From Simulism

ny suggestions about Bostrom's Argument and the Liar's Paradox please note here. I will be pleased to receive all comments, even if you think it is a load of dingo's kidneys.

Contents 1 Ivo's response to BA&TLP 2 Bart's Comments on Substrate-Independency 3 Bart's Comments on Paper minds 4 Request 4.1 Why we are not living in a simulation 5 Vandalism 6 Sysop 6.1 Fixed Nines

[edit] Ivo's response to BA&TLP

First of all, your argument against Bostrom is a very interesting read. So much so, that I think it deserves it's own page, to which we can also link from 'The Simulation Argument' page. If you agree with me, please move the contents to its own page, and leave a short summary and a link at the 'arguments' page.

Then, I would like to comment on the contents. You talk about how Bostrom cannot possibly deduce anything from the world that runs this simulation. In fact, he doesn't. What he merely states is that, if we as aspecies are going to create ancestor simulations (which is highly likely) of ourselves, then, statistically, there are more simulated version of our universe than real versions. Hence, statistically chances are big that we are in one of those simulations. This is only about our current reality, and simulations of it. Bostrom does not take into account the (other) possibility that a totally different universe exists that simulates us in a different way than the reality they experience. This is what, in my opinion, makes bostrom's argument so strong. --Ivo 22:26, 4 February 2007 (CET)

Response from Tony:

Thanks Ivo I am happy with the move, abut I am still struggling with the logic here, and I disagree with your reasoning. I cannot but think that Bostrom's case is anything but self-referential. It reminds me for all the world of the Fundamentalist arguments that 'we know the bible is correct, because it tells us so in the bible'. Bostrom deduces that we are living in a simulation, not because he has proof that we are, but because if we are not, then one of two events will occur: mankind will go extinct before we can achieve ancestor-type simulations, OR we will not be interested in creating such simulations. If the argument were left at that point, all well & good; however, Bostrom then tries in the later part of his paper to show that neither of these two events is likely. Unfortunately the evidence for this can only come from this 'reality' which he assumes is typical of other possible civilisations. If this 'reality' is in fact reality, and not a simulation, then the argument might just work. However, by persuading us that this reality is in fact a simulation, it undermines the premise of his entire argument; therein lies the circularity, and the Liar's Paradox.--TonyFleet 23:26, 4 February 2007 (CET)

Response from Peter S. Jenkins:

Tony, I think that the way out of the purported paradox that you have boxed yourself into is to examine some of the motivations that a future society (in 40 years or so) would have to create historical/ancestor simulations, as well as the ethical and legal constraints they would face in doing so. As I discussed in my recent paper in the Journal of Futures Studies, an examination of these factors indicates that historical simulations are likely to be created for certain specific purposes, e.g. therapeutic nostalgia, sandboxing of AI, socio/economic theory validation, and a back-up system for civilization. As such, the simulation is very likely to closely resemble the civilization that created it. There are two reasons that Bostrom could not (or would not) use this approach: 1) he did not come to any conclusions about the time by which the technology would be available, and so he could not surmise what the ethical and legal framework would be since it could be thousands of years in the future as opposed to just 40 which I estimate it to be according to Kurzweil's projections of Moore's Law and 2)his use of the self-sampling assumption in an attempt to avoid anthropic bias leads to the conclusion that we could be located anywhere in the universe compatible with life (e.g. on a server located on a distant planet inhabited by aliens). I take a different, Kurzweilian approach in my paper, which is that we should assume that we are alone in the universe until proven otherwise, which enabled me to work with a clear spatial-temporal framework for purposes of facilitating the ethical and legal analysis.

Response from Tony:

Thanks Peter; I have read (most of) your paper, and found it to be very interesting, and your viewpoint is, in fact the only correct one. I think the logic that we can see current trends, that the singularity is almost upon us, etc. are both very powerful arguments, and it is not inconceivable that within 30-50 years we could be running convincing simulations. That is evidence based on our current position, and what we see as our world. We cannot however, extrapolate that to other cultures, of whom we have no knowledge whatsoever. Some might for example regard Dolphins as a more intelligent species (eg Douglas Adams) precisely becuse they do not concern themselves with technology. This could also be true of alien life forms. It might also be true that we could be playing with new technology like a new toy, and that soon we will grow out of it, and that other, more advanced cultures have already done so. Much is speculation.

