The human brain is subject to glitches, such as petit mal, transient ischaemic attack, or misfiling a memory of a dream as a memory of something that really happened.
There is a lot of scope for a cheap simulation to produce glitches in the matrix without those glitches spoiling the results of the simulation. The inside people notice something off and just shrug. “I must have dreamt it” “I had a petit mal.” “That wasn’t the simulators taking me off line to edit a glitch out of my memory, that was just a TIA. I should get my blood pressure checked.”
And the problem of “brain farts” gives the simulators a very cheap way for protecting the validity of the results simulation against people noticing glitches and derailing the simulation by going on a glitch hunt motivated by the theory that they might be living in a simulation. Simply hide the simulation hypothesis by editing Nick Bostrom under the guise of a TIA. In the simulation Nick wakes up with his coffee spilled and his head on the desk. Thinking up the simulation hypothesis “never happened”. In all the myriad simulations, the simulation hypothesis is never discussed.
I’m not sure that entirely resolves the matter. How can the simulators be sure that editing out the simulation hypothesis works as smoothly as they expect? Perhaps they run a few simulations with it left in. If it triggers an in-simulation glitch hunt that compromises the validity of the simulation, they have their answer and can turn off the simulation.
I’ve wondered about that sort of thing—if you look for something and find it somewhere that you’d have sworn you’d checked three times, you’ll assume it’s a problem with your memory or a sort of ill-defined perversity of things, not a Simulation glitch.
The human brain is subject to glitches, such as petit mal, transient ischaemic attack, or misfiling a memory of a dream as a memory of something that really happened.
There is a lot of scope for a cheap simulation to produce glitches in the matrix without those glitches spoiling the results of the simulation. The inside people notice something off and just shrug. “I must have dreamt it” “I had a petit mal.” “That wasn’t the simulators taking me off line to edit a glitch out of my memory, that was just a TIA. I should get my blood pressure checked.”
And the problem of “brain farts” gives the simulators a very cheap way for protecting the validity of the results simulation against people noticing glitches and derailing the simulation by going on a glitch hunt motivated by the theory that they might be living in a simulation. Simply hide the simulation hypothesis by editing Nick Bostrom under the guise of a TIA. In the simulation Nick wakes up with his coffee spilled and his head on the desk. Thinking up the simulation hypothesis “never happened”. In all the myriad simulations, the simulation hypothesis is never discussed.
I’m not sure that entirely resolves the matter. How can the simulators be sure that editing out the simulation hypothesis works as smoothly as they expect? Perhaps they run a few simulations with it left in. If it triggers an in-simulation glitch hunt that compromises the validity of the simulation, they have their answer and can turn off the simulation.
I’ve wondered about that sort of thing—if you look for something and find it somewhere that you’d have sworn you’d checked three times, you’ll assume it’s a problem with your memory or a sort of ill-defined perversity of things, not a Simulation glitch.