arthwollipot
Limerick Purist
Is It Possible There Is An Afterlife?
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
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But Tipler's a legendary mind. He hasn't just used physics to prove immortality, also:
(bolding mine)Frank J Tipler said:
Why are we sitting around talking about this? I'm off to swap the Ferrari for some sackcloth and ashes!
Hallelujah, bretheren, march with me up that mountain of righteousness!
Mine eyes have seen the glory....
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
That's only true if we assume that the simulation is algorithmic, which is certainly not necessary.
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
Over the whole CPU, the differences in energy consumption are very minor. For a PC CPU, probably less than 5%. (The number of transistors AMD added to the existing Athlon core to make it 64-bit was less than 5%.)What is the relationship between energy requirement and processing capacity? Say on the level of a pc, between the energy requirements of a 32bit CPU and a 64 bit CPU would there be a simple exponential relationship? This may not even be a relevant question - as i know very little about computers....but i'm interested to learn
If you cut things down to look just at the integer ALU (arithmetic/logic unit) within the CPU, comparing a purely 32-bit ALU against a 64-bit ALU, then energy requirements would roughly double. Some functional units, such as operand and operator selection, are constant with word size; others, including the bit-wise operators, are linear; others are geometric (multiplication) or are constrained by clock speed (addition - having to ripple the carry through 64 bits takes twice as long; you can get around this using more complex carry circuitry, but that uses more power...)
andyandy
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Tipler is a discredited scientist who conflates rather a large number of disparate ideas as a post-hoc justification for God. Bostrom is a reputable philosophy professor and director of the Future of Humanity institute at Oxford University - I'd be interested to know where you disagree with his argument.
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andyandy
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andyandy
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It seems worth mentioning the current alternatives for CO beyond godidit, godthatwaslucky and godonlyknows
level I parallel universes - Hubble volumes with different initial conditions
level II parallel universes - Other post inflation bubbles may have different effective laws of physics [Bubble Universe]
Level III parallel universes - Other branches of the QM wavefunction (Everett Many World)
Level IV parallel universes - Platonic mathematical existence
Just dealing with one aspect of Level I and Level II,
first we take the premise of a bubble universe [BU Level II - but with equivlent logic for level I] which is formed as a result of utterly random quantum contortions in the primoridal vacuum - which means that everything within the observable universe is ultimately the result of random processes that occured in the first split second of the universe's existence. So what is true of our observable universe must be true of all other regions the size of the observable universe in our BU. This means that all possible arrangements of protons in an area the size of our observable universe will occur in other regions of the BU. The way in which protons can be arranged within the observable universe is finite, and so because the BU is infinite it follows that every possible arrangement must occur somewhere - indeed every possible arrangement must occur an infinite number of times in an infinite number of places
First, start by asserting that the number of protons which could fit in the observable universe is about 10^118
and that in each one of these 10^118 locations can either have a proton or no proton, and as such if there are n possible locations for protons, and so there are 2n different universes possible. In our universe where n=10^118 then there are 2^(10^118) possible ways to arrange the protons which is approx equal to 10^(10^118)
Applying this method to finding the distance one would have to travel to find an exact replica of oneself, the figure of 10^28 is used for the number of particles in one's body, which means there are 10^(10^28) possible arrangements of the protons within the body, and therefore this means that one's nearest double is just approximately 10^(10^28) metres away. Sounds ridiculous - but it's not easily dismissed.
Level IV on the other hand is that which is applicable to CS - [Wolfram, Tegemark]
and provides the answer to Wheeler's question "Why these particular equations and not others?" posed of the spectacular ability for mathematics explain the physical world. At its heart it employs Platonic reality of mathematical structures - which reduces algorithmic complexity and thus serves as an argument from Occam's razor.
*Chown - never ending days of being dead
*Tegmark Parallel Universes
level I parallel universes - Hubble volumes with different initial conditions
level II parallel universes - Other post inflation bubbles may have different effective laws of physics [Bubble Universe]
Level III parallel universes - Other branches of the QM wavefunction (Everett Many World)
Level IV parallel universes - Platonic mathematical existence
Just dealing with one aspect of Level I and Level II,
first we take the premise of a bubble universe [BU Level II - but with equivlent logic for level I] which is formed as a result of utterly random quantum contortions in the primoridal vacuum - which means that everything within the observable universe is ultimately the result of random processes that occured in the first split second of the universe's existence. So what is true of our observable universe must be true of all other regions the size of the observable universe in our BU. This means that all possible arrangements of protons in an area the size of our observable universe will occur in other regions of the BU. The way in which protons can be arranged within the observable universe is finite, and so because the BU is infinite it follows that every possible arrangement must occur somewhere - indeed every possible arrangement must occur an infinite number of times in an infinite number of places
First, start by asserting that the number of protons which could fit in the observable universe is about 10^118
and that in each one of these 10^118 locations can either have a proton or no proton, and as such if there are n possible locations for protons, and so there are 2n different universes possible. In our universe where n=10^118 then there are 2^(10^118) possible ways to arrange the protons which is approx equal to 10^(10^118)
Applying this method to finding the distance one would have to travel to find an exact replica of oneself, the figure of 10^28 is used for the number of particles in one's body, which means there are 10^(10^28) possible arrangements of the protons within the body, and therefore this means that one's nearest double is just approximately 10^(10^28) metres away. Sounds ridiculous - but it's not easily dismissed.
Level IV on the other hand is that which is applicable to CS - [Wolfram, Tegemark]
and provides the answer to Wheeler's question "Why these particular equations and not others?" posed of the spectacular ability for mathematics explain the physical world. At its heart it employs Platonic reality of mathematical structures - which reduces algorithmic complexity and thus serves as an argument from Occam's razor.
*Chown - never ending days of being dead
*Tegmark Parallel Universes
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The Atheist
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andyandy
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yes - he seems to have published all his articles - some really interesting ones there....i've got it bookmarked
Accepting that "Why?" is an appropriate or relevant question is to make a "value judgment".
In the end can you argue that the CS argument is anything but "solipsism" with the simulation replacing the usual "I" and dressed up in the language current technology?
andyandy
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I don't think one can label it a value judgment - the fact is that mathematics is remarkable in its ability to explain the physical world - everything from topological spaces to electromagnetic waves to planetary motion can be explained through formulae. It seems entirely relevant and within the bounds of scientific curiosity to ask the question, "why?" The answer may (if we are ever to discover it) be that such a situation is inevitable, it may be that such a situation is of a probability inbetween or it may be answered with recourse to Platonic existence. If such an enquiry is deemed irrelevant or unnecessary, then what question can be deemed relevant? Surely all are subject to similar criticisms that they necessitate value judgments....
That is an interesting analogy, but whereas solipsism can explain nothing outside the self, CS is able to explain our entire universe. Both are unpalatable insofar as they may be non-falsifiable, but that just means they join the line of other equally unpalatable and likely unfalsifiable CO theories....
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I'm going to disagree here - CS has the same limitations as solipsism.
All it can do is apparently explain everything we "observe". In a CS we would have no way of knowing (if there were no bugs, and this by the way may be a real
crack in CS arguments) if everything is always being simulated or only what is currently required to give the appearance that the reality is coherent. Indeed we can't even know if the simulation is continuous either in terms of time (we may be being switched off for a million years between every keystroke I've made whilst posting this) or consistency. We could be being patched all the time to not notice "discrepancies" or everything we "think" we know and have experienced was patched in just a moment before, indeed as we notice a discrepancy the system may roll us back to a moment we started to notice it and then patch us. For me these type of (fundamentally unprovable) arguments are the reason why I find the CS theory just as unsatisfying as solipsism (without of course being able to say either are or are not correct).
Plus I am always wary of explanations that seem to use our current technology as their mechanism; As humans we always try to explain "reality" in terms of our current knowledge and technology.
I recommend a book called Permutation City by Greg Egan - it's fiction but explores some of the arguments regarding possible "simulations" in quite a rigorous manner.
Faithkills
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assumptions;
1) human civilisiation will progess to the technological level sufficient to completely generating a virtual reality world
2) if capable of doing so then we will.
3) If we do, then we will generate countless virtual worlds for reasearch and for pleasure.
If you accept assumptions (1) (2) and (3) then the overwhelming statistical likelyhood is that our world as we experience it is virtual - for there is but one "real" world and innumerable virtual ones.
actually, this is a form of Nick Bostrom's computer simulation argument - the paper is http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
Darn, you beat me to bringing up Bostrom
Beleth
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The one you label as #5. Appealing to ignorance is not a fallacy if the conclusion reached is "I don't know."
#1 - the universe is a fluke - is unsupportable. We only have this one universe to observe, you see, so we can't tell whether it's a fluke or not.
#2 - the universe is one of many - is unsupportable for the same reason. Note that this is not the same as the Many Worlds Hypothesis of quantum mechanics, since the MWH assumes that each universe obeys the same set of physical laws. #2 assumes that there are an infinity (specifically, aleph-0) number of physical laws, and therefore an infinity (aleph-1 this time) number of universes, each with a subset of the physical laws.
#3 - goddidit - and #4 - this is a CS - are functionally equivalent. The programmers of the simulation are, by all reasonable definitions, gods of the simulation.