However, that does not get around the essential flaw in Bostrom's argument: his initial assumption is that what we see is real, and then extrapolates from that to the way that future civilisations like ours would work. If what we see is not real, then all such extrapolations are invalid, as we might be a simulation of anything; we have no knowledge of that. However, Bostrom then goes on to show just that, the world is not real, hence this undermines his argument. I just don't see any way around this, and believe, me I have struggled....--TonyFleet 11:51, 17 April 2007 (CEST)

Further response from Peter S. Jenkins

Tony, you are relying on a false dichotomy in using the Liar's Paradox as a means of analyzing simulism. A simulation is actually a form of reality, or equivalent to reality. Simulism is: "Assuming reality, then probably actually a sim, but sim is ≈ reality." This does not create a paradox. However, "If true, then false and if false then true" clearly does create a paradox, since it is self-referential and circular. Simulism and the Liar's Paradox are completely different.

Aha! I detect a new definition of reality here. You mean reality in the sense defined by David Deutsch, in that reality is a VR rendering (either by our senses OR by computer) of the 'real world' (whatever that is). I am using 'reality' in the sense that the thing that is 'out there' and causing us to generate these renderings, is the 'real world'. Now, if this real world is in fact physical in nature (if you like the bottom layer of stacking), then we can hypothesise about 'the real world'; however if we are in one of the layers above this, we can know nothing about the layer below (or at least what we know is very limited - [actually this is not so, we can deduce stuff, but what we can't do is just take it for granted that what we see is actually anything like 'the real world'.] The point is that IF we are a simulation, all other layers and all other civilisations might be like ours, but then again, they might not. We might be the only simulated world in existence designed in order to answer the question as to whether a simulated world could ever detect that they were simulated, or to find out what happens if you are alone in the cosmos, or as a 10 million year program to find the answer to life, the universe and everything. What we can't do is to go on to extrapolate is anything about any other civilisation, and whether or not they would be interested in running (and this is the point) LOTS and LOTS of ancestor simulations. The reason I called it the Liar's Paradox is the argument is very similar: Assuming we are real, we deduce we are not real. However, if we are not real, we cannot use the argument, hence we have no evidence for claiming that we are not real, and go back to the original assumption that we are real. (Not quite the Liar's Paradox, I admit, but very similar).--TonyFleet 20:25, 19 April 2007 (CEST)

Tony,to get out of the endless loop of the L. Paradox, I would suggest you check out an excellent Wikipedia article on the subject which suggests at least 5 possible resolutions to the paradox by well-known logicians and philosphers.

Also, consider the quantum computer, which functions by allowing bits of information to be both 0 and 1 simultaneously, and quantum physics, which allows a particle to be in two locations simultaneously. These are all attributes of self-referential systems, including the LP, suggesting that the universe we inhabit is based on a quantum computer that is self-referential and is calculating possible courses of events. This in turn indicates that we are likely living in a simulation. So .... your LP actually supports simulism rather than refuting it!

Peter S. Jenkins

Hi Peter, I understand your comments about QM, and there is a very interesting article in New Scientist last week about Topos Logic which has recently been applied in such situations. However, I disagree that this is what is happenening here. Nick Bostrom is using ordinary common or garden Aristotelian Logic in his piece, and I am not arguing about whether or not we are in a simulation, and if we were what logic we should, in principle, be using, but the validity of Nick's argument. The Liar's Paradox can be circumvented in all sorts of ways, I agree, but none of these is very satisfactory, and I am left thinking, that if this is the best Simulation argument that we can come up, then it is not all that satisfactory. I think it can be better formed as a Formal 'proof by contradiction', by assuming that we are not living in a simulation, and arguing on the basis of that assumption. The conclusions that we come to is that we are living in a simulation, which is contradictory, and so the conclusion must be that the original assumption is incorrect. This would not satisfy the constructivists, who do not accept PBC as a valid proof, and in fact is rendered inoperable by Quantum Logic! --TonyFleet 19:07, 21 April 2007 (CEST)

Tony, I guess that we agree to disagree then!

Peter

Hi Tony - a proof by contradiction is if A, then B, but B is inconsistent with A, so the conclusion contradicts the assumption on which it is based, and therefore the assumption must be wrong. However, simulism starts with a rebuttable presumption (to use a legal term) that we live in the real world. This leads to the conclusion that we probably live in a simulation, thereby shifting the onus of proof to those who would argue that we do not live in a simulation. This is different from proof by contradiction.

