Willie71 wrote:I, on the other hand, am no more convinced that there is, or is not anything greater than this universe. We simply have no knowledge of that.

Yes, I know. Which is why the only logical and rational way to proceed is within the confines of what we do know and adjust our understanding and positions as new evidence emerges.

Willie71 wrote:I will not assert that either argument is more real or logical. Deism and pantheism are both possible.

A lot of assumptions there on your part, with a side order of false equivalency.

Again, occam's razor applies, in so far that when it comes to explaining the world around us, deities are an additional and unnecessary assumption. They also lack explanatory power, except for those trying to push an agenda and using fear of those deities as a means to deliver it.

Which doesn't mean to say that somewhere out there in the universe exist entities so unimaginably vastly superior to us that they might as qualify as deities but, until such time as we're actually aware they exist its pointless speculating about them or what they might want. Unless, of course, you're trying to push an agenda or possibly promote your evangelical TV channel.

Oh, Sendraks.

Author, Singularity Utopia at hplusmagazine.com remains unenamoured of Bostrom's ideas and offers the penguin argument in response...

Simulation argument proponents obviously believe we are simulation thus they don’t put forward the penguin argument. The penguin argument states humans could actually be penguins disguised to resemble humans therefore beneath our human skin you will find a mischievous penguin, furthermore all the penguins are actually sentient spaceships from the planet Krypton. People don’t consider this penguin argument because it is utterly ludicrous, it resembles a drug-induced hallucination. Sadly the simulation argument is equally preposterous but the believers of the simulation argument cannot see their idiocy.

Long read source

If there is no operational way to determine if it's a simulation then the idea has as much merit as other such notions, like gods.

Willie71 wrote:

laklak wrote:What does "trust our senses" mean? If I smack somebody upside the head with a 2x4 it fractures their skull. This happens whether the recipient trusts their senses or not. Our senses are all we have to trust, and they've worked fairly well to approximate "reality" for the last couple of million years.

Spooky action at a distance, gravity bending light, light being a wave and particle, observation changing outcomes from probability to certainty, or even turning back time are all contradictions to our senses. We see limited wavelengths and can't detect dark matter beyond gravity. Experiments in perceptual psychology show us repeatedly how fallible our senses are. I would think that anyone who believes in a heliocentric solar system would not trust their senses as the sun moves across the sky. We need multiple tools to aid and assist our senses to understand our universe. On our own, we are pathetically limited.

It's possibly better to phrase the things you started off by listing as maybe largely not being entirely consistent with our everyday experience and knowledge extracted from that experience, rather than contradicting our senses.

We don't really have a 'sense' of light travelling in straight lines. Our visual systems may implicitly rely on it, and it may be something we have been explicitly taught, or are able to observe in certain limited circumstances.
We can see beams of sunlight in misty or dusty air appearing [apparently] straight, but if we don't understand about refraction, we'd also see angled sticks appearing to 'bend' when they are dipped in water as a case of light not travelling in straight lines, if we believe the stick isn't actually bending; it's only at a reasonable stage of scientific competence that we realise it's effectively travelling in two different successive straight lines.

As for light having both wave and particle natures, surely we don't really have a 'sense' of either until we start asking the relevant questions and doing experiments, so there's not really anything to be contradicted. At least not before, again, we achieve reasonable scientific competence.

And on the way to such competence, we learn that all manner of things on a continuum of 'weirdness' are not as, or at least not quite as, or always as, we may have once expected, not simply to do with limitations of our sense, but significantly to do with the relatively narrow range of physical conditions we encounter while living a normal life. I'm not sure there's anything fundamentally special about the apparently weirder things, it's just that they are more weird than the less-weird ones.

As for 'observation changing outcomes from probability to certainty', that isn't necessarily particularly mind-blowing, as it maps fairly well onto the common-sense idea of an outcome not being known until someone knows it.

Sure, it comes along with a different idea of what 'observe' actually means, but once someone understands that that word is being used differently, it rather seems to take much of the sting out of the 'surprise', as it's not actually talking about observations in the everyday sense at all. Observation could just have usefully been called something like 'settlement' or 'condensation', and someone saying "'Settlement' is what we call the transitioning of a probability into a certainty, and it happens at basically the point where certain kinds of physical interaction happen.", would seem fairly unlikely to shock anyone.

Wilbur wrote:

Evolving wrote:I've had a look at the first video, the one by the philosopher Bostrom, who basically says, in summary, that one of three propositions must logically be true. Somewhat rephrasing these propositions, they are:

1. All technically advanced civilisations collapse before they are able to create the kind of simulations he is talking about (or, I suppose, it's not actually possible to create them).

2. Even if they could create such simulations, they can't be bothered actually to do it.

3. We are probably living in a simulation, because there would be far more simulated than genuine people if neither 1 nor 2 were true.

It seems to me that proposition 2 merits serious consideration.

I don't see how you can really just dismiss the other two, they're equally valid.

Did I do that?

Sendraks wrote:

Willie71 wrote:I, on the other hand, am no more convinced that there is, or is not anything greater than this universe. We simply have no knowledge of that.

