Obtaining Evidence
From Simulism
Author: Michael Slaunwhite
[edit] Introduction
Living in a simulation has been in the back of my mind for years, but never deeply thought about until reading this site and many others.
I am writing about various possible ways to potentially obtain evidence of this theory that I came up with brainstorming. There is no order to my ideas, it's just what came to mind while doing some deep thinking. Some of the ideas I'm about to bring up probably have already been discussed, while some others may be new. I'm just taking a clean slate approach and listing all of possibilities that I can think of.
Keep in mind that due to my background I'm looking at this simulation theory a large Mass Multiplayer Online game (MMO) simulation. Since a have a deep knowledge of MMO's and how they operate, I think about Simulation Theory from the view point if I were a player in a MMO trying to prove the MMO simulation. I'm taking the ideas from that small scale MMO simulation and then applying them to the one we're supposedly in.
This is my first time authoring anything regarding science or philosophy so some of these ideas my be far out there. However, I am seriously looking for feedback on these ideas and how I presented them. If you are reading this, then please get back to my with your thoughts (on the discussion page I guess).
Thank you.
[edit] Death
I'm sure this has already been covered in various simulation discussions, but as I think about how to prove this theory, death is the first starting point that I could see exploring.
Death is an unknown for us. When you die will your consciousness just fade to black? Are you reincarnated? Do you then transport to the 'heaven' or 'hell' simulations? Do you just wait in a white endless room without walls for all of eternity? Possibly it's something else simulation related. Who knows? Basically it is impossible to prove unless you can somehow get someone back from the dead and evidence that they bring with them.
In MMO's when you die you can still keep playing, but in our current simulation we have no idea. I'm sure our scientists have explored this but I don't think anyone has gone far enough into death and come back to tell about it. Yes, there are articles and reports of people who have no pulse for over an hour, were considered dead, but then coming back to life due to modern medicine and CPR. But we have to wonder what truly constitutes death and if the people in these example were really dead.
[edit] Overloading the Simulation with Clones
Think of our current simulation as being run by a extremely powerful server. The server is designed to handle the simulation load effectively with a little extra to spare to keep it running smooth. If the GM (Game Master - my way of thinking of the simulation administrator) sees that the load is constantly increasing, he can then upgrade the server and add more system resources so the simulation continues to run smoothly. However, what happens if the load instantly spikes with no advanced knowledge of it coming and the new increase in load causes performance issues before the hardware can be upgraded to handle it? Maybe some evidence would come from that if we knew were to look while we were overloading the server.
One way of possibly doing this is cloning. If you can create a clone that has a consciousness and if we had the technology to create 'cookie cutter' clones where in a single instant, one can create multiple clones in one action. The clones won't be grown as they currently are, but instead they would be instant copies of a source. There would be no way of telling the difference between the clone and the source human. Expand that to in a single moment of creating enough clones to more than double the world's population, possibly the spike in load could produce an anomaly or performance issue in the simulation. For example, possibly the speed in which light travels might be a little less slower for a nanosecond when we measure it at the time when the clones are first bulk-generated.
If doubling the population with clones doesn't do it, possibly 100X 'ing the population of the world will do it. Now that I have even mentioned the 100X factor though it will be useless as the simulation hardware is most likely being upgraded already by the GM. The number would have to be an extreme value larger than belief and needs to be come up with randomly. It also must happen quickly and with no planning. The technology would have to be there to facilitate creating unbelievable amounts of clones in an instant with almost no planning and no knowledge of how many will be created. Perhaps if the upper-most limit of clones being created was infinity, the GM would have no way to predict the outcome of the clone generation if we ourselves don't even know how many we're making. Thus the GM would need a server of infinite size in his 'real world' which would probably not be possible even in its advances society.
Would the simulation 'lag' for a bit? Would it crash? Would nothing happen?
[edit] Using Clones to Trick the Simulation
This next idea is similar to the 'overloading the simulation'. Possibly not just load volume could effect the server. What would happen if if exact clones confused the server/simulation?
