Are we living in a simulation?

[Jack D Ripper]

Sometimes, it feels as if what we call real is really virtual. It feels as if I’m in a simulation.

How does that feel different from the feeling of not living in a simulation? If there is a difference, then it is a poor simulation that does not properly simulate.

Imagine, one day, a super advanced species in the distant future was taught in school that millenniums ago, there lived a species called homo sapiens and well, one curious student decided to know more. The student used his/her virtual simulation machine to visualise what life during the time of the homo sapiens was like. He created a simulation and generated brains that would process and get info that was necessary at a particular moment.

For example, if the brain was looking in a specific direction, then only the objects ‘present’ in his field of vision would be visible and this would reduce the amount of data to be processed.

He/she created multiple such ‘brains’ and pre-programmed some information into them that would allow each of them to function co-existentially.

I just hope the student’s mom doesn’t pull the plug on the simulation and ask the child to go do his/her homework!

Science fiction stories are not real. So far, no one has been able to make such a thing, and it may be that no one ever will. When someone says it is possible, they are being optimistic about the ability to make such things in the future. But right now it is just wishful thinking, not real at all.

But, if we were in a simulation, what difference would it make? If it were a perfect simulation, then everything you experience would be exactly the same as if it were real. So what difference would it make?

As far as shutting off the simulation goes, eventually, you will die. The best available evidence is that your consciousness is the processing of your brain, or a result of that processing (actually, a proper subset of the brain activity, as much of it is not consciousness, as, for example, it sends a signal to your heart to beat and other such regulatory bodily functions). Much is known from studying people with brain damage, how part of their mind can be eliminated and things can be changed. (A good place for a regular person to start would be with a book by Oliver Sacks, like The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. When a brain is damaged, very strange things can happen to the person's mind.) So, most likely, when you die, it will be like someone shut off the simulation; you are no more, just like you did not exist in the year 1800. That is what the best available evidence suggests will be the case. This idea, though, is quite old, as philosophers like Epicurus taught this idea thousands of years ago.

Or, if you are in a simulation, it being shut off will be for you like things were for you before the simulation started. That was nothing to you.

[Arjen]

But, if we were in a simulation, what difference would it make? If it were a perfect simulation, then everything you experience would be exactly the same as if it were real. So what difference would it make?

If a person were born into it, or hooked up at a really young age, that person might never know a machine was involved. It is Elon Musks horror, I think.

[Jack D Ripper]

But, if we were in a simulation, what difference would it make? If it were a perfect simulation, then everything you experience would be exactly the same as if it were real. So what difference would it make?

If a person were born into it, or hooked up at a really young age, that person might never know a machine was involved. It is Elon Musks horror, I think.

Elon Musk is is worried about something that, as far as we know at present, is impossible, and even if it were possible, there is no evidence that it is taking place, and even if it were taking place, it would make absolutely no difference in how one lives one's life. It is hard to imagine a case that is a more extreme example of worrying over nothing.

Regarding your specific comments, imagine that you go for a drive and get into an accident and are knocked unconscious. Suppose there is a horrible fire, with your body mostly destroyed. However, imagine that someone has developed a computer and program sophisticated enough and they have the technology to hook up all of the nerves coming out of your brain to the computer, so that when you wake up "in a hospital bed", you are really just in a computer simulation, with your brain in a vat. If the computer and such were perfectly done, you would never know that you are just a brain in a vat, and would live the rest of your life in a computer simulation.

Of course, you need not be in an accident. Imagine that someone puts a drug in something you eat or drink, shortly before you go to bed, so you fall asleep, but are also drugged, so that when they take your body to the hospital to put your brain in a vat, you do not wake up, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary the day before. So right now, perhaps, you are just a brain in a vat, and the historical events that are taking place are just the whims of a computer programmer, instead of something real. Of course, you will never know this, if this is perfectly set up.

Again, though, all of this is the realm of fiction at the present time, as far was we know. Or, to put this another way, no one has demonstrated an ability to do such a thing. No one has demonstrated that it is really possible.

[Arjen]

Elon Musk is is worried about something that, as far as we know at present, is impossible, and even if it were possible, there is no evidence that it is taking place, and even if it were taking place, it would make absolutely no difference in how one lives one's life. It is hard to imagine a case that is a more extreme example of worrying over nothing.
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Clearly you do not know about Zaphod Beeblebrox. Imagine living in a universe that was designed specifically and solely for you. Would that change your behavior!? I think that it would.

Again, though, all of this is the realm of fiction at the present time, as far was we know. Or, to put this another way, no one has demonstrated an ability to do such a thing. No one has demonstrated that it is really possible.

