The simulation hypothesis has nothing to do with an imitation of a person, which would be an android or some other 'fake' human. — noAxioms

The "simulation hypothesis" is indeed quite different from the hypothesis that there are imitations of people around. I'm not quite sure that it has "nothing to do" with fake people.

What if this is all a simulation and everyone you think is conscious are really NPC's?
— RogueAI
RogueAI is probably not suggesting an imitation person here. — noAxioms

The simulation hypothesis proposes that what humans experience as the world is actually a simulated reality, such as a computer simulation in which humans themselves are constructs." — noAxioms

On the face of it, this looks like a generalization from "there are some fake. imitation, simulated people around" to "everything is a simulation".
One complication is that we have a forest of similar concepts that work in the same space. Teasing out the differences between an imitation, a fake, a forgery, a pretence, a simulation, etc. would be very complicated. But I think that some general remarks can be made.

It is undoubtedly true that any money in your pocket could be forged. But it does not follow that all money everywhere at all times might be forged. On the contrary, a forgery can only be a forgery if there is such a thing as the real thing.

In all of these cases, there is always a question what is being imitated or forged or whatever. We should never use these words on their own. We should always specify what a simulation or imitation is a simulation of..., which means specifying what a real example is of the thing you are simulating.

Simulating or imitation a reality is simulating everything. So what is it a simulation of? To put it another way, what is the reality that is being simulated? Reality is a totalizing concept and so not an object like a picture or a tree or a planet. "Simulate" does not apply here.

mathematical universe hypothesis, — noAxioms

What empirical evidence could possibly confirm or refute this? I don't see this as a hypothesis at all, but as a methodological decision. In the 17th century, physicists decided to eject anything that seemed incapable of mathematical treatment, so colours and sounds were banished to the mind, placed beyond the scope of science. Science did not need those hypotheses.

simulation is simply an explicit execution of an approximation of those laws, on a closed or open system. — noAxioms

So how does a simulation differ from reality?

They perform for instance simulations of car crashes at the design phase, the result of which eventually generates a design that is safer. — noAxioms

Fair enough. But in those cases, it is clear what the simulation is a simulation of. We know what the real thing is. As you say, this has nothing to do with a simulation of everything.

I'm afraid I don't have the time to respond in detail to what you say about actual simulation and virtual reality. Perhaps later. I'll just say that, so far as I can see, the BIV hypothesis either presupposes the existence of normal reality or describes all of us right now. (The skull is a vat.)

Bostrom's speculation has always smelled grossly unparsimonious, to me.

The "simulation hypothesis" is indeed quite different from the hypothesis that there are imitations of people around. — Ludwig V

The bit about imitation people (human-made constructs) is very relevant to the 'thinking computer' topic, and relevant only if not all people/creatures are conscious in the same way (a process running the same physics). The idea is preposterous at our current level of technology, so any imitation people would probably be of alien origin, something that cannot be ruled out. They'd not necessarily qualify as what we term a 'computer'.

On the face of it, this looks like a generalization from "there are some fake. imitation, simulated people around" to "everything is a simulation". — Ludwig V

OK, if not all the people are simulated the same, then the ones that are not (the NPC's) would be fake, not conscious, but controlled directly by some AI and not the brute implementation of physics that is the simulation itself. There has to be a line drawn somewhere between the simulated system and what's not the system. If it is a closed system, there need be no such line. A car crash simulation is essentially closed, but certain car parts are still simulated with greater detail than others.

On the contrary, a forgery can only be a forgery if there is such a thing as the real thing. — Ludwig V

Under simulation hypothesis (both Sim and VR), the forgeries are any external input to a non-closed system. Bostrum posits a lot of them.

In all of these cases, there is always a question what is being imitated or forged or whatever. — Ludwig V

Disagree. The car thing was my example: Simulation of a vehicle that has never existed. Our world could in theory be a simulation of a human word made up by something completely non-human, and perhaps not even a universe with say 3 spatial dimensions, or space at all for that matter. There need be no real thing. I personally run trivial simulations all the time of things that have no real counterpart. Any simple 1D-2D cellular automata qualifies.

What empirical evidence could possibly confirm or refute this? — Ludwig V

I hope to explore that question in this topic. For one, our physics has been proven non-classical, and thus cannot be simulated accurately with any classical Von-Neumann computer no matter how speedy or memory-laden. But that restriction doesn't necessarily apply to the unknown realm that is posited to be running said simulation. But it's good evidence that it isn't humans simulating themselves.

Fair enough. But in those [car crash] cases, it is clear what the simulation is a simulation of. — Ludwig V

Sort of. Yes, they have a model. No, it isn't a model of something that exists. There isn't a 'real thing' to it.

I'm afraid I don't have the time to respond in detail to what you say about actual simulation and virtual reality. Perhaps later. I'll just say that, so far as I can see, the BIV hypothesis either presupposes the existence of normal reality or describes all of us right now. (The skull is a vat.) — Ludwig V

The skull-vat view does not feed the mind a set of artificially generated lies. VR does.

The difference between Sim and VR is where the mind is, part of the simulation in Sim, and outside the universe in VR. Same difference as between physicalism and dualism. Same test as you would use to falsify dualism.

Bostrom's speculation has always smelled grossly unparsimonious, to me. — wonderer1

He does seem to throw the resources around, yes. A lot of it presumes that Moore's law continues unabated for arbitrary more time, which is preposterous. We're already up against quantum resolution, and chip fabs requiring nearly maximum practical resources.

We might be able to simulate a single human in a tight environment (a prison) for a short time. The human would need pre-packaged memories, and thus would not acquire them the normal way, by living a life, unless you have a lot of resources to simulate the growth of a baby to an adult, all withing its tight prison cell (our closed system). The person growing up that way would be pretty messed up.

It presumes that human consciousness is a purely physical process (physicalism), and thus a sufficiently detailed simulation of that physics would produce humans that are conscious — noAxioms

Which aspects of physical processes correspond with subjectivity?

if not all people/creatures are conscious in the same way (a process running the same physics). — noAxioms

I'm not sure about whether or in what way the actual physics of the person/computer are relevant. Clearly, we know that human beings are persons without knowing (in any detail) about their internal physics. On the other hand, the commentary on the current AIs seems unanimous in thinking that the details of the software are.

OK, if not all the people are simulated the same, then the ones that are not (the NPC's) would be fake, not conscious, — noAxioms

One needs to specify that "the same" means here. Otherwise, any difference between people (such as brain weight or skin colour) could lead to classifying them as not conscious, not people. I'm sorry, what are NPCs?

Sort of. Yes, they have a model. No, it isn't a model of something that exists. There isn't a 'real thing' to it. — noAxioms

Yes, there is an issue here. We can, of course construct, imaginary worlds and most of the time we don't bother to point out that they are always derived from the world we live in. As here, we know about real cars that really crash and what happens afterwards (roughly). That's the basis that enables us to construct and recognize simulations of them. "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" are extensions of that ability.

The skull-vat view does not feed the mind a set of artificially generated lies. VR does. — noAxioms

That's a bit unfair, isn't it? We know quite well what is VR and what is not, so it is clearly distinguishable from reality. Nobody pretends otherwise. Of course, we can frighten ourselves with the idea that a VR (In some unimaginably advanced form) could be used to deceive people; "Matrix" is one version of this. But, unless we are straightforward positivists or followers of George Berkeley, the fact that the difference between VR and reality is perfectly clear and the problem is no different from the problem how we tell dreams from reality.

Which aspects of physical processes correspond with subjectivity? — Wayfarer

Not sure what is being asked. I mean, what aspects of physical processes would, if absent, not in some way degrade the subjective experience?

I think the question unfair. You're definitely of the dualism camp, to the point where you are not open to the idea that a very good simulation of all physical processes of a system containing a human would be sufficient for subjectivity of the human. So VR is your only option if you thus constrain yourself. A human is hooked to a false sensory stream, which in turn is uplinked to the mind attached to the human. Either that or the simulation somehow connects with a mind exactly in the same way physical bodies have.


Keep in mind that I am not supporting the simulation hypothesis in any form. I'm looking for likely ways to debunk it, but in the end, there can be no proof.

Clearly, we know that human beings are persons without knowing (in any detail) about their internal physics. — Ludwig V

The idealists for one would disagree with this. Idealism tends to lead to solipsism, where only you are real and all the other humans are just your internal representations (ideals) of them. You've no hard evidence that they're as real as yourself. Of course, modern video games are terrible at displaying other people, and you can tell at once that they're fake. But we're assuming far better technology here where it takes more work to pick out the fakes.

One needs to specify that "the same" means here. — Ludwig V

'The same' means, in a Sim, that both you and the other thing (a frog say) are fully simulated at the same level, perhaps at the biochemical level. You and the frog both make your own decisions, not some AI trying to fool the subject by making a frog shape behave like a frog.
Under VR, 'the same' means that the other thing is also externally controlled, so perhaps a real frog hooked up similarly to the VR set, fooled into thinking its experience is native. The fake things in VR are not externally controlled, but are rather governed by either physics or a resident AI that controls how the system interacts with things not part of the system. So for non-virtual things, 'the same' would mean either both self-controlled, or both AI controlled, so there are 3 different kinds of things: virtual control, physical control, and faked by AI. A Sim has just the latter two.