Peter S. Jenkins

Hi Peter

I am still not totally in agreement with you, as there are some finer details of the simulation argument that I am stull not happy about, but I now believe that although you are, in fact, slightly wrong in your analysis of PBC, you are correct in the main substance here. In mathematics, I have come across many instances of where an assumption of X, leads to the conclusion of not X. Cantor's diagonal argument is a case in point. You assume that you can list all of the members of an infinite set, and using that assumption go on to show that you have missed one out, and so cannot list all the members. I had not seen this as a PBC until this discussion with you. However, I now think that my objection that this is a form of the Liar's Paradox may in fact not be accurate, for the following reason: In the Liar's Paradox (X implies not X), the argument is dysfunctional whether or not X is true. In this case, the argunment is dysfunctional only if we are living in a simulation, i.e. if we are in not a simulation, then we are. If we are in a simulation, the argument does not apply, but then it does not need to. I think we are still agreeing to differ on our interpretation of the argument, but I now feel I have reached a clearer understanding of the argument, AND what is more, we agree on the conclusion.

Many Thanks --TonyFleet 09:13, 23 April 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Bart's Comments on Substrate-Independency

Just reading your ideas, a rather peculiar thought occurred to me: suppose substrate independancy is perfectly valid, this means that computational machines can develop conscious minds of their own.

Assume that these computations are in fact not carried out by a computer, but are done by hand on paper. Does the substrate independancy still holds, implying the papersheets develop a conscious mind?

By God, this idea is mind-boggling to me.

(Note: I inadvertently put this on your user page instead of your discussion place, and I would not want to spoil your work, so I moved it over here.)

--Bart 0:25, 13 February 2007 (CET)

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Response from Tony

Thanks Bart - I am currently attempting to read through the Rhodes article on the Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics you suggested on the Quantum Theory page.

In terms of what you say above, I think it's even scarier than you think: I remember reading somewhere about an argument which runs like this: Imagine a brain being being split in half, but keeping all the connections between the two hemispheres without any loss of function. Re-create the connections between the two halves as wireless connections. Move the two halves to different parts of the planet. Does the brain still have the same functionality as before? If so, repeat the process until the brain is a set of discrete individual neurons, each in its own vat, spread all over the planet, each with its own wireless connectivity restored to selected other neurons. If this does not destroy brain function (and there does not seem to be any good reason why it should), now take this one step further.

Each neuron will operate under a specific set of rules, which could effectively be modelled by a computational device; i.e. it merely responds in a partaticular way to a given set of inputs. If we knew what these rules were, we could replace any one of these neurons with an artificial neuron. Suppose this happens, and we gradually replace all biological neurons with synthetic neurons. Then we will have created our first artificial brain.

None of this so far seems unreasonable; yes, it's a bit difficult to see at the moment how we could do it, but given advances in AI techniques, neural networking etc., it seems feasible that we could do this within a reasonable amount of time. But wait: if we could construct an artificial brain like this, we could control the rate of its thinking. We could slow down the thinking so that we could 'see' the workings of the synthetic neurons In particular, we could see that, for example each neuron is in fact only a set of algorithms acting in response to a set of inputs. We could replace any one of these electronic synthetic neurons with a clockwork alternative; ultimately we could cover the planet with a Babbage Brain which had all the functions of the original, but worked more slowly.

Now for the scary bit. All of these connections, cogs and flywheels are just mechanical devices, and could be replaced by any other device which does the same trick. People with pencils and pieces of paper(!), rats trained to run in mazes, pigeons trained to peck at coloured disks are all potential replacements for the cogs and wheels. We could even imagine organising a cellular automata in a uniquely configured way to match the workings of each individual artificial neuron; what is important is not how it works, but the fact that the connectivity still exists, and the neurons send messages in the right order to the correct other neurons. It does not matter about timescale; effectively we could stop and restart and the brain would not know any difference.

Now for the even scarier bit: It is therefore possible, in principle, to code for the workings of this brain at a particular point in time as a set of values (These would be the states of the neurons at a particular time T). The electrical charge on each neuron could be given as a value on a discrete scale. Following the procedure by Goedel, code this set of values up using as a unique number N as powers of sequential prime numbers. (Admittedly this would be absolutely huge!). Now compile together all the rules of the neurons into a mathematical function F (probably involving tensors of zillions of dimensions) We can therefore reduce the mathematics of the brain as follows: The Brain state at time t = k would be the kth iteration of the function F on the original number N. Effectively the brain has now been reduced to a (simple?) mathematical procedure... but wait, we can do better: suppose we collect together all of the numbers N1, N2, N2, etc. representing the brain-states of the individual from the time of their birth to the time of their death. we can code for these in one unimaginably vast Goedel number which represents all their mental activity from birth to death. At birth you get printed with a number on your forehead. There you go, pal, that's it. that's your life, that's all you get...