I think one of the limiting factors is that everything would have to come from that 1 brain. Nothing new, unexoected or original would come from any of the programmed individuals you would meet in there. It would fall through sooner or later.

[Jack D Ripper]

Elon Musk is is worried about something that, as far as we know at present, is impossible, and even if it were possible, there is no evidence that it is taking place, and even if it were taking place, it would make absolutely no difference in how one lives one's life. It is hard to imagine a case that is a more extreme example of worrying over nothing.

Clearly you do not know about Zaphod Beeblebrox. Imagine living in a universe that was designed specifically and solely for you. Would that change your behavior!? I think that it would.

That it was made for me would entail that there was a maker to the universe, and that might interest me. But being made for me versus made for someone else, I don't think that would make a difference to me. Particularly if I don't know why it was made.

And, in any case, I will be reluctant to stick my hand into a fire until it is burned off, regardless of whether the universe was made or not, and regardless of, if it was made, it was made for me or not. So I think that without more information, it would not make any difference, except that I would be trying to figure out why it was made (if I knew it to be made), who it was made for (if I did not know that), etc. That is, this hypothetical additional knowledge you are suggesting would affect me in that I would want to know more about those aspects of the matter. But otherwise, I do not see it affecting anything I do at all.

But, really, if the universe were made specifically for me, that would not entail that I knew that it was made for me. So without knowing about it, it would not affect anything I do. And if you tell me that I do know this, I will be curious about how it is that I could know such a thing, and whatever you said in response to that would probably generate more questions and responses. But, the mere fact of it being made for me would not give me knowledge of that fact, and consequently, by itself, it would make no difference at all in anything I do.

I think one of the limiting factors is that everything would have to come from that 1 brain. Nothing new, unexoected or original would come from any of the programmed individuals you would meet in there. It would fall through sooner or later.

Not everything comes from the brain. The "external" information comes from the computer that is hooked up to the brain. Of course, this is presently an imaginary computer, with vast processing power and a very incredible program, but this imaginary computer is part of the thought experiment.

If the simulation fails to properly simulate other people having ideas, then it is a poor simulation. If the simulation is defective in that way, or in some other way, like images getting pixilated, or there being a blank area that is not properly filled in when one go to the "edge" of the simulation, or some other such thing, then one might be able to figure out that it is a simulation. But a perfect simulation would not have those defects, and consequently one would not know the difference between it and reality. If there were a difference, by definition, the simulation would be imperfect.

[Arjen]

But, the mere fact of it being made for me would not give me knowledge of that fact, and consequently, by itself, it would make no difference at all in anything I do.

I understand why you think that, but it would. Reality would have different responses to you, because you are it's function.

Propaganda,for example, makes people behave differently BECAUSE it is not known it is propaganda. When people do, it loses that capabilitu.

Not everything comes from the brain. The "external" information comes from the computer that is hooked up to the brain. Of course, this is presently an imaginary computer, with vast processing power and a very incredible program, but this imaginary computer is part of the thought experiment.

If the simulation fails to properly simulate other people having ideas, then it is a poor simulation. If the simulation is defective in that way, or in some other way, like images getting pixilated, or there being a blank area that is not properly filled in when one go to the "edge" of the simulation, or some other such thing, then one might be able to figure out that it is a simulation. But a perfect simulation would not have those defects, and consequently one would not know the difference between it and reality. If there were a difference, by definition, the simulation would be imperfect.

That's not what I mean. The world would have limits. The surroundings might be programmed perfectly and all the fake living beings might respond properly, but, there is a limit to the program.

It will have a set of random events, but the fake people will not do unexpected things. Only the kind of thing that YOUR brain comes up with. It will fall througj.

[Jack D Ripper]

...

It will have a set of random events, but the fake people will not do unexpected things. Only the kind of thing that YOUR brain comes up with. It will fall througj.

No, that is completely wrong. Perhaps you misunderstood the scenario. In this fictional scenario, one's brain is hooked up to a computer, such that the inputs to the brain come from the computer, and one's outputs of one's brain are hooked up to the computer (so it "knows" what you are doing, so it can give the input back to the brain, of one's arm raising when one tries to raise one's arm, etc.). The "other people" the brain encounters are products of the computer and its programing, not a product of the brain. So the limits on what the other people do would be determined by the limits of the computer and its programing, not the brain. If the program was written by some other person, or by a group of people who are not the same as the brain hooked up to the computer, their imaginations will be relevant to the results of what the "other people" do in the computer, not the imagination of the person hooked up to the computer. Also, it may be that they get computers to self-teach and learn on their own (again, we are imagining something beyond what is possible at present), and so, perhaps, a computer will be able to have an imagination. However, that is not necessary for the story; the limits of the imagination of the "other people" in the simulation will be based on those who wrote the program. And, of course, to keep scientific discoveries going on in the person's life, it would be convenient to put the person in the computer in the past, so that "new" scientific progress could be had for the person's whole life, for the whole life of the brain in the vat hooked up to the computer. If the brain was extracted at birth, one could put it in any historical period one wanted, provided that one could write the necessary program for it. Of course, the programers of the computer could change history if they wished, to have Napoleon win at Waterloo or whatever, so the program need not follow reality.

