What seems clear to me is that our world is the result of fairly simple laws of physics, and our creators wanted to know how those simple laws would play out. They’re saying “if there was a universe with these laws, what would happen”. (This is what I’d meant by “simulation”)
I agree it’s less clear that they’re doing this bc they think those laws also describe a real-world process (somewhere in the multiverse) and they want to predict the outcome of that process. (This is what you meant by “simulation” and I think your def is better.)
So I understand where you’re coming from better now. Thanks!
But I still think we’re in a simulation, in your stronger sense of the word! Why? Bc:
other civs will reasonably believe our laws of physics describe part of the multiverse,
this gives them a strong instrumental reason to simulate this,
absent 1 and 2 there aren’t comparably strong reasons to run vivariums like our world.
absent 1 and 2 there aren’t comparably strong reasons to run vivariums like our world.
Why the focus on “reasons”?
Many things exist from causes that are not “reasons” in the sense of a decision-maker choosing something with an objective. All reasons are causes, but not all causes are reasons. For example, reproduction is a process that creates a lot of things without “reasons” in the central case of the word referring to something “reasoning”.
And, if you wonder what caused you (or us) to exist, a good contender is “a causing-things-to-exist maximizer”.
Some universal distributions are full of agents that make choices that make that distribution not a valid model of reality after the decisions are made (self-defeating). Other distributions are full of agents making decisions that ratify the distribution (self-fulfilling).
Distributions that aren’t fixed points under reflection about what they decide about themselves are not coherent models of reality.
Thanks, that’s helpful.
What seems clear to me is that our world is the result of fairly simple laws of physics, and our creators wanted to know how those simple laws would play out. They’re saying “if there was a universe with these laws, what would happen”. (This is what I’d meant by “simulation”)
I agree it’s less clear that they’re doing this bc they think those laws also describe a real-world process (somewhere in the multiverse) and they want to predict the outcome of that process. (This is what you meant by “simulation” and I think your def is better.)
So I understand where you’re coming from better now. Thanks!
But I still think we’re in a simulation, in your stronger sense of the word! Why? Bc:
other civs will reasonably believe our laws of physics describe part of the multiverse,
this gives them a strong instrumental reason to simulate this,
absent 1 and 2 there aren’t comparably strong reasons to run vivariums like our world.
Why the focus on “reasons”?
Many things exist from causes that are not “reasons” in the sense of a decision-maker choosing something with an objective. All reasons are causes, but not all causes are reasons. For example, reproduction is a process that creates a lot of things without “reasons” in the central case of the word referring to something “reasoning”.
And, if you wonder what caused you (or us) to exist, a good contender is “a causing-things-to-exist maximizer”.
Is there a strong enough prior on causing-things-to-exist-maximizers in, eg, the universal distribution, though?
Which universal distribution?
Some universal distributions are full of agents that make choices that make that distribution not a valid model of reality after the decisions are made (self-defeating). Other distributions are full of agents making decisions that ratify the distribution (self-fulfilling).
Distributions that aren’t fixed points under reflection about what they decide about themselves are not coherent models of reality.