Somewhere in this reasoning there has to be a flaw. I await for the pages on consciousness being written with baited breath.

--TonyFleet 08:32, 13 February 2007 (CET)

[edit] Bart's Comments on Paper minds

Tony, thanks for your reply.

The idea that a conscious mind could be replaced by a machine, has occurred to me too. But it gets even stranger when this machinery is cloned. Will there be two separated minds with common memories? The idea that they share even their future thoughts and experiences is too bizar for me right now. Let alone the idea that one hell of a big Goedel sequence can represents a person's entire life on earth, and perhaps his afterlife as well...

I explored the idea of the paper simulation a little further and was even more astonished by the ramifications.

(1) If numbers written on a piece of paper can represent a conscious mind, then how about the fictional characters in a novel? Could for example, Inspector Elijah Baley, from Asimov's famous novels, which I reread recently, really have substance and be conscious within his own written (fictional) reality? The sequence of written characters and numbers in the book can easily be a representation of a Goedel number in a many-digit number base. How long must a Goedel number be to represent a real person's history? A novel ususally contains tens of thousands of characters.

Or could Mr. Baley even exist within the confines of Asimov's memories?

(2) If we do away with the idea of sheets of paper empowered with consciousness because we think it is inacceptable, then so is the idea of a consciousness inside a computer, and their goes our simulism philosophy, right into the dustbin. After all, their is no real difference between a digital and a written simulation.

I think I have to accept either (1) or (2). (1) to me seems inacceptable at the moment. (2) kills the excitement of the discussion. Bart, name your poison...

--Bart 21:40, 13 February 2007 (CET)

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Hi Bart

I will have to think about the cloned minds. I have had the same trouble trying to reconcile the transporter technology in Startrek.

In answer to your other points: (1) It has got to be true that authors, when creating their characters, breathe life into them and make them real for themselves - and for others. This is what actors do in plays. They simulate both in their own minds, and for the audience a virtual scenario. Many people believe, for example that Sherlock Holmes was an historical character.

I personally do not think that (2) is correct. There are many (for example Roger Penrose) who suggest that consciousness is invoked as a result of quantum-mechanical processes, using for example quantum entanglement. This makes use of Everett's 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum theory, and allows for parallel processing on a virtually infinite scale. My analysis above rests on a crude interpretation of computability based on on a Universal Turing Machine principle. This is a simple linear processing device, but one which is very flexible and incredibly powerful. In fact as the Church-Turing thesis demonstrates, all finitely parallel processing systems can be simulated by this device. However, with quantum computing, all bets are off, as the door is opened to infinitely parallel computing power. If it is true that conscious minds work on quantum computational principles, then it would not be possible to simulate them on current machines, nor, as a result by pencil and paper either. --TonyFleet 22:29, 13 February 2007 (CET)

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I have always thought that the transporter technology in Star Trek was problematic, in the same way that Your idea of 'cloned minds' is problematic for would-be simulators. Effectively the problem is this: a conscious being is 'transported' from A to B by digitisation, transmission and reconstruction. Before transmission, and during reception, the data must be buffered, and the system would back up the data. 24th Century Health & Safety experts would insist on this. Therein lies the problem. We are now able to reproduce a individual if something goes wrong in transit, or on arrival, a few seconds or weeks (or even years) after arrival. However, we can reproduce the individual even if nothing goes wrong. We effectively end up with two or more conscious beings who claim to be the same individual with the same memories up to the point at which they were stored. Similarly in simulations, the data will be backed up from time to time; we can pause and restart an individual, we could reinstate an individual, who has met with an accident, or even clone the individual.

In consequence, either consciousness is discontinuous, i.e. when, in the StarTrek case Kirk is beamed up by Scotty, the Kirk that arrives is essentially a different Kirk than the one who left (which would imply that the original Kirk dies and a new one is created), OR it must be possible to have two discrete minds which effectively share the same consciousness, possibly existing at the same time.

