what can we infer about the possibility of ending up in Hell?
Nick Bostrom's simulation hypothesis raises the serious prospect that what we perceive to be reality could, essentially, be running on someone's laptop. Assuming the beings simulating us would have evolved through natural selection (if they're not simulated themselves), it seems likely that they have similar tendencies to us - including vindictiveness & rare sadism.
This might not be the case if it turns out that e.g. nearly all simulations are run by superintelligences as an instrumental goal (and therefore no human involved nor a motive to suddenly bring about a Hell). It's also possible that the software that is used has in-built restrictions on this type of thing (might not be easy to do this, though.)
Regardless, it still seems like a nasty possibility & I'm wondering if people have thoughts on this topic?
This might not be the case if it turns out that e.g. nearly all simulations are run by superintelligences as an instrumental goal (and therefore no human involved nor a motive to suddenly bring about a Hell). It's also possible that the software that is used has in-built restrictions on this type of thing (might not be easy to do this, though.)
Regardless, it still seems like a nasty possibility & I'm wondering if people have thoughts on this topic?
Comments (30)
So, if we feel like asking the question, do the simulation creators intend to "...bring about Hell"? it's like a hitman (us) on a mission experiencing amnesia and forgetting why he has a person bound and gagged (the world) in the trunk of his car.
Perhaps it has been pressed already because the whole world is in such a deep mess, but I hope that we can climb out of hell, and find the 'Stairway to Heaven.'
What is the use of such speculations?
The question is, how do we turn the absence of knowledge (are we in a simulation or not? What are the simulators like?) Into knowledge about the likelihood of a specific scenario?
Simulation of what?
It seems to me that if Bostrum’s hypothesis applies to us, it must also apply to those running the simulation, and so on to infinity. It’s simulations all the way down.
The hypothesis does apply to those running the simulation, but the hypothesis isn’t that we are living in a simulation, only that we are almost certainly living in a simulation (or that civilisations are almost certain to not run simulations, either by choice or extinction).
Consider that one person on Earth will be picked at random to receive a prize. For every person “I am almost certain to not win” is true, but someone will nonetheless win. And for every civilisation “I am almost certain to be a simulation (or civilisations are almost certain to not run simulations)” is true, but that allows that there could be at least one non-simulation.
Thanks for the clarification. But why wouldn’t the hypothesis apply to those running the simulation?
It does. Just as "I am almost certain to not have won the lottery" is true for everyone, even the person who has (unknowingly) won the lottery, "I am almost certain to be a simulation" is true for everyone, even the person who (unknowingly) isn't a simulation.
Crystal clear. Thanks again.
My thoughts exactly. :sad:
Yes, in the last few months when I wake up and see the news I almost wonder if everything is a dream. So perhaps we are in this simulation already and I am aware that many are probably suffering much more than I am.
Me too! It'd would be really interesting if it's a rock, paper, scissors kinda scheme. I mean here I am envying the rich and pitying the poor and the rich may pity me and the poor but is it possible that the poor pity the rich?
I think this point applies more generally without the simulation if you hold determinism to be true or considering how God creates humans and the world etc. but would be quire interesting to explore in this scenario.
I could understand perhaps, creating a simulation of the universe - in terms of its physical, chemical and biological properties, to see if it evolved life... but ancestors?
I could understand, perhaps, creating a simulation of a brain - and wonder if a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain might think.
The universe, the brain - there's a subjective/objective necessity to those concepts, but ancestors? Why?
Did Bostrom have daddy issues, or am I missing the point?
Bostrom's argument makes an analogy between the primitive video games of the 1980s, and the realistic ones of today. But that's silly. Nobody thinks Ms. PacMan has a subjective experience of pleasure eating white dots, or terror at being gobbled by monsters. On the contrary, in terms of implementing self-awareness, we have made ZERO progress in all this time. Bostrom's argument collapses immediately. We have no idea if it's possible to implement consciousness, nor do we have any idea how to do it even if it could be done. So his "zillions of ancestor simulations" idea fails. Its core premise is false. His argument is valid but not sound.
What's the answer to the universe? Oh it's the great programmer in the sky. I'm baffled anyone takes this nonsense seriously. Just as the Romans, who had great waterworks, thought that the mind was a flow; and post-Newtonians thought the universe was a great clockwork machine; we, who have mastered computer technology, think the world must be a computer. The idea suffers from presentism, with no awareness of how silly it will look in a century.
Ultimately, a rationalist has to suppose that the brain is a machine - a biological machine, capable of thinking. Simulating a brain does not seem impossible, even if that were a brain running on a binary, or quantum computer. It's like, when I was young, computers were:
10 Print "I am a thinking machine."
20 GOTO 10
I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine.
That is already one level above the binary substrate.
00001010001
Then Bill Gates invented the Windows operating system as another level atop the C++ programming language, and personal computing took off. Thinking along these lines, I suspect someone will simulate a brain, and it will run like an operating system. The computer itself will not think. Rather, software simulating the brain will think, but the difference is academic.
I'm happy to take the other side of that bet.
Quoting counterpunch
That of course is the idea of the Turing test, a purely behavioral standard. But that test does not distinguish between a conscious person and a philosophical zombie, or a clever chatbot.
