If you can't say anything to bridge this explanatory gap then you can't claim anything "in principle" here. — apokrisis
I suppose that if you were only simulating one mind, you could make your simulation domain smaller than if you were, say, simulating the entire population of the earth. — SophistiCat
Says the man who keeps saying that it's impossible in principle for a machine to be conscious? — Michael
I've been talking about using biological material rather than inorganic matter so the above is irrelevant. — Michael
I see the problem as being not just a difference in scale but one of kind. If you only had to simulate a single mind, then you don't even need a world for it. Essentially you are talking solipsistic idealism. A Boltzmann brain becomes your most plausible physicalist scenario. — apokrisis
But if you are only concerned about one mind, then you can maybe bracket off/coarse-grain some of the world that you would otherwise have to simulate. — SophistiCat
Consciousness happens because of ordinary (even if complex) physical processes. If these processes can happen naturally then a sufficiently advanced civilization should be able to make them happen artificially. — Michael
Are you serious? Well, to give an easy example: if you would model reality with just Newtonian physics, your GPS-system wouldn't be so accurate as the present GPS system we now have, that takes into account relativity. And there's a multitude of other example where the idea of reality being this clock-work mechanical system doesn't add up.Do we? How? — SophistiCat
That has to be the strawman argument of the month. Where did I say "conscious beings are outside any general order of things"?If you believe that conscious beings are outside any general order of things, then obviously you will reject the simulation conjecture for that reason alone. So there is nothing to talk about. — SophistiCat
Computation is nothing more than rule-based pattern making. Relays of switches clicking off and on. And the switches themselves don't care whether they are turned on or off. The physics is all the same. As long as no one trips over the power cord, the machine will blindly make its patterns. What the software is programmed to do with the inputs it gets fed will - by design - have no impact on the life the hardware lives.
Now from there, you can start to build biologically-inspired machines - like neural networks - that have some active relation with the world. There can be consequences and so the machine is starting to be like an organism.
But the point is, the relationship is superficial, not fundamental. At a basic level, this artificial "organism" is still - in principle - founded on material stability and not material instability. You can't just wave your hands, extrapolate, and say the difference doesn't count. — apokrisis
And also the Simulation Hypothesis generally asks us to believe the simplest compatible story. So once we start going down the solipsistic route, then a Boltzmann brain is the logical outcome. Why would you have to simulate an actual ongoing reality for this poor critter when you could just as easily fake every memory and just have it exist frozen in one split instant of "awareness"?
Remember Musk's particular scenario. We are in a simulation that spontaneously arises from some kind of "boring" computational multiverse substrate. So simulating one frozen moment is infinitely more probable than simulating a whole lifetime of consciousness. — apokrisis
Are you serious? Well, to give an easy example: if you would model reality with just Newtonian physics, your GPS-system wouldn't be so accurate as the present GPS system we now have, that takes into account relativity. — ssu
That has to be the strawman argument of the month. Where did I say "conscious beings are outside any general order of things"?
Definitions do matter. If we talk about Computers, then the definition of how they work, that they follow algorithms, matters too. — ssu
Apokrisis explains this very well on the previous page — ssu
...according to mainstream science, our cosmic neighborhood is not dominated by BBs. — SophistiCat
I am not sure what that business with instability is about, — SophistiCat
Well, the idea behind the simulation hypothesis is that (a) there is a general, all-encompassing order of things, (b) any orderly system can be simulated on a computer, and possibly (c) the way to do it is to simulate it at its most fundamental level, the "theory of everything" - then everything else, from atoms to trade wars, will automatically fall into place. All of these premises can be challenged, but not simply by pointing out the obvious: that computers only follow instructions. — SophistiCat
Ok, I'll try to explain again, thanks for having the interest and hopefully you'll get through this long answer and understand it. Let's look at the basic argument, the one that you explain the following way:And if you do it with Lego blocks it will be less accurate still (funnier though). But I am not sure what your point is. — SophistiCat
the idea behind the simulation hypothesis is that (a) there is a general, all-encompassing order of things, (b) any orderly system can be simulated on a computer, and possibly (c) the way to do it is to simulate it at its most fundamental level, the "theory of everything" - then everything else, from atoms to trade wars, will automatically fall into place. All of these premises can be challenged, but not simply by pointing out the obvious: that computers only follow instructions. — SophistiCat
What the basic problem is that as the Computer has an effect on what it is modelling, it's actions make it a subject while the mathematical model, ought to be objective. Sometimes it's possible stll to give the correct model and the problem of subjectivity can be avoided, but not with negative self reference. — ssu
You nailed it Apokrisis, this is exactly what has been done.I agree with this but would also point out how it still doesn't break with the reductionist presumption that this fact is a bug rather than a feature of physicalist ontology.