I'm sorry, what are NPCs?

Google it. Standard video game term for Non-Playing-Character. It typically refers to a person/creature in a game that isn't played by any actual player, They tend to be bad guys that you kill, or race against, or whatever. In the Sim scenario, it would be a person not actually conscious, but whose actions are controlled by an AI that makes it act realistically. In VR, NPC refers to any person not under virtual control, whether self or AI controlled.

The 'computers thinking' topic references NPC in several places.

We can, of course construct, imaginary worlds and most of the time we don't bother to point out that they are always derived from the world we live in. — Ludwig V

Conway's Game-of-Life (GoL) is not in any way derived from the world in which we live, so there's a counterexample to that assertion.

As here, we know about real cars that really crash and what happens afterwards (roughly). That's the basis that enables us to construct and recognize simulations of them.

Well yes, since there'd not be much point in simulating a car that crashes under different physics. The intent in that example is to find an optimal design based on the simulation results. Not so under GoL.

"Star Trek" and "Star Wars" are extensions of that ability.

Those are not simulations. Heck, the physics of those worlds are both quite different than our own. The Hollywood guys are hardly paid to be realistic about such things.

We know quite well what is VR and what is not, so it is clearly distinguishable from reality. — Ludwig V

If it's good enough, then no, it would not be easily distinguished from a more real reality, especially since the lies are fed to you for all time. Unl[ike with a video game. you have no memory of entering the VR. Of course all our crude VR does it feed fake vision and sound effects to you. Not the rest. You can feel the headset you're wearing. But even then, sometimes you forget.... It's pretty creepy in some of the scary games.

Of course, we can frighten ourselves with the idea that a VR (In some unimaginably advanced form) could be used to deceive people;

Yes, that's the idea (one of them) under consideration here. How do you know it's false? Just asserting it false is beyond weak.

"Matrix" is one version of this.

Implausible too, but that's entertainment for you.
But a good VR is far better than any dream. With a dream, I cannot glean new information, such as reading a sign that I don't already know what says. That's a huge clue that dreams are unreal. I frequently run into that in my dreams, but I'm also too stupid in my dreams to draw the obvious conclusion. Rational thought is far more in the background while dreaming.

Not sure what is being asked. I mean, what aspects of physical processes would, if absent, not in some way degrade the subjective experience? — noAxioms

When you say:

It presumes that human consciousness is a purely physical process (physicalism), and thus a sufficiently detailed simulation of that physics would produce humans that are conscious — noAxioms

This runs smack into the 'hard problem of consciousness', which is that no description of physical processes provides an account of the first-person nature of consciousness. Put another way, there are no subjects of experience modelled in physics or physical descriptions, physics is wholly concerned with objects.

//another way of putting it is, if it's a simulation, then who is subject to the illusion? A simulation is not what it appears to be, it is comparable to an illusion in that respect. But illusions and simulations only effect a consciousness that mistakes them for being real.//

If you're open to the possibility that consciousness could emerge from a computer simulation, are you also open to the idea that consciousness is already emerging in the simulations we're currently running? IOW, if simulation theory is possibly, is my Baldur's Gate party maybe conscious?

If you're open to the possibility that consciousness could emerge from a computer simulation, are you also open to the idea that consciousness is already emerging in the simulations we're currently running? — RogueAI

Last I checked (which has been a while), they can do bugs, and even that is probably not a simulation of the whole bug, let alone an environment for it.

As for Baldur's Gate, that (like any current game) doesn't simulate any mental processes, and even if it did, the simulated character would be conscious, but the game is no more conscious than is the universe. It merely contains conscious entities. A computer simulating a bat would not know what it is like to be a bat, but the simulated bat would.

This runs smack into the 'hard problem of consciousness', which is that no description of physical processes provides an account of the first-person nature of consciousness. — Wayfarer

Pretty much, yea. All the same arguments (pro and con) apply.

As for Baldur's Gate, that (like any current game) doesn't simulate any mental processes, and even if it did, the simulated character would be conscious, but the game is no more conscious than is the universe. It merely contains conscious entities. A computer simulating a bat would not know what it is like to be a bat, but the simulated bat would. — noAxioms

You're right about Baldur's Gate, but ChatGPT certainly simulates mental processes (or seems to. More about that in a second). You can have a full on conversation with it. Do you think it might be conscious?

