The Matrix rediscovered

[smurfitup]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/sc...ml?ref=science

interesting article positing that all of modern civilization is a computer game played by posthumans.

[smurfitup]

whoops, wrong forum. can a mod move this to SMP?

[TimM]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/sc...ml?ref=science

interesting article positing that all of modern civilization is a computer game played by posthumans.

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"Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems."

Enough processing power to simulate large numbers of brains is not enough. You also need to be able to accurately simulate the entire universe, and that means every particle and every force. Otherwise these virtual people could uncover physical anomalies in their world that real people could not.

[SBR]

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[ QUOTE ]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/sc...ml?ref=science

interesting article positing that all of modern civilization is a computer game played by posthumans.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems."

Enough processing power to simulate large numbers of brains is not enough. You also need to be able to accurately simulate the entire universe, and that means every particle and every force. Otherwise these virtual people could uncover physical anomalies in their world that real people could not.

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Not every particle. Just every observable particle.

However, as I think it mentions in the article (I'm not sure I first read the article a couple of weeks ago), the issue with processing power is that eventually the processing power in your simulated universe will start to approach the processing power on your simulation computer. As soon as it does so you are pretty much screwed because (unless your simulation is running at 1:1 sim:real time) you aren't going to be able to add processing power faster than your simulation. I think its possible that within our lifetime (except for the older 2+2ers) we will get to a point where our world has as much processing power as a theoretical simulation computer. From that point on according to our theory its possible that our universe could end at any time due to an insufficient memory error.

[CrayZee]

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I think its possible that within our lifetime (except for the older 2+2ers) we will get to a point where our world has as much processing power as a theoretical simulation computer. From that point on according to our theory its possible that our universe could end at any time due to an insufficient memory error.

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LOL that's like a bad episode of Red Dwarf. My program done blowed up the universe on my Intel Infinite Processor.

[Poker monkey]

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I think its possible that within our lifetime (except for the older 2+2ers) we will get to a point where our world has as much processing power as a theoretical simulation computer. From that point on according to our theory its possible that our universe could end at any time due to an insufficient memory error.

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LOL that's like a bad episode of Red Dwarf. My program done blowed up the universe on my Intel Infinite Processor.

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lol

[TimM]

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Not every particle. Just every observable particle.

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The computer itself must be made of observable particles, so how can it simulate itself PLUS the rest of them, at any reasonable speed? In any case I still think simulating all observable particles AND their interactions would lead to a huge combinatorial explosion of information to be processed. And virtual beings are going to probe with their telescopes and microscopes just like we do, so the observables are always increasing as their (virtual) technology develops.

[uDevil]

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Not every particle. Just every observable particle.

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The computer itself must be made of observable particles, so how can it simulate itself PLUS the rest of them, at any reasonable speed? In any case I still think simulating all observable particles AND their interactions would lead to a huge combinatorial explosion of information to be processed. And virtual beings are going to probe with their telescopes and microscopes just like we do, so the observables are always increasing as their (virtual) technology develops.

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None of this is a problem if the simulation is conducted in the mind of God. Presumably, post-humans would have a better relationship with Him than we do.

Any number of self-consistent but silly theories of this kind are possible. One possibility is that post-humans would be artificial humans that we create. We're already making robots that resemble ourselves. We're making them to replace us in function after function. Assuming we can overcome the technological hurdles, a sufficiently advanced robot would eventually replace humans completely. There being no particular need to associate with other humans or to reproduce, eventually humanity would die out. I think this may have been the plot of a science fiction short story I read long, long ago.

[TimM]

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None of this is a problem if the simulation is conducted in the mind of God.

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Did you read and understand the article? It has nothing to do with god directly.

I'd like to summarize it since I don't think the author did a very good job explaining the concept.

1. After great improvements in computer processing power, humans begin to create simulations of virtual worlds containing virtual humans.
2. The virtual humans have no way of knowing that they are simulations.
3. Demonstrating this possibility shows us that we have no way of knowing whether we are simulations or not.
4. Eventually our simulated humans begin creating their own virtual worlds and virtual humans, and their virtual humans do the same, and so on.
5. The number of known virtual worlds and layers of "virtuality" become so great that we are forced to conclude there is a high probability that we are also virtual.

Optional additional steps:

6. Start a religion based on the possibility that we are virtual beings in a virtual world created by some higher civilization
7. ???
8. Profit!

The author wants us to conclude based on the thought experiment alone that we are virtual beings. However his process contains assumptions which are not necessarily true:

A. Everything needed to be conscious is encompassed by the processing power of our brains.
B. We will eventually have enough processing power to create these simulations.
C. We will eventually have enough knowledge of physics to create a convincing virtual world.
D. We will eventually have enough understanding of consciousness to create virtual consciousness.

A: I believe this, but believers in the supernatural probably will not.

B: I think the author greatly underestimates the processing power needed to make these simulations impenetrable, especially from the virtual scientists mentioned below.

C: Given enough processing power, we could probably simulate the physics well enough to account for whatever the virtual scientists might uncover, up to the point they reach the level of technology required to build their own simulations. However, these scientists may come up with experiments we never thought of, and expose some inconsistencies in their world, thus ruining the simulation.

D: Possible, but we can also get around this by allowing consciousness to evolve on its own in our virtual worlds. Then we need a way to condense billions of years of simulation into our lifetimes, and also a way of knowing how to find it in our vast simulated universe. This will increase the processing power needed several billion-fold.

[knowledgeORbust]

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think its possible that within our lifetime (except for the older 2+2ers) we will get to a point where our world has as much processing power as a theoretical simulation computer. From that point on according to our theory its possible that our universe could end at any time due to an insufficient memory error.

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