Of course, it may well be that no one will ever be able to make such a computer, or be able to hook it up to the brain properly; that, at present, is pure fiction. But in the hypothetical story, we are pretending that these things can be done at some point, and that it has been done for the brain in the vat that is the focus of the story.

[Arjen]

You are ascribing things to the simulation that it can't possibly have. A programmed simulation is limited by the orogram and the person(s) in it. No matter how great the machine and program. So, there will be limits. If the person inside is clever enough, that person will notice.

Also: that new scientific progress to be updated into it...the real world teaches us that causes bugs and that support stops after a decade or so!

[Jack D Ripper]

You are ascribing things to the simulation that it can't possibly have. A programmed simulation is limited by the orogram and the person(s) in it. No matter how great the machine and program. So, there will be limits. If the person inside is clever enough, that person will notice.

Also: that new scientific progress to be updated into it...the real world teaches us that causes bugs and that support stops after a decade or so!

Again, you are assuming the limits are such that the person can notice. If that is the case, then we are not dealing with a perfect simulation, and not dealing with the thought experiment. We are then dealing with something else.

Basically, you seem to be saying that a computer can never be made such that the thought experiment can ever be real. That may well be true; certainly, I have not suggested otherwise. But the thought experiment involves imagining a computer that can do what you say can never be done.

[Arjen]

I meant that it can be noticed due to deduction: nothing unexoected happens.

[Jack D Ripper]

I meant that it can be noticed due to deduction: nothing unexoected happens.

If anything happens that is different from what is or could be (in a broad sense) real, then it is, by definition, an imperfect simulation. You seem to consistently miss this aspect of the thought experiment. If one should be experiencing unexpected things, and the simulation fails to provide that, then it is, by definition, an imperfect simulation and consequently not the simulation described by the thought experiment.

[Arjen]

No, you miss the point. No simulation can have an unending list of random events and still make sense. The events that take place must come from the person inside. The rest behave as that person expects. Therefore, it will always fall through by means of perfect predictability.

But I think you lack the knowledge of machines and programming to understand.

[Jack D Ripper]

No, you miss the point. No simulation can have an unending list of random events and still make sense. The events that take place must come from the person inside. The rest behave as that person expects. Therefore, it will always fall through by means of perfect predictability.

But I think you lack the knowledge of machines and programming to understand.

First of all, I never stated that it is possible to make such a machine. You might want to reread my first post in this thread, where I stated that, at present, the idea is fiction and not real, and may never be possible to make:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=16738&start=15#p368459

But more importantly, you are being inconsistent. You are now saying that a simulation would not fool someone, yet you previously stated that it would:

But, if we were in a simulation, what difference would it make? If it were a perfect simulation, then everything you experience would be exactly the same as if it were real. So what difference would it make?

If a person were born into it, or hooked up at a really young age, that person might never know a machine was involved. It is Elon Musks horror, I think.

[Arjen]

I said it MIGHT never be known to that person, due to Elon's fobia. And yes, I think that simulations will fall through, if the person inside is intelligent enough and has a drive to see the world around for what it is. Not everyone does, after all. I understand your point though: the thought experiment states it is perfect. I was only pointing out that I think that is not possible, not with all the technology that can possibly exist. The only thing that can make it appear real is multiple people in it: they will have original and unexpected reactions, after all.

[Jack D Ripper]

I said it MIGHT never be known to that person, due to Elon's fobia. And yes, I think that simulations will fall through, if the person inside is intelligent enough and has a drive to see the world around for what it is. Not everyone does, after all. I understand your point though: the thought experiment states it is perfect. I was only pointing out that I think that is not possible, not with all the technology that can possibly exist. The only thing that can make it appear real is multiple people in it: they will have original and unexpected reactions, after all.

Arjen, you are in a simulation. That is why there is the constantly recurring theme of the CCP. The lack of originality in that is the giveaway, which you yourself point out as the defining characteristic of a simulation. And that is why you feel that the news is being manipulated. Everything you experience is being manipulated.

Sweet dreams!