Now, when you drill down on "simulate mental processes", what does that ultimately mean? Computers are essentially collections of electronic switches, so simulating mental processes just means that electric switches XYZ... are turning off and on in order ABC...so if you get a lot of switches (or not so many switches but a whole lot of time) and flip them on and off in a certain order, voila! You get consciousness. I think that sounds like magic, but everyone else is taking it seriously, so you also have to take seriously the idea that it might not take a whole lot of switching operations to generate consciousness. Why should it? So it seems that if we're going to take simulation theory seriously, we should be equally open to the idea that some of the simulations we're running now are conscious. Maybe some of the "creatures" in Conway's Game of Life are conscious. Why not?

... I am not supporting the simulation hypothesis in any form. I'm looking for likely ways to debunk it, ... — noAxioms

Surely the problem is the one frequently pointed out, with the word "simulate" being ambiguous between "describe or theoretically model" and "physically replicate or approximate".

So the question occurs, are you holding this

That means that yes, even the paper and pencil method, done to sufficient detail, would simulate a conscious human who would not obviously know he is being simulated. — noAxioms

up for ridicule, or serious consideration?

Keep in mind that I am not supporting the simulation hypothesis in any form. I'm looking for likely ways to debunk it, but in the end, there can be no proof. — noAxioms

Thank you for telling me that. It helps a lot.

I think that sounds like magic, but everyone else is taking it seriously, — RogueAI

I agree with you, though I would describe it as hand-waving. I agree also that sometimes it is best to roll with the punch if someone takes an idea seriously and I don't. I've done it myself. It may not result in them changing their mind, but it does allow some exploration and clarification.

You and the frog both make your own decisions, not some AI trying to fool the subject by making a frog shape behave like a frog. — noAxioms

So if I miniaturized the AI hardware and grafted it into the frog, it becomes a simulation instead of a VR?

Conway's Game-of-Life (GoL) is not in any way derived from the world in which we live, so there's a counterexample to that assertion. — noAxioms

What made the game? Though I grant you, it is quite different from the kinds of simulation we have been talking about, and far from a VR. But it is an abstraction from the world in which Conway - and you and I - live.
There's an ambiguity here. There's a sense of "world" in which it comprises everything that exists. There are other similar words that aim to capture the same or similar ideas - "universe", "cosmos" and in philosophy "Reality", "Existence". There is another sense in which we speak of "my world" and "your world" and "the lived world" or "the world of physics" or "the world of politics. I thought we were using "world" in the first sense.

The intent in that example (sc. the simulation of a car crash) is to find an optimal design based on the simulation results. Not so under GoL. — noAxioms

I agree. I can't answer for Conway's intent, but it looks to me as if the intent is to explore and play with the possibilities of a particular kind of system. In which it has definitely succeeded, in most interesting ways.

Those (sc. Star Trek and Star Wars) are not simulations. Heck, the physics of those worlds are both quite different than our own — noAxioms

Well, I would say that those films are simulations of a fantasy scenario/world. But I'm not fussed about the vocabulary here. I am fussed about the idea that they have no connection with the actual world. That is simply false. For a start, there are human beings in it, not to mention space ships, planets and suns. As to the physics being different, that doesn't seem to bother people like Hume ("the sun might not rise tomorrow morning") or Putnam ("Twin Earth"). We can, after all, imagine that physics is different from our current one, and, believe it or not, there have been people who did not believe in our physics, but something quite different. Perhaps there still are.

Yes, that's the idea (one of them) (sc. the idea that VR might become good enough to deceive people) under consideration here. How do you know it's false? Just asserting it false is beyond weak. — noAxioms

Yes, there may be a need to say more. But the idea that VR might be used to deceive people itself presupposes that what is presented by the VR is not real. What might be more troublesome is a VR that re-presented the actual world around the wearer. Pointless, though there might well be a use for it in some medical situations. On the other hand, it couldn't work unless it was possible for the wearer to actually (really) act.

Clearly, we know that human beings are persons without knowing (in any detail) about their internal physics. - Ludwig V
The idealists for one would disagree with this. — noAxioms

I have the impression that idealists do not think that human beings have any internal physics. (Do they even think there is any such thing as physics?) I was not taking that issue into account, but was assuming a shared background assumption that we could call common sense. Are you an idealist?

ChatGPT certainly simulates mental processes (or seems to. More about that in a second). — RogueAI

It simulates no mental processes at all. It answers on its own, not by simulating something that it is not. It is an imitation, not a simulation of anything.

Do you think it might be conscious?

That of course depends on your definition of 'conscious'. Most of the opponents of machine consciousness simply refuse to use the word to describe a machine doing the same thing a human is doing.

Dictionaries define it as 'aware' of and responding to its surroundings, so in a crude way, a thermostat is more conscious than chatGPT. A chat bot has no sensory feed except a network connection from which queries appear, and might possibly not be aware at all of where it actually is, not having any of the external senses that humans do. So by that definition, it isn't very conscious, and it probably isn't one thing, but rather a multitude of processes that run independently on many different servers.