In online games people try to duplicate items which is basically cheating. One of ways to try and do this is logon to the server twice with the same game character, however the server usually blocks this from happening. Even though there are server blocks in place, it's some times possible for a small instant to have two of the same character connected at once. To do this the user may have their character connected to the server, but then quickly unplugs the internet connection from their computer which might lift the duplicate character block on the server. As soon as the user does this, they then logon their character again from a second computer, then plug in the internet again so the first character is also active again. Now you have two copies of the same character in the simulation. Now when either of your characters completes a transaction or trade, the server doesn't know the difference between the two characters and replicates the transaction for both of them creating a duplicate copy of the transaction.
If we created exact clones in our simulation, would the simulation know exactly which one is which? What if after the cloning, one of the clones was alone and experienced something like an action, thought, or any unique experiance to only that clone. Would the other clone's brain be aware of these memories even if it didn't happen directly to them? If they were, it might provide evidence of a simulation.
[edit] Finding Current Visual Bugs/Glitches
This idea is to search for visual evidence of something not being correct in our simulation. The problem with this idea is how do we know what is correct and what is not correct since we have no reference of what the 'real world' is like. Our entire simulation may be inaccurate and doesn't even represent what real life is like for the GM's. Not only could we be living in a simulation, we also my be living in a fictional simulation.
This is most likly a potential dead end from the standpoint of going around our wold looking for anomalies without knowing where to look. But, if we ever develop any kind of method to disrupt the simulation, then looking for visual bugs and glitchs in the simulations would be the ultimate goal.
[edit] Finding the GM
In MMO's, the GM often has a character in which they can enter the game for themselves and witness the action and also assist in administering it. GM's usually have more power than just a regular player. They have their whole admin toolkit available.
What if the GM is a person is currently in our simulation and we just don't know it? What if the GM is/was Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, God, etc. on Earth and used their powers right in front of us without us even knowing it was a GM and just blamed it on the supernatural power of God? Meanwhile in the 'real world' the 'real GM' is having a good laugh at our response to these GM characters.
However, possibly the GM is undercover, purposely avoiding being noticed by showing off his power and is really crazy Billy Bob Jones who works down at the local gas station but runs our entire world when we're not looking?
Perhaps if the GM while undercover in our simulation could be tricked by his own simulation? What if one of us just so happens to get the GM (while in game) drunk and he starts babbling and giving away his secrets? Even if we did learn the truth from him, even one of us simulation theorists, would we believe it or would we disregard it because it's coming from a drunk 'crazy' guy? Even if we did believe, would we then be the ones who are considered crazy?
[edit] Creating a Glitch
Finding a way to create something in the sim that doesn't exist in the simulation normally is the idea. Doing this against the GM's wishes is even more difficult. Perhaps if we were able to create a new element through chemistry that even the GM's didn't think about it might result in some evidence. If we were able to create a new 'thing' that doesn't exist in our simulation or in the GM's read world, when that object is created possibly the simulation sever won't know how to handle it.
Will the server adapt or throw an error message? Does that error message only go to the GM or would there be some kind of effect in the simulation as well? I'm off on a tangent with this one. Again even if we did create a 'new thing', how would we even know it was a glitch and not just another one of our scientific advances?
[edit] Soliciting help from the real world to free us
Imagine that you created a simulation with people (sims) in it with actual consciousnesses. Then you have a friend over at our house you're showing him your simulation that you're proud of. When your friend zooms in on the simulation, he sees the people in it marching around in protest with signs noting that they are aware they're in a simulation whether they can prove it or not. Also, the signs have a plea for help to anyone besides the GM to help them/free them from their fake world and bring them to the real world. Furthermore, their signs would say that it is torturous to live in a simulation like that when their consciousness is real and they are asking to be freed to end their suffering. If your friend saw this and was alone with your simulation the next day when you're not around, possible he might free some of the people from the simulation if it's technically feasible for him to do so.
Anyone with moral guilt of keeping us trapped in a simulation might be willing to free us. Then once some of us were freed we could possibly confront the GM ourselves and free everyone and bring a shutdown of the simulation. Yes, this idea sounds like a movie plot, but what if there is a single person out there in the real world who has sympathy for us.
[edit] Boycotting the Simulation
Similar to the above idea, what if every person in the universe became aware of the simulation even though it can't be proven and they all strike. They all only hold protest simulation signs and do nothing else. The idea is if there is no action from the people in the simulation, it would be quite boring for the GM. It's like having an ant farm as a kid and it's fun to watch. But one day all the ants die and suddenly you no longer like to watch the ant farm. Finally the ant farm may just get thrown in the garbage and come to an end.
