newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

newolder wrote:
Simulant Theory of Everything.

10 We are simulants
20 GOSUB 10


STACK OVERFLOW ERROR

Whereas my version is an infinite loop which simulates standing between 2 mirrors and which cannot be achieved, according to Destroyer. What does the view inside 3 edge-connected mirrors simulate?

Are you getting at something like what I'd want to look into, a tetrahedral arrangement of four triangular mirrors joined at the edges? Before you climb inside, be sure to bring a light source with you.

Cito di Pense wrote:

newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

newolder wrote:
Simulant Theory of Everything.

10 We are simulants
20 GOSUB 10


STACK OVERFLOW ERROR

Whereas my version is an infinite loop which simulates standing between 2 mirrors and which cannot be achieved, according to Destroyer. What does the view inside 3 edge-connected mirrors simulate?

Are you getting at something like what I'd want to look into, a tetrahedral arrangement of four triangular mirrors joined at the edges? Before you climb inside, be sure to bring a light source with you.

You posted whilst I edited my last (now 1 page back) to include an external view of one way mirrors configured as a cube.

It would be fun to climb inside Cloud Gate in Chicago too.

Or a Stellarator fusion chamber... (Twisted donut).

newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

newolder wrote:
Simulant Theory of Everything.

10 We are simulants
20 GOSUB 10


STACK OVERFLOW ERROR

Whereas my version is an infinite loop which simulates standing between 2 mirrors and which cannot be achieved, according to Destroyer. What does the view inside 3 edge-connected mirrors simulate?

This one, produced by Numen/For Use - a Croatian-Austrian design collective, simulates curved space...

Your version doesn't simulate two mirrors, which fade out. Your's is a ideal loop whereas your argument was simulations within simulations.

Great photo, but definitely a finite object with no actual infinite regress.



But the point is not contested that something can look like a regress when it isn't and reframing your view makes that clear.

GrahamH wrote:...

Your version doesn't simulate two mirrors, which fade out. Your's is a ideal loop whereas your argument was simulations within simulations.

FFS, if it can simulate an ideal loop in 2 lines, I'm fucking sure I could have it simulate "fade out" at any level required. Anyhoo that complaint is simply bollocks: the code can also simulate an infinite loop. It's a simulation because I have not yet worked out a perpetual power supply to keep the thing running forever.


If we are in a simulation then these are simulations within a simulation and there is nothing to prevent any other simulation from achieving further simulations.

Great photo, but definitely a finite object with no actual infinite regress.

Viewpoint dependent.

But the point is not contested that something can look like a regress when it isn't and reframing your view makes that clear.

Pardon?

newolder wrote: if it can simulate an ideal loop in 2 lines, I'm fucking sure I could have it simulate "fade out" at any level required.

It isn't "simulating" anything. It describes an infinite loop, but it's just text, not doing anything, not looping. If you want to loop you have to convert the text into states in physical system that can do work. Some CMOS logic gates in a microcontroller chip would do You could use dominos, but it's a lot of extra work to keep standing them up. What you definitely can't do is run a simulation on nothing but a simulation.


You could, of course, as a description of a fade out to your text, but the hard fact is that real active recursion burns physical resources. There are physical limits on how much recursion any computer can do. Loops are easy, you can loop for as long as you have power to keep things moving or until something breaks.

GrahamH wrote:

newolder wrote: if it can simulate an ideal loop in 2 lines, I'm fucking sure I could have it simulate "fade out" at any level required.

It isn't "simulating" anything. It describes an infinite loop, but it's just text, not doing anything, not looping. If you want to loop you have to convert the text into states in physical system that can do work. Some CMOS logic gates in a microcontroller chip would do You could use dominos, but it's a lot of extra work to keep standing them up. What you definitely can't do is run a simulation on nothing but a simulation.

But you've already told me that computer code for a specific chip and language can be emulated on another substrate, so I don't know where that came from. So if I simulate a Z80 chip on a 6800 based virtual machine inside a Cray supercomputer then the Z80 is nothing but a simulation inside the simulation of the 6800 that is a simulation inside the code of the Cray. Then I (a simulant) run my BASIC, 2-mirror, infinite loop simulator on the Z80.

Any simulated infinite loop that has 2 states is a simulation of 2 mirrors, no matter how poor the simulation. Pong (the game) for example, is a poor simulation of both 2 mirrors and table tennis.

You could, of course, as a description of a fade out to your text, but the hard fact is that real active recursion burns physical resources. There are physical limits on how much recursion any computer can do. Loops are easy, you can loop for as long as you have power to keep things moving or until something breaks.

Yes, I already noted this.

newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

newolder wrote: if it can simulate an ideal loop in 2 lines, I'm fucking sure I could have it simulate "fade out" at any level required.