A true machine intelligence would likely qualify as being conscious (except by those that refuse to apply the word), but it would be a very different kind, since humans cannot spawn off independent process, and cannot distribute their thinking to multiple sites far enough apart that quick communication isn't practical. Biological consciousness is thus far always confined to one 'device' that is forever confined within one head (sort of). Bees exhibit a more distributed collective hive consciousness. An octopus is quite intelligent but has its consciousness spread all out, most of it being in its arms. Machine intelligence would be a little closer to octopuses, but even an octopus cannot temporarily detach an arm and have it act independently until reattached.

On topic: No machine is going to get smarter than us by doing a simulation. Those are by nature incredibly inefficient.

Now, when you drill down on "simulate mental processes", what does that ultimately mean?

It probably means creating a map of brain neurons and synapses organization and running that in a dynamic simulation that not only follows neural activity (and input), but also simulates changes to the map, the creation/deletion of neural connections.

think that sounds like magic, but everyone else is taking it seriously, so you also have to take seriously the idea that it might not take a whole lot of switching operations to generate consciousness. — RogueAI

I don't think it takes very many, but to me, consciousness is a gradient, so the question is not if you're conscious, but how conscious. It is more of an on/off thing with a definition like Wayfarer uses, of having first person subjectivity or not. I don't really understand that since I don't see how an device with local sensory input doesn't have first person subjectivity.
Does my finger have subjectivity? It has first person sensory input, but all it does is send the taken measurement up a wire to be dealt with elsewhere. Ditto for the thermostat. It doesn't react any more to the sensory input other than to convey a signal. So maybe my boiler is crudely conscious because it processes the input of its senses.

Again, all this is pretty off topic. My boiler doesn't work by simulating a biological nerve system. I don't have the budget to have one that does it in such an expensive, inefficient, and unreliable way.

So it seems that if we're going to take simulation theory seriously, we should be equally open to the idea that some of the simulations we're running now are conscious.

... that the thing simulated is conscious. The simulation itself is no more conscious than is real physics. As I said just above, a sufficiently good simulation of a bat would not know what it is like to be a bat, but the simulated bat would.

Maybe some of the "creatures" in Conway's Game of Life are conscious. Why not?

I suppose it would require one to identify a construct as a creature. One can I think implement a Turing machine in GoL, so one you have that, there's little it cannot do.

Surely the problem is the one frequently pointed out, with the word "simulate" being ambiguous between "describe or theoretically model" and "physically replicate or approximate". — bongo fury

The simulation hypothesis does not suggest that any physical planet (Earth) was created as an approximation of some design/model/real-planet. It is nothing but a hypothesis of something akin to software being run that computes subsequent states from prior states. A VR is a little simpler and more complicated than that because the subsequent states are computed not only from prior states, but also from external input. Sim is deterministic. VR is not.

So the question occurs, are you holding this

That means that yes, even the paper and pencil method, done to sufficient detail, would simulate a conscious human who would not obviously know he is being simulated.
— noAxioms

up for ridicule, or serious consideration?

That was very serious. Sim is simply a computation, and any computation that can be done by computer can also be done by pencil and paper, albeit a lot slower and a lot more wasteful of resources. But time is simply not an object. One might consume 50 sheets of paper and one pencil a day, and the only reason it wouldn't work is because Earth would die before you got very far in a simulation of something as complicated as a person in a room.

A VR cannot be done this way.

I think [physical processes producing consciousness] sounds like magic, but everyone else is taking it seriously — RogueAI

For the last 5 centuries or so, science has operated under methodological naturalism which presumes exactly this, that everything has natural (physical) causes. Before that, it operated under rmethodological supernaturalism where supernatural (magic) was the cause of anything inexplicable, such as consciousness, the motion of the planets, etc. Presuming magic for the gaps contributed to keeping humanity in the dark ages. The other big cause was general illiteracy, but that continued until far more recently.
My point is, be careful what you label as the magic in that debate. The Sim hypothesis presumes naturalism, and if you don't at least understand that view, then you're not in a position to critique the SH.

So if I miniaturized the AI hardware and grafted it into the frog, it becomes a simulation instead of a VR? — Ludwig V

No. If you miniturize the VR set (the device that feeds fake sensory input to you, and conveys your responses to the VR) to fit a frog, then a frog can enter the VR just like the human does.
A simulated frog is just that. There's no real frog running it. It runs on its own. An imitation frog is even worse, and only appears to be a frog to something looking at it, but its actions are faked since it is outside the system being simulated.

But it is an abstraction from the world in which Conway - and you and I - live.

From this world yes, but it isn't a simulation of this world.

I thought we were using "world" in the first sense.