If the former is the case, then this has profound implications for the notion of consciousness: the person that we like to regard as 'I' is only ever in the 'now'; memories of what we did yesterday relate to a completely different entity. This does not feel right; the 'I' who is editing this sentence can relate easily to the 'I' who originally wrote it two minutes ago.

If the latter is the case, this can only mean that consciousness is situated outside the reality in which it apparently resides. In simulism terms, this must imply that we are living in an extrinsic simulation (Degree 2/3).

Cloned minds are an issue; this Wiki definitely needs to explore consciousness!--TonyFleet 21:40, 14 February 2007 (CET)

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I've given it lots of thought and I have arrived at a (perhaps preliminary )conclusion.

Consider the following binary octet:

10001111

This number can be interpreted in a variety of ways:

- if it is an unsigned integer, it's value is 143

- if it is a signed integer, it's value is -113

- if it represents an ASCII character, it's value is ''

We made use of asserted logic to get the decimal values, this means the logic states (true, false) map to the digits (0, 1). We could also use negated logic, in which we map (true, false) to (1, 0). In this case, we would arrive at different values.

What I mean to make clear is that there is no true meaning to an arbitrary sequence of zeroes and ones, and more, that interpretation of this sequence requires a conscious mind, which must have absolute knowledge of the coding scheme being used.

Meaning, a computer must not only develop consciousness to make sense of the digits, it must be conscious by very design. Otherwise it's doomed to be just a bit of zeroes and ones.

My conclusion: neither a digital computer, no matter how advanced, nor a pencil and a paper can do the job we are talking about.

Either consciousness is a byproduct of QM, or it has a cause we are not (yet, if ever) able to conceive of.

!--Bart 20:35, 15 February 2007 (CET)

--- Interesting... ... and I agree with your conclusions, but not necessarily your arguments.

Firstly, I would argue that it is possible to devise an algorithm to make sense of different data sequences, to translate one language into another, to devise chess strategies, all without being conscious. Just to illustrate: a colleague of mine has developed softwware which apparently translates Fortran programs into any other programming language. This sounds as if it requires conscious intelligence.

In fact the software reads the Fortran Program and creates a set of complex data structures from it by a series of well-formulated rules. The next stage is that Java, C++ etc., programs can be written by re-interpreting the data and following an equivalent set of rules. This is very impressive and achieves the task far better than human beings, but it is not intelligent, it's just the result of a bright idea, insight and a lot of hard work.

This is the converse to your idea; this time, in essence the code is the same, but the form, appearance and structure is different. I agree that we need intelligence to be able to make sense of things, but in this case, the intelligence lies with the programmer, not the program. Consciousness was probably used when the idea of the program was being formulated; my guess is that after all the work required in debugging the program, he was only semi-conscious!

--TonyFleet 22:00, 15 February 2007 (CET)

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late entrance to the discussion

my name is devon paulson and i've just begun playing around on here, don't even know if this is the proper place to add this or not. regardless, i would like to state two beliefs about the above discussion, one of which furthers the short dialogue tony and i had over the monster simulation argument.

but first in relation to startrak, or any other type of teleportation, what i believe is that there is almost certainly no way to teleport someone and have the being be in any fashion identical to the one which entered the transportation chamber. our brain states and memories and thoughts and even most likely how we move our bodies are uniquely mapped out in our brains. as we grow and learn we map specific neurons with our memories and thoughts among other things. each of us do this different, this is evident in people that have lost specific parts of their brain from lesions and lose, say arm motor skills, but are able to re-learn how to move that arm again in a whole new part of the brain. memories work the same way; we map a memory onto specific collections of neurons firing simultaneously. with this in mind there is no way to assemble random particles on the other side of the galexy or world or even room that could compensate for every brain state because the particles that formed the neurons would have to know how to fire together in this fashion to remember when you were 10 and fell off the bob's big boy statue. there would have to be a functional MRI taken of you doing and saying and thinking everything that you have ever done or said or thought and this information would have to be transmitted as well. i don't see this being possible.

however, if scientists in the future figure out that there is indeed a place in the brain, down in the subcorticle region say, that encoded all this information then there still would be a problem as i see it.

