Simulated/Artificial Reality

[Mystery Rider]

I haven't read The Universe Solved but I have read the Amazon info on it and I have heard the Red Ice interview and read other information on the topic on the Internet. Some of the points used by Elvidge or others can't be used as evidence, like UFOs, amazing coincidences, or the predominance of evil, because they are or can be explained otherwise or would be the same in a real universe, such as the solar system and maybe philosophical idealism, the idea that the physical world is an illusion, proposed by several eminent scientists from Plato to Hegel, and part of some Indian philosophy, since a simulated universe would be the same as the real 1.

But the Big Bang can't happen in nature so if there is evidence for it, which is disputable, then the universe would be artificial, and if it is cycloid, it might mean the program is shut down and rerun, and this could be the cause of the reincarnation myth.

Elvidge says that physicists say that time and space are discontinuous, but only loop gravity theorists say this and they are a minorty and the theory may not be right. He says that the programmer would be in another galaxy, which doesn't make sense because if he was he would be himself in the program. He also says there would be limits so that for instance the world blowing up wouldn't happen because it would end the program but that assumes we are the only people in the universe. Information theory and the observer effect might be used as evidence. It could be that "God created us in his own image" has deeper meaning than aliens doing genetic engineering (the aliens don't look like us).

The idea raises a whole new set of questions. Who is/are the programmer(s)? Why did they create it? And what is that real universe really like? (it would be like ours except for...?) which he apparently does not address. And his spelling and grammar are so terrible it's like he had only a 1st grade education, and apparently the publishing company can't afford an editor.

And John Barrow is dense and insensitive because he says the program might be to apply ethical principles but, of course, any one running such a simulation would be devoid of ethics and he also says the programmer would have no twinge of conscience because the program isn't real but, obviously, the programmer would not have any conscience to begin with and it wouldn't be because the program isn't real, the point being it is real to the simulated people.

But there are 4 major points of evidence:

1. herd mentality and behaviour (much like the Borg in ST: TNG), which is sometimes bizarre; why, for instance, practically everyone talks and writes the same and there are shifts in this, which is an unsolved mystery in psycholinguistics (a particularly baffling and bizarre phenomenon is the universal practice of excluding certain vowel sounds from phonetic transcription in French and Portuguese and even in accounts of phonetics in those languages; there is also the phenomenon of inverting the plural and possessive, and many North Americans are all of a sudden using the British version of "while" and "among" in both speech and writing; it can't get weirder than this)
2. the holographic Universe, for which there is compelling evidence
3. the Universe as a computer, an idea formulated by a scientist whose name escapes me, and which is similar to some of what Elvidge is saying.
4. the supercluster or filament in the shape of a human figure (this can be seen in sky maps shown on the Internet)

The 2nd and 4th are especially suspicious and leave us wondering. But the idea is still just speculation.
The Matrix is not very close to this topic. A really great sci-fi story that is, called Tunnel Under the World, by Frederick Pohl was adapted for radio in the '50s (X-1) and TV in the '60s (Out of the Unknown). I have the cassette of the radio version.

 

[exo_doc]

Quote:1. herd mentality and behaviour (much like the Borg in ST: TNG), which is sometimes bizarre; why, for instance, practically everyone talks and writes the same and there are shifts in this, which is an unsolved mystery in psycholinguistics (a particularly baffling and bizarre phenomenon is the universal practice of excluding certain vowel sounds from phonetic transcription in French and Portuguese and even in accounts of phonetics in those languages

; there is also the phenomenon of inverting the plural and possessive, and many North Americans are all of a sudden using the British version of "while" and "among" in both speech and writing; it can't get weirder than this)

Can you provide a source of information describing this "herd mentality"? I'd like to follow up on this and learn more about it.

 

[Mystery Rider]

Bloom, Howard, The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. (2000) John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Le Bon, Gustav, Les Lois psychologiques de l'évolution des peuples. (1894) National Library of France, Paris.
Le Bon, Gustave, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. (1895) Project Gutenberg.
Trotter, Wilfred, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. (1915) Macmillan, New York.

