How would one “prove” that? I’m struggling to understand what having such a “proof” would even mean, let alone how it could be “proved”.
Maybe the word “simulation” is confusing us here? I don’t think “the world is a simulation” requires that a “base reality” exists and has the same physics, or anything like that. And if it did mean that, then I think we should all be talking about some other hypothesis, not that version of the “simulation hypothesis”. If we were to run a huge Conway’s Life, and it had intelligent creatures in it, and they said the X hypothesis was true (of their universe), they should be straightforwardly correct. Because that’s what causes all the ontological and epistemic weirdness.
I mean, one could try to argue that certain kinds of computed-in-a-base-universe universes are more likely than others. But most of the ordinary sources of evidence would have, at best, serious reliability doubts, if we’re systematically deluded about the nature of the world in which we live. I’m curious what you have in mind here.
Informal argument: Imagine for the start that we have a book shelf of science fiction from some alien world and want to know—can we create the model of the real world in which this science fiction was written. We can assume that in each science fiction story some details of the real world are replaced with fantastic ideas. Some stories have a lot of fiction and other have just a one fictional element. In typical science fiction only one or two elements are fantasy—some have normal world + time travel other have normal world + space travel and vampires. But the world is still 3D and Sun is called Sun and human have sexual relation etc. So if we take any random feature, it is more likely to be true than not.
But what if all the features are independent from the reality like in your example of Conway game? Here the argument claims that while it is possible, the share of such simulations is small and we are unlikely to be in a completely fake simulation. Most plausible ideas about for what simulations can be created assume that they are created for past simulations or games and this type of simulations assume only small number fake features.
Thank you. I see where you’re coming from, now, and I’ll think about it.
One thought is that, in addition to whatever point(s) of departure is/are selected for a piece of fiction, or a video game, such works basically always have some degree of “plot logic” / “game logic”, which are common elements that are “unrealistic” (i.e. unlikely in a world that runs on physics), but are convergently helpful for making an entertaining or aesthetically valuable story or game. I don’t know what “simulation logic” would be. We can’t look at the existing simulations, unless we want to call fiction and games low-fidelity simulations.
I also never feel that great about generalizing from imaginary examples. We don’t actually have any ancestor simulations. There’s been speculation about them, but I don’t think it’s clear we (or any intelligent creatures) would actually do such a thing. We do have games, but overall I don’t think they have much resemblance to our reality, although of course they usually have some resemblance to certain parts of our reality, and “realism” is sometimes (but far from always!) considered desirable in games.
It does, of course, make sense to say that thought (or, much of it, I’m not sure it’s 100%) is itself a highly abstracted simulation of some aspects of reality, and that relating to reality in a straightforward way is necessary for those simulations (usually we’d call them “models”) to be useful. So, if we assume that there’s a functional purpose to a rational utility maximizer to making a simulation, yes, verisimilitude is to be expected.
How would one “prove” that? I’m struggling to understand what having such a “proof” would even mean, let alone how it could be “proved”.
Maybe the word “simulation” is confusing us here? I don’t think “the world is a simulation” requires that a “base reality” exists and has the same physics, or anything like that. And if it did mean that, then I think we should all be talking about some other hypothesis, not that version of the “simulation hypothesis”. If we were to run a huge Conway’s Life, and it had intelligent creatures in it, and they said the X hypothesis was true (of their universe), they should be straightforwardly correct. Because that’s what causes all the ontological and epistemic weirdness.
I mean, one could try to argue that certain kinds of computed-in-a-base-universe universes are more likely than others. But most of the ordinary sources of evidence would have, at best, serious reliability doubts, if we’re systematically deluded about the nature of the world in which we live. I’m curious what you have in mind here.
Informal argument: Imagine for the start that we have a book shelf of science fiction from some alien world and want to know—can we create the model of the real world in which this science fiction was written. We can assume that in each science fiction story some details of the real world are replaced with fantastic ideas. Some stories have a lot of fiction and other have just a one fictional element. In typical science fiction only one or two elements are fantasy—some have normal world + time travel other have normal world + space travel and vampires. But the world is still 3D and Sun is called Sun and human have sexual relation etc. So if we take any random feature, it is more likely to be true than not.
But what if all the features are independent from the reality like in your example of Conway game? Here the argument claims that while it is possible, the share of such simulations is small and we are unlikely to be in a completely fake simulation. Most plausible ideas about for what simulations can be created assume that they are created for past simulations or games and this type of simulations assume only small number fake features.
Thank you. I see where you’re coming from, now, and I’ll think about it.
One thought is that, in addition to whatever point(s) of departure is/are selected for a piece of fiction, or a video game, such works basically always have some degree of “plot logic” / “game logic”, which are common elements that are “unrealistic” (i.e. unlikely in a world that runs on physics), but are convergently helpful for making an entertaining or aesthetically valuable story or game. I don’t know what “simulation logic” would be. We can’t look at the existing simulations, unless we want to call fiction and games low-fidelity simulations.
I also never feel that great about generalizing from imaginary examples. We don’t actually have any ancestor simulations. There’s been speculation about them, but I don’t think it’s clear we (or any intelligent creatures) would actually do such a thing. We do have games, but overall I don’t think they have much resemblance to our reality, although of course they usually have some resemblance to certain parts of our reality, and “realism” is sometimes (but far from always!) considered desirable in games.
It does, of course, make sense to say that thought (or, much of it, I’m not sure it’s 100%) is itself a highly abstracted simulation of some aspects of reality, and that relating to reality in a straightforward way is necessary for those simulations (usually we’d call them “models”) to be useful. So, if we assume that there’s a functional purpose to a rational utility maximizer to making a simulation, yes, verisimilitude is to be expected.