what i believe would occur is that there would be no functional difference for the new being coming into existence at the other end, he or she would have all the same memories, beliefs, thoughts and feelings because all of the brain states would be mapped in identical regions and utilize all the same neuronal sets and therefor believe themself to have always existed as that being and in fact have been transported. however, the subjective consciousness of the being who entered into the transporter machine would cease to exist. if we are our memories and beliefs which are just our brain states then it follows that the being exiting the transporter chamber would be functionally no different then that which entered; whereas the one that entered has ceased to exist in that the brain states and therefore the subjective awareness of that brain matter has ceased to exist. all that now exists are copies and mappings of those brain states in a newly composed brain. when the matter was disassembled the original ceased to exist and the newly reassembled brain could not carry over the subjective first-person awareness but could make an exact copy of that brain and all its states and therefore the one exiting the chamber would seem to be the identical person down to the mapping of brain states. this would be akin to mapping out how one person uses their brain and magically making another person fire those neurons in all the same ways, the first person would not be transported into the subjective awareness of the second, though it is less clear to me in this situation what would occur in the second person.

and this leads me to my second long-winded, babbling point which is that there is a difference between something representing consciousness and something being conscious. the crucial distinction here is john searle's distinction between those features of nature which are intrinsic or observer-independent and features of nature which are observer-relative. the latter depends on how humans treat and deal with and think about them, such as a one dollar bill or the words i'm typing now, whereas the former exists ontologically with no imposed meaning such as the paper and ink of the one dollar bill or the electrical impulses and silicone in my computer. things that carry observer-relative meanings are grafted on to the object itself. a knife, for instance, is just a hunk of metal with a bit of wood on the end, but a knife in all it's meanings and full uses and contexts (such as a great meal you recall inadvertently or a carnival act or a movie or oj simpson) is a much different object. so we need to be very careful when treading this paper mind path. it seems true that one could potentially represent an entire mind, everything from past thoughts to future decisions, on a computer and i don't see why this couldn't be the case on paper as well. in fact, i don't see anything which logically would preclude a gargantuan task of this kind at all. however, a string of binary numbers in a computer would simply be a simulation of consciousness, albeit an amazing and intricate simulation, similar to a simulation of digestion. a simulated digestive track on a computer, even if down to the last quark, would not be able to digest food in the least, but instead only run a simulation of it. if you fed pizza into the computer no one would think that the computer could digest it. likewise, a computer simulation of consciousness would be nothing but a very clever trick to seem in all cases alive but there would be no first person subjective nature to it... and this is where the very subtle distinction of the features of nature plays a roll... computer processes, such as what i'm using now to type, and what were talking about here, name observer-relative functions. while excited electrons being absorbed, quantum leaping then being emitted while traversing silicone is observer-independent, it is something that happens regardless of an observer's belief, thoughts or notions; it is the context that inherently gives this meaning. therefore, computation is only meaningful because and when we as humans think about and deal with the nature of how it functions; we adhere meaning to the syntax; it is us humans who say what the code of 1's and 0's mean and how they function, so that a website is constructed or a paragraph written. there is no way for computation alone to be conscious, much less a string of numbers on a page, much less a character in a novel.

--DevonPaulson 11:16, 29 June 2008 (PST)

Hi Devon

I tend to agree with your first major point, that is that there is probably no way that teleportation could operate to keep a consciousness intact in the way that it happens in Star Trek. This is for several reasons, bu mainly it is unclear how mental processes could start 'instantly' enough to continue functioning in the reconstituted body and mind. (the same is true of biological processes). However, there may well be software workarounds here. If it were possible for example, to 'download' a mind, the consciousness could be beamed directly into a reconstituted body, or, even easier, kept in the mainframe while the reconstituted avatar had the experiences, and simply beamed the information back to the mind in the mainframe. Maybe this is what is already happening....

On your second point, I disagree withn your view that "computer simulation of consciousness would be nothing but a very clever trick to seem in all cases alive but there would be no first person subjective nature to it". You may just be thinking of a digital computer here; in the discussions I have had on this site (and others) many believe that in the future, quantum computers, 'wet' biological computers, amssively parallel computers (as well as other stuff we haven't even thought of yet) could well support consciousness. After all the human brain is what - simply a complex calculating device. If the brain can be reverse-engineered, and there seems no intrinsic reson why it can't we can create artifical consciousness. However, that is NOT to say pencil-and-paper algorithms could be conscious. If it is determined, for example that quantum processes are at the heart of consciousness, then this would rule out anything as simplistic as a Turing Machine from being conscious. This would require a Universal Quantum Computer, which is a very different beast. --TonyFleet 16:06, 4 July 2008 (CEST)

and a hi back tony and thanks for the intriguing discussion.

