[HN Gopher] Existing in an Un-Simulated Reality
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Existing in an Un-Simulated Reality
Author : turtlesoup
Score : 29 points
Date : 2023-09-09 17:27 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (iahwrites.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (iahwrites.substack.com)
| kromem wrote:
| Except we _are_ calculating it.
|
| We're building digital twins of much of the universe around
| ourselves at different scales. We're even building digital twins
| of ourselves.
|
| We're improving the technology that enables that twinning quite
| rapidly.
|
| We're improving the technology that allows for emulating a
| virtual environment.
|
| And in fact, there's a remarkable overlap in how we are running
| those virtual environments and the fundamental building blocks
| we've experimentally validated in our own universe.
|
| The part that I think people get caught up in is the assumption
| that we'd need to ourselves calculate a 1:1 copy for us to be in
| a calculated copy.
|
| But at macro scales the universe behaves as if things are
| continuous, not discrete/quantized. And the mechanics of
| quantization remains incompatible with the mechanics of
| continuous theories like GR.
|
| The nuances of that quantization map to how we fudge fidelity in
| our own virtual representations.
|
| So we need not create a 1:1 copy for us to be in a copy any more
| than one would need to create _Minecraft_ at a 1:1 scale within
| _Minecraft_ for _Minecraft_ to exist.
|
| Additionally, looking at mechanics isn't the only way to
| investigate whether we are in a virtual copy. For example, in
| many copies we make, there's some acknowledgement of that state
| woven into the world lore.
|
| Indeed, in our own world in antiquity was a set of beliefs
| attributed to one of the most well known figures in history that
| espoused that we were in a copy of an original world in which an
| original humanity came to exist spontaneously and then brought
| forth the creator of this copy within light with us in their
| archetype before they ultimately perished. The full text at the
| heart of these beliefs was lost for centuries before being found
| again the same month as ENIAC ran its first computer program.
|
| This text claimed the proof for what it said about a creator of
| light would be found in motion and rest (the domain now called
| Physics), and the group following it claimed that the ability to
| find an indivisible point within bodies would only be possible in
| the non-physical.
|
| That's quite the coincidence in an age when we are moving towards
| putting the AI emulating our digital twins literally into light
| with optoelectronics and are very focused on the discovery of
| indivisible points within the domain of study of motion and rest.
|
| (The name of the text is literally translated as "the good news
| of the twin" and its main point is that if one understands its
| content they will not fear death or worry about the soul's
| dependence on a physical body.)
| [deleted]
| philipswood wrote:
| This is similar to asking how real the character in a book is
| when no one is reading or remembering it.
| axelsvensson wrote:
| I believe that you are more real than Donald Duck if and only if
| the future is not yet determined.
|
| In philosophy, theories of time are categorized in A- and B-
| theories [1].
|
| In B-theoretic time, the difference between past, present and
| future is only subjective. Objectively, all points in time exist
| and are equally real. I view this to mean that there isn't any
| particular difference in the degree of reality between our
| reality and any mathematical model or imagined reality. Only with
| A-theoretic time are you objectively more real than Donald Duck.
|
| [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#TheoBTheo
| antonkar wrote:
| Wolfram's theory of physics has exactly this idea. He thinks all
| the formal computable rules necessary exist and we are living
| inside of them https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-
| does-the-uni...
| kazinator wrote:
| That coincides with my belief. If the next state exists
| mathmatically, it exists.
|
| The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the
| inconvenience of infinite regress: what simulator runs the
| simulator, and what runs that one ...
| mistermann wrote:
| > That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the
| state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we
| could play through time in that existence. It would feel
| completely real to everyone in that simulation.
|
| Telling persuasive stories can achieve essentially the same
| outcome, is much easier, and is already an accepted convention.
| m000 wrote:
| I am hungry and there's some leftover pizza in the fridge. Do I
| really need to eat it?
| lacrimacida wrote:
| Your mirror universe dolppelganger may eat it first
| prng2021 wrote:
| "The argument assumes that given one state of human existence, it
| is possible to calculate a distinct next state. And then a state
| after that. That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to
| store the state of every single atom, and calculate their
| interactions, we could play through time in that existence."
