Simulated reality and *ism

18AD

fergalr wrote: »

I think those are good points; I think they are somewhat different to where I was going with the start, which was really looking for someone to justify atheism, if they believed the simulation argument - they do sort of address that, but I think they are in a slightly different direction - interesting stuff, though...

It certainly is interesting!
I'm just not sure simulation presents that big a problem for atheism, or theism for that matter.

Peanut

fergalr wrote: »

What? What has Godels theorems got to do with this?

Which of Godels theorems, and how exactly does it apply here? I dont see the relevance.

It's very relevant in any simulation argument, since it goes to the core of computability and what exactly can be "proven" (or even guessed) in any logical system, e.g. a simulation running on some sort of computer.


When posing any question in such a system, it needs to be logically consistent, such that we can't get both a yes and no answer at the same time.

But what Godel showed is that you can't have both consistency and completeness at the same time. If we really want a consistent system, we have to accept that it will be incomplete - in other words, there will be certain questions in such a system that are unprovable. These questions tend to be those that are self-referential within such a system (such as what I suspect any reasonable form of your imagined question would most likely be).

Actually, probably a better reference is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theorem.

"arithmetical truth cannot be defined in arithmetic"

Replace arithmetic with simulation and you can see the connection.

fergalr wrote:

..but then you are trying to say 'oh look, our universe is like a big formal system, and so there are some things that are true that we cant prove'. But thats a very fuzzy last step; I dont how it works, anyway! And further, theres no evidence that P(A) would be one of those things.

Ok - fair enough - but you're suggesting the simulation model, and really if we throw that away then what's left of the question? Anything goes in that case...

fergalr wrote:

I think you are spoofing

Cheers :)

fergalr

Disclaimer: while Im a computer scientist, Im not a hard core theoretical logician. I have understood pretty well at least the sketch of godels theorems at one point, but I might be off the mark with any particular technicality.

Peanut wrote: »

It's very relevant in any simulation argument, since it goes to the core of computability and what exactly can be "proven" (or even guessed) in any logical system, e.g. a simulation running on some sort of computer.

It applies in any logical system... ...that obeys certain rules of formal logic, and has a sufficient expressiveness, so that you can make statements about the truth of theorems within the system - certain self referential statements, so that you can set up contradictions.

But there are a whole lot of provisios there. You can build a system outside the logical system of interest, that reasons about the truth or falseness of the logical system. You can do this many times. Eventually, yes, the 'outermost' system still suffers the incompleteness problem. But is that really a problem? Why do you think that such a system wouldnt be powerful enough to simulate a universe, in which it was possible to reason about P(A), the probability of the existence of god? That's a massive assumption.

Its another huge assumption that rules of formal logic are even necessary to simulate a universe.

Perhaps everything could be done in a much simpler, more ad-hoc fashion? Why do you need to go around proving theorems? We dont need to go around proving theorems to simulate many things. If you look at some physicists simulating subatomic particles, you won't find theorem proving in there. (Not a strong argument; but a reasonable point, I think).


And here we are, higher order complex systems, in this reality/simulation. Why should a probability statement that we make be a system level theorem at all? Surely it wouldn't?
Why does it even need to be a theorem?
Humans basically never reason in formal logic, at a high level, right? If someone shoulds you a math proof, its pretty much never the machine verifiable, formal one. Does that mean we can't reason about math proofs? No. We can't do it mechanically - or at least we are pretty crap at it - but we still manage to make reasonable predictions about the world, from our math.


We are in to very speculative territory here - but if you want to invoke Godel's theorem, to a really high level argument, I think the burden of proof is on you to show its relevant somehow, and I don't see any argument for that.

Peanut wrote: »

When posing any question in such a system, it needs to be logically consistent, such that we can't get both a yes and no answer at the same time.

But what Godel showed is that you can't have both consistency and completeness at the same time. If we really want a consistent system, we have to accept that it will be incomplete - in other words, there will be certain questions in such a system that are unprovable. These questions tend to be those that are self-referential within such a system (such as what I suspect any reasonable form of your imagined question would most likely be).

There are certain theorems that we can construct, which can't be proven from within the system. But again, so what?

Peanut wrote: »

Replace arithmetic with simulation and you can see the connection.

Yeah, but you can't just do that. And even if you could, there's no evidence it would matter.

Peanut wrote: »

Ok - fair enough - but you're suggesting the simulation model, and really if we throw that away then what's left of the question? Anything goes in that case...

All the simulation stuff is still valid - I still dont see at all how invoking godels theorem is an argument against it.

I apologise for saying you were spoofing - even in jest - but you get a lot of people throwing around godel's theorem; and (while its really cool and generalises across systems of formal logic, with a certain expressiveness) its a really technical thing, with a lot of provisos; you cant just apply it to your analogous situation, and hope it sort of transfers - it doesn't work like that. At least as far as I know

joseph brand

Are we talking about The Matrix?

fergalr

joseph brand wrote: »

Are we talking about The Matrix?

I'm sure that it really annoys philosophers, when they are discussing simulated realities, and people keep mentioning The Matrix.


Thankfully, I'm a computer scientist, and so I mainly just think The Matrix is a cool movie.

So, yes. Yes we are discussing The Matrix.

In fact, this message is just for you Joesph.
No one else on boards can see it.
There will be an man knocking on your door shortly, with a pill for you.

nagirrac

For full disclosure I am an agnostic deist, so between a 3 and a 4 (depending on the day). On balance, the evidence to me is highly suggestive of a sophisticated simulation, to the extent that we can glimpse aspects of what lies behind the curtain without getting close to understanding it. The debates regarding God are very interesting, with one of the fascinating arguments on the nay side being that something is "impossible", when such a restriction is a very human concept. The whole universe is "impossible" to a large degree, nevermind trying to elucidate what may have brought it into being.

The most interesting question to me is whether a potential creator is outside of, or is part of, its own creation. If the latter then intervention on the local reality level may be a practical restriction. I agree fully with the OP regarding the potential future of mankind as virtual, in fact this is almost certainly the only way we can survive as a species long term. Ray Kurtzweil's "The Singularity is Near" is the best source for a detailed treatment of this topic. If we survive long enough to duplicate ourselves and populate the galaxy and eventually the whole universe, do we then not become Gods ourselves? Perhaps that is the point, we certainly seem very driven to innovate as a species.

A few other thinkers worth considering in this area are Frank Tipler (The Physics of Immortality) and Thomas Campbell (My Big TOE). Campbell was the out of body experimenter described in Robert Monroe's Far Journeys, and although his 3 volume TOE is a slog to get through, it is very convincing of the simulation argument.

joseph brand

fergalr wrote: »

I'm sure that it really annoys philosophers, when they are discussing simulated realities, and people keep mentioning The Matrix.


Thankfully, I'm a computer scientist, and so I mainly just think The Matrix is a cool movie.

So, yes. Yes we are discussing The Matrix.

In fact, this message is just for you Joesph.
No one else on boards can see it.
There will be an man knocking on your door shortly, with a pill for you.

Already took that pill.

Here's a short clip of me dealing with an aggressive Jehovah's Witness.



:cool:

Sierra 117

The Jehovah's Witness is Neo, I take it?

:pac:

the culture of deference

Jernal wrote: »

Atheists don't take any position on the creation of the universe, or universes. They only take a position on the existence of deities. Whether these deities abilities comprise of being able to a blow out candle or create universes is irrelevant.

I would consider myself to be 7 on the scale.

There are 2 version's of god for the religious

A. The one who started all this 15 billion years ago

B. The one in the christian bible that they made in their own image is about 1,800 years old

and remember they have no problem for god not to have a creator, but not the universe.

If god is omnipotent why did he take 13 billion years to make us? Why doesn't the bible have exact instructions (DNA, physics, particle explanation) described in it. Anti matter exists, it took 300,000 years for atoms to form. Why would you believe god did it?

The religious argument says that god must have done it, because ...... well JUST because. They allow god to exist without a creator, but pooh pooh the idea for anything else.

Who made the universe ? Hawkings reply

"The laws of nature themselves tells us that not only can the universe have popped into existence like a proton and have required nothing in terms of energy but also that it is possible that nothing caused the big bang"

"You only need three ingredients to make a universe, matter or mass, energy and space. But using Albert Einstein's famous equation, Hawking argued that mass and energy are basically the same thing.
The big bang created the now two necessary ingredients for a universe: energy and space.

While some argue that this is where God comes into the picture because you can't create something out of nothing, Hawking argued that it is entirely possible. Particles such as protons, he said, behave according to quantum mechanics and can appear at random, then vanish, and then reappear somewhere else."

Pherekydes wrote: »

Do you honestly think we are part of some simulated reality?

It is possible. You would never be able to tell the difference anyway.

the culture of deference

Sierra 117 wrote: »

The Jehovah's Witness is Neo, I take it?

:pac:

Thanks for making me laugh.:pac:

Zombrex

Forgive me if this point has already been made (I didn't read the thread because it seems a little too "ha ha silly atheists" for my liking)

But atheism is the rejection of theistic claims, not a position on the existence of any possible intelligent creator.

I have absolutely no idea if this universe was or wasn't created by some sort of intelligence. I'm not even sure how to even classify the concept of intelligence outside of this universe, or what "created" means in the context of a reality devoid of the rules of this universe such as causality and time.

Atheism is the rejection of the claims theists make that they already know that we were created and that the creator has certain properties and communicates with us.

An analogy I use is this story

Two men come to a door. The first man (Man A) says "I know there is a white tiger behind that door". The second man says "Don't be silly, how can you possibly know that". Man A replies "It is my faith, I believe it!". The second man says "Well I think that is nonsense"

It is important to note that Man B is not commenting on what is behind the door. He is not even saying he knows there isn't a white tiger behind the door, though he may believe hat is very doubtful. The entire substance of his position is the rejection of the idea that Man A knows what is behind the door. Man B believes that Man A is just as clueless as he is, but for some reason has chosen to latch on to a belief he cannot justify.

I have no idea how the universe was created. But then neither does anyone else. Hence why I'm an atheist.

Sycopat

fergalr wrote: »

I'm sure that it really annoys philosophers, when they are discussing simulated realities, and people keep mentioning The Matrix.

IME discussion of simulated realities tends to annoy philosophers because it's an inherently irresolvable question intended to raise discussion about the nature of knowledge and certainty, but instead often ends up being used as an argument to show that one can never truly know anything about the nature of reality, or to infer the existence of a simulation programmer in what is essentially a metaphysical version of the 'Irreducible Complexity' argument.

And here's the rub, accepting the possibility that this is possibly a simulated reality leads only and totally to option 5 in the OP.

Strong agnosticism: No certainty is possible.

About anything.

Ever.

This is the only possible result from any argument which relies on the idea that reality might not be real.

edit: and to illustrate that: inferring a simulation programmer for a simulated world relies on the knowledge that programs in the simulated world having simulated programmers. But as the programs and their programmers are simulations one cannot actually infer that that is the order of things in the non-simulated universe which contains the simulation.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

the culture of deference wrote: »

If god is omnipotent why did he take 13 billion years to make us?

But, sure, if he's ominpotent, time doesn't apply to him. Both us and the 13 billion years could be made in a microsecond of divine time.

Zombrex wrote: »

I have no idea how the universe was created. But then neither does anyone else. Hence why I'm an atheist.