Yes, I know. Which is why the only logical and rational way to proceed is within the confines of what we do know and adjust our understanding and positions as new evidence emerges.

Willie71 wrote:I will not assert that either argument is more real or logical. Deism and pantheism are both possible.

A lot of assumptions there on your part, with a side order of false equivalency.

Again, occam's razor applies, in so far that when it comes to explaining the world around us, deities are an additional and unnecessary assumption. They also lack explanatory power, except for those trying to push an agenda and using fear of those deities as a means to deliver it.

Which doesn't mean to say that somewhere out there in the universe exist entities so unimaginably vastly superior to us that they might as qualify as deities but, until such time as we're actually aware they exist its pointless speculating about them or what they might want. Unless, of course, you're trying to push an agenda or possibly promote your evangelical TV channel.

Why would there be fear of a diety that doesn't make itself known? Maybe you are unclear on what deism and pantheism are? Theism is demonstrably false.

tolman wrote:

Willie71 wrote:

laklak wrote:What does "trust our senses" mean? If I smack somebody upside the head with a 2x4 it fractures their skull. This happens whether the recipient trusts their senses or not. Our senses are all we have to trust, and they've worked fairly well to approximate "reality" for the last couple of million years.

Spooky action at a distance, gravity bending light, light being a wave and particle, observation changing outcomes from probability to certainty, or even turning back time are all contradictions to our senses. We see limited wavelengths and can't detect dark matter beyond gravity. Experiments in perceptual psychology show us repeatedly how fallible our senses are. I would think that anyone who believes in a heliocentric solar system would not trust their senses as the sun moves across the sky. We need multiple tools to aid and assist our senses to understand our universe. On our own, we are pathetically limited.

It's possibly better to phrase the things you started off by listing as maybe largely not being entirely consistent with our everyday experience and knowledge extracted from that experience, rather than contradicting our senses.

We don't really have a 'sense' of light travelling in straight lines. Our visual systems may implicitly rely on it, and it may be something we have been explicitly taught, or are able to observe in certain limited circumstances.
We can see beams of sunlight in misty or dusty air appearing [apparently] straight, but if we don't understand about refraction, we'd also see angled sticks appearing to 'bend' when they are dipped in water as a case of light not travelling in straight lines, if we believe the stick isn't actually bending; it's only at a reasonable stage of scientific competence that we realise it's effectively travelling in two different successive straight lines.

As for light having both wave and particle natures, surely we don't really have a 'sense' of either until we start asking the relevant questions and doing experiments, so there's not really anything to be contradicted. At least not before, again, we achieve reasonable scientific competence.

And on the way to such competence, we learn that all manner of things on a continuum of 'weirdness' are not as, or at least not quite as, or always as, we may have once expected, not simply to do with limitations of our sense, but significantly to do with the relatively narrow range of physical conditions we encounter while living a normal life. I'm not sure there's anything fundamentally special about the apparently weirder things, it's just that they are more weird than the less-weird ones.

As for 'observation changing outcomes from probability to certainty', that isn't necessarily particularly mind-blowing, as it maps fairly well onto the common-sense idea of an outcome not being known until someone knows it.

Sure, it comes along with a different idea of what 'observe' actually means, but once someone understands that that word is being used differently, it rather seems to take much of the sting out of the 'surprise', as it's not actually talking about observations in the everyday sense at all. Observation could just have usefully been called something like 'settlement' or 'condensation', and someone saying "'Settlement' is what we call the transitioning of a probability into a certainty, and it happens at basically the point where certain kinds of physical interaction happen.", would seem fairly unlikely to shock anyone.

I think you are agreeing with me, unless you are asserting that the perception that objects are really solid rather than being the result of forces is trustworthy? The observation that the sun moves around us wasn't trustworthy either.

Willie71 wrote:Why would there be fear of a deity that doesn't make itself known?

Maybe you are unlcear on how theism works. Most religions rely 100% on deism, because it would rather undermine your gig if God turned up and it transpired you'd gotten your devotions all wrong.

That aside, the notion of a deity that created everything but never shows up and never directly intervenes is, again and additional assumption that adds no value.

Sendraks wrote:

Willie71 wrote:Why would there be fear of a deity that doesn't make itself known?

Maybe you are unlcear on how theism works. Most religions rely 100% on deism, because it would rather undermine your gig if God turned up and it transpired you'd gotten your devotions all wrong.

That aside, the notion of a deity that created everything but never shows up and never directly intervenes is, again and additional assumption that adds no value.

So you don't know what deism is.

Willie71 wrote:So you don't know what deism is.

Educate me on what you think it is, by all means. I wouldn't want to be talking to you at cross purposes if your definition differs from my understanding.

Evolving wrote:

Wilbur wrote:

Evolving wrote:I've had a look at the first video, the one by the philosopher Bostrom, who basically says, in summary, that one of three propositions must logically be true. Somewhat rephrasing these propositions, they are:

1. All technically advanced civilisations collapse before they are able to create the kind of simulations he is talking about (or, I suppose, it's not actually possible to create them).