i'm not sure if the brain is just a complex calculating device or not, it seems not to me. we can calculate with it but is that all it is? i'm not going up in a balloon over it, i do believe that brain states cause mental states and mental states, ie minds, are an emergent property of the brain, which is to say it is causal. the physical processes, however, do not perform computation, they only can be (and this is the crucial point) "interpreted" as performing computation. the second that those processes are "interpreted" as being computational they become a mental phenomenon. a computer doesn't know what it is processing, but we do... this can't be intrinsic to complicated computation, but instead is a feature of our minds; we can interpret our processes as being computational as we can interpret the electrons and photons zipping around a computer as meaning something significant- but this is an observer dependent feature of reality. my point isn't to say that there won't be artificial minds or minds created in some manner that consciousness could arise in, my point is to say that computation alone, isn't enough to create intrinsic consciousness, even complex, quantum computation. i have no idea about what can and can't be conscious, but consciousness itself is a property of brains and is not reducible to any other physical property.

i think we have to be careful not to steer to close to some kind of present-ism. minds have been explained in the past as whatever the current technology is: catapult, windmill, loom, switch board, computer and quantum computer. it is a feature of an age to try to describe minds in whatever language and concepts are most cutting edge and relevant. computation alone is not enough to guarantee mental states. on the other hand, i'm also not willing to come to some kind of wetware chauvinist theory, where brains are the only things that could sustain mental states, but i do believe that right now and for the foreseeable future it is. we would need some further understanding of what exactly it is in the brain that allows brain states to cause mental states and in my estimation it won't be computational.

--DevonPaulson 10:49, 13 july 2008 (PST)

[edit] Request

Anyone who has any time at all, please read 'Discussion about the computing power needed to run a convincing simulation' on TonyFleet. Either this is valid, and the conclusions are very surprising, or I have made some fundamental calculation errors (which is not an unknown phenomenon in my experience). Before I commit this to a 'public space', I would just like some corroboration from someone else!--TonyFleet 10:16, 14 February 2007 (CET)

[edit] Why we are not living in a simulation

Consider what we would actually need to do to program a universe to the detail that we see around us - not the computing power, but the knowledge & understanding of physical, psychological, sociological, biological and cosmological processes, together with an algorithmic implementation of these. It has been hypothesised that "an intelligent operating system could fill in the details in an ad hoc manner", and circumvent the computing pwer requirements, but there is no circumventing the main issue here, that we would need to know just about everything about everything in order to do it. In addition we would have to have a mechanism for being able to implement this on some sort of computational substrate; which either means programming line by line or evolving some sort of neural net (or equivalent).

Let us say that all this is possible. The beings who have reached this stage have effectively solved all the problems in the universe. They understand biology, they understand themselves, they know all about physics; if they don't they can't create a reality simulation. So the question is, if anyone can do this, why would they wish to run a simulation? What would be its purpose?

Simulations currently have two main purposes: information-gathering and entertainment. Bostrom presupposes that societies would want to run ancestor-simulations for the former reason, the purpose of such simulations being to find out how people behave under situation X, or what would have happened if Y had occurred intead of Z. That is only valid if the simulation is a model of the society, containing less detail, and can run in real-time at a faster rate than the original. However, that means that in that case the simulation is not a simulation of reality - it is a simulation of less-than-reality. The first purpose for creating a simulation is therefore is ruled out, and unless the superintelligent beings are creating a simulation just to watch how we behave when when we get up in the morning and go to the toilet, the second one would be too If it turns out to be true that we are really nothing but contestants in Big Brother 10^17, waiting to be ejected into the arms of some 961st century Davina McCall then I despair about the future of the universe. If that fate awaits us, we should all roll over and wait for the men in white coats instead of getting up in the morning.

There is one, and only one get out and that is Tipler's Omega Point theory. In Tipler's restaurant at the end of the universe, all of creation's resources would be used to fabricate simulations which could be run at exponentially increasing rates to cheat the demise of everything. If the reason that we are here is that this is the only way to survive the Big Crunch (or to witness the second coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon) then I can go along with that. However, when you consider what that entails, if the entire universe is the substrate on which the simulation is running, then how is that different to what we currently regard as reality?

The world as we experience it, by scientific reckoning, has been evolving for the last 15 billion years, starting with the Big Bang, and passing through lots of different manifestations to arrive at this point in time. The notion of 'Last Thursdayism' or 'The five-minute universe' posits that all of this was created some time in the recent past, e.g. 5 minutes ago, with all the fossils, memories of people, the brokem beer bottle in my bin, and the scar on my knee all created to make us believe that it has been in existence for 15 billion years. That is an interesting diversionary tactic, but it does not account for the fact that the complexity that we see around us would need to have been developed in order to convince us of such a hoax.