It' s also called hive mentality and group think, and there is the related concept of the sheeple--blind conformity, in other words. Some of it can pehaps be explained but some of it is rather mysterious.

 

[Mystery Rider]

By computational model are you refering Seth Lloyd's theory (Programming the Universe, 2006) (I subsequently found the name) or simulated reality?

 

[stephen dedalus]

I believe that the computational model is the best explanation for the universe we reside in.

Nick Bostrom at Oxford University argues in "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" that the odds favor the computational model: "[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] If there were a substantial chance that our civilization will ever get to the posthuman stage and run many ancestor-simulations, then how come you are not living in such a simulation?" ( 248 ).[/FONT]

He argues that if it were both possible and desirable for posthuman civilizations to run ancestor simulations, there could be simulations within simulations:

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2) [see full text of Bostrom's article for an explanation of (1) and (2)], <ins cite="mailtoublicAccess" datetime="2001-11-28T13:54"> and </ins><ins cite="mailto:Nick" datetime="2001-11-28T16:01">we would </ins><ins cite="mailtoublicAccess" datetime="2001-11-28T13:54">therefore</ins> <ins cite="mailto:Nick" datetime="2001-11-28T16:01">have to conclude that we </ins>[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings" ( 253 ). [/FONT]

Bostrom explores some of the implications of a cosmic model that includes simulations within reality or even simulations within simulations, and his conclusion echoes Vallee's conjecture that our universe is a subset of something else:

"[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Although all the elements of such a system can be naturalistic, even physical, it is possible to draw some loose analogies with religious conceptions of the world. In some ways, the posthumans running a simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting the simulation: the posthumans created the world we see; they are of superior intelligence; they are “omnipotent” in the sense that they can interfere in the workings of our world even in ways that violate its physical laws; and they are “omniscient” in the sense that they can monitor everything that happens. However, all the demigods except those at the fundamental level of reality are subject to sanctions by the more powerful gods living at lower levels" ( 253-4 ).[/FONT]

We end up with a Russian Doll model of the cosmos in which not just our universe, but every universe, is likely to be a subset of something larger. Intriguingly, Bostrom considers how this may lead to ubiquitous fear of observation and judgment, which may in turn lead to ethical behavior:

"[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Further rumination on these themes could climax in a naturalistic theogony that would study the structure of this hierarchy, and the constraints imposed on its inhabitants by the possibility that their actions on their own level may affect the treatment they receive from dwellers of deeper levels. For example, if nobody can be sure that they are at the basement-level, then everybody would have to consider the possibility that their actions will be rewarded or punished, based perhaps on moral criteria, by their simulators. An afterlife would be a real possibility. Because of this fundamental uncertainty, even the basement civilization may have a reason to behave ethically. The fact that it has such a reason for moral behavior would of course add to everybody else’s reason for behaving morally, and so on, in truly virtuous circle. One might get a kind of universal ethical imperative, which it would be in everybody’s self-interest to obey, as it were 'from nowhere'" ( 254 ).

[/FONT] The article can be found here:
Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
or in Philosophical Quarterly (2003), Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.

 

[mike]

What im about to post is an "idea" not an "answer"
I dont have answers, but........

we see reality as being more or less "stuck" on the earth and in linear time, but what if thats a limitation of our technology not a natural fixed limitation.
What if given the right technology we could step free of our location both its physical and temporal co-ordinates.
This is a huge concept for most to grasp, it "changes" our relationship to reality as we now see it.
Most of us can conceive of the idea of leaving earth in a "space"ship, but remaining in linear time, but what if you could traverse both axis of the universe distance and duration.
wasnt that long ago the very idea of a technology that could allow you to fly was considered fanciful.

How would Dr Who of the Tardis fame's view of reality differ from that of people who assume being stuck in linear time is the norm ?
Its an entirely new way of looking at the universe as a model than that most of us hold to be the reality.
Breakfast overlooking the big bang, with dinner at the resturant at the end of the universe........
But the person who eats these meals is "thinking" in terms totally alien to ours imersed as we are in linear time.

But it gets weirder, this "model" of a native time line, big bang and big crunch, could contain "branches" off the native timeline branches that according to some quantum theory could be "sprouted" by making a change in a given point of time within the parent time line, thus creating a new branch/universe.........

Its entirely possible our reality is one of these branches, and not the original native timeline .

welcome to the complexity that is my view of reality

 

[Mystery Rider]

Stephen Dedalus,

Re: Bostrum

Ethics behind running such a simulation--what a joke that is. What Bostrum is saying is the same as religion placing moral strictures on society so that people would behave ethically for fear of going to hell and look how well that worked. Also, most people will never believe such a thing as the universe being a computer simulation. And ethics behind such a simulation would be 0 anyways.

---------- Post added at 08:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 PM ----------

Ufology- USI Calgary,

The idea of the universe is a simulation is new. What Plato and other idealists (I am 1 myself) had in mind was in no way that the universe was a simulation and we do not say that it isn't real. What we say is that it is real, but not the physical world, what we say is that all is mental. This is very differernt, contrary to what Wikipedia claims, from a computer-programmed, holographic projection. We can assume that if we are in a simulation then the real universe outside is mental, too.

 

[stephen dedalus]

Stephen Dedalus,

Re: Bostrum

Ethics behind running such a simulation--what a joke that is. What Bostrum is saying is the same as religion placing moral strictures on society so that people would behave ethically for fear of going to hell and look how well that worked. Also, most people will never believe such a thing as the universe being a computer simulation. And ethics behind such a simulation would be 0 anyways.

While I'll need to doublecheck, I'm not sure that Bostrum is arguing that running such a simulation would be ethical because of the fear of observation it would engender in the simulated. Instead, I think he argues that an interesting and unintended consequence of a Russian Doll cosmos in which no one knows if they are simulated would be ethical behavior borne of fear of punishment in a simulated afterlife. I agree with you that the "ethics behind such a simulation would be 0," but there's a difference between the ethics behind a simulation and ethical behavior as an unintended emergent property of a system of simulations within simulations. You're right to suggest the parallel to religion, but if we are in fact simulations, we'd have to consider the possibility that our simulators might punish or reward us in a simulated afterlife based on our behavior. It's not a comforting thought, and obviously Bostrom's just playing with ideas in a thought experiment, but I think his point is that a society (not necessarily our society) convinced of its simulated nature would have to consider its simulators' plans.

 

[Mystery Rider]

Stephen Dedalus,

The simulators would not know right from wrong so they would not punish or reward. Also, they could not themselves track trillions of lives, or perhaps a lot more.

 

[stephen dedalus]

The simulators would not know right from wrong so they would not punish or reward.

They could have their own cultural mores, and if they chose to, they could judge their simulations based on that same set of mores, even though the simulations would be likely to have their own cultural standards for right and wrong. That would seem capricious, cruel, and unjust to the simulations, and rightly so, but to the simulators it may seem perfectly acceptable. Perhaps they would punish their simulations because it would amuse them or bring them sadistic pleasure. If they are a decadent, jaded culture, they may derive great gratification from the infliction of suffering on their creations. Or if they are benevolent, they may want to offer their creations comfort for the difficulties they endured during their lives. In any case, no simulated beings could know what their simulators would be like, because the simulated reality would be, to use Vallee's phrase, a subset of something larger. To the simulated, the simulators and their reality would be, by definition, unknowable, and therefore it is not possible to say what they would know or not know, or how they would or would not behave. We can speculate, but we can't make any definitive statements.

Also, they could not themselves track trillions of lives, or perhaps a lot more.

If they possess the almost unthinkably robust computational capacity required to run a program that contains trillions of lives, they would also have the computational capacity to run a program that would track those simulated lives and report back to the simulators about the behavior of the simulated.

