Are We Living in a Simulation?

[ThoughtCriminal]

Actually, I'm not sure if this belongs here, the Religion forum or the Sci-Fi group.

ARE YOU LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION?
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

Abstract:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
-------------------------------

Like "Intelligent Design" I can't think of any way to test this. Flaws in the "Matrix"?

[TalkingDog]

1. Read the Holographic Universe

Since our information gathering organs: skin, eyes, ears, etc. are just interpreting different types of waves, I'd say yes. Otherwise we would all have exactly the same perceptions of things.

Now, that doesn't suggest a "designed" artificial reality, but it is not "Real" nevertheless.

An idea more akin to philosophy than science or religion.

[tridim]

2. What's not real about electromagnetic waves?

They can be measured.

All this stuff gets weird at the quantum level though.

Edit: Also, at least two of our senses are chemical.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

5. All of our senses are chemical

Vision is based on chemical reactions in the retina, smell and taste are chemical, the nerve impulses for touch are electrochemical, as are the impulses in the ear for sound.

[rman]

7. how does that make EM waves not real?

[Geoff R. Casavant]

8. Never said it did.

Merely pointing out the chemical nature of all 5 senses.

[greyl]

11. True eventually, but not immediately, right?

Your point is well taken but,

Hearing, vision, and touch arent "the sense of chemicals" like taste and smell are. The former three are 'more' mechanical than chemical, aren't they? That's why they are more easily measured by mechanical instruments, right?

(i know very little about chemistry)

[Geoff R. Casavant]

24. Well, I would say

vision, at least, is more immediate (photon strikes retinal cell, cell transmits nerve impulse immediately), but I would certainly be willing to concede that hearing and touch have a significant mechanical (i.e., above the scale of molecules or individual cells) component to them.

[TalkingDog]

20. Note that I put "real" in "quotes"

for that very reason.

We don't generally ponder the effects EM waves; much as we generally don't give thought to air or gravity.

They are real in that they affect us, but not "real" in that we haven't yet found a way to agree on their "realness".

And I didn't specify EM waves...I said waves as in vibrational states. So chemicals affect us by transferring the vibrational state of their atoms to our neurological systems.

It's all just vibrations, baby. Enjoy the ride.....

[htuttle]

4. "We are better artists than we realize", I've heard it said

I've seen images of what the actual optical image inside your eye is, and it's really terrible. Fuzzy, tinged red, etc...It's our minds that take that raw input, and make what we 'see'. I'd say we 'create' (ie., extrapolate in 'software') almost half of what we consider our visual input. Not that we hallucinate, per se -- more like filling in the blanks with recognitions and expectations.

[Duer 157099]

3. This is almost a chicken-and-egg question

Even if a post-human civilization could run the simulations, that does not mean that they/we already have/are. Someone has to be the first to do so.

Of course, it does not rule out the possibility of it, either, that we are that simulation.

I've always felt that we are.

It's a similar argument as the one about time-travel: assuming time-travel were one day possible, we would be seeing time-travellers now. So, either it will never be possible, or it is and there are (as many people diagnosed as mentally ill claim).

Or, as I personally believe, there are multiple parallel universes which can easily accomodate all possibilities.

Ouch, now my head hurts.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

6. Simple test

Say out loud, "Computer, end program."


Well, it worked for Barclay :-)

[phantom power]

9. The proposition that our universe (and us) are a simulation...

is not falsifiable, so technically, science can't address it. It's fun to think about, though.

One thought to ponder: Any system as complex as "the universe" is going to be computationally irreducible. That is to say, there is no way to predict what it's going to do, except to let it run its course and see.

So, not only is this hypothesis not falsifiable, it's effectively no different than if the universe is "real" (whatever that means). Either way, events unfold in the same, unpredictable, manner.

[ThoughtCriminal]

10. If it is, I have to say

I'm really impressed with the graphics and other effects.

[greyl]

12. lol nt

[evermind]

16. I think you're right that this hypothesis is empirically non-falsifiable

and therefore not strictly a scientific hypothesis, however I would guess that some of the arguments in the philosophy of mind that are used against the view called "functionalism" - that the mind is essentially software, and completely explicable (including consciousness) in terms of functional relationships between inputs, states, and outputs - could be marshalled against the simulation hypothesis (so long as the simulation is meant to be a computer simulation).

My current favourite of these concerns a scientist, Mary, who is raised from birth in a completely colour-desaturated environment where everything is black, white, and shades of grey. We assume Mary, educated by black and white TV, knows everything there is to know about colour perception in humans in functionalist terms - she knows all the various states, inputs, outputs, and their relations, which are involved in an experience of red, yet she has never seen red herself. Then she is taken out of the room and shown a ripe tomato. The point being she will have learned something new (what red looks like).

(Now actually, I cheated in the above, since the Mary argument is usually used against physicalist theories of mind rather than functionalist ones - but one can quite easily regard the physical inputs, states and outputs as merely the "machine language" (a hardware-level account) of a functionalist theory for this purpose.)

The explanatory abyss which exists between functional accounts of consciousness and consciousness itself seems to be as much a problem for a simulated universe as it is for a functionalist account of mind (which could be thought of as an equivalence between mind and simulated minds, in fact).

My best guess at the reason for that explanatory gap (what has been called the "hard problem" of consciousness) would be that the qualitative aspect of our experience is not completely expressible in a formal system (a computationally tractable mode of expression) which would also be the reason you can't explain with any confidence just what red looks like to you. The computationally intractable aspect of our raw experience, since we are a part of the universe, looks to me like good evidence that parts of the universe are computationally intractable, and hence not a computer simulation in any usual sense.