|
| Why are you assuming this to be true? Due to the Heisenberg
| Uncertainty Principle, it's impossible to perfectly know "one
| state of human existence". So the rest of the thought experiment
| seems moot.
| nntwozz wrote:
| It's also naive to think that everything can be calculated by a
| computer, at some point the calculations become so enormous
| that the energy requirement approaches infinity.
| iahwrites wrote:
| Is it moot though? The uncertainty principle makes it
| impossible for us to _measure_ both speed and position, _but_
| if you 're simulating it that's not necessary.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Isn't this essentially Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe
| hypothesis?
| [deleted]
| codeflo wrote:
| I believe so, yes. I think it's somewhat likely that
| mathematically minded people would come up with that idea
| independently -- it's essentially Platonism taken to its
| logical conclusion.
|
| For reference:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...
| kirill5pol wrote:
| Yep, had the same thoughts a few years ago too. Basically if
| you accept mathematical realism as an axiom, pretty often you
| get to this idea
| omnicognate wrote:
| Had this thought in the bath ~25 years ago. Not an idea you
| can actually _do_ anything with, though, other than go
| 'huh, interesting' and add more hot water.
| [deleted]
| iahwrites wrote:
| OP here... yeah it sure looks like it is!
|
| I hadn't heard of it before, and will need to do some more
| reading, but at a high-level it does look to be the same line
| of thinking.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Cool! He has some books on the topic that you'd be interested
| in.
| ttctciyf wrote:
| You might also like to check out Greg Egan's _Permutation
| City_ [0] which (in the form of entertaining scifi) presents
| some related arguments about the need for a computational
| substrate, or lack thereof.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City
| fdhfdjkfhdkj wrote:
| [dead]
| smokel wrote:
| This argument seems to mix up "existence" and "construction".
|
| The number states do not magically appear in the physical
| universe merely by thinking up the construction. The numbers
| could be configured as (temporary) patterns in physical objects,
| such as brains, books, or in ink molecules on paper. But the
| states are not physical objects themselves.
|
| Also, if our universe happens to be universal, in the sense that
| it encompasses _all_ of existence, then how could a calculation
| device exist outside of it? I 'm not saying this is necessarily
| the case, but it's an option that many simulation-believers
| overlook. The calculation device might be part of the existence,
| but it seems rather unlikely that it can then predict reality
| faster than it unfolds.
| iahwrites wrote:
| In response to your second point, at a high level I believe the
| calculation device would exist inside _one_ universe but
| calculate another one... the idea that you could calculate your
| own universe and use that to predict future events does seem
| covered in paradoxes. For one, the universe you're predicting
| would (recursively) have to include the computer you're using
| to predict it.
|
| ... but that's different to what I've argued here. I'm not
| claiming the states are physical objects, but just the existing
| of the pattern, even if temporary or intangible, would feel
| real to the humans/actors inside it.
| smokel wrote:
| My premise was that the universe was universal, i.e. there
| _is_ no other universe. Again, I 'm not saying that this is
| the case, or that there is any reason to believe that it is
| so, but I don't see a good reason why there _would_ be more
| than one universe. (Note that all of this depends a bit on
| the definition of a universe -- for the sake of argument, I
| 'm assuming our universe to be a system closed under physical
| interactions. Happy to argue about other universes, but
| perhaps it's best to save that for another time.)
|
| If you are trying to prove the existence of this universe by
| requiring the existence of another universe, then it's
| turtles all the way down.
|
| How do you define "existing" of a pattern? Does it exist
| inside a physical thing? If so, then how does that physical
| container come into existence? And if it exists only
| conceptually, then how is it possible for concepts to exist?
| In the universe that I know, concepts only exist in the minds
| of human beings, and perhaps in some other animals. To me, it
| seems rather unlikely (and a bit anthropocentric or
| egocentric) that concepts are something truly universal.
|
| For me, it helped to meditate a lot on what it'd be like to
| be a rock. The rock does not have memory, no sensory input,
| and therefore most likely no concept of time, space, logic,
| nor mathematics. It makes you wonder whether the rock exists
| at all. In any case, it probably doesn't care as much about
| it as we humans do. There might be a hint there.
