Virtual World
I read a great article from the NY Times about Dr. Bostrom's theory that we might be living in a virtual world.
The great part was that it used a completely logical argument for this. Here's a quick run-through. Within around 50 years we will have a computer with the processing power of all of humanity's brains combined. Within 100 years such machines will be totally commonplace. A simulation of a complete human world will be as easy to run as something like the Sims or WoW is now.
For a number of reasons, future people are likely to simulate humanity. First, scientists will want to know more about the development of their ancestors. Second, playing with people, place or events you're familiar with is fun - witness the success of the Civilization series. Third, even if this was developed by some non-human race, they'd have fun playing with us too -witness orcs and elves in Warcraft, the aliens in Starcraft or even the near-infinite variability in the much-anticipated Spore.
What's the point? Well, if there are 9 million people playing WoW right now, it seems like a safe assumption that a similar number will play these new, more intensive games. So. If there's one 'real' world that hosts a million virtual worlds and all we know is that we're in a world, it's hugely probable that we're a simulation of some sort. Also, if computers start to be awesome enough, they'll be able to simulate things like worlds were simulation techniques are developed. And then you get a million squared. And the argument to cubed and more can follow the same logic. Basically, we are almost certainly virtual unless there is something else correlated with having this powerful a computer. For example, if we believe we'll blow up Earth earlier than this amount of technology then there will never be virtual worlds (assuming any aliens that could exist also kill themselves off before attaining this level of technology). He brings up other possibilities, but they seem sillier.
Near the end of the article, Dr. Bostrom says his gut feeling is that there's a 20% chance that our world is virtual. Personally, I'm thinking it's far far higher. Not that this affects anything for me, but it's an interesting thought. Please do leave thoughts. I'd particularly like to hear a religious take on this article if anyone's up for it...
11 comments:
If we are in a simulation, I would expect to see some evidence of tampering by some higher power. As it is, the world appears to be mainly self-consistent. If I were a post-human, I most certainly would want to mess with my creations. The fact that gravity doesn't reverse itself from time to time, and I have perceived no angels descending from the heavens seems to be a strong argument against both the existence of god, and the existence of a matrix-esque simulation.
"If I were a post-human, I most certainly would want to mess with my creations."
Right, but that's you. What's there to say that a post-human running a simulation (note that all you need is a single post-human running a single simulation, which we happen to be in) wouldn't have the self-discipline to let one at least one sim sit as an experimental control?
(Also, others claim to have seen angels descending from the heavens, so... take that as you will.)
"Basically, we are almost certainly virtual unless there is something else correlated with having this powerful a computer."
Couldn't we even more easily be, say, dreams? There's no technological limitations there. Plus, any argument based on "well you wouldn't be able to dream all that" can be countered by the fact that no one is able to experience everything to test it out either.
I don't really see the point in arguing theories that are in no way able to be proven and saying they have X probability of being true. There is no evidence for this other than it "makes sense" which is not good debate skills at all.
I don't believe it, merely because it would take too much processing power. Sure, we can simulate a person, say. But we'd have to simulate the *entire world*, down to the atom and smaller. That's a lot of processing. Either you'd have to take massive shortcuts, which doesn't seem to be happening because we've never detected any, or you'd have to have a computer as complex as the universe. The only computer I know of that's as complex as the universe is the universe itself.
Switzer:
There'd be a definite need for realistic simulations in science. Also, I like the answer this gives to why there are wars: they're more intersting than peace. And maybe the people playing with us are more subtle than gravity-reversal etc. Perhaps they have this going at high speed on their computer (imagine sim farm at speed 5) and they're seeing how we react to, for example, slowly changing laws of physics (there's some evidence for such a thing).
Mel:
I don't have anything to say about your comment, but I decided not to let that stop me from including you here.
Jessi:
Good call. But this is way harder to quantify. We certainly are't a human's dream. I've never dreamed anything nearly as complex as the things I see. But there could be some other species that has sweet-awesome dreams. Or there could be another species with sweet-awesome computers that can easily handle all of our universe's data. The cool thing about the computer thought is that in about a hundred years, we will be able to show that probability hugely favors simulation over 'real' reality by simply using our technology to simulate humans. Dream reality supports either situation just as easily so... eh - whatever.
Nik:
Well there's this whole thing where quantum mechanics just averages out to classical mechanics. So that's a sweet shortcut - don't decide tiny things unless they're being measured. Also, the only things that would technically need to be processed in detail are the things that are bieng in some way monitored by humanity. ie there would be no reason for a tree that falls in the woods alone to make a sound. Tee-hee.
I wasn't really suggesting that I believe we are a dream. My point was- why is one of these more likely to be true than any other? You have no evidence for any of them, so it's basically just a, "DUDE THIS THEORY IS SICK" sort of thing. I don't really think you can say that we are "almost certainly" any weird thing over every other weird thing.
It's a similar thing to religion. You are an atheist in every religion but your own. What is it that made you pick that one?
Ok. You're right. Let me rephrase this as we're fantastically more likely to be in a simulation reality than in the real reality.
duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.
To clarify: Olin in general needs to fucking take a break and smoke some weed, at which point everyone would realize that what they think is brilliant philosophy is actually just a bunch of retarded stoner hypotheticals.
*shrug* It's an interesting thought to toy with, but - far as I see it, it doesn't make any difference, unless someone's figured out how to take advantage of our supposed simulacrum existence to... y'know, fly, or cure cancer, or hop into different realms or something.
Occam's razor, folks.
I agree with the dude who made the point about the weed
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