I know it might just be a point around definition of terms, but I'd say the 'hence' there should be leading to agnosticism. I'd take atheism to be that extra step of asserting 'there is no god', which doesn't necessarily follow from an absence of evidence.

Zombrex

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I know it might just be a point around definition of terms, but I'd say the 'hence' there should be leading to agnosticism. I'd take atheism to be that extra step of asserting 'there is no god', which doesn't necessarily follow from an absence of evidence.

Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive, nor do they lead on from each other.

I have no idea if there is a creator intelligence, hence I am strongly agnostic about it.

I believe very strongly that theists don't know either, hence I am an atheist.

Atheism really has nothing to do with gods, and everything to do with human claims. It is a statement about human knowledge and human claims, not the existence of possible deities.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Zombrex wrote: »

I have no idea if there is a creator intelligence, hence I am strongly agnostic about it.

I believe very strongly that theists don't know either, hence I am an atheist.

I still don't see the 'hence'.

As I see it, your statments should be:

I have no idea if there is a creator intelligence, hence I am strongly agnostic about it.

I believe very strongly that theists don't know either, hence I believe they know nothing that would change my agnosticism about a creator intelligence.

I don't see how the expectation that theists don't know leads to statement that they are certainly wrong.

fergalr

nagirrac wrote: »

For full disclosure I am an agnostic deist, so between a 3 and a 4 (depending on the day). On balance, the evidence to me is highly suggestive of a sophisticated simulation, to the extent that we can glimpse aspects of what lies behind the curtain without getting close to understanding it.

That's a big claim - I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that there is actual evidence that we are in a simulation. Sounds pretty deep in left field - but what sort of aspects are you talking about?

nagirrac wrote: »

The debates regarding God are very interesting, with one of the fascinating arguments on the nay side being that something is "impossible", when such a restriction is a very human concept. The whole universe is "impossible" to a large degree, nevermind trying to elucidate what may have brought it into being.

Im not sure about that line of thought:

I'm sure all our concepts could be characterised as 'human', so Im not sure what it means to say that 'impossible' is a very 'human concept'.

I also don't understand how anyone could say the universe is impossible; like, we define the universe by the reality that we can see and interact with in some form - I don't know what 'impossible' means, if the universe can be described as 'impossible'.

nagirrac wrote: »

The most interesting question to me is whether a potential creator is outside of, or is part of, its own creation. If the latter then intervention on the local reality level may be a practical restriction. I agree fully with the OP regarding the potential future of mankind as virtual, in fact this is almost certainly the only way we can survive as a species long term.

I also think our future will probably be 'virtual', or in software.

nagirrac wrote: »

Ray Kurtzweil's "The Singularity is Near" is the best source for a detailed treatment of this topic.

Kurzweil is a smart guy, and very accomplished, but I'm very skeptical about his predictions. There's a lot of good stuff in his general argument that technological progress is not linear, and that we shouldn't linearly extrapolate progress into the future.

But I'm not at all convinced by his predictions either, or his prediction methodology. It seems like pseduo science. I don't buy most of the 'is near' parts of his argument. Thats not to say his conclusions are wrong - just that there is very little evidence for them.

nagirrac wrote: »

If we survive long enough to duplicate ourselves and populate the galaxy and eventually the whole universe, do we then not become Gods ourselves? Perhaps that is the point, we certainly seem very driven to innovate as a species.

A few other thinkers worth considering in this area are Frank Tipler (The Physics of Immortality) and Thomas Campbell (My Big TOE). Campbell was the out of body experimenter described in Robert Monroe's Far Journeys, and although his 3 volume TOE is a slog to get through, it is very convincing of the simulation argument.

I'm not familiar with those writers; will take a look.

fergalr

the culture of deference wrote: »

I would consider myself to be 7 on the scale.

There are 2 version's of god for the religious

A. The one who started all this 15 billion years ago

B. The one in the christian bible that they made in their own image is about 1,800 years old

and remember they have no problem for god not to have a creator, but not the universe.

If god is omnipotent why did he take 13 billion years to make us? Why doesn't the bible have exact instructions (DNA, physics, particle explanation) described in it. Anti matter exists, it took 300,000 years for atoms to form. Why would you believe god did it?

The religious argument says that god must have done it, because ...... well JUST because. They allow god to exist without a creator, but pooh pooh the idea for anything else.

Sure - that is a long standing problem in particular religions - if you introduce 'god' as the answer to 'what made the universe', then you are still left with the chicken-and-egg problem of 'well then, what made god?'.


But, as you say you are a 7 on the scale, can I ask, would you still consider yourself a 7, if you got strong evidence (hypothetically), that the universe we were in was a simulation, created by a much more powerful intelligence than us?

If that would change your certainty, then would a reasonable argument that we were likely to be in a universe created by a superior intelligence, also move you from a 7?

the culture of deference wrote: »

Who made the universe ? Hawkings reply

"The laws of nature themselves tells us that not only can the universe have popped into existence like a proton and have required nothing in terms of energy but also that it is possible that nothing caused the big bang"

"You only need three ingredients to make a universe, matter or mass, energy and space. But using Albert Einstein's famous equation, Hawking argued that mass and energy are basically the same thing.
The big bang created the now two necessary ingredients for a universe: energy and space.

While some argue that this is where God comes into the picture because you can't create something out of nothing, Hawking argued that it is entirely possible. Particles such as protons, he said, behave according to quantum mechanics and can appear at random, then vanish, and then reappear somewhere else."

Right - this is interesting stuff. Now, I won't pretend to understand the deep physics at all; but I'm prepared to believe that the universe could just have spontaneously arisen from nowhere, like how pairs of quantum particles just pop into existence. I'm prepared to believe this is a plausible possibility because a lot of smart physicists believe it is.

Hence this goes some way to removing the necessity of a creator god, and gives at least some answer to 'what created the universe'.