However, protesting might be interesting to the GM to watch. "Wow, my simulants are protesting about me. That's really interesting and unexpected (or possibly expected)". But what if all the simulants die or took their lives. Now there really is nothing to keep the GM busy. Perhaps the simulation would then be shutdown because it's a waste of the hardware. But then none of the stimulants would be left to see what happens when the simulation is shut down to prove/disprove their live in a simulation. Also a world-wide suicide to end the world is not likely possible. Possibly a global nuclear war or a global natural disaster might do the trick.
Then again, if the simulation does get shut down, what happens? Does nothing happen? What if life in the simulation is better than no life at all?
[edit] Checking History for Strange Occurrences
As MMO's grow, the gameplay is often prone to change. Most of the early players in the game may witness this change and may accumulate in-game items which are no longer available to get in the game for new players recently joining.
Now you have an item in your hands that you actually have, yet there is no possible way to get another one since the code of the game to create the item no longer exists. Possibly in our documented history we could find some kind of anomaly which is so off the wall crazy it and not able to be created reproduced now that it may prove the simulation theory. Normally we don't trust all of our history, and sometimes we don't believe all of the documented history due to the idea that the documenter may have been trying to deceive the future (us). Or possibly when we're reading some historical artifact, we're reading it out of context and hands down don't believe it.
Well maybe that historical documenter who we thought was trying to deceive us was actually correct, and when we think we're reading out of context it really is in true context and simply plain crazy. But that craziness can no longer be reproduced. An example of this would be the Egyptian hieroglyphics that supposedly depict contact with alien ships at the time of the pyramids but the conservative archaeologists just don't believe in UFO's. Why they read the hieroglyphics they just assume that they're mis-reading it or it means something else non-UFO related. Well possibly the UFO's really did exist in earlier version of the simulation but are no longer available and the UFO's we see now are only natural phenomena like light, clouds of gas, or weather balloons. The only possibility is trusting that history, making sure we're interpreting it correctly, as well as the history actually being correct. It'll be pretty difficult for all three to happen at the same time to prove this.
[edit] Explore the Boundaries of the Map
In MMO's there is always a map which the players play on. These maps are never infinite and always have an edge (like when the world was thought to be flat and you can fall off the edge). Treat our entire universe as the map and we're just getting started in exploring it. Possibly with deep space exploration it'd be possible to find the edge of the map, or the limit of the control of the simulation and use that are proof or as a way to perform experiments to find the truth. Possibly we could find that anomaly/visual bug which we're constantly looking for.
The only issue with this basic idea is that if the GM sees you coming and knows you'll be exploring as soon as you think it, the map has probably been already expanded past the distance you can travel.
[edit] Mass Expansion of the map
This is a combination of the above idea as well as the 'Overload the Simulation' idea but this time with spacecraft instead of clones. If the GM expands the map when our explorer nears the edge, what if many ships were sent out in all directions from Earth? Again this would consume a lot of our resources and it would have to be performed in such a manner that we don't even know we're doing it. And when we do get around to doing this, this uppermost limit of the number of ships sent must be infinity so that not even the GM knows that to expect.
If we sent a near infinite number of ships all at once in all different directions (3 dimentions - maybe 4?) to the edge of the universe (map) causing that the edge of the map to grow and expand further, possibly the load on the server may be too big for this expansion all at once and could create a visible anomaly in the simulation. If the ships launch from Earth they'll all be very near each other. But as they move deeper and deeper in to space they'll grow further apart from each other. The key would to have so many ships so that even at the farthest edge of the universe, our ships would still be close enough together to cause all of the edges of the universe expand in all directions with no holes in the expanding line of ships where the edge of the universe does not need to expand becase we're not there.
Also, a ship with a person in it isn't required, it just has to have some type of equipment where we can see/record what the spacecraft is seeing. If we're seeing it, then the GM must expand the edge. But if we have no communication with the unmanned spaceship, then it doesn't matter for the GM to expand the edge because we'll never learn about it. This all goes back to the ideas that you actually have to be observing something for the simulation to render it. If no one is observing it, then the simulation only presents a shell of it to save on resources and hardware. Just like the simulation probably doesn't continuously render the microscopic activity of the ocean until it sees one of the stimulants trying to look at it with a microscope.