 

[Mystery Rider]

Stephen Dedalus,

My point is that the computer would be able to track trillions of lives but not the simulators, they would not be able to keep track of very many.

 

[stephen dedalus]

Stephen Dedalus,

My point is that the computer would be able to track trillions of lives but not the simulators, they would not be able to keep track of very many.

In order to know this, you would have to possess an intimate knowledge of the simulators' cognitive function. Since, by definition, the simulators would be unknowable to you, you could not impose arbitrary limits on their capacity to know their creation. Perhaps the simulators would be a highly advanced biological species, or a post-human biological species augmented with technology. They may even be even computer programs. Most likely, they would be something we don't even have a concept for. Since we currently cannot run a fully realized simulated reality, one thing we can guess is that these hypothetical simulators probably wouldn't be 21st-century homo sapiens or anything comparable, so there doesn't seem to be any reason to project our own limitations onto them.

 

[Mystery Rider]

Stephen Dedalus,

The simulators would not be necessarily unknowable, it wouldn't be projecting our own limitations onto them, and it is not imposing arbitrary limits on them, there's just no one who would be able to do what you suggest or it wouldn't be very likely, and there is no evidence for it, and certainly we would have a concept for them.

 

[stephen dedalus]

Stephen Dedalus,

The simulators would not be necessarily unknowable, it wouldn't be projecting our own limitations onto them, and it is not imposing arbitrary limits on them, there's just no one who would be able to do what you suggest or it wouldn't be very likely, and there is no evidence for it, and certainly we would have a concept for them.

I'll agree that there's no evidence for it, unless you think anomalous experience can be explained as the sporadic and temporary intrusion of the simulators' reality, or perhaps the simulators themselves, into our own reality. This is of course only one of many interpretations of what anomaly represents. For me, and apparently for Bostrom, the idea that our reality could be a simulation is an interesting theoretical possibility, but not yet anything more.

As for the rest of what you said, I think I'd need you to elaborate before I felt there was anything of depth or substance to which I could respond. You've made some claims, but I can't accept them or respond to them until you make it clear how you've reached your conclusions.

Bostrom anticipates and deflects some of your criticisms in his original article, his "patch," and his FAQ about the simulation argument. After you carefully consider these texts, I think you'll find yourself better able to articulate your position:

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? [scroll about 2/3rds of the way down the page for the "patch"]

The Simulation Argument FAQ

 

[stephen dedalus]

Commenting On Bostrom

The answer is actually much simpler than you might expect. It comes in two parts. The first part is that in order to simulate an infinite universe you would need an infinitely powerful computer. At face value this answer seems flippant, however it is not. Consider the advent of quantum computing and optical computing. We know both are possible. Optical computing is in some respects a form of quantum computing. The data is processed using light, the fastest known phenomenon in the universe, so fast in-fact, that as velocities approach the speed of light, time itself slows down, and at light speed, time itself becomes irrelevant; therefore, for all intents and purposes, a computer that operates so fast that time is irrelevant, is in-fact infinitely powerful. [/FONT][/SIZE]The same logic can be applied to other "quantum computing" processes.

Last but not least ( with respect to the first part ), information theorists believe there is a limit to the amount of data that the universe as we know it can contain and they have calculated the smallest dimension possible that can hold any data whatsoever. So the processing unit does not even need to be infinitely powerful to get the job done. And because such things as mass and dimension are merely illusion, the apparent "hugeness and complexity" is not as big an issue as we perceive it to be. The processor is not actually moving planets or doing any heavy lifting at all.

There's always Frank Tipler's controversial and polarizing Omega Point theory, as well. Tipler lost me when he converted to theism, but his pre-conversion work (up to and including 1994's The Physics of Immortality) provides a fascinating (if wildly speculative) set of responses to the challenges of perfectly emulating the universe and everyone in it down to the quantum level. It's also written in an accessible style that makes difficult concepts like the Bekenstein bound, self-programming universal Turing machines, light cones, and brute-force resurrection comprehensible to non-experts (like me). Some have dismissed him as a crackpot, and maybe he is, but if so, his crackpottery remains productively thought-provoking and refreshingly ambitious.