So it is a problem that observers would introduce uncertainty or instability into the world being modelled and measured. And being a problem, Michael and @SophistiCat will feel correct in shrugging their shoulders and replying coarse-graining can ignore the fact - for all practical purposes. The problem might well be fundamental and ontic. But also, it seems containable. We just have to find ways to minimise the observer effect and get on with our building of machines. — apokrisis
That's the basic argument in this case on the mathematical side that when something is uncomputable, you really cannot compute it. It's an ontic feature that cannot be contained with some clever trick.I am taking the more radical position of saying both biology and physics are fundamentally semiotic. The uncertainty and instability is the ontic feature which makes informational regulation even a material possibility. It is not a flaw to be contained by some clever trick like coarse graining. It is the resource that makes anything materially organised even possible. — apokrisis
And hence mathematical models don't work so well as in some other field. That's the outcome. Does there exist a mathematical model for evolution? Can Darwinism be explained by an algorithm, By a computable model? Some quotes about this question:Self-reference doesn't intrude into our attempts to measure nature. Nature simply is self-referential at root. In quantum terms, it is contextual, entangled, holistic. And from there, informational constraints - as supplied for instance by a cooling/expanding vacuum - can start to fragment this deep connectedness into an atomism of discrete objects. A classical world of medium-sized dry goods. — apokrisis
Biological evolution is a very complex process. Using mathematical modeling, one can try to clarify its features. But to what extent can that be done? For the case of evolution, it seems unrealistic to develop a detailed and fundamental description of phenomena as it is done in theoretical physics. Nevertheless, what can we do?
Evolution is a highly complex multilevel process and mathematical modeling of evolutionary phenomenon requires proper abstraction and radical reduction to essential features.
Ok, the question is about premiss (b) any orderly system can be simulated on a Computer. — ssu
So how do we ask a Computer something to what there exists a correct model, but it cannot compute it? Well, simply by a situation where the correct answer is depended on what the computer doesn't do, in other words, negative self-reference. You get this with Turing's Halting Problem. Now you might argue that this is quite far fetched, but actually it isn't when the computer has to interact with the outside World, when it has to take into account the effects of it's own actions. Now, in the vast majority of cases this isn't a problem (taking it's own effects into account on the system to be modelled). Yes, you can deal with it with "Computer learning" or basically a cybernetic system, a feedback loop. — ssu
Seems to me that we are finding some kind of common ground here. Cool.Yes, after I posted that, I realized that I overreached a bit. There are indeed "regular" systems that nevertheless cannot be simulated to arbitrary precision (indeed, if we sample from all mathematically possible systems, then almost all of them are uncomputable in this sense). However, most of our physical models are "nice" like that; the question then is whether that is due to modelers' preference or whether it is a metaphysical fact. Proponents of the simulation hypothesis bet on the latter, that is that the hypothetical "theory of everything" (or a good enough approximation) will be computable. — SophistiCat
I think you've got it now. But it can also be far more limited in scope, not just the entire universe, just where and when the computers actions have effects that result in this kind of loop.It is difficult to understand what you are trying to say here, but my best guess is that you imagine a simulation of our entire universe - the actual universe that includes the simulation engine itself. That would, of course, pose a problem of self-reference and infinite regress, but I don't think anyone is proposing that. A simulation would simulate a (part of) the universe like ours - with the same laws and typical conditions. — SophistiCat
Wow. And the late 1990s were the time of the dot-com bubble, so he was really missing the forest for the trees...Believe me, I had in the late 1990's an assistant yelling at me that the whole idea of there existing or happening speculative bubbles in the modern financial markets was a totally ludicrous idea and hence not worth studying, because the financial markets work so well. — ssu
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