Quoting counterpunch
A biological machine. You seem to agree that there is something special about biology, about life. No computer is alive. You seem to be offering talking points that support my view and not yours.
In any event, a rationalist must admit that there are many things about the world we don't yet know. We may discover in the future principles of physics that go beyond the principles of computation. There's no evidence the world is computable. That's an assumption on your part. As I say, the simulation argument is going to be laughable a hundred years from now, just as the phlogiston theory of heat is today.
Quoting counterpunch
Skyscrapers are more complex than mud huts, what of it? Clever organizations of programs are still programs, and are not conscious.
Quoting counterpunch
Ah but that's exactly the point. Such a simulation would not necessarily be conscious, any more than a perfect simulation of gravity will attract nearby bowling balls. We can simulate particle physics, we simulate the weather, we simulate football games. In no case is the simulation the real thing. If you perfectly simulated a human brain down to the neuron, you would find that externally, if you stimulate its optic nerve, a particular region of the cortex associated with vision lights up. But it would not have the subjective experience of seeing.
That's another problem with the simulation argument. It's a simulation, not the real thing. You can program a computer to simulate a black hole, but it doesn't suck in nearby matter. Likewise you might eventually be able to simulate a brain, but it would not be conscious.
Simulations of things are not the things themselves. You don't get wet when you run a simulation of a hurricane. I hope I don't have to belabor this point, but perhaps I do since you fell into exactly that confusion. I'll grant that you might be able to simulate a brain, but you still have not told me how you plan to implement a mind.
Then you just lost the bet, because the mind is an appearance unto itself - not a reality, but the product of brain processes. The lingering experience of experienced sensation.
The Turing Test is false. I could talk to a child under Turing Test conditions and not think it's human because it doesn't know anything, and answers without a consistent thread of reason. Does that make the child inhuman, or unthinking?
Quoting fishfry
I am acknowledging the premise that brains are machines, in order to make the distinction between software and hardware - between the binary substrate of a computer, and the simulation of a brain running as software - and the academic difference between thinking machines and thinking computer programs.
I see you are so very keen to respond, you didn't read the argument I made before responding to it, a bit at a time. How very machine like of you!
Quoting fishfry
That's true, but thought isn't a physical reality, is it? It is processing and generating ideas. Ideas don't have physical substance. I cannot expect a simulation of a hurricane to generate real rain. I can expect a simulation of a brain to generate real thoughts.
Quoting fishfry
lol.
In my mind, the short of it is that finding out we're in a simulation does not increase our odds of going to hell one way or the other.
1. If a simulation is indeed what we're in, we have no information about its creator(s) other than the fact that they likely had a reason for creating it.
2. Since the idea of "Hell" is presumably an idea created by residents within the simulation, we cannot be sure if such a place exists (either as an extension of the simulation itself, or a place in the "true" reality).
3. If "Hell" were to exist and exist in the "true" reality (whatever that is), we have no idea if our consciousness would even have the ability to travel there.
4. If "Hell" were to exist and exist in the "false" reality (presumably an extension of the simulation we're in), we have no idea what criteria determines our entrance to such a place.
Who in the actual f- ... anyway. As was stated by thousands of philosophers across thousands of years before in theories each more unique than the last, not to mention countless religions that essentially state the same thing, there is more to this reality than the life and death we experience. I guess, obviously since we are aware of computers now they could and would naturally be part of the whole thing. Sure.
Quoting Zaneemia
I.. uh.., sure. Why not assume they wear blue hats and red shoes while we're at it. It's just random. Also, "like us" is a major quantifier. We (as in modern humans) = barely got off the ground hardly a century ago after fighting with each other who happen to look a little different or speak differently. They (beings that create technology so advanced there is no difference from it and reality = Not the same. Not at all. Not by a long shot. Not even by a million years. Literally. So. Pretending this wouldn't be invalidated completely... yeah let's just continue.
Quoting Zaneemia
Nothing nastier than how it was and would be otherwise. No thoughts. Other than, why not smile for the camera and, as all religions essentially encompass: "don't be a ****.
LOLOLOL. After you keep claiming it is. "Any rationalist" would agree. Your own words.
Quoting counterpunch
Funny I was going to say the same about you. The funny thing is, you don't seem to read YOUR OWN posts. All the best.
ps here's your earlier quote.
Quoting counterpunch
So which is it? Is thinking the result of a machine> Or is it NOT a physical reality? You see, I read your posts. You don't read your own posts, as I noted.
If we are simulated beings, then, by definition, our existence and the existence of our universe is CONTINGENT in the sense that both would be open to the possibility of complete cessation if, and when, our simulators decided to end the simulation.
Furthermore, this existential contingency would also apply to the existence of our simulators and the existence of their universes, if they, too, were simulated beings.
And, theoretically, this process of existentially contingent simulators and their universes could extend to, and through, an infinite series of contingent simulators and their universes.
The question then arises as to whether, or not, there could be a non-simulated simulator operating in a non-simulated universe who would be responsible for the whole series of simulations?
And, would this apex, non-simulated simulator and its non-simulated universe be open, or closed, to the possibility of complete cessation (be NECESSARY, rather than CONTINGENT)?
Wouldn't it be something if this apex simulator was simply a youngster having fun playing computer games and not at all realizing the consequences of his/her actions.