Reality isn't real

[Guest chax]

Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch

By JOHN TIERNEY

 

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

 

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

 

This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

 

You couldn’t, as in “The Matrix,” unplug your brain and escape from your vat to see the physical world. You couldn’t see through the illusion except by using the sort of logic employed by Dr. Bostrom, the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.

 

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

 

Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. Bostrom’s argument whether it takes 50 years or 5 million years. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors.

 

There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they’d experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.

 

The math and the logic are inexorable once you assume that lots of simulations are being run. But there are a couple of alternative hypotheses, as Dr. Bostrom points out. One is that civilization never attains the technology to run simulations (perhaps because it self-destructs before reaching that stage). The other hypothesis is that posthumans decide not to run the simulations.

 

“This kind of posthuman might have other ways of having fun, like stimulating their pleasure centers directly,” Dr. Bostrom says. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to do simulations for scientific reasons because they’d have better methodologies for understanding their past. It’s quite possible they would have moral prohibitions against simulating people, although the fact that something is immoral doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

 

Dr. Bostrom doesn’t pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. “My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

 

My gut feeling is that the odds are better than 20 percent, maybe better than even. I think it’s highly likely that civilization could endure to produce those supercomputers. And if owners of the computers were anything like the millions of people immersed in virtual worlds like Second Life, SimCity and World of Warcraft, they’d be running simulations just to get a chance to control history — or maybe give themselves virtual roles as Cleopatra or Napoleon.

 

It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.

 

A more practical question is how to behave in a computer simulation. Your first impulse might be to say nothing matters anymore because nothing’s real. But just because your neural circuits are made of silicon (or whatever posthumans would use in their computers) instead of carbon doesn’t mean your feelings are any less real.

 

David J. Chalmers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, says Dr. Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis isn’t a cause for skepticism, but simply a different metaphysical explanation of our world. Whatever you’re touching now — a sheet of paper, a keyboard, a coffee mug — is real to you even if it’s created on a computer circuit rather than fashioned out of wood, plastic or clay.

 

You still have the desire to live as long as you can in this virtual world — and in any simulated afterlife that the designer of this world might bestow on you. Maybe that means following traditional moral principles, if you think the posthuman designer shares those morals and would reward you for being a good person.

 

Or maybe, as suggested by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, you should try to be as interesting as possible, on the theory that the designer is more likely to keep you around for the next simulation. (For more on survival strategies in a computer simulation, go to www.nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

 

Of course, it’s tough to guess what the designer would be like. He or she might have a body made of flesh or plastic, but the designer might also be a virtual being living inside the computer of a still more advanced form of intelligence. There could be layer upon layer of simulations until you finally reached the architect of the first simulation — the Prime Designer, let’s call him or her (or it).

 

Then again, maybe the Prime Designer wouldn’t allow any of his or her creations to start simulating their own worlds. Once they got smart enough to do so, they’d presumably realize, by Dr. Bostrom’s logic, that they themselves were probably simulations. Would that ruin the fun for the Prime Designer?

 

If simulations stop once the simulated inhabitants understand what’s going on, then I really shouldn’t be spreading Dr. Bostrom’s ideas. But if you’re still around to read this, I guess the Prime Designer is reasonably tolerant, or maybe curious to see how we react once we start figuring out the situation.

 

It’s also possible that there would be logistical problems in creating layer upon layer of simulations. There might not be enough computing power to continue the simulation if billions of inhabitants of a virtual world started creating their own virtual worlds with billions of inhabitants apiece.

 

If that’s true, it’s bad news for the futurists who think we’ll have a computer this century with the power to simulate all the inhabitants on earth. We’d start our simulation, expecting to observe a new virtual world, but instead our own world might end — not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a message on the Prime Designer’s computer.

 

It might be something clunky like “Insufficient Memory to Continue Simulation.” But I like to think it would be simple and familiar: “Game Over.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1

 

I just read this and it's really messing me up, if we are inside a computer, what does anything matter? does anyone else feel like they are living inside a computer? Some days I do, I think it depends on the weather

[data]

[Guest Al5x]

I had a really weird dream once when I was little where I saw a lot of things I couldn't explain (Similar to psychedelic stuff etc.) & I thought it was curious that I saw these things, yet my mind had no reference for them and I couldn't at all recall how they looked upon awakening. I just knew they didn't exist anywhere else.

 

From that day onward I always thought maybe the universe is just a higher dimensional hyperintelligent being's imagination, or its dreams. Or perhaps like it says in that article a computer simulation. Both situations really aren't very different if you think about it.

 

Also that's from 2007, lol.

[impakt]

It's true, that's why everyone feels like a loser - because there are no winners, they are all NPC's. ZOMGMGOMGOMGOMg!!11

[BCM]

i'm lvl 80

[Guest Al5x]

Also, what difference is it if we're not inside a computer? what does it matter what exactly we are? What answer would comfort you more? The scientific one is about as depressing. I'm not tryna be a dick, I'm sincerely curious. I've never been irked by this "meaningless reality" business, so maybe I just don't get it.

[Guest ruiagnelo]

actually i have been getting to know some bots throughout my life

[gaarg]

Lol, that happens when you lose your contact with nature around you. Go pick crops with your bare hands for a month or two and there will be no more question whether a computer is coordinating you.

[Guest Rambo]

Also, what difference is it if we're not inside a computer? what does it matter what exactly we are? What answer would comfort you more? The scientific one is about as depressing. I'm not tryna be a dick, I'm sincerely curious. I've never been irked by this "meaningless reality" business, so maybe I just don't get it.

 

Agree. It wouldn't make reality unreal if this were a simulation. Scientists haven't said that there's a 20% we are in a simluation though, just Nick Bostrom.

[Guest Gary C]

Nick Bostrum's in my simulation, but don't tell him.

[Guest Rambo]

Lol, that happens when you lose your contact with nature around you. Go pick crops with your bare hands for a month or two and there will be no more question whether a computer is coordinating you.

 

Any ideas you have about nature and spending time in the woods or by a stream tell you absolutely nothing about whether this is a simulation though, gaarg. Sufficiently advanced technology could simulate that just like anything else.....

[Guest Richy]

Also, what difference is it if we're not inside a computer? what does it matter what exactly we are? What answer would comfort you more? The scientific one is about as depressing. I'm not tryna be a dick, I'm sincerely curious. I've never been irked by this "meaningless reality" business, so maybe I just don't get it.

As explained in the article, just because reality is a simulation doesn't make it meaningless.

[Guest Rambo]

bottom line. the only people this should matter to are those with very specific religious views that they hold dear. To anyone else this should just be somethig interesting to think about.

[Guest Al5x]

Well actually I meant like, the scientific alternative to that, which so far would just be a lengthy description of said computer simulation with no answers as to what the universe actually is...so I guess that part of the statement made no sense in the first place.

 

On a slightly related note, the only thing that puts me on the fence about the meat and potatoes of existence is the simple fact that we are experiencing our own lives. Human beings and living organisms in general should just be like biological machines, our brains like computers (our memories hard drives etc.), yet I am something existing inside this body observing the world and interacting with it...to put it simply: I am. & there is no real explanation for that.

 

It's a fucking difficult and nonsensical idea to explain in the first place as I'm not sure you guys aren't just biological robots..but the fact of my experience makes me think that I'm more than that. I know this isn't a very original idea and I'm sure there's a name for it but I don't feel like looking it up.

[gaarg]

Lol, that happens when you lose your contact with nature around you. Go pick crops with your bare hands for a month or two and there will be no more question whether a computer is coordinating you.

 

Any ideas you have about nature and spending time in the woods or by a stream tell you absolutely nothing about whether this is a simulation though, gaarg. Sufficiently advanced technology could simulate that just like anything else.....

 

True, but it's so much harder to believe it then, with all the hard reality around you. Living behind a computer screen however...

[Guest Rabid]

This server sucks, I want a transfer.

 

Or maybe, as suggested by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, you should try to be as interesting as possible, on the theory that the designer is more likely to keep you around for the next simulation. (For more on survival strategies in a computer simulation, go to www.nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

This can kind of backfire though. It's good to be interesting, but if you're too interesting, then you get zazbanned.

[Guest Z_B_Z]

seems like for the most part old ideas couched in tech jargon. kind of cool tho...

[Guest Al5x]

Also, what difference is it if we're not inside a computer? what does it matter what exactly we are? What answer would comfort you more? The scientific one is about as depressing. I'm not tryna be a dick, I'm sincerely curious. I've never been irked by this "meaningless reality" business, so maybe I just don't get it.

As explained in the article, just because reality is a simulation doesn't make it meaningless.

That's totally subjective & also I was talking to OP.

 

& also about the "spending time working crops thing" it's even arbitrary to think of what the most possibly advanced computer system in our universe could do - we're now talking about a computer system that exists in an entirely different universe that created this universe. We can only blindly speculate what such a thing could be capable of. No matter how "real" reality could be it makes no difference because we don't know how exactly all this shit would work.

 

EDIT: