Thank you for your article. I really enjoyed our discussion as well.
To me, this is absurd. There must be something other than readability that defines what a simulation is . Otherwise, I could point to any sufficiently complex object and say : “this is a simulation of you”. If given sufficient time, I could come up with a reading grid of inputs and outputs that would predict your behaviour accurately.
I agree with the first part (I would say that this pile of sand is a simulation of you). I don’t think you could accurately predict any behaviour accurately though.
If I want to predict what Tiago will do next, I don’t need just a simulation of Tiago, I need at least some part of the environment. So I would need to find some more sand flying around, and then do more isomorphic tricks to be able to say “here is Tiago, and here is his environment, so here is what he will do next”. The more you want to predict, the more you need information from the environment. But the problem is that, the more information you get at the beginning, and the more you get at the end, and the more difficult it gets to find some isomorphism between the two. And it might just be impossible because most spaces are not isomorph.
There is something to be said about complexity, and the information that drives the simulation. If you are able to give a precise mapping between sand (or a network of men) and some human-simulation, then this does not mean that the simulation is happening within the sand: it is happening inside the mind doing the computations. In fact, if you understand well-enough the causal relationships in the “physical” world, the law of physics etc., to precisely build some mapping from this “physical reality” to a pile of sand flying around, then you are kind of simulating it in your brain while doing the computations.
Why I am saying “while doing the computations”? Because I believe that there is always someone doing the computations. Your thought experiments are really interesting, and thank you for that. But in the real world, sand does not start flying around in some strange setting forever without any energy. So, when you are trying to predict things from the mapping of the sand, the energy comes from the energy of your brain doing those computations / thought experiments. For the network of men, the energy comes from the powerful king giving precise details about what computations the men should do. In your example, we feel that it must not be possible to obtain consciousness from that. But this is because the energy to effectively simulate a human brain from computations is huge. The number of “basic arithmetic calculations by hand” needed to do so is far greater than what a handful of men in a kingdom could do in their lifetime, just to simulate like 100 states of consciousness of the human being simulated.
The simulation may be a way of gathering information about what is rendered, but it can’t influence it. This is because the simulation does not create the universe that is being simulated.
Well, I don’t think I fully understand your point here. The way I see it, Universe B is inside Universe A. It’s kind of a data compression, so a low-res Universe (like a video game in your TV). So whatever you do inside Universe A that influences the particles of the “Universe B” (which is part of the “physical” Universe A) will “influence” Universe B.
So, what you’re saying is that the Universe B kind of exists outside the physical world, like in the theoretical world, and so when we’re modifying Universe B (inside universe A) we are making the “analogy” wrong, and simulating another (theoretical) Universe, like Universe C?
If this is what you meant, then I don’t see how it connects to your other arguments. Whenever we give more inputs to a simulated universe, I believe we’re adding some new information. If you’re simulation is a closed one, and we cannot interact with it or add any input, then ok, it’s a closed simulation, and you cannot change it from the outside. But you have indeed a simulation of a human being and are asking what happens if you torture him, you might want to incorporate some “external inputs” from torture.
Thank you for your article. I really enjoyed our discussion as well.
I agree with the first part (I would say that this pile of sand is a simulation of you). I don’t think you could accurately predict any behaviour accurately though.
If I want to predict what Tiago will do next, I don’t need just a simulation of Tiago, I need at least some part of the environment. So I would need to find some more sand flying around, and then do more isomorphic tricks to be able to say “here is Tiago, and here is his environment, so here is what he will do next”. The more you want to predict, the more you need information from the environment. But the problem is that, the more information you get at the beginning, and the more you get at the end, and the more difficult it gets to find some isomorphism between the two. And it might just be impossible because most spaces are not isomorph.
There is something to be said about complexity, and the information that drives the simulation. If you are able to give a precise mapping between sand (or a network of men) and some human-simulation, then this does not mean that the simulation is happening within the sand: it is happening inside the mind doing the computations. In fact, if you understand well-enough the causal relationships in the “physical” world, the law of physics etc., to precisely build some mapping from this “physical reality” to a pile of sand flying around, then you are kind of simulating it in your brain while doing the computations.
Why I am saying “while doing the computations”? Because I believe that there is always someone doing the computations. Your thought experiments are really interesting, and thank you for that. But in the real world, sand does not start flying around in some strange setting forever without any energy. So, when you are trying to predict things from the mapping of the sand, the energy comes from the energy of your brain doing those computations / thought experiments. For the network of men, the energy comes from the powerful king giving precise details about what computations the men should do. In your example, we feel that it must not be possible to obtain consciousness from that. But this is because the energy to effectively simulate a human brain from computations is huge. The number of “basic arithmetic calculations by hand” needed to do so is far greater than what a handful of men in a kingdom could do in their lifetime, just to simulate like 100 states of consciousness of the human being simulated.
Well, I don’t think I fully understand your point here. The way I see it, Universe B is inside Universe A. It’s kind of a data compression, so a low-res Universe (like a video game in your TV). So whatever you do inside Universe A that influences the particles of the “Universe B” (which is part of the “physical” Universe A) will “influence” Universe B.
So, what you’re saying is that the Universe B kind of exists outside the physical world, like in the theoretical world, and so when we’re modifying Universe B (inside universe A) we are making the “analogy” wrong, and simulating another (theoretical) Universe, like Universe C?
If this is what you meant, then I don’t see how it connects to your other arguments. Whenever we give more inputs to a simulated universe, I believe we’re adding some new information. If you’re simulation is a closed one, and we cannot interact with it or add any input, then ok, it’s a closed simulation, and you cannot change it from the outside. But you have indeed a simulation of a human being and are asking what happens if you torture him, you might want to incorporate some “external inputs” from torture.