Thread: The Simulation Argument: Why we are most likely living in a Matrix

Step 1: Watch this 2 minute interview clip with David Chalmers:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/254?in=47:18&out=49:22

Step 2: Read this excerpt from an article written by the creator of the simulation argument:

Originally Posted by Nick Bostrom

Now we get to the core of the simulation argument. This does not purport to demonstrate that you are in a simulation. Instead, it shows that we should accept as true at least one of the following three propositions:

1. The chances that a species at our current level of development can avoid going extinct before becoming technologically mature is negligibly small
2. Almost no technologically mature civilisations are interested in running computer simulations of minds like ours
3. You are almost certainly in a simulation.

Each of these three propositions may be prima facie implausible; yet, if the simulation argument is correct, at least one is true (it does not tell us which).


While the full simulation argument employs some probability theory and formalism, the gist of it can be understood in intuitive terms. Suppose that proposition (1) is false. Then a significant fraction of all species at our level of development eventually becomes technologically mature. Suppose, further, that (2) is false, too. Then some significant fraction of these species that have become technologically mature will use some portion of their computational resources to run computer simulations of minds like ours. But, as we saw earlier, the number of simulated minds that any such technologically mature civilisation could run is astronomically huge.


Therefore, if both (1) and (2) are false, there will be an astronomically huge number of simulated minds like ours. If we work out the numbers, we find that there would be vastly many more such simulated minds than there would be non-simulated minds running on organic brains. In other words, almost all minds like yours, having the kinds of experiences that you have, would be simulated rather than biological. Therefore, by a very weak principle of indifference, you would have to think that you are probably one of these simulated minds rather than one of the exceptional ones that are running on biological neurons.

Step 3: Discuss.

It's interesting. I wonder though, to what extent information can be preserved through these speculative 'layers' of simulation. It seems to me that there is a maximum. Once you hit this maximum, if you want more information in one level of your simulation, you'd have to reduce some of the information in the layer above it. As an example, say some people on one level were trying to build a computer simulation. This would require them to represent bits. If they did this with maximum efficiency perhaps they could do this so that one of their bits corresponded to a single bit in the machine that was simulating them, although practically I'm sure it'd be a much lower ratio, so information is lost. A simulation at one level has at least the expense of an equal amount of information in some higher level.

So in fact the maximum number of people you can have is the amount you can simulate using the 'real' universe'. Any simulations within that simulation reduce the number.

My general feeling towards it is that it may or may not be true, and I don't care about whether it is, because it doesn't really matter.

His argument is flawed because it assumes the final condition, and then disguises it as a probability. It breaks down into: "ASSUMING the vast majority of entities in existence are simulated, chances are that we are among those entities." That is not the same as saying, "chances are, the majority of entities are simulated." This is pure speculation, and an interesting mental exercise, but it is in no way an argument in favour of the "we live in the Matrix" view.

Furthermore, he talks about "living in something like the Matrix" and "The Sims" as if they were analogous, when in fact, they are ENTIRELY different. The big difference being that the Sims cannot exist outside of their universe, and cannot, by definition, "wake up" from their universe. If you are a Sim, and I am the player, and I save my game and turn off the computer for the night, and reload my saved game the next morning, you, as a Sim, do not experience "darkness" or "a storm" or any kind of interruption in your existence that you notice. Why? Because your consciousness is PART of the simulation. The matrix, on the other hand, was a very, very convincing virtual reality video game. The brains that were playing said game were not part of it. You could wake someone up, and they would remember the Matrix.

Anyway, here's some fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c

Originally Posted by Xei

It's interesting. I wonder though, to what extent information can be preserved through these speculative 'layers' of simulation.

I think there's a simple solution to this problem: lossless data compression algorithms. Briefly, for those not familiar, these work by eliminating the redundancies that are present in data. For example, let's say we have a file which contains 5 instances of an entity we'll call X. X is some package of information, perhaps a paragraph of text, perhaps an image, whatever. One way for us to structure this file would be:
[X X X X X]
That's a lot of redundancy. We can represent this same data (i.e., no loss of information) by structuring the file some way similar to this:
[5 of: X]
Making the very reasonable assumption that it's far more economical to represent the concept "5 of" then it is to represent 4 instances of X, we just reduced our file size dramatically.

The amount of redundancy in our world is staggering. Is it really necessary to code the information for a particular shade of red for every single particle anywhere that reflects light just so? Is it necessary to have complete, separate representations of every single DNA molecule in my body? Sure, some of them are different enough from one another that they deserve to have a separate instance, but how many are exactly the same, only in a different part of my body? How about electrons? The potential for lossless compression is huge enough that I think we can, in principle, simulate multiple universes within ours that are just as informationally rich as our own.