It isn't "simulating" anything. It describes an infinite loop, but it's just text, not doing anything, not looping. If you want to loop you have to convert the text into states in physical system that can do work. Some CMOS logic gates in a microcontroller chip would do You could use dominos, but it's a lot of extra work to keep standing them up. What you definitely can't do is run a simulation on nothing but a simulation.

But you've already told me that computer code for a specific chip and language can be emulated on another substrate, so I don't know where that came from. So if I simulate a Z80 chip on a 6800 based virtual machine inside a Cray supercomputer then the Z80 is nothing but a simulation inside the simulation of the 6800 that is a simulation inside the code of the Cray. Then I (a simulant) run my BASIC, 2-mirror, infinite loop simulator on the Z80.

Yes indeed, all of which reduces to activity in the Cray. Without the Cray to do the work nothing happens. Any simulation needs a simulator, every program needs a processor.

GrahamH wrote:...

Yes indeed, all of which reduces to activity in the Cray. Without the Cray to do the work nothing happens.

The Z80, its code and a remote Z80 coder know nothing of the Cray.

newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:...

Yes indeed, all of which reduces to activity in the Cray. Without the Cray to do the work nothing happens.

The Z80, its code and a remote Z80 coder know nothing of the Cray.

"Know nothing of the Cray"? You mean like newolder "knows nothing of the particles in his brain"? Of course, there is no requirement for knowledge of the detail of the mechanism, just so long as the mechanism is there doing the necessary work.
You must know that if you run a virtual machine on your PC it's your PC's processor doing the work, right? The emulated machine needs no reference to the host architecture. The Z80 programmer of the programs running on the VM "Knew nothing" of current Intel chips. But there must be something doing real work of nothing happens. Programmers can work in purely abstract symbols.

GrahamH wrote:

Destroyer wrote: It would not make any difference to how we perceive and interact with the world, but it would make a difference if we are no longer deluded as to what actually constitutes the original; because then our allegiance would change so that we are in compliance with the original rule/law which was previously concealed.

That would require much more than just answering the question posed. Nothing is revealed about the "real world" simply by knowing whether we are, or are not inhabiting it, is it? What are these rules/law that you suggest may be revealed?

Yes, but we would still be in a simulated universe; except that it would be a masquerade of the original. As you quite rightly say, nothing is revealed about the real world simply from observations within the simulation, but the revelation will follow if the intention is to establish the facts about the original. As to the original rule/law that would simply be compliance with real functioning as opposed to the simulated rule now masquerading for the real, if the original is Reality itself.

What I see is a startling lack of imagination in this thread. Why, if our universe is a simulation, should one suppose that the "substrate" universe to be anything remotely resembling our universe? Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are playing with toy three dimensional simulations, like we play with toy two-dimensional simulations. Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are experimenting with funky rules from which emerge what we call our fundamental constants and laws of physics. Perhaps they aren't simulating anything, "we" simply emerged from how their computers do calculations.

scott1328 wrote:What I see is a startling lack of imagination in this thread. Why, if our universe is a simulation, should one suppose that the "substrate" universe to be anything remotely resembling our universe? Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are playing with toy three dimensional simulations, like we play with toy two-dimensional simulations. Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are experimenting with funky rules from which emerge what we call our fundamental constants and laws of physics. Perhaps they aren't simulating anything, "we" simply emerged from how their computers do calculations.

Well, I am now proposing that the simulated universe is of Reality itself; albeit now in disguise.

scott1328 wrote:What I see is a startling lack of imagination in this thread. Why, if our universe is a simulation, should one suppose that the "substrate" universe to be anything remotely resembling our universe? Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are playing with toy three dimensional simulations, like we play with toy two-dimensional simulations. Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are experimenting with funky rules from which emerge what we call our fundamental constants and laws of physics. Perhaps they aren't simulating anything, "we" simply emerged from how their computers do calculations.

I find this notion a lot more appealing than the Bostrom one, I would agree.

scott1328 wrote:What I see is a startling lack of imagination in this thread. Why, if our universe is a simulation, should one suppose that the "substrate" universe to be anything remotely resembling our universe? Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are playing with toy three dimensional simulations, like we play with toy two-dimensional simulations. Perhaps the inhabitants of the "real" universe are experimenting with funky rules from which emerge what we call our fundamental constants and laws of physics. Perhaps they aren't simulating anything, "we" simply emerged from how their computers do calculations.

Only because that is the Bostrom formulation - ancestor simulation. That implies that the simulations are good approximations of the real world of those running the simulations. But you are right, there's a more general scenario where the simulations are radically different. We could cast a multiverse as multiple simulated universes, each with differing physics, if it's the cosmologists running the research programme rather than the anthropologists things could be much more interesting.

Cito di Pense wrote:

gobshite wrote:

newolder wrote:

gobshite wrote:

What causes it to stop is that the probability that we are a simulation isn't 100%. It approaches 100%, but isn't. This allows for the initial physical world at the top of the hierarchy.