So, this would seem to be a really good thing, for the strong atheist position:
that there doesn't need to be a creator god, is certainly compatible with believing that there is none.


But what I'm wondering, is, even if you believe that a universe just spontaneously popped into being, perhaps there is still an argument against being a strong atheist:

Perhaps even if real universes just spontaneously arise, we are in fact more probably living in a simulated one, therefore it is still more probable we have a creator?

And so on.

nagirrac

fergalr wrote: »

Right - this is interesting stuff. Now, I won't pretend to understand the deep physics at all; but I'm prepared to believe that the universe could just have spontaneously arisen from nowhere, like how pairs of quantum particles just pop into existence. I'm prepared to believe this is a plausible possibility because a lot of smart physicists believe it is.

I dont have time at hand right now for a detailed answer to your response to my post and to this point, but there is a critical point I would like to make on the issue of a universe from nothing:

The nothing Krauss and Hawkins refer to is not "nothing" as we normally think of it, it is a scientific defintion of nothing called the quantum vacuum. How a field of energy can be defined as nothing is beyond me and its a view that I don't think is shared by many physicists. In my view Krauss in particular has made anti religious dogma out of his theory.

fergalr

Zombrex wrote: »

Forgive me if this point has already been made (I didn't read the thread because it seems a little too "ha ha silly atheists" for my liking)

...

Zombrex wrote: »

But atheism is the rejection of theistic claims, not a position on the existence of any possible intelligent creator.

Atheism is a contentious word.

Many theists say that the existence of an intelligent creator is a key part of their theism.
I'd argue that many would define atheists as rejecting the existence of an intelligent creator.

You are saying that 'atheism' would be compatible with the existence of an intelligent creator.
Thats up to you - I guess I'm using a different definition of the word than you are.

Zombrex wrote: »

I have absolutely no idea if this universe was or wasn't created by some sort of intelligence. I'm not even sure how to even classify the concept of intelligence outside of this universe, or what "created" means in the context of a reality devoid of the rules of this universe such as causality and time.

If this universe exists as a simulation within another universe, there is nothing to say that the 'outer' universe is devoid of rules such as causality and time.
There's nothing to say the rules are the same, either, but assuming certain similarity seems like a good starting point to me.

But we are trying to reason about possibilities and probabilities here. We aren't going to get much in the way of certain knowledge about a universe beyond our own, almost by definition; but that doesn't suffice as a general attack on any attempt to reason about the possibilities, or even probabilities.

Zombrex wrote: »

Atheism is the rejection of the claims theists make that they already know that we were created and that the creator has certain properties and communicates with us.

You are defining atheism as rejecting the claims made by specific religions.

I find that very unsatisfactory.
If I invent a new religion, that would mean that atheism changes, as it now has to reject the claims of my new theism?

Zombrex wrote: »

An analogy I use is this story

Two men come to a door. The first man (Man A) says "I know there is a white tiger behind that door". The second man says "Don't be silly, how can you possibly know that". Man A replies "It is my faith, I believe it!". The second man says "Well I think that is nonsense"

It is important to note that Man B is not commenting on what is behind the door. He is not even saying he knows there isn't a white tiger behind the door, though he may believe hat is very doubtful. The entire substance of his position is the rejection of the idea that Man A knows what is behind the door. Man B believes that Man A is just as clueless as he is, but for some reason has chosen to latch on to a belief he cannot justify.

I have no idea how the universe was created. But then neither does anyone else. Hence why I'm an atheist.

I would label you an agnostic.

If your analogy about whether there is a tiger, is replaced by whether there is a god, and if you are saying that you don't know there isn't a tiger behind the door, and that you just don't know, then you meet my definition of agnostic, not atheist.

You'd be a 4 or 5 on the scale I gave, not a 6 or 7.

If you want to use the word 'atheist' for that, that's your choice.

If, on the other hand, you 'believe that there being a tiger is very doubtful', then you are no longer taking an agnostic position. But you are no longer just commenting on the lack of certainty of other people. You can't just say 'I think that because I have no information'. You also need some other beliefs about the world - such as that white tigers are rarely found behind doors.

Sycopat

fergalr wrote: »

Perhaps even if real universes just spontaneously arise, we are in fact more probably living in a simulated one, therefore it is still more probable we have a creator?

Why does a simulated universe need a creator any more than a spontaneously arisen but real one?

Sycopat

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I don't see how the expectation that theists don't know leads to statement that they are certainly wrong.

I don't know if Zombrex and I think anything alike on this subject but I can.

Null hypothesis not rejected therefore null hypothesis remains default position.

fergalr

Sycopat wrote: »

IME discussion of simulated realities tends to annoy philosophers because it's an inherently irresolvable question intended to raise discussion about the nature of knowledge and certainty, but instead often ends up being used as an argument to show that one can never truly know anything about the nature of reality, or to infer the existence of a simulation programmer in what is essentially a metaphysical version of the 'Irreducible Complexity' argument.

And here's the rub, accepting the possibility that this is possibly a simulated reality leads only and totally to option 5 in the OP.

I don't see how to reject the possibility that this is possibly a simulated reality.
It can't be rejected purely on the basis it leads to strong agnosticism.

Maybe you are saying its just not a useful way to think. That'd be a fine perspective, but I'm not sure I agree.

Sycopat wrote: »

Strong agnosticism: No certainty is possible.

About anything.

Ever.

This is the only possible result from any argument which relies on the idea that reality might not be real.

This is getting into murky territory of strong skepticism, which I'd like to avoid if possible. I'm sure you'd say 'you are already there', or 'you started it', but I don't quite agree.


From a 2 valued logical, hard truth-or-false, point of view, no certainty is possible about anything, if you accept that we might be in a simulation.

But that's not how I try to reason about things, or how I think people reason about them, we deal in probabilities I think.

So, I can accept that this universe might be simulated, and that reality might not be real.
But I still push the keyboard and expect characters to appear. I operate on the basis that my keyboard is real - or at least predictable. On a day-to-day basis, that's useful.

Even accepting that this perceived reality mightn't be real, I've got to do something with my time. I've got to make most of my inferences, as if it was real.
I generalise, from the behaviour I observe.

I accept the theoretical possibility my generalisations are founded on bad ground, because I'm being fooled by the simulation I'm in, but I don't worry about that.


I think we can still go places, on this probabilistic basis.


Let me put it like this: Lets say there was a strong physical, or computational result, that said that it wouldn't be possible to simulate universes, in our universe.

Now, someone might say "well, its not possible to simulate universes in our universe; but it might be in the universe in which we are simulated".

I think that discussion would be fundamentally different than if it is the case that "yes, we can simulate universes. I have a new supercomputer which Ive run a small universe in, for 10k years, yesterday.".


Do you see what I mean? Yes, if we admit that this could be a simulation, then we never get complete total certainty about anything.
But, even accepting that, and going about our business, I think there can still be things that we see in our universe, that we perceive, that change the probabilities with which we'd assess the likelihood that we are in a simulation.


To put it yet another way:

If, in 200 years, humans are simulating loads of other universes, I think we are going to have to take the question 'Are we in a simulation?' very much more seriously, than if humans can't simulate other universes.


Your argument might say:
"Oh, well, once you start thinking 'are we in a simulation', then all bets are off, and we cant reason about anything".

But I think its clear that if we were doing large scale universe simulation, then, from a day-to-day, rational point of view, that should affect how we think about these things.


Similarly, if we don't yet have universe simulations, but if we can conceive of them, and see no theoretical obstacles, then I think its worth trying to go somewhere from that information.

Sycopat wrote: »

edit: and to illustrate that: inferring a simulation programmer for a simulated world relies on the knowledge that programs in the simulated world having simulated programmers. But as the programs and their programmers are simulations one cannot actually infer that that is the order of things in the non-simulated universe which contains the simulation.

Yes, agreed, technically. But even if we cant be sure, shouldnt we still try and generalise from the rules of the universe we do know, even if we accept they might be simulated? Cant we still try and make some progress that way?

fergalr

Sycopat wrote: »

Why does a simulated universe need a creator any more than a spontaneously arisen but real one?

Thats an interesting point. I guess I am assuming that 'simulated' defines some sort of agency or intentionality on the part of the thing that created the universe.

Certainly, humans seem to be trying to figure out how to simulate things, so I have reasonable belief they, or their off spring, might eventually try and simulate a universe. So I think that simulation is something more likely to be done by intelligence, than by random processes.


Its like if you are walking along a beach, and you just find a computer, running a simulation. You tend to think it was put there by some intelligence.

Its not like if you find a sea urchin. If you find a sea urchin, you have a theory about a dumb automatically optimising process - evolution - which creates those things.

I don't know of any evidence for a process like evolution that creates universe simulations, without first building intelligent beings, that in turn make the simulations. But, of course, we are still in very speculative territory.

fergalr

Sycopat wrote: »

I don't know if Zombrex and I think anything alike on this subject but I can.

Null hypothesis not rejected therefore null hypothesis remains default position.

Thats all very easy - if you can choose the null hypothesis.

The whole point of this thread is to introduce an argument that we might need a different null.


Edit: Referring to the general ideas of theism, in their most general form, e.g.: 'there is a creator intelligence' - not any specific flavour of theism, which of course has a much higher burden of proof.

Sycopat

fergalr wrote: »

Its like if you are walking along a beach, and you just find a computer, running a simulation. You tend to think it was put there by some intelligence.

Irreducible complexity. I called it in my first post in this thread.

Its not like if you find a sea urchin. If you find a sea urchin, you have a theory about a dumb automatically optimising process - evolution - which creates those things.

Dumb. Interesting word choice. I'd assume you mean unguided. but irreducible complexity is a creationist argument....

I don't know of any evidence for a process like evolution that creates universe simulations, without first building intelligent beings, that in turn make the simulations. But, of course, we are still in very speculative territory.

Also, you wouldn't be able to conceive of it because you'd just be a simulation. And you're thinking is done for you by whatever is running the simulation, which may be another simulation.

I like how you are now talking about evidence. Obviously absolutely nothing I said about inferring anything from within the simulation has been completely missed.

fergalr wrote: »

Thats all very easy - if you can choose the null hypothesis.

The whole point of this thread is to introduce an argument that we might need a different null.


Edit: Referring to the general ideas of theism, in their most general form, e.g.: 'there is a creator intelligence' - not any specific flavour of theism, which of course has a much higher burden of proof.

Choosing the null. I'm not sure you understand what a null hypothesis is.

Also, you should reas the wikipedia page on what theism is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism

fergalr

Sycopat wrote: »

Originally Posted by fergalr

Its like if you are walking along a beach, and you just find a computer, running a simulation. You tend to think it was put there by some intelligence.

Irreducible complexity.

I called it in my first post in this thread.

Let me spell this out a little more, and perhaps we can resolve this issue.

Lets quickly consider and dispatch the traditional 'watchmaker' analogy:

1) You are walking along the beach and you see a complex thing, like a sea urchin.
2) You assume that it has been designed, because otherwise how could this complex thing arise.
This is a reasonable assumption.
3) Therefore someone must have went and designed the urchins and everything else, lets call it god.
4) Then your friend Charles tells you he has a really good mechanism by which complex things like this arise without design.
5) Your 'urchin was designed' assumption is suddenly less reasonable, and actually evidence mounts that most animals display features that are consistent with Charles' theory (e.g. vestigial features).
6) Suddenly 2 is much less reasonable than just going with Charles' theory.
7) Therefore there is no need for 3.