I'm using 'world' in many ways. There's the world that we experience. If it's a simulation/VR, then there is another world running that simulation, upon which this world supervenes. Maybe that world also supervenes on an ever deeper world, and (as Bostrom hints), it is turtles all the way down.

Well, I would say that those films are simulations of a fantasy scenario/world.

I would not say that. They are not 'simulations' as the word is being used in this topic. Those films (any film) are mere depictions of those fantasy worlds, not simulations of them.

But the idea that VR might be used to deceive people itself presupposes that what is presented by the VR is not real. What might be more troublesome is a VR that re-presented the actual world around the wearer. Pointless...

Good point, that VR need not involve deceit. One can use a VR setup to say control an avatar in some hostile environment. The military uses this quite a bit, but those are not simulations. Not all VR is a simulation, but this topic is only to discuss the ones that are. I cannot think of a VR into a simulated world that doesn't involve the deceit of making that simulated world appear real to the subject. It actually being real or not depends on your definition of 'real'.

Are you an idealist?

No, but their reasoning made a nice counterexample to your assertion that other people are necessarily as real as yourself. In a VR, and even in a Sim, this isn't necessarily true. I enumerated three different kinds of people, each of which operates differently. I suppose I should give them names for easy reference.

I think a simulation scenario could be otherwise. Maybe we are all AI, and the programmer of the simulation just chose this kind of physical body out of nowhere.
— Patterner
In the VR scenario, the mind would be hooked to the simulated empirical stream, but it would not be itself an AI. — noAxioms

Maybe not in the VR scenario. Still, maybe it's the truth of our existence.

I think I have heard it said that if a future people decided to make a simulation, they would make A LOT of such simulations. And these simulations would be nested -- simulations within simulations. If there are a huge number of simulations within simulations, that means only a small number of these simulations will be simulations that do not have a simulation that they are themselves running. But if we are living in a simulation, we must be living in one of the simulations that is not itself running a simulation. In that case, the odds that we are living in a simulation would be astronomically small.

On the other hand, I do not think we would be conscious if we were "in" what you are calling an actual simulation. But we are conscious. Therefore, we must not live in a simulation.

In any case, I know I am not living in a simulation.

This runs smack into the 'hard problem of consciousness', which is that no description of physical processes provides an account of the first-person nature of consciousness.
— Wayfarer
Pretty much, yea. All the same arguments (pro and con) apply. — noAxioms

I am not familiar with any arguments for how physical processes provide an account of the first-person nature of consciousness. It seems the answer from anyone who takes that stance boils down to: "Since we can't find anything other than physical processes using the methods of physical processes, there must not be anything other than physical processes. Therefore, the question of how physical processes provide an account of the first-person nature of consciousness is, they just do."

In any case, I know I am not living in a simulation. — NotAristotle

Agreed. With no reason to suspect things are not as they seem, I won't seriously consider the possibility that I'm living in a simulation, or a simulation myself, or a Boltzman brain, or whatever else. But I don't see reason to consider one type of simulation scenario any more ... "realistic" than any other.

.. that the thing simulated is conscious. — noAxioms

Which is to say that a collection of electronic switches is conscious when there's a sufficient number of them and they're being turned on and off in a certain order.

I know I sound redundant about that, but doesn't that sound pretty fantastiscal? That you could wire up a bunch of switches and get the subjective experience of eating a bag of potato chips to emerge from them?

I think that sounds like magic, but everyone else is taking it seriously,
— RogueAI
I agree with you, though I would describe it as hand-waving. I agree also that sometimes it is best to roll with the punch if someone takes an idea seriously and I don't. I've done it myself. It may not result in them changing their mind, but it does allow some exploration and clarification. — Ludwig V

Sure. Simulation Theory is fascinating. I don't reject it right off the bat like "you're a p-zombie and don't know it". But I do think the central premise is, as you said, pretty hand-wavy.

The simulation hypothesis does not suggest that any physical planet (Earth) was created as an approximation of some design/model/real-planet. — noAxioms

Oh good.

It is nothing but a hypothesis of something akin to software being run that computes subsequent states from prior states. — noAxioms

So, a simulation as a description or theoretical model, distinct from any real or imaginary structure satisfying the description. A map, distinct from its territory, real or imagined. Good.

That was very serious. — noAxioms

Gosh. This?

That means that yes, even the paper and pencil method, done to sufficient detail, would simulate a conscious human who would not obviously know he is being simulated. — noAxioms

I have to say this appears to confuse the two senses of "simulate". Otherwise why the fascination with some amazing level of detail? This is generally a sign that the hypothesiser has allowed themselves to confuse map with territory.

A novel or a computer game can perfectly well describe or depict a conscious human that doesn't know he is being imagined, and it can equally well describe or depict a conscious being that does know. Detail is neither here nor there.

That means that yes, even the paper and pencil method, done to sufficient detail, would simulate a conscious human who would not obviously know he is being simulated. — noAxioms

I missed this somehow. This is absurd. You're not going to be able to simulate a conscious person/generate consciousness from paper and pencil. This is getting into Bernardo Kastrup territory: is my house's sanitation system conscious?
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2023/01/ai-wont-be-conscious-and-here-is-why.html

I think I have heard it said that if a future people decided to make a simulation, they would make A LOT of such simulations. And these simulations would be nested -- simulations within simulations. — NotAristotle

That's pretty much Bostrom's argument, a sort of anthropic reasoned hypothesis that demonstrates a complete ignorance of how simulations work.

If there are a huge number of simulations within simulations, that means only a small number of these simulations will be simulations that do not have a simulation that they are themselves running. But if we are living in a simulation, we must be living in one of the simulations that is not itself running a simulation. In that case, the odds that we are living in a simulation would be astronomically small.

That was one of the counterarguments that I think itself fails to hold much water. If each simulation runs several internal simulations, the leaf ones (us) would be exponentially more in number than the base levels. Of course this exponential simulations that are simulating other machines running simulations is a big part of the reason the premises fall apart.

On the other hand, I do not think we would be conscious if we were "in" what you are calling an actual simulation.

Why not? I mean, if you deny that consciousness emerges from physical process, then it falls right out of the gate, but presuming physicalism, the simulated person wouldn't act correct if the simulation got the physics wrong.

For that matter, even under dualism, what prevents the simulated person from gaining access to this supernatural woo like the physical human does?

In any case, I know I am not living in a simulation.

How? Incredulity? I'm trying to gather actual evidence for both sides. Lots of people 'know' things for sure, and lots of what people 'know' contradicts what other people 'know'. Humans are quite good at being certain about things for which there is no hard evidence.
I mean, I don't buy the hypothesis either, but to declare to 'know' such a fact without any logical/empirical backing reduces it to a mere belief, rationalized, but not rational.

I won't seriously consider the possibility that I'm living in a simulation, or a simulation myself, or a Boltzman brain, or whatever else. — Patterner

This is better worded. It's an extraordinary claim and it requires extraordinary evidence to be taken seriously. The various proponents seem to to use very fallacious arguments in an attempt to demonstrate that evidence.

Being a Boltzmann Brain thing isn't a proposed hypothesis by anybody. It's simply an obstacle in the way of the validity of various proposed theories explaining how physics actually works. Very few people understand the significance of a BB. Sean Carroll sums it up:

A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is ... unacceptable: ...
The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed. — SCarroll

That means that no observer can have knowledge of the workings of such a universe.

I am not familiar with any arguments for how physical processes provide an account of the first-person nature of consciousness. — Patterner

I didn't say it did, any more than does the alternative view. The topic surely is discussed in more relevant topics on this forum or on SEP pages. It is a digression here. The Sim hypothesis presumes, as does the last 5 centuries of science, a form of physical monism. There's no hard problem to be solved. There's nothing 'experiencing' you first person.

.. that the thing simulated is conscious.
— noAxioms

Which is to say that a collection of electronic switches is conscious. — RogueAI

Well, if you simulating a collection of electronic switches (which a human is, in addition to a lot of other supporting hardware), and you consider that such a collection (the human) is conscious, then yes, the simulated thing will be conscious.

So, a simulation as a description or theoretical model, distinct from any real or imaginary structure satisfying the description. — bongo fury

The model is perhaps a design of a simulation. The simulation itself is the execution of it, the running of code on a computer for instance being one way to implement it, but paper and pencil also suffices. A simulation is a running process, not just a map.

Gosh. This? — bongo fury

This is absurd. You're not going to be able to simulate a conscious person with paper and pencil. — RogueAI

You both seem to balk at the paper/pencil thing, but what can a computer do that the pencil cannot? If you cannot answer that, then how is your denial of it justified?

A novel or a computer game can perfectly well describe or depict a conscious human that doesn't know he is being imagined, and it can equally well describe or depict a conscious being that does know. Detail is neither here nor there. — bongo fury

The NPC in the computer game would need that amazing level of detail to actually believe stuff (like the fact that he's not being simulated), and not just appear (to an actual player) to believe stuff.

It is unclear to me why there would be more leaf worlds, could you spell that out for me?

A simulation is a running process, not just a map. — noAxioms

A running process isn't just a succession of maps? Does magic happen?