[edit] Outsourcing our thinking to AI to increase the amount of time being spent on the theory
(Sorry, this one is a bit longer than the others.)
Currently our AI technology is not 100% there. Also, a few day's ago on (Wired) I read that we've recently lost two of our leading AI pioneers. However, my idea (documented rambling) goes a little something like this... If we could create a conscious AI we could begin running our own simulations. This can't be the pre-programmed logic AI's or anything programmed statically as that is not true AI. Even as the AI pioneers I mentioned above were were compiling their databases, these AI need to be able to think and learn by them selves. They may need to be programmed in static code to learn. But after, the learning must be able to be done by the AI. This would basically be like hard-coding basic operations such as movement as something the AI will always have at its disposal, but the other main part of its code where it learns would be dynamic and always increasing. Think of it like our DNA providing the ability to think and move being hard-coded but our minds are dynamic and free to expand as well as control of the hard-coded logic.
Now if we did have that available we could start our own simulation. It doesn't even have to be an accurate model of our current reality. If could be run in two-dimensional black and white command line on a 1000 x 1000 X/Y grid for starters. Anything as long as our AI programs could be inserted into it and find each other, and be able to communicate. This is just like how the simulation we are in may be completely different than the 'real world'. The simulation may not even need to expand as the AI's explore the edge as they may think that the edge of their 'world' is just that, the edge. Our never-ending universe is only a nice design feature. If we discovered that trillions of light years away where was actually an edge to the universe, we'd probably fine with that too.
It'd be nice if these AI were also hard-coded with the ability to reproduce and spawn more of them but they would need to learn how to do that themselves - only the functionality would be there in advance. One of the other requirements would be a part of the static AI code that we program in, but the AI has no way of accessing it or realizing it exists. Basically it would need three conditions which trigger a secret message to us letting us know that a bots (AI) achieved a certain condition. These conditions are 1) When the AI realizes it's own being. When a bot has it's personal "I think, therefore I am" moment we need to know about that as the first step as confirmation that they are truly 'alive'. However at this point it doesn't know it's a simulation. 2) The next trigger would be when it has learned and thought deep enough to confirm the probability that it is in a simulation, but can't prove it 100% as fact. Basically the AI would be where we are at ourselves at the moment. 2a) The might be optional. When our AI theorizes that it's in a simulation and if it's smart enough, it might create it's own simulation to do what I am describing here, only at an even smaller scale. 3) The biggest trigger of them all would be when the AI is finally able to obtain evidence of it's true existence and realizes that it is running in a simulation.
Where I am going with this is basically replicating the same situation we're in ourselves. Only at a smaller scale and something we could manage to run on our current hardware. We could monitor our AI bots and let them do the work for proving the simulation theory for us. It's not guaranteed but what if some how one of these AI's learned of proof that they were in a simulation we were sponsoring? That could be a major break through for ourselves. Possibly the AI could come up with a simulation proof that none of us have even dreamed about. Also, with this smaller scale simulation, we could in turn create millions or even billions of these simulations which are basically doing the thinking for us. Once we learn something useful from the simulation we administer we could then cross our fingers and see if somehow it also applies to ourselves and prove the simulation we're in. This over idea is like outsourcing our thoughts and thinking to computer to do it fast and more of it for us.
Who knows. Maybe this idea actually happening to us right now and we're hard at work proving that we are in a simulation so that our masters can learn how to break out of the simulation that they may be living in. What if the simulation we administer gave us proof of our existence which in turn provided proof to the people that run our simulation that they as well are in a simulation.
If simulations continue to run sub-simulations, think of it like a big tree with branches. The trunk of the tree is the original 'world' and off of it the tree branches into simulations which branch into more simulations and on and on infinitely. Eventually there's simulations all over. If one of these simulations ever figured it all out, the news may shoot back down the tree to the trunk changing not only our world, but the many of them above and below is in the food chain.
[edit] Conclusion
Well these are all of the ideas I've had. I'll be waiting for some feedback about these ideas because I really what to know what others think about them. I've tried to think of my, but my brain is spent. For now all I can do is correct my typos and poor grammar to make my ideas more clear and easily readable.
There are probably major holes I'm overlooking in each idea and I just didn't think deeply enough about them. So please comment back as I would love to see what others think about these ideas.
-Michael Slaunwhite 1/18/2008 (Earth simulation time)