If anyone comes along, and still argues 1->2->3, and doesn't accept 4 through 7, you can say 'irreducible complexity! fallacy! omg, you are so wrong' to them.


Now, lets contrast with simulation argument, that we are dealing with here:
1) Lets say you think/discover/belief/hypothesize you live in a simulated universe
2) You don't know whether such universes are more likely to arise by chance or design, but based on what you observe within your universe, it does seem like intelligences, like humans, might design them.
3) You don't really have any other theory for how they might arise by chance.
4) You don't have any friend called Charles who can come up with a theory about how dumb/unguided mechanisms might be incentivised to move towards simulating universes (in the way that biological creatures with better genes propagate more, which drives evolution)
5) So you assume that the simulated universe you are in is probably made by an intelligence.

Thats a very different argument.


Its also NOT the same as saying 'the universe is complex, therefore someone must have made it'.

Its saying that GIVEN this is a simulated universe, is it more likely to be made by chance (or some kind of dumb process) or by an intelligence.


Well, as pointed out previously, we don't know which of these is more likely, in the universe that would contain ours. But if the universe that would contain ours is like our universe (which seems to be the best assumption we have) then our simulated universe has probably been created by an intelligence.



Do you see why this is not an irreducible complexity argument, now?

Sycopat wrote: »

Dumb. Interesting word choice. I'd assume you mean unguided.

I think dumb is a better word than 'unguided'.
Evolution is guided, in that it is an optimisation process which attempts to maximise a fitness objective function. A dynamically changing, super complex one, but its still guided, in that if it makes a misstep, it gets feedback on that misstep (probably) in that the organism dies.

I like to call it 'dumb' because its not the product of intelligence (or at least what we would colloquially call intelligence).

Sycopat wrote: »

but irreducible complexity is a creationist argument....

Are you attempting to say that an argument is wrong, because creationists use it? (or, as explained above, use something that sounds superficially similar).
That's some scary logic, right there.

If the argument is wrong, it is wrong on its demerits - not because some group of people, whose conclusions you dont like, use it.

Sycopat wrote: »

Also, you wouldn't be able to conceive of it because you'd just be a simulation.

Thats a huge assumption, surely?

Sycopat wrote: »

And you're thinking is done for you by whatever is running the simulation, which may be another simulation.

Ok - so?

Sycopat wrote: »

I like how you are now talking about evidence. Obviously absolutely nothing I said about inferring anything from within the simulation has been completely missed.

I thought I gave quite a good response to your point about inferring from simulation - I certainly attempted to address your point in a lot of detail, and tried to state my case several different ways, in post 53.

Sycopat wrote: »

Choosing the null. I'm not sure you understand what a null hypothesis is.

Are you implying that there is never any issue of choosing what the null hypothesis is?
Because trying to figure out what the null should be is often a big problem.

Further, its even a misleading and un-useful concept in many cases, outside strict frequentist experimental design.


In this particular context, you told someone that you knew that the null hypothesis was that 'there was no creator'; that that should be the default position. My point is that that is quite a claim.

But anyway, its really misleading to use the statistical terminology of a null hypothesis, outside a situation where you are trying to evaluate evidence from an experiment.

You are just using that language to claim the 'default position' in the argument, and put the burden of proof on the other party, to reject your claims.


Now, ordinarily, given my complex model of the world, I would agree that the burden of proof was on those attempting to argue for a creator intelligence.

However, this thread is about the argument that if we are likely to be living in a simulation, then perhaps our prior about P(intelligent-creator) should not be close to 0. Equally, to use your non-technical use of 'the null', perhaps it is not clear that the null should be that there is no creator.

Sycopat wrote: »

Also, you should reas the wikipedia page on what theism is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism

I've actually come across that exact page before - isn't that a freaky co-incidence?

Is there a particular part of the page that you suggest I should pay close attention to, because its pretty long?
The opening sentence: "Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists." seems to fit my purpose - if you are willing to include 'omnipotent-creator-programmer' as a deity.

Which I think is reasonable. Put another way: if I start a religion dedicated to the veneration of the creator-programmer (who, you know, it would be kind of reasonable to venerate, if they exist) - do you think I'll have many adherents who class themselves as atheists?

I doubt it. But maybe you are saying I misunderstand the term?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Sycopat wrote: »

I don't know if Zombrex and I think anything alike on this subject but I can.

Null hypothesis not rejected therefore null hypothesis remains default position.

I think you're right to be cautious, because I'm not confident that addresses the point. In particular, bear in mind that Zombrex is simply agnostic on the existence of a god. What I'm exploring is how that can, in some way, build up to a "hence" that takes you to atheism.

Just in passing, I'm not sure what hypothesis has or hasn't been rejected. Now, there's nothing particular wrong with someone saying "if I don't have evidence that something exists, I assert that it doesn't." Obviously, such a person will sometimes be wrong, but it's as good a rule of thumb as any.

Sycopat

fergalr wrote: »

Let me spell this out a little more, and perhaps we can resolve this issue.

Lets quickly consider and dispatch the traditional 'watchmaker' analogy:

1) You are walking along the beach and you see a complex thing, like a sea urchin.
2) You assume that it has been designed, because otherwise how could this complex thing arise.
This is a reasonable assumption.
3) Therefore someone must have went and designed the urchins and everything else, lets call it god.
4) Then your friend Charles tells you he has a really good mechanism by which complex things like this arise without design.
5) Your 'urchin was designed' assumption is suddenly less reasonable, and actually evidence mounts that most animals display features that are consistent with Charles' theory (e.g. vestigial features).
6) Suddenly 2 is much less reasonable than just going with Charles' theory.
7) Therefore there is no need for 3.


