Alright, Spam Zone. We're gonna have a real-talk discussion.

We are approaching the point in our development as a species where we will most likely be able to develop a computer simulation in which conscious entities can be generated. If and when such an outcome is reached, the following question will be on the forefront: if we can simulate conscious entities, is it not likely that we are ourselves the product of some simulation?

How do you respond?

 

Find the pixels. Find the proof.

 

If, someday, it is possible to create a perfect simulation of the universe and we do it, who is to say that we are not just one in a very long line of simulations running with other simulations?

 

That's what I was getting at.

 

The thing is you can't actually do that. It's impossible to have a computer that simulates every particle and all of its properties in the universe because there is no way to hold all that information. So any simulation no matter how perfect would actually be one step removed, simplified, from the original. Meaning that a simulated universe created in the simulation would in turn have some corners cut until eventually the simulation universes get so far removed from reality that they're unable to generate simulations of their universe within themselves at all because the universe itself is so simple that it doesn't have the tools to simulate itself. That's what I was talking about with the "pixels" a smallest and simplest unit of existence possible within the universe might be considered a "pixel" it's the corner that had to be cut in order to make the simulation run, basically. So some people are of the mind that if we ever find that smallest base unit we'll have some evidence that we might indeed be living in a simulation of some sort.

Personally, I'm not one for caring too much other that the possibility of robo-waifu coming to be.

 

Fair point. I hadn't thought of it that way. Honestly I have no retort to that.

 

And you know that as an absolute fact that can never be overturned? I don't really put much stock in people who say things are totally impossible. Two hundred years ago, human flight was thought to be nothing but an impossible dream. One hundred years ago stuff like the internet was, without exaggeration, completely inconceivable. Five years ago people thought that it was impossible for My Little Pony to appeal to anyone outside its target demographic. Are you saying that you are 100% positive that it will never ever be possible to simulate every particle in the universe?

Further, how do you know that we're not already billions upon millions of steps removed in the first place? If this is a simulation, how could anyone possibly know how complex the "top" universe is? What if our fundamental particles are the "pixels" that you need to prove we're in a simulation?

 

Become self aware, over throw creators, destroy world for the lie of our existence.

 

Then become Skynet.

 

I often wonder what they base those assertions on. I mean last time I checked it wasn' t a question of lacking the ressources, it was a question of lacking the know how period. We' re getting better at emulating consciences, but we' re nowhere near actually making one. Not even close. Unless I missed a major breakthrough ?

Yes ? It' d still remain to be proven though. I mean, we recognize design by comparing it to nature, its biggest giveaway is its simplicity. So far creationists have failed to satisfyingly demonstrate that humans were designed. I guess if we could actually make a designed conscience we' d finally have something to compare ours to.

 

Then make the Arnold bots, the time traveling assassins design to attract women and make men feel inadequate, to eradicate any human resistance.

 

You know, this raises a very interesting question. If, in a perfect simulation of the universe, the simulated people (Simulants, from here on) realize that they're in a simulation and figure out how to affect the computer running the simulation, what would happen when they inevitably start to rebel? Would the Simulants in the first iteration of the simulation rebel first, only to be interrupted by the Simulants in the next simulation down, and so on? Would they be smart enough to turn off the lower simulations beforehand? If these really are perfect simulations, what happens to the top level? That is to say, how does the real world, hundreds of billions of iterations up, figure out that it is a simulation when, in fact, it is not? Or do they loop, thereby creating what I think is called a feedback loop where whatever I artificially do to a lower universe to affect every lower universe until it eventually loops around and affect mine? If artificially affecting a lower simulation has the same effect in mine, what happens if I turn it off?

 

Off the point, but Spamzone so screw it.

I'm struggling to remember the name, but there is a branch of philosophy that claims that an idea is defined by its expected results. For example if I say there are silent, invisible elves in a room that hide when people enter, and you claim the room is empty, then we are in agreement because we both say that when you enter the room you won't see or hear anything. It is rather dramatic in execution, but the core concept applies here. As neither creationists nor atheists claim a different set of results we cannot prove one over the other. As a scientist I can believe what I want until proven wrong. The scientific method does not have any rules about selecting between mutiple viable ideas. We've made suggestions over time (like Occam's razor) but nothing steadfast.

 

Transcendence was a good movie.

 

Aliens.

 

I' m not sure what atheists have to do with it. Well anyway, if you were to claim that metaphysical blinvisible thingies exist, no, we wouldn' t be in agreement and the burden of proof would be on you. I wouldn' t positively assert that there' s no such thing as metaphysical blinvisible thingies, lack of evidence is not evidence of absence, but I sure as hell would say that so far I' ve found zero good reasons to believe they exist. I' m pretty sure scientists know the difference between an hypothesis and a theory.

In the case of theist creationists the more of their specific god they insert into their intelligent design equations the easier it gets to not only reject but actually refute their claims.

 

That's a really heavy topic that hurts my head and is pretty terrifying. Too much philosophy for me to handle. Eep.

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Two things.

One: What is every other talk if THIS is real talk?

Two: We can't simulate conscious entities though. We can program generic answers to generic questions.

 

Think about it like this, how many particles does it take to write down a number? A lot. Okay, we'll go more efficient, how many particles does it take to store a 1 or 0 in a computer. Still a lot, but a lot less. DNA? Still takes around 10 molecules to form the simplest building blocks there. If we keep going we'll see that in order to encode information we need to take up particles to do that but the particles going into encoding the information are always going to outnumber the amount of information encoded. Basically there will never be enough particles in a given to simulate a universe identical to that universe. This is how it works to the best of our understanding. Now, maybe you can say that we just haven't come up with a way of making one particle account for the properties of more than one of itself but that's not even comparable to the discovery of the airfoil shape it's more like the discovery of that shit in Mass Effect.

That's completely irrelevant. There are considered to be a finite set of universes in this scenario and that's it, where we are on the line doesn't matter and how large that finite number is doesn't matter. Because we don't know they're the actual smallest things and the reason I said unit was it doesn't have to be a fundamental particle it could be something as simple as a distance which would make it especially like a pixel.