You both seem to balk at the paper/pencil thing, but what can a computer do that the pencil cannot? If you cannot answer that, then how is your denial of it justified? — noAxioms

Have you ever seen this?

https://xkcd.com/505/

The NPC in the computer game would need that amazing level of detail to actually believe stuff (like the fact that he's not being simulated), and not just appear (to an actual player) to believe stuff. — noAxioms

Do you mean that some part of the computer running the game would need the detail? Then you're talking about an AI, a simulation in the unproblematic sense of a working model: a physical replication or approximation. You might consider subjecting it to an elaborate deception, of course, but then you would be in what you have rightly demarcated as a different set of problems: the VR ones.

Or do you mean that a fictional character described and depicted in the game would need the detail? To actually believe stuff, like the fact that he's not fictional?

It is unclear to me why there would be more leaf worlds, could you spell that out for me? — NotAristotle

Picture 'reality' R0 as the trunk of a tree. It has 9 boughs (S1-S9) coming out of it, the simulations being run on R. Each of those has 10 branches, labeled S10-S99. Those each in turn have 10 sticks (next level simulations (S100-S999), Then the twigs (S1000-S9999) and the leaves (S10000-S99999). Every one of those simulation has say 10 billion people in it, so a given person is likely to be simulated (all except the ones in R0), and most of those (90%) find themselves in the leaves, the non-posthuman state as defined by Bostrom. So finding yourself in a state where such simulations are not possible is most likely. And this is presuming only 10 simulations per world, whereas Bostrom posits far more, so the numbers get even more silly.

This argument is a gross simplification, and presumes some outrageous things, for instance, that one world can be simulating trillions of consciousnesses at once, and there are motivations that people would want to run such a thing at all. It also presumes fate: that all initial random states with people in it will almost certainly eventually progress to this posthuman state. It also preposterously presumes the continuation of Moore's law for millennia, and posits no end to non-renewable resources. Those are many of the reasons Bostrom's proposal falls flat.
How about simulating a quantum universe with a classical machine? That's been proven impossible. I notice Bostrom suggests shortcuts, where the brute simulation needs to know what it's particles are doing and notice when intent emerges from the atoms so that it can actually change physics when one looks closely enough at something. The comedy never ends with that proposal.

Empirical methods of falsification are also interesting to explore.

A running process isn't just a succession of maps? — bongo fury

A description of a running process is a map. The process itself is not.

Do you mean that some part of the computer running the game would need the detail? — bongo fury

It would need to simulate the NPC down to the biochemical level. The NPC would need to be conscious to believe anything, and not just appear to believe stuff. Heck, Elon Musk 'appears' to believe he's in a VR (as a player presumably, not an NPC), but it is questionable if he actually holds this belief. Ditto for a few other notable celebrities that make heavy claims but seem to have ulterior motives.

Then you're talking about an AI

An AI is needed to make a convincing NPC that doesn't do its own thinking. It is far more efficient for the actions to come from an AI than it is to actually simulate the character's thoughts and other processes. A pure closed simulation (Sim or VR) needs no AI at all, just brute capacity. No current game has any character do its own thinking, and the NPC are really obviously an NPC since barely any processing power is budgeted to doing the AI better. It's getting better, but has a long way to go before the line between players and NPCs begins to fade.

Or do you mean that a fictional character described and depicted in the game would need the detail?

Heck no. A game need only simulate my sensory stream, nothing else. There's no reason to make the characters appear to ponder about what their nature is.

Have you ever seen this? — RogueAI

I've seen the xkcd thing, yes. I'm not the first to see it. There's lots of references to 1D and 2D simulations in that, but how else are you going to depict it in a comic?

A brain in a vat need not be a brain at all, but some sort of mind black-box. Introspection is the only evidence. A non-human mind in a vat being fed false information that it is a human living on Earth has no clue that it isn't a pink squishy thing doing the experiencing, or exerting the will. — noAxioms

I disagree with this. In the BIV, the brain is a given. That is, human brain. Because the point of the theory is skepticism, not that we are indeed brains in a vat. If I could experience the real world, then be hooked up to a machine that simulates the same thing I have experienced, seamlessly, that I would not be able to tell the difference, then the theory has made its point.

You both seem to balk at the paper/pencil thing, but what can a computer do that the pencil cannot? If you cannot answer that, then how is your denial of it justified? — noAxioms

I remember raging arguments at the International Skeptics Society years ago about whether enough monks writing down 1's and 0's could simulate consciousness, like the guy in the comic I posted moving rocks around and simulating this universe.

You both seem to balk at the paper/pencil thing, but what can a computer do that the pencil cannot? If you cannot answer that, then how is your denial of it justified? — noAxioms

A computer can process information in ways that a pencil cannot. Why think consciousness can exist without the occurrence of information processing?