| dustyduster wrote:
| This reminds me of the "dust" theory in Egan's _Permutation
| City_.
| jl6 wrote:
| It is indeed similar.
|
| It seems to take a highly reductionist pathway:
| reality/experience can be simulated -> simulation is
| computation -> computation is mathematics -> mathematical
| objects exist regardless of whether anybody has discovered
| them.
|
| This implies that _all conceivable universes_ (including the
| ones where a lot of really bad things happen on an eternal
| loop) are possessed of the exact same reality as ours.
| zach_miller wrote:
| Am I missing something here? I can suppose a universe where
| the premise is false (This is a conceivable universe, I'd
| argue). Doesn't that mean that this premise really is false?
| axelsvensson wrote:
| Someone who holds this view would probably have to make the
| definitions more precise, so that if you live in a
| deterministic reality, you actually cannot conceive of a
| universe that isn't deterministic. You can throw around
| words like "indeterministic", but you cannot precisely
| simulate something indeterministic using only deterministic
| ingredients, and hence, for some precise definition of
| "conceive", cannot conceive such a universe.
| mistermann wrote:
| If one assumes paradoxes are impossible maybe.
| javajosh wrote:
| Take a smaller example: weather on Earth. There are a LOT of
| particles, but still classically simulatable. _Chaos_ ensures
| that we still cannot know all future states of the weather. This
| is a remarkable truth, and one should give it time to sink in.
|
| Note that quantum modelling those effects go as O(a^N). If you
| want to hand-wave away exponential computational cost, then I cry
| foul: the details matter, and I posit that you cannot build a
| computer that is more powerful than the universe itself.
| iahwrites wrote:
| Sure, but this argument is for simulation theory... not what is
| described here.
|
| What I'm suggesting is that the calculation never needs to be
| done, which means the complexity of it _does not matter_.
| Whether it 's O(1) or O(a^N) they're both far smaller than the
| infinite number of potential states.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> the calculation never needs to be done_
|
| Well, that's your preference then. But personally I want to
| see the Mets play the Yankees because it's profoundly
| unsatisfying to believe that all possible outcomes are
| computable and therefore on an equal basis. I daresay that
| idea is so bad that if you took it seriously, it would die
| out with your genes/memes. (Not that that matters since you
| could travel to and impregnate every woman on Earth).
| ajuc wrote:
| One one hand it's absurd (it means that everything that can be
| imagined and many more things exist).
|
| On another hand the opposite (requiring a mapping from that
| computation to real-world objects) is absurd too, because for any
| sequence of numbers you can always find a mapping to physical
| objects (notice that you can make the mapping arbitrarily
| complex). So why require the extra steps?
|
| My opinion is that it follows that asking about existence without
| specifying the domain in which sth exists is meaningless.
|
| You can say that the number 42 exists in the domain of integers.
| You cannot say whether the number 42 exists in general. It
| wouldn't mean anything.
|
| Similarly you can say that Harrison Ford exists in our universe
| but Han Solo doesn't. But you cannot say whether one or the other
| exist in general.
| russdill wrote:
| The insistence that some "real" universe exists does strike me
| as a kind of dualism, but I'm unable to describe the concept
| with any rigor.
| ajuc wrote:
| Should have said "physical" not "real" probably. I didn't
| meant to imply it's more "real" than the integers or any
| other domain, my point was that you have to specify the
| domain and that there are many options.
| [deleted]
| scotty79 wrote:
| Basically it's a question of whether math exists. If it exists
| then the states of the simulation exist and look like reality
| "from the inside".
|
| I really like Iain M. Banks moral argument against universe being
| simulated. No intelligence capable of simulating it would be
| immoral enough to create something so horrible. Unless they are a
| total bastard. So it's not a 100%.
| [deleted]
| psunavy03 wrote:
| > _No intelligence capable of simulating it would be immoral
| enough to create something so horrible._
|
| Based on what just the human race has demonstrated across
| history, this claim is arguable at best.
| paint wrote:
| [flagged]
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