If we were why would our simulation have no bugs at all? Every piece of software has a bug in it from what I have read. So one that large has to have a hole and it would have been exploited by now.
Printable View
If we were why would our simulation have no bugs at all? Every piece of software has a bug in it from what I have read. So one that large has to have a hole and it would have been exploited by now.
Hehe, maybe deja-vu is the bugs in the simulation
edit: If this crap was true, you wouldn't realize the bugs, because your mind developed around them.
The question whether we are living in a simulation or a 'real' world has absolutely no meaning at all. The two cases are equivalent.
As long as there is no way to communicate with the 'outer world', it doesn't exist.
Besides, his argument is weak. When he talks about civilizations, he implicitly assumes that the outer universe has the same properties as ours. A computer simulating a universe must be larger than the universe.
Also, a computer simulation assumes that everything about the universe is well known, but according to modern physics this is impossible. Let me quote Stephen Hawking:
Quote:
We cannot even suppose that the particle has a position and velocity that are known to God but hidden to us. Such "hidden variable" theories predict results that are not in agreement with observation.
I'm glad I took the blue pill.
The weakest part of his argument is the actual computing power required.
Suppose we have a civilization A at the 'outermost' level of reality. As A becomes more and more technologically advanced, they will eventually begin to simulate another civilization (according to Bostrom). Lets call this civilization B.
As B progresses they will eventually have computers that are able to simulate other civilzations.
But if the B computers can preform N operations per second, the A computers must perform N+M operations per second. If the computers in B are powerful enough to simulate another civilization C then the computers in A need to be much more powerful.
This soon gets out of hand. Especially since Nick Bostrom proposes that "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.".
Everyone that has played games with an emulator knows that emulation takes lots of computing power.
Although he is correct when he states:
His second proposition:Quote:
Therefore, if we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.
needs to be rephrased:Quote:
2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
Quote:
2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are capable of running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
I was actually thinking about this recently - what if there was some weird thing, physically impossible, right in front of our noses, however, we don't even think it to be so? Like if a bullet was fired, but stopped in mid-air. I'm not saying it would be something so obvious, but something smaller possibly?Quote:
Originally posted by frenchfry164
If this crap was true, you wouldn't realize the bugs, because your mind developed around them.
Bubba, no one's forcing you to read this thread.
Sand-drax, I think you misunderstand his three propositions. The author shows that at least one of those three must be true. Either our species never reaches a posthuman level, posthumans almost never run simulations, or we are likely in a simulation ourselves.
Oh, and about bugs.
A civilization advanced enough to simulate human conciousness might be so advanced so that significant bugs rarely ever show up in their programming.
Couldn't the posthumans just pause the simulation if there's a problem, patch the system, rewind, and resume?
There is another paper on that site talking about the likely glitches in such a simulation.
For accurate, bug-free, stable emulation, yes, it cannot be ran on ghetto PCs. The most powerful PC hardware(read: CPU) out there right now is actually not powerful enough to emulate a few certain games. Sanfransisco Rush for instance, when emulated, runs at ~20 frames per second on a 3ghz P4.Quote:
Originally posted by Sang-drax
Everyone that has played games with an emulator knows that emulation takes lots of computing power.
While this is true in the long run, it is only required there is 1 or 2 levels of simulation running simulations for it to become far more likey that we are ourselves in a simulation as opposed to not being in one.Quote:
As B progresses they will eventually have computers that are able to simulate other civilzations.
But if the B computers can preform N operations per second, the A computers must perform N+M operations per second. If the computers in B are powerful enough to simulate another civilization C then the computers in A need to be much more powerful.
yes, but as he stated in the paper it is not necessary to simulate the entire universe, just enough so that those in the simulation arent aware of any differences. So it is only required that they simulate a very small fraction of the universe.Quote:
A computer simulating a universe must be larger than the universe.
Thats not true. For a *perfect* simulation, yes, everything about the universe must be known. But what they would be trying to achieve is only 'close enough' simulation so that those in the simulation arent aware of any irregularities. So problems like heissenburg arent necessarily a problem to run a convincing simulation.Quote:
Also, a computer simulation assumes that everything about the universe is well known, but according to modern physics this is impossible.
Yes, and that is true (of course).Quote:
Originally posted by joshdick
Sand-drax, I think you misunderstand his three propositions. The author shows that at least one of those three must be true. Either our species never reaches a posthuman level, posthumans almost never run simulations, or we are likely in a simulation ourselves.
But the title of his Brief, popular synopsis is "Why the Probability that You Are Living in a Matrix is Quite High" which is quite misleading.
Because most emulators will emulate on the fly - same reason that interpreters are so slow. But if the emulator parses the code and converts it to an x86 binary, loads it and runs it - the game will fly.Quote:
Everyone that has played games with an emulator knows that emulation takes lots of computing power.
My point was that the outermost computer must be able to simulate every civilization possible -- a close to infinite amount. Thus, it isn't possible to recursively simulate civilizations.Quote:
Originally posted by Bubba
Because most emulators will emulate on the fly - same reason that interpreters are so slow. But if the emulator parses the code and converts it to an x86 binary, loads it and runs it - the game will fly.
On a different topic: this isn't as easy as you (seem to) think.Quote:
Originally posted by Bubba
Because most emulators will emulate on the fly - same reason that interpreters are so slow. But if the emulator parses the code and converts it to an x86 binary, loads it and runs it - the game will fly.
The SNES and x86, for example, has completely different instruction sets and architechture. It is very, very hard to take SNES asm and convert it to x86 asm and run it with the desired effect.