 

[tyder001]

Commenting On Bostrom

Physics of Immortality is the name of the book I was trying to remember earlier after reading some of this thread. I hadn't heard anything about the author in years. I'll try to look him up to see where his thinking has been leading him recently.

 

[Mystery Rider]

Commenting On Bostrom

Stephen Dedalus,

I already read those articles.

If we can't conceive of something it can't exist.

Also, a brain cannot process so many data simultaneously because it would have to be much larger and too large to fit the body. A much larger body would have the same cerebral capacity because of brain-body ratio.

---------- Post added at 11:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:06 PM ----------

ufology,

An infinitely powerful computer may not be possible and it would be hard to imagine that there would be a limit toinforamtion content of an infinite universe, I don't see how the 2 ideas would be compatible. Also, it could be that consciousness can't arise from a simulation.

Btw, I have Tipler's College Physics that I bought years ago. His theory is invalid because it is based on false assumptions. The universe is infinite.

 

[mike]

Commenting On Bostrom

If we can't conceive of something it can't exist.

But if i can conceive the idea that there are concepts, beyond our conception...... dont they then exist

The universe is infinite.

It may be both finite and infinite, i know that sounds impossible, but its not

The number one for example is for all intents and purposes Finite, but you can take one and divide it by half an infinite number of times, as long as you have "half" left, it can be divided in half, discard half ,keep half, divide that in half, ............


lets assume the universe is a an expansion/contraction model as some suggest, ie Big Bang followed by Gnab Gib (little joke there).
If time travel were possible, Like Dr Who's TARDIS, the ability to be anywhere, anywhen.
Then the ability to step out of linear time into the dimension above lets you have breakfast at the big bang, and dinner at the resturant at the end of the universe as often as you like, infinity within a finite space

 

[stephen dedalus]

Commenting On Bostrom

Stephen Dedalus,

I already read those articles.

If that's true, you should be able to refute Bostrom's argument by citing specific passages and exposing their invalidity. When that happens, I'll start taking your criticisms seriously. But not before.

If we can't conceive of something it can't exist.

Kindly explain how you became privy to this knowledge.

Btw, I have Tipler's College Physics that I bought years ago. His theory is invalid because it is based on false assumptions.

Paul Tipler wrote your College Physics textbook. We're not talking about him. We're talking about Frank Tipler, the author of The Physics of Immortality.

The universe is infinite.

No one knows of the universe is finite or infinite. Some theoretical models predict an infinite universe. Others predict a finite universe. No one knows which theoretical model accurately predicts the dimensions of spacetime. This includes you.

---------- Post added at 09:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 PM ----------

Physics of Immortality is the name of the book I was trying to remember earlier after reading some of this thread. I hadn't heard anything about the author in years. I'll try to look him up to see where his thinking has been leading him recently.

The 1994 Omni interview is helpful:

Frank J. Tipler, Omni Interview

So is the 2002 transhumanism.org interview:

Transhumanity

 

[Mystery Rider]

Commenting On Bostrom

Stephen Dedalus,

Refuting Bostrum assumes he is refutable and his arguments invalid. There is nothing refutable in his argument except the ethical factor.

Knowing that something is not possible that can't be conceived is not privy to any particular person. It is simple logic accessible to all who study metaphysics.

That there are different theoretical models does not mean we don't know the facts about any particular area. We know the universe is infinite because it is everything and if it is finite it would have a boundary and there would be nothing outside of it which is a complete paradox and self-negating. Also, time can't start at any particular point because it has to have a past and can't end because it has to have a future or else it isn't time and it forms a unit with space which makes space infinite, too.

I find it strange that you are so negative towards someone who takes the same position you do on the topic of this thread.