Nick Bostrom discusses Simulation theory on JRE

[superpunch]

I'm really tired and dont claim to be an expert.

is it fair to say if humanity doesn't get wiped out by something, we will reach a point where we can make such a computer simulation?

if the answer is yes, then there will be simulations within simulations. there will be 1, just 1, "real" reality that made the first simulation. and hundreds/thousands/millions/billions of simulations with people like you and me pondering it and casting doubt such as "well just because its possible that doesn't mean its happened already"

"already" is just in the context of our simulation. we think of all existence since the big bang as 14 billion years or whatever. thats just our simulation.

I don't know if I'm explaining it well enough. I'll write more tomorrow.

if you agree its possible, it makes no sense to assume it hasn't happened already. its possible it hasn't happened already, but extremely more likely it has.

How many smaller houses can fit inside a house? You build 100 mini houses, and eventually the houses are like 1 cm big. How many people can fit in a 1 cm house? None. How many people can fit in the original house? Probably hundreds. So just how much of the matter and energy -- the equivalent of square footage in the house analogy -- in the real reality is allocated to being used as computers for simulations?

If it's less than 50% then it's more likely that you're in the real reality than in a simulation.

If it's more than 50% then you have to start asking.. why? Using 99% of your matter and energy to build infinite copies of the Sims starts to sound ridiculous -- it would make the designers of the simulations retarded and retarded people can't program simulations. So that can probably be rejected via reductio ad absurdem.

On the surface, it seems 99.9999....% likely that we're in a simulation. When you start to poke at it though, big holes emerge in that idea.

 

[superpunch]

Ahh-- that's insane yet logical, I love it. Thanks.

Beautifully and concisely put, too. Effective with only one paragraph


EDIT-- So, if singularity is a real thing/possibility (most people don't scoff at the idea), then it's basically a certainty by now that it has already happened in the universe and we are in it's simulation (as it would have had infinite time to come into existence, improve, then envelope us and our reality.)

If you think about it a little longer, then you realize that the "simulation" then is just perception. We perceive the world via light. Beings in a computer are perceiving things in front of them. The thing you see as your wife is a bag of meat. The thing the beings in the computer see as their wife is a magnetic etch; they perceive the world via magnetism. Both are real and are real things in the real world. If your perception of light is limited then you live in a deeper simulation than the being in the simulation with a perception of magnetism. A sentient microbe in the real world likely exists and perceives at a smaller scale than a being in a computer the size of a solar system. So who's in the simulation -- the sentient microbe in the real world or the human in the simulation? Even if we're "in the real world", aren't we microbes?

 

[IloveTHIS]

How many smaller houses can fit inside a house? You build 100 mini houses, and eventually the houses are like 1 cm big. How many people can fit in a 1 cm house? None. How many people can fit in the original house? Probably hundreds. So just how much of the matter and energy -- the equivalent of square footage in the house analogy -- in the real reality is allocated to being used as a computers for simulations?

If it's less than 50% then it's more likely that you're in the real reality than in a simulation.

If it's more than 50% then you have to start asking.. why? Using 99% of your matter and energy to build infinite copies of the Sims starts to sound ridiculous -- it would make the designers of the simulations retarded and retarded people can't program simulations. So that can probably be rejected via reductio ad absurdem.

On the surface, it seems 99.9999....% likely that we're in a simulation. When you start to poke at it though, big holes emerge in that idea.

this assumes that the real reality or every simulation applies to the same rules and laws of our universe/reality.

running that many simulations may seem like a big deal to us dumb fuaaks in the simulation but might be nothing for the big dicked chads in the real reality slaying mad pussy. hell we might be one of 100000000000000000000000000000000000 simulations running on their iphone xmillion

 

[ElKarlo]

Makes sense to me. Would explain NPC like people. You know the ones who don't think on their own. Would save effort on the processor, as it wouldn't require new thoughts, would be using patterns rather than actual computing. Kinda like NES characters

 

[superpunch]

this assumes that the real reality or every simulation applies to the same rules and laws of our universe/reality.

Everything must abide by the base reality's laws. Computation is computation; even if the beings in the simulation perceive it as being done via their laws, if it's done in the real world via another law then it's being done via that law and they just perceive it differently.

EG -- pretend our reality is the real one. Gravity exists here. You can program gravity to be non-existent in the simulation but if you drop that simulation's laptop 10 feet, it's still breaking.

Computations being done to host the simulations are being done on real matter and energy, or whatever the equivalent of those things are in the base reality. Those things won't expand their computational ability simply by hosting simulations.

Edit: An easier way of saying this is that the computer hosting a simulation is a real computer in the real world. So it abides by the real world's laws, not the simulation's laws. And computation is done on that computer, not in that computer -- so the computation is done using the real world's laws. If this weren't true then we could simply program a simulation with different laws of physics to give us infinite computing power just because we programmed it's laws of physics to do that, and that's obviously ridiculous.

 

[Threetrees]

The simulation argument isn't a true thought experiment, since it's an appeal to intuition if and only if you have a firm understanding of statistics and can think in those terms.
And then as a true hypothesis it fails because it's untestable.
It really is just a pure rational argument, and in that way it works - however the sexy nature of it "We're in the matrix" gives it way more tread than it should. Its not really that interesting of a claim.

 

[MescalineDreams]

this is one of those things where I completely understand the idea behind the theory, and can appreciate that mathematically its almost a certainty, but........I just dont believe it. something in my gut just tells me this shit be too real, even for the most advanced sim

edit: not even 4 minutes in and its clear Joe honestly can not grasp the concept at all..........Bostrom is trying his damnest to help Joe but Joe just can't grasp it...

"why should we assume we are in the simulation? why assume its happened already? it could happen in the future but theres no reason to assume it has already."



I love Joe and dont even fully believe this shit myself, but he just flat out does not get what the theory actually means.

Christ, this is actually hard to listen to. I might have to tap out. Joe is usually pretty intuitive IMO but not here.

Joe is there to ask those questions

To play the part of the ignorant average citizen so that his guest can clarify things

Joe plays dumb but don't be fooled. He knows more than he lets on

 

[JoeyJoeJoeJr]

I have my own simulation theory, but Im not sure if its any similar to his.

Consider the virtual worlds we create today. We can look around, see objects in decent detail, talk to one another, etc.

We as a species are barely over 100 years in to any meaningful technology. Consider the leap from 1918 to 2018, and see the technological progress. 100 years is a tiny blip on a cosmic scale.

Imagine 10,000-1,000,000 years of technological progress. One day I believe we will be able to create massive digital universes that we can plug ourselves in to. We will be able to use all of our senses and the digital world will indistinguishable from reality. You would have no idea it was a virtual world unless you were shown.

I believe at some point we will have the ability to control time in such a way that we can live out entire lives in these digital worlds within months, days, hours or minutes.

Every intelligent being will inevitably want to extend their lives. I believe we may extend our lives through biological breakthroughs but the true pinnacle of life extension will lie within our ability to manipulate time itself.

Once we are able to manipulate time we can plug ourselves in to these universe's and continually live life after life after life, it would be a invaluable learning mechanisn.

Its possible this has already happened, and the universe we live in is a recreation of the real universe, or perhaps a universe we created, or it was created by a more advanced civilization.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

All of a sudden everyone believes in the simulation theory.

Yeah, there is no evidence that it is true. And all of the “calculations” people use to say the probability that we are living in a simulation is X are based on some really dubious assumptions.

 

[meauneau]

Yeah, there is no evidence that it is true. And all of the “calculations” people use to say the probability that we are living in a simulation is X are based on some really dubious assumptions.

I'm not sure but it looks similar to other metaphysical hypotheses like solipsism, or that the universe was created 5 minutes ago and so on.

 

[squeezewax]

Nice little vid.