If anyone comes along, and still argues 1->2->3, and doesn't accept 4 through 7, you can say 'irreducible complexity! fallacy! omg, you are so wrong' to them.


Now, lets contrast with simulation argument, that we are dealing with here:
1) Lets say you think/discover/belief/hypothesize you live in a simulated universe
2) You don't know whether such universes are more likely to arise by chance or design, but based on what you observe within your universe, it does seem like intelligences, like humans, might design them.
3) You don't really have any other theory for how they might arise by chance.
4) You don't have any friend called Charles who can come up with a theory about how dumb/unguided mechanisms might be incentivised to move towards simulating universes (in the way that biological creatures with better genes propagate more, which drives evolution)
5) So you assume that the simulated universe you are in is probably made by an intelligence.

Thats a very different argument.


Its also NOT the same as saying 'the universe is complex, therefore someone must have made it'.

Its saying that GIVEN this is a simulated universe, is it more likely to be made by chance (or some kind of dumb process) or by an intelligence.

Given a perfectly simulated universe you cannot know the answer to that.

Given a simulated universe, you can't infer anything about what is simulating it from within the simulation. You would need information about the outside universe to infer anything about it.

Well, as pointed out previously, we don't know which of these is more likely, in the universe that would contain ours. But if the universe that would contain ours is like our universe (which seems to be the best assumption we have) then our simulated universe has probably been created by an intelligence.

Do you see why this is not an irreducible complexity argument, now?

No, because I see no reason to assume that a universe which contains our universe as a simulation should be anything like ours.

Nor do i see why a universe that contains ours and is like ours would have intelligences that were not naturally occurring within the context of their universe like ours.

Given a simulated universe, I can only assume that the simulation might not perfectly reflect the real world.

I think dumb is a better word than 'unguided'.
Evolution is guided, in that it is an optimisation process which attempts to maximise a fitness objective function. A dynamically changing, super complex one, but its still guided, in that if it makes a misstep, it gets feedback on that misstep (probably) in that the organism dies.

I like to call it 'dumb' because its not the product of intelligence (or at least what we would colloquially call intelligence).

I think unguided is a better word than dumb precisely because it's not the product of an intelligence. It moves forward blindly. It doesn't receive guidance to avoid mistakes, it makes them and lets them die horribly. It receives feedback, but no guidance.

I can however understand this use of the word dumb, although I think dumb used in this way implies a deficient intellect when there is no intellect behind it whatsoever.

Are you attempting to say that an argument is wrong, because creationists use it? (or, as explained above, use something that sounds superficially similar).
That's some scary logic, right there.

Nope, I'm attempting to say I'm not sure whether your word choice is because you are trying to say something for which dumb is a poor word or because you have contempt for evolution.

Thats a huge assumption, surely?

I don't see how. If you're a simulation than your ability to perceive the simulation is itself simulated. Similarly, anything you can conceive is simulation. If you can't come up with an explanation for something it's because you haven't been simulated to. Given a simulated universe.

Ok - so?

Hmmmm.

I thought I gave quite a good response to your point about inferring from simulation - I certainly attempted to address your point in a lot of detail, and tried to state my case several different ways, in post 53.

And I read that post, I did, and honestly thought it a load of waffle. You make inferences based on the simulation about things outside the simulation, because you want to. Because you've got to do something with your time.

You talk about dealing in probabilities, but nothing you talk about seems related to probability.

You even get close to my own viewpoint at one point.

as if it was real.

You can't tell the difference. And if you could, if you could prove the universe you inhabit is a simulation, all it would tell you is that none of it is real. It still wouldn't tell you anything about the universe outside the simulation. It still wouldn't tell you whether or not you are real.(I've been assuming that the inhabitants of the simulation are part of it, but there's also the brain in a vat scenario, where the inhabitants are real and the universe isn't.)

Are you implying that there is never any issue of choosing what the null hypothesis is?
Because trying to figure out what the null should be is often a big problem.

Further, its even a misleading and un-useful concept in many cases, outside strict frequentist experimental design.

No I'm pointing out the null is based upon the question being asked and the hypothesis under test. For all the difficulty in deciding what the null result of an experiment is, or what it means, it is based upon other factors

In this particular context, you told someone that you knew that the null hypothesis was that 'there was no creator'; that that should be the default position. My point is that that is quite a claim.

I disagree. Also I was using the concept of the null hypothesis to illustrate my idea of why someone else took the line of reasoning that they did. It's reasoning that I would agree with myself, and I see absolutely no reason to object to the null hypothesis in the question 'is there a creator' being 'no'.

If I were to ask 'are potatoes a thing?' The null hypothesis would be no. It would be rejected out of hand by most people, self included (I ate some today) and the default position would be 'yes', possibly followed by an insult to my intelligence. The null is not always the default position, it's what's being rejected.

But anyway, its really misleading to use the statistical terminology of a null hypothesis, outside a situation where you are trying to evaluate evidence from an experiment.

You are just using that language to claim the 'default position' in the argument, and put the burden of proof on the other party, to reject your claims.

Kind of like how it's misleading to talk about probabilities given an assumption of something inherently unknowable?

Now, ordinarily, given my complex model of the world, I would agree that the burden of proof was on those attempting to argue for a creator intelligence.


However, this thread is about the argument that if we are likely to be living in a simulation, then perhaps our prior about P(intelligent-creator) should not be close to 0. Equally, to use your non-technical use of 'the null', perhaps it is not clear that the null should be that there is no creator.

That would still be the null. It would be easier to argue that the null should be rejected because within the simulation, simulations require a simulated creator, but assuming the simulation infers anything about outside the simulation from within the simulation would be a fallacy.

I've actually come across that exact page before - isn't that a freaky co-incidence?