2. Even if they could create such simulations, they can't be bothered actually to do it.

3. We are probably living in a simulation, because there would be far more simulated than genuine people if neither 1 nor 2 were true.

It seems to me that proposition 2 merits serious consideration.

I don't see how you can really just dismiss the other two, they're equally valid.

Did I do that?

I don't know, it sure seemed like you were saying that only the 2nd merits serious consideration? If you don't take 1 or 3 seriously then to me that means you're dismissing them as too far fetched or silly or whatever.

Evolving wrote:I've had a look at the first video, the one by the philosopher Bostrom, who basically says, in summary, that one of three propositions must logically be true. Somewhat rephrasing these propositions, they are:

1. All technically advanced civilisations collapse before they are able to create the kind of simulations he is talking about (or, I suppose, it's not actually possible to create them).

2. Even if they could create such simulations, they can't be bothered actually to do it.

3. We are probably living in a simulation, because there would be far more simulated than genuine people if neither 1 nor 2 were true.

It seems to me that proposition 2 merits serious consideration.

I'd have thought that a reasonable 4) would be that possibly simulating the Earth, even if faking much of outer space and internal geological processes relatively cheaply, might still involve trying to model a layer of matter of meaningful thickness and with a surface area the size of the surface of the Earth, and that to do so sufficiently accurately for anyone to think worth doing (and to do so sufficiently well that the simulated lifeforms would think they were self-aware) might require a machine of similar (or larger) physical volume than the volume which was being modelled in detail, and which then only ran in something like real time and possibly even slower than real time. Maybe it would be easier to just terraform a planet and seed it with life, and let it run for real, and one could seed it with actual life of whatever level of complexity one desired, quite possibly custom-designed for the simulation.
One might reasonably expect that anyone who could simulate a lifeform from physics and chemistry all the way up* would also have a decent probability of being able to manufacture the actual lifeform.
One might also expect that if the machine to run the simulation did need to be even vaguely comparable in size to the modelled entity, terraforming a planet instead may quite possibly not seem difficult in comparison.

In which case, even if there were some simulations, it could be that there would be more deliberately-created real ecosystems than virtual ones. This wouldn't be simply a rephrasing of 'they could, but can't be bothered', rather one of 'anyone who could might well have arguably or even clearly better options', and it would also have potential implications for point 3).

(*or all the way down, if one is somehow simulating people at a higher level, but having to invent and simulate an underlying biology, chemistry and physics in a self-consistent but increasingly complex fashion in order for the people one is simulating to be able to indulge in science.)

newolder wrote:Author, Singularity Utopia at hplusmagazine.com remains unenamoured of Bostrom's ideas

"Via the hammer of my words I seek to destroy the intellectual travesty of our modern world." Your guy actually said that.

Wilbur wrote:

newolder wrote:Author, Singularity Utopia at hplusmagazine.com remains unenamoured of Bostrom's ideas

"Via the hammer of my words I seek to destroy the intellectual travesty of our modern world." Your guy actually said that.

Everyone needs a hobby.
They started with the disclaimer: "... Please note this article reflects my opinions only, the article does not necessarily represent the opinions of Humanity+, H+ Magazine, or any other individual."

The billionaires might have a change of heart upon realising that getting themselves out of the simulation will almost certainly entail a reality in which they are not billionaires.

Wilbur wrote:
I don't know, it sure seemed like you were saying that only the 2nd merits serious consideration? If you don't take 1 or 3 seriously then to me that means you're dismissing them as too far fetched or silly or whatever.

Or just giving them less serious consideration, which isn't even remotely the same as dismissing them as too far fetched or silly. Indeed, looking at 1 and 3, to describe both of them as far fetched or silly would be well......silly.

jamest wrote:The billionaires might have a change of heart upon realising that getting themselves out of the simulation will almost certainly entail a reality in which they are not billionaires.

But, devising a means to get out of the simulation and providing you controlled it, would still make you very rich in this reality.
And, maybe (and purely only entertaining this silliness because it amuses me to do so) those running the simulation would be suitably impressed and reward such endeavours.

Although, of course, if we are all just simulations (as opposed to a matrix style scenario), escape from the simulation would be impossible. So the point becomes moot.

Another consideration to "Getting out of the simulation." is, into what? Another simulation at the next level 'up'? How could it possibly end? "No, Mr. James Darcy, it's simulations all the way up!".

I do indeed think, purely subjectively, that even if it is possible to create a virtual reality in which the participants are conscious, Bostrom's proposition no. 2 is the most plausible of the three: why would we think that such a technically advanced civilisation (much less all of them) would choose to use its resources to simulate on such a grand scale the lives of its ancestors?

But I also disagree that the three propositions are a complete set of the available possibilities. What if only a few such civilisations choose to do this? What if there are only a few such civilisations in the first place?

"Get out" of the simulation? So, one day I boot up SimCity and POOF there's a cartoon character standing in front of me? Actually there are a couple of sims I made back in the day that I wouldn't mind seeing in the flesh, nudge nudge wink wink.