I too was confused by that bit. I think the reason why the hypothesis that the world is a dream seems absurd has very little to do with likelihood ratios and everything to do with heuristics like “don’t trust things that sound like what a crazy person, drug-addled person, or mystic would say.” I get the sense that Paul thinks the “right” prior assigns low credence to being in a simulation, but that seems false to me. Paul if you read this I’d love to hear your thoughts on the simulation argument.
I think that under the counting measure, the vast majority of people like us are in simulations (ignoring subtleties with infinities that make that statement meaningless).
I think that under a more realistic measure, it’s unclear whether or not most people like us are in simulations.
Those statements are unrelated to what I was getting at in the post though, which is more like: the simulation argument rests on us being the kind of people who are likely to be simulated, we don’t think that everyone should believe they are in a simulation because the simulators are more likely to simulate realistic-looking worlds than reality is to produce realistic-looking worlds, that seems absurd.
The whole thing is kind of a complicated mess and I wanted to skip it by brushing aside the simulation argument. Maybe should have just not mentioned it at all given that the simulation argument makes such a mess of it. I don’t expect to be able to get clarity in this thread either :)
I think the reason why the hypothesis that the world is a dream seems absurd has very little to do with likelihood ratios and everything to do with heuristics like “don’t trust things that sound like what a crazy person, drug-addled person, or mystic would say.”
It’s not the hypothesis that’s absurd, it’s this particular argument.
What sorts of measures do you have in mind, when you say ”...a more realistic measure?” A simplicity measure will still yield the result that most people like us are in simulations, I think.
I interpret you as saying that P(ourdata|simulated) < P(ourdata|not-simulated). This is plausible, but debatable—e.g. the joke that Elon Musk is probably in a simulation because he’s such a special person living such a crazy life. Also more seriously the arguments that we are at a special time in history, precisely the time that you would expect most simulations to be of. Also one might think that most non-simulated minds exist in some sort of post-singularity world, whereas plausibly most simulated minds exist in what appears to be a pre-singularity world...
I too was confused by that bit. I think the reason why the hypothesis that the world is a dream seems absurd has very little to do with likelihood ratios and everything to do with heuristics like “don’t trust things that sound like what a crazy person, drug-addled person, or mystic would say.” I get the sense that Paul thinks the “right” prior assigns low credence to being in a simulation, but that seems false to me. Paul if you read this I’d love to hear your thoughts on the simulation argument.
I think that under the counting measure, the vast majority of people like us are in simulations (ignoring subtleties with infinities that make that statement meaningless).
I think that under a more realistic measure, it’s unclear whether or not most people like us are in simulations.
Those statements are unrelated to what I was getting at in the post though, which is more like: the simulation argument rests on us being the kind of people who are likely to be simulated, we don’t think that everyone should believe they are in a simulation because the simulators are more likely to simulate realistic-looking worlds than reality is to produce realistic-looking worlds, that seems absurd.
The whole thing is kind of a complicated mess and I wanted to skip it by brushing aside the simulation argument. Maybe should have just not mentioned it at all given that the simulation argument makes such a mess of it. I don’t expect to be able to get clarity in this thread either :)
It’s not the hypothesis that’s absurd, it’s this particular argument.
What sorts of measures do you have in mind, when you say ”...a more realistic measure?” A simplicity measure will still yield the result that most people like us are in simulations, I think.
I interpret you as saying that P(ourdata|simulated) < P(ourdata|not-simulated). This is plausible, but debatable—e.g. the joke that Elon Musk is probably in a simulation because he’s such a special person living such a crazy life. Also more seriously the arguments that we are at a special time in history, precisely the time that you would expect most simulations to be of. Also one might think that most non-simulated minds exist in some sort of post-singularity world, whereas plausibly most simulated minds exist in what appears to be a pre-singularity world...