I am not 100% sure of this point, but my intuition tells me that has got to be some sort of conservation of information rule that says that something equivalent to the level of complexity and organisation we observe in the universe around us could not have been created without an equivalent degree of effot to that which was needed to get us to this point. I am sure that this can be realted to the second law of thermodynamics. It has taken us (apparently) 15 billion years to get to this point; we think it has taken us that time, not because we have guessed, but because we have calculated a reasoned prediction made on the basis of consistent scientific theory & observations. That means the program has been running for the equivalent of 15 billion years, or that it took 15 billion years to develop. They have either got an amazingly dedicated set of programmers who must like each other a lot, or they are amazingly patient.

Looked at from our point of view, we observe a universe which seemingly has used all of its 'computing power' to get to this point, and it has apparently taken 15 Billion years of our time to get to this point. Suppose that we decide, in our future, to develop a program to do simulate what we see around us now. In order to do this, we would need to either (1) use ALL the universe's resources and take 15 billion years to develop it, which is effectively what has happened, and we call it 'reality', or (2) create the simulation in the same detail, but use a subset of the Universe's resources, thus having a run-time of longer than 15 billion years to get to this point (which for practical reasons, no-one would realistically attempt to do), or (3) create a simulation with far less detail than we think we see, using only a fraction of the Universe's resources.

It is case (3) which is most likely, and therefore most interesting. This is tha case which has been used as an 'exit clause' by proponents of the Simulation Hypothesis, in order to explain how we could simulate the Universe by using far fewer resources than we apparently need. However, if we could actually do this, then we would need to be albe to access a huge store of knowledge and understanding about physical and other processes. Just think about what would have to happen to implement this. Suppose I am working ar CERN, and I decide to investigate Higgs' Bosons. The intelligent operating system sees that I am about to create some new physics, and decides that it needs to do some calculations about what needs to happen, just to make sure that I see what he I am supposed to see.

This means that some being, somewhere has enough knowledge and computing power to calculate everything down to the last qubit, or at least invent it when it becomes necessary. The knowledge, understanding and the computational ability to do this is phenomenal. Remember this is a simulation, so things would have to be there when they were required, which means that they would have to be calculated and generated in real time. This would thererefore require detailed and complete deterministic knowledge of the way highly complex and non-linear systems operate. Currently when we have such complex dynamical or non-linear systems, we solve them by running simulations. This is not an option here, otherwise we would need to run a simulation to find out what to put in the simulation, which would inevitably involve simulations within the sub-simulation and so on into infinite regress.

Therefore I cannot see how a simulation of reality this complex would work. Either we would never achieve the programming capapbility to do it, or if we did, why would we bother? If we could do it, we would be able to calculate answers to every question in nanoseconds; if we really wanted to find out how our ancestors behaved we would calculate it, not simulate it. There would be no point to running ancestor simulations except for their entertainment value.

Effectively this means that we will either never reach the stage at which we are capable of running ancestor-simulations, or if we do, we will not be interested in them, because we have better ways of finding answers to questions. Either way, using Bostrom's argument, cases (1) & (2) from his disjuction are far more likely than his case (3), ergo we are not living in a simulation.

If I'm wrong, cart me off to the Diary room so I can talk to Big Brother.

--TonyFleet 21:30, 7 March 2007 (CET)

[edit] Vandalism

Hey Tony, thanks for helping out with the vandalism. I think I reverted all damaged pages now. Since you are contributing so often (even more than I at the moment) I was wondering if you would be willing to help maintaining the site. If so, send me an email (see my user page), so I can grant you moderator access. --Ivo 18:39, 25 May 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Sysop

As of today TonyFleet has admin privileges to the Simulism wiki. Tony: you should now have a set of extra options on pages and in the history. If you have any questions about any of them, feel free to contact me. --Ivo 09:19, 28 May 2007 (CEST)

Thanks Ivo, I feel priveleged.--TonyFleet 19:02, 28 May 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Fixed Nines

Hi Tony,

I fixed the amazon link to The Nines; reason it didn't work was that you were using the ID from the UK amazon site, but the amazon tag uses the us one. Fixed now. Thanks. --Ivo 23:14, 4 July 2008 (CEST)