[moggie]

13. I'm real

But the rest of you are simulated.

One suggestion which has been made is that such a simulation may need to be tweaked over time. So, for example, if we were to find evidence of a step-change to a physical constant at some time in the past, that may be evidence that we're in a simulation. But there could be other possible explanations for such a change, so that doesn't seem very compelling.

I haven't read the Bostrom paper, but one thing which amuses me about the simulation theory is that it simultaneously validates and undermines religion. If we're in a simulation, then the entity responsible for this is, in any reasonable sense, a god to us. But if it's just a spotty 14-year-old with a Playstation 5000 and a copy of Sim Human, are they really worthy of worship?

[Nihil]

14. Play safe ...

... even a "spotty 14-year-old with a Playstation 5000 and a copy of
Sim Human" can delete you from the game at a whim so what's a bit of
worship worth?

:-)

I remember playing "Populous" on the Amiga many, many moons ago and
one evening (admittedly less than sober) had a fit of "Acts of God"
that devastated the land. I stopped when I had this flash of what
was basically guilt at the harm done to the poor little cyberpeople
who were completely innocent of any blame.
:-(

(Ever read "Only You Can Save Mankind" by Terry Pratchett? He does a
pretty good take on this concept).

[Nihil]

15. (Keeping the more serious bit alive on this sub-thread)

> One suggestion which has been made is that such a simulation may need
> to be tweaked over time. So, for example, if we were to find evidence
> of a step-change to a physical constant at some time in the past, that
> may be evidence that we're in a simulation.

How does this differentiate from the "refining, more accurate" revisions
of classic theory?

(e.g., "dark energy", "dark matter" and variants of the old fiddle
factor for universe expansion to fit with more powerful examination
of astronomical data?)

[moggie]

25. That's different

There's a difference between permanent fiddle factors we insert to fit observed reality, and observed changes to the laws of physics. If, next Tuesday, we see the gravitational constant increase by 5%, we'll know that something unusual is afoot. But what? Even if the stars move in the sky to spell out the words "you're in a simulation", it won't be conclusive, because it could be caused by a massively powerful entity within our universe (the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for example) messing with our heads.

Should we be talking about this? It's possible that the purpose of the simulation will be harmed if the subjects realise that they're not "real", and this could lead the entity running the simulation to terminate it. So I think perhaps we should stop discu

*** GAME OVER ***

You have scored: 2341 out of a possible 10000
Your rank is: moran
Press square to start again

[Nihil]

26. ++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.

> There's a difference between permanent fiddle factors we insert to
> fit observed reality, and observed changes to the laws of physics.

Ummm ... "permanent" as in "permanent until we observe a bit more then
make another change to the permanent fiddle factor"?

> Even if the stars move in the sky to spell out the words "you're in
> a simulation", it won't be conclusive,

I'd still love to see it though!

:hi:

[evermind]

17. The problem with the "tweaking" aspect is that the tweakers, occupying..

an existential realm which is forever inaccessible to the tweaked (assuming watertight compartmentalisation in the hypothetical computer running the simulation, so we can't hack out and view their bank records.. ;-) ) are thereby beyond empirical investigation - so their existence is again an empirically non-falsifiable hypothesis.

We'd just never know whether the tweaking was due to some natural law that was beyond our understanding.

As you point out, the simulation hypothesis is indeed a cyber variant of Intelligent Design theory, with a team of programmers replacing the conventional theist perpetrator..

[bemildred]

18. This seems like blather to me. Interesting blather, but still blather.

By the same "argument" the post-humans are in a simulation run by the post-post-humans, and so on. And, when you find yourself in a recursive descent of "explanations", you may be sure that you made a logical mistake in the beginning.

[Mike03]

19. String Theory and the Holographic Principle

I don't fully understand this but there is a conjecture in some areas of String Theory involving membrane boundaries in which the dimensions are divied up among membranes. The idea as Roger Penrose explains in his book "Road to Reality" is: "The holographic principle is taken to be, in some sense, analogous to a hologram, where a three dimensional image is perceived when a two-dimensional surface is viewed."

He goes onto say this idea stems from something called the Maldacena conjecture and Anti De Sitter space. I guess the thinking here is that the extra dimensions of this string theory are not microscopic but large, and we cannot observe them because we exist on one portion of a manifold that has a boundary that we cannot observe beyond.

I don't know enough math to fully understand all this, but Penrose is highly regarded and he seems to take it seriously enough to at least mention it; although, he is not a huge fan of this idea.

[SteppingRazor]

21. Not knowable scientifically...

As reality can't be quantified in that sense. But philosophically, this idea was put out to pasture several centuries ago with Decartes -- cogito ergo sum, ya know. :)

[rman]

22. don't we have a philosophy forum?

[ThoughtCriminal]

23. One possible test

If there are flaws in the simulation - either bugs in the code or deliberate clues or inconsistencies. In a simulation, it is possible to have flaws in physics or math that would be impossible in a "Real" universe. It would be possible to have "Magic".

There could also be clues and easter eggs embedded by the programmers (Think about the Pi discovery in Carl Sagan's "Contact").

[mainegreen]

27. I always loved that

3.124.....

....3123

0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0

8790111....

Of course, if PI goes on forever, isn't something like that inevitable somewhere in PI?

:head explodes: