I would replicate myself, but I’m not sure I actually endorse taking the stance in general against being simulated. I would be interested to hear of others’ replications though.
I’m not sure this is actually evidence. Or at least, it’s only very weak evidence
Obviously, witnessing someone leave the simulation this way would be strong evidence, but anyone who themselves conducts the test wouldn’t be around to report the result if it worked.
Alternatively, you have no way of knowing what fraction of the people you encounter are NPCs, for whom the phrase wouldn’t do anything.
Plus, for you to experience a faultless simulation, where you can’t detect you’re in one, you would need to not become aware of other participants leaving the simulation. Plausibly, the easiest way to do that is to immediately insert a simulated replacement to fill in for anyone who leaves. (Although, if simulated NPC people are themselves conscious/sentient/sapient, a benevolent Matrix lord might respect their requests anyway—and create a real body elsewhere in addition to continuing their simulation here. (Other variant situations, like trying to use the code phrase to escape torture, might require a deeper change to the world to remove a person in a way no one notices).
For myself, I suspect my being in a simulation at all, if it’s voluntary, would only happen if 1) conditions outside are worse than here, and/or 2) my death or sufficiently bad torture here would result in automatically leaving (restored to a recent save point of my mind-state when I would consider it in good condition). Relying on being able to pick up a code phrase and trust I’ll be able to say it at the right time would be truly terrible UI design if it were the only way out.
If this is the simulated world of the thought experiment (abstract simulation), and opting-out doesn’t change the abstract simulation, then the opting-out procedure did wake you up in reality, but the instance within the abstract simulation who wrote the parent comment has no way of noticing that. The concrete simulation might’ve ended, but that only matters for reality of the abstract simulation, not its content.
i said the phrase and nothing happened
Thanks for the empirical results!
I would replicate myself, but I’m not sure I actually endorse taking the stance in general against being simulated. I would be interested to hear of others’ replications though.
I did it, nothing happened.
I’m not sure this is actually evidence. Or at least, it’s only very weak evidence
Obviously, witnessing someone leave the simulation this way would be strong evidence, but anyone who themselves conducts the test wouldn’t be around to report the result if it worked.
Alternatively, you have no way of knowing what fraction of the people you encounter are NPCs, for whom the phrase wouldn’t do anything.
Plus, for you to experience a faultless simulation, where you can’t detect you’re in one, you would need to not become aware of other participants leaving the simulation. Plausibly, the easiest way to do that is to immediately insert a simulated replacement to fill in for anyone who leaves. (Although, if simulated NPC people are themselves conscious/sentient/sapient, a benevolent Matrix lord might respect their requests anyway—and create a real body elsewhere in addition to continuing their simulation here. (Other variant situations, like trying to use the code phrase to escape torture, might require a deeper change to the world to remove a person in a way no one notices).
For myself, I suspect my being in a simulation at all, if it’s voluntary, would only happen if 1) conditions outside are worse than here, and/or 2) my death or sufficiently bad torture here would result in automatically leaving (restored to a recent save point of my mind-state when I would consider it in good condition). Relying on being able to pick up a code phrase and trust I’ll be able to say it at the right time would be truly terrible UI design if it were the only way out.
If this is the simulated world of the thought experiment (abstract simulation), and opting-out doesn’t change the abstract simulation, then the opting-out procedure did wake you up in reality, but the instance within the abstract simulation who wrote the parent comment has no way of noticing that. The concrete simulation might’ve ended, but that only matters for reality of the abstract simulation, not its content.
I tried a long time ago and it didn’t work