Is there a particular part of the page that you suggest I should pay close attention to, because its pretty long?
The opening sentence: "Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists." seems to fit my purpose - if you are willing to include 'omnipotent-creator-programmer' as a deity.

The opening is fine for my purposes:

Why assume the creator of the simulation is a deity?

They would have power like a deities but in the actual universe they could just be another monkey in shoes. Particularly if we are making inferences based on the simulation. And their power is over things which are not real.

Which I think is reasonable. Put another way: if I start a religion dedicated to the veneration of the creator-programmer (who, you know, it would be kind of reasonable to venerate, if they exist) - do you think I'll have many adherents who class themselves as atheists?

Why would it be reasonable to venerate them? Because you say so?
Because they have power over you? Because they made you to feel fear and suffering for their amusement, and then let you know you were fake as well, and that your fear and suffering is meaningless except for the amusement of a random person who happens to have the power of a deity over you not because they are a deity, but because you're not a real person.

I doubt it. But maybe you are saying I misunderstand the term?

I think you misunderstand the distances between the universe being a simulation, that simulation having a creator, that creator being a deity, that deity being worthy of respect, and any of that knowledge being any way useful.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I think you're right to be cautious, because I'm not confident that addresses the point. In particular, bear in mind that Zombrex is simply agnostic on the existence of a god. What I'm exploring is how that can, in some way, build up to a "hence" that takes you to atheism.

Just in passing, I'm not sure what hypothesis has or hasn't been rejected. Now, there's nothing particular wrong with someone saying "if I don't have evidence that something exists, I assert that it doesn't." Obviously, such a person will sometimes be wrong, but it's as good a rule of thumb as any.

The way I see it is the null hypothesis is whats being rejected first. It might be the status quo, it might be something else. It depends on the question.

In the case of agnosticism, uncertainty about whether or not there is a god, the most basic answer to the question is yes or no, you can't prove a negative so no becomes the null hypothesis, the one which must be rejected to move on. I can't prove god exists, no one can prove to me that god exists (I won't use zombrex here because I really don't want to put words in his mouth), so I can not reject the null hypothesis. This does not inherently reject the other hypothesis either (lets call it H1) it just doesn't support it. I can not assert H1: A god exists, without rejecting H0: That no god exists. I'm caught between two unproven hypotheses, one unassertable, one unrejectable. While unsure of the correct answer, the only one assertable is the null, and that only by dint of h1 being unassertable, in this way agnosticism could lead to defaulting to atheism, exactly through your 'without evidence, assert no' path.

I got the impression from zombrex's comments that he was following a similar line of thinking.

And yes such reasoning is often wrong. The true test of character for someone who claims to use such reasoning is changing their mind when new evidence allows the rejection of H0, something which is very difficult to do, particularly with questions like this one, or those in science, where the balance has remained unchanged for years, decades, or even generations.

nagirrac

fergalr wrote: »

That's a big claim - I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue that there is actual evidence that we are in a simulation. Sounds pretty deep in left field - but what sort of aspects are you talking about?/QUOTE]

You started the thread by stating you find the simulation argument plausible. There must be reasons why you find it plausible, perhaps they are differnet to mine, but I would be interested in hearing them.

When I say evidence I mean the current evidence we have regarding our universe and what it suggests. The first paper that really caught my eye on the subject was by Brian Whitworth which attempted to answer some of the apparent paradoxes between our observed objective reality and the increasingly strange theories of theoretical physics.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf

If we are in a VR simulation then I agree with other posters and yourself that we cannot directly perceive what is behind the simulation. However, that does not mean we cannot conceive of how a VR world would behave, given the evidence we uncover regarding our universe. Increasingly the evidence seems to point to an information based reality built from a ground state of the quantum vacuum (the zero point field) that effectively allows all outcomes. The key question is what is it that organizes these potential outcomes into the objective reality we perceive. Where I think Krauss' argument falls down is although he can argue that a ground state quantum vacuum is "nothing", for anything to exist that we observe as physical depends on the very specific and precise laws of quantum mechanics. Where did these laws come from? Whitworth makes a strong argument that a VR universe based on information processing is a much simpler explanation than objective reality being all there is.

The most convincing argument for simulation that I have heard goes as follows:

1. If humans continue to evolve at an exponential rate, creating VR universes will become a reality and sooner than we can currently imagine.

2. When we get to the point of creating VR universes, we will logically want to simulate historical periods for all kinds of reasons, studying how evolution progressed, how diseases developed, or just curiosity (how much fun would it be to simulate early hominids).

3. If 1 and 2 are true, then the probability that we are in a simulation is very high.

Zombrex

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I have no idea if there is a creator intelligence, hence I am strongly agnostic about it.

I believe very strongly that theists don't know either, hence I believe they know nothing that would change my agnosticism about a creator intelligence.

... hence I'm an atheist.

An atheist is someone who rejects the claims of theists. Its that simple.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I don't see how the expectation that theists don't know leads to statement that they are certainly wrong.

How right or wrong they are is largely irrelevant to the much more important question of do they know they are right or wrong. If their claims were some how accurate they are not right because they know the truth, they are right by virtue of simply guessing and some how ending up right anyway.

Someone could guess this weeks lotto results and by pure fluke get it right, but that doesn't mean I believe them when they say they "know" this weeks results before the draw.

An atheists is simply someone who believes theists are making sh*t up, irrespective of whether that made up sh*t some how by pure coincidence ends up actually be accurate. It is still made up sh*t because the person making it up has no basis to assert its accuracy.

People focus way to much on attacking atheists by saying "How do you know that God doesn't exist". Which is the wrong question. I've no idea if God exists (though I suspect it is unlikely). The real question should be How do theists know God exists. And the answer is they don't.

Hence I'm an atheist.