Faithkills
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Not really. Parsimony only applies if no evidence could be found. There could be artifacts of simulation that might be able to be observed. In fact the apparent quantized nature of the subnuclear world could be consistent with simulation. IE our macro world appears continuous but as we get smaller quantization appears more and more. Reality pixels. Recently they have discovered even time may be quantized, ie when they measured small enough they found that things in motion do not seem to exist between points in time. I wish I could find the link the the article, I'll look more.
If we are simulated we still exist and must behave according to our environment, but I don't think we can or should reject the possibility that there could come conclusive evidence that we are simulated.
Beleth
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I disagree. A sufficiently-advanced simulation would have no such evidence. If it did, and the simulants discovered it, then the simulation would become a failure. Since we have discovered such "reality pixels" (most of which have the name "Planck" associated with them), and the gods running the simulation have not shut it down yet, we can safely assume that they are not evidence of a simulation.
Now, it could be that we are in the first-ever simulation that ran long enough to discover this evidence, and that the gods are curious enough about our reaction to this discovery that they are letting this simulation run for a while longer. But that is even less likely than the scenario that this is, indeed, reality, because not only does it assume that a fluke has occurred, it also assumes that the universe is lying to us.
Faithkills
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There is no reason to assume the need or even ability to have perfect simulations. And our discovery of 'reality pixels' does not absolutely require we are simulated only allows that we might be, so by your own idea there would be no reason to shut it down yet.
But there could be any other number of reasons for running simulations, and there might be reasons for not bothering to turn them off. What if the simulators are themselves simulations and are trying to run simulations to determine the best way for society to handle knowledge of this simulation? There could thus be an indefinite number of simulated realities run for just this purpose. WE might run them for this purpose.
But also they can be run for entertainment, or any number of other predictive reasons. Even if you live in a simulation you would still want to get rich or power, so you might run simulations to predict markets and geopolitical trends in a world with incipient knowledge of it's own simulation, etc.
Our knowledge of simulation becomes a necessary feature for the predictive value of simulations if you are trying to use them to predict events that may occur in your own simulated reality. Simulating a reality where the participants never know they are simulated would provide much poorer results.
andyandy
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The Universe as a fluke and multiverse theories are necessary options to explain universal fine tuning - the standard model of particle physics has 28 free parameters, cosmology may be said to introduce more, string theory the grand unifier introduces even greater constraints. If the proton to electron ratio were much smaller there would be no stars, if it were much larger, there would be no ordered structures like crystals or DNA, if protons were 0.2% heavier they would decay into neutrons and thus there would be no stable atoms, the list goes on. We can pretend that actually this isn't so, but it is. One can dismiss the conclusions by deciding that actually these parameters can be simplified - but this is not based on current scientific knowledge or reasoning but instead is just post hoc justification of an already held belief.
there are fundamental differences between "I don't know" and #5. #5 requires that we reject all current human understanding/arguments/laws which would have us believe in our positive choice, and instead reject those positive choices on aesthetic grounds without recourse to any reason. The Goldilocks enigma requires that we seek to explain it, inflation theory and the standard model require that we consider their implications. We can add #6 - I don't know and i'm not interested in looking at the arguments, or #7 having looked at the arguments I'm not sure. #7 should be taken as given - surity is in short supply, but it requires actually adressing the earlier arguments through
reason rather than gut reaction.
and as for #3 and #4 being functionally identical - of course it depends how one chooses to define ones' God, but upon deciding that CS necessiates God, we have reduced God to nothing more than a man with a machine.
with regards to cosmic fine tuning, selection effects and anthropic reasoning,
http://anthropic-principle.com/preprints/spacetime.pdf
is well worth a read...
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Beleth
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If the "real real world" does not have reality pixels, then any simulation which does is going to diverge from reality eventually, and thus become useless. A sufficient (but not necessary) condition for this divergence would be the acquisition of knowledge of the reality pixels by the simulants. They would stop behaving as an accurate simulation and start behaving as something with no real-world predictive use for the programmers.
It still comes down to real-world utility, no matter how many levels of simulation there are. Why would programmers want to simulate something with no predictive use?
Entertainment, perhaps. In that case I pity the programmer who thought simulating Alzheimer's, or muscular dystrophy, or the Holocaust, was entertaining.
I don't buy this. If the world you lived in was not known to be a simulation, as this one isn't, then why would you want to simulate one where it was known? Any knowledge of how to get rich or powerful that you would take away from a simulation like that would be very unlikely to work in the real world.
At the top level, though, the occupants of the real world would not know that they were in a simulated reality for one simple reason: they're not in a simulated reality. Whether they know they're not is irrelevant; what's relevant is that they don't know they are. To simulate any human behavior such as the ability to get rich or powerful, they would have to ensure that the simulation was as close to the same as the real world as possible. And a world where the inhabitants knew they were simulated would be so vastly different than a world where the inhabitants didn't know that as to make the simulation useless. Deeper levels of simulation would not change this.