The prior probability is not 100% but when one is in an actual simulation then the posterior probability is 100%. One is either in a simulation or not. If we are in a simulation then the probability that our simulators are in a simulation returns to whatever prior probability has been set

i.e. not 100%. i.e. there is an un-simulated world at the top of the hierarchy.

Well, derh. There has to be or it's an infinite regress. But that's only an assessment of the argument, which can be whatever you want it to be, and not an assessment of whether there are simulations of worlds.

Myself and others are addressing the logic (i.e. an assessment) of his argument. I would have thought that was obvious.

Destroyer wrote:

newolder wrote:

Destroyer wrote:...
If the universe is a simulation of something else then how can that something else also be a simulation? We must inevitably reach a point where there has to be a distinction; otherwise what is the purpose of proposing a simulation? A simulation implies that this is not the original. If the simulation has no distinction from the original then such a proposition is meaningless.

You appear to have some words towards a contradiction in the argument from the proposition* that, "The universe is a simulation."

Congratulations.

* That I now read is an ill-posed question. (scott1328)

Whether or not it is claimed or merely proposed that the universe is a simulation is besides the point. The point is that no simulation can have an infinite regress, as you have been arguing. Because, an infinite regress of simulations takes no account of the original. There has to be an original that is distinct from the simulation, otherwise such a proposition or claim makes no sense.

To be fair to newolder, he is saying that an infinite regression makes no sense - hence the reductio ad absurdum.

gobshite wrote:

Destroyer wrote:

newolder wrote:

Destroyer wrote:...
If the universe is a simulation of something else then how can that something else also be a simulation? We must inevitably reach a point where there has to be a distinction; otherwise what is the purpose of proposing a simulation? A simulation implies that this is not the original. If the simulation has no distinction from the original then such a proposition is meaningless.

You appear to have some words towards a contradiction in the argument from the proposition* that, "The universe is a simulation."

Congratulations.

* That I now read is an ill-posed question. (scott1328)

Whether or not it is claimed or merely proposed that the universe is a simulation is besides the point. The point is that no simulation can have an infinite regress, as you have been arguing. Because, an infinite regress of simulations takes no account of the original. There has to be an original that is distinct from the simulation, otherwise such a proposition or claim makes no sense.

To be fair to newolder, they are saying that an infinite regression makes no sense - hence the reductio ad absurdum.

You don't appear to have been following the argument. Who exactly has been arguing for an infinite regression, and who has been saying that it makes no sense?

scott1328 wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

GrahamH wrote:The regression argument fails and there must be something that is not just a simulation, of necessity and by definition of the argument.

Not only that, but the simulations within the simulation are simulations on the same substrate as the original simulation. So these are features of the original simulation, not distinct simulations. As Destroyer pointed out yesterday, there can only be two levels, the simulator and the simulated.
And what the hell is this crap about the question being "ill-posed"? If we can correctly answer the question do we inhabit a simulation? with either "yes" or "no", then the question appears to have exactly the same presuppositions as the question do you live in the West Midlands? and that certainly doesn't appear to be "ill-posed".

It is ill-posed because it is non-falsifiable. What possible observation could one make that would falsify the claim: Is the universe a simulation?

"Is the universe a simulation?" isn't a claim, it's a question. The claim in the argument is that it's highly probably (but not 100%) that we are a simulation. This can be assessed using simple reasoning and mathematics. That claim isn't ill-posed in the slightest.

Destroyer wrote:

gobshite wrote:

Destroyer wrote:

newolder wrote:
You appear to have some words towards a contradiction in the argument from the proposition* that, "The universe is a simulation."

Congratulations.

* That I now read is an ill-posed question. (scott1328)

Whether or not it is claimed or merely proposed that the universe is a simulation is besides the point. The point is that no simulation can have an infinite regress, as you have been arguing. Because, an infinite regress of simulations takes no account of the original. There has to be an original that is distinct from the simulation, otherwise such a proposition or claim makes no sense.

To be fair to newolder, they are saying that an infinite regression makes no sense - hence the reductio ad absurdum.

You don't appear to have been following the argument. Who exactly has been arguing for an infinite regression, and who has been saying that it makes no sense?

newolder certainly hasn't been claiming that we exist in an infinite regression. Do you know what reductio ad absurdum means?

newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

newolder wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Great, that is the premise of the Bostrom argument.

Does that premise appear in the pdf quoted by Thommo earlier?
https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor‐simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

Then it  could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the  original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an  original race.

This clearly makes the distinction between real world "original race" and "people simulated..."

Well, it doesn't say "real world" and who knows what the "original race" was - perhaps they were the people simulated by the advanced descendants of a different original race.

He uses words just like I did: "Then it could be the case that..." - it could also be the case that this remains a discussion about an ill-posed idea.

What do you think "original" means? Of course it is the progenitor of the simulation process.