But here's the question: Have we only bought ourselves one extra "level," or is it possible for the compressed, simulated world to do the same thing in turn?

Originally Posted by Replicon

it doesn't really matter.

Agreed. The "lucky ones," in my opinion, are not all that lucky.

Originally Posted by Replicon

His argument is flawed because it assumes the final condition, and then disguises it as a probability. It breaks down into: "ASSUMING the vast majority of entities in existence are simulated, chances are that we are among those entities." That is not the same as saying, "chances are, the majority of entities are simulated." This is pure speculation, and an interesting mental exercise, but it is in no way an argument in favour of the "we live in the Matrix" view.

It's easy to come away with this impression after hearing the relatively informal treatment given it by Chalmers, but I think that the excerpt by Bostrom makes it pretty clear that the argument does not assume its correctness. (And if you're interested, the original philosophical paper is available online here.) It says that if we reject both of the first two propositions, then it is logically incoherent to reject the third proposition. The only two preconditions for this argument which are not made explicit in the above excerpt are that (a) functionalism is true, and (b) it is in principle possible to simulate a universe with the necessary level of detail. As Bostrom points out in his paper, these are both relatively uncontroversial assumptions. The "argument," then is simply that we should acknowledge that there is a nontrivial probability that we are part of a simulation.

We can make a rough estimate of what this probability is. The third proposition is true if and only if both of the first two are false. Both of those propositions probably warrant debates unto themselves, but we can be both nonpartial and conservative by assuming that each is as likely to be true as false. In other words, the probability of each of the first two being true is 50%. Simple probabilistic reasoning then tells us that the probability of the third proposition being true is 25%. We can probably never know the true probability, but it is reasonable to assign a 1 in 4 chance to the possibility that we are right now in a simulation.

Originally Posted by Replicon

Furthermore, he talks about "living in something like the Matrix" and "The Sims" as if they were analogous, when in fact, they are ENTIRELY different. The big difference being that the Sims cannot exist outside of their universe, and cannot, by definition, "wake up" from their universe. If you are a Sim, and I am the player, and I save my game and turn off the computer for the night, and reload my saved game the next morning, you, as a Sim, do not experience "darkness" or "a storm" or any kind of interruption in your existence that you notice. Why? Because your consciousness is PART of the simulation. The matrix, on the other hand, was a very, very convincing virtual reality video game. The brains that were playing said game were not part of it. You could wake someone up, and they would remember the Matrix.

This is all based on a misunderstanding of the argument -- to be fair, an entirely understandable one considering how Chalmers explained it (in the interview they had been discussing the movie). The simulation argument is not called the Matrix argument, because it's arguing for the possibly that we live in a simulation, not The Matrix(tm). Taken in this light (in which it was intended), these objections disappear.

And thanks for the video -- that was great!

Refutation of simulation argument: Occam's Razor. Simplest solution is probably correct. I find it hard to believe that I'm hooked up to a flawless simulation of reality while the "machines" rule us. Far too many variables, far too unlikely. Though we shall never know for sure, I guess.

Does this article lend credence to the simulation theory at all? Or perhaps i am taking it too literally?

Originally Posted by Our World May Be A Giant Hologram

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...-hologram.html

Originally Posted by Xei

It's interesting. I wonder though, to what extent information can be preserved through these speculative 'layers' of simulation. It seems to me that there is a maximum. Once you hit this maximum, if you want more information in one level of your simulation, you'd have to reduce some of the information in the layer above it. As an example, say some people on one level were trying to build a computer simulation. This would require them to represent bits. If they did this with maximum efficiency perhaps they could do this so that one of their bits corresponded to a single bit in the machine that was simulating them, although practically I'm sure it'd be a much lower ratio, so information is lost. A simulation at one level has at least the expense of an equal amount of information in some higher level.

So in fact the maximum number of people you can have is the amount you can simulate using the 'real' universe'. Any simulations within that simulation reduce the number.

The thing here though is that the "real universe", or "multiverse" really, is absolutely infinite, so that there is always a world bigger/more complex than the world you're in. There is no "top level" "real universe" that limits the amount of information there is to go around. No matter how complex the world you're in, there is ALWAYS the possibility of a world orders of magnitude more complex in which a sophisticated machine could be executing your world as a bit of code.

I see it as easily imaginable that our entire existence could be carried out as little more than a simple diversion in some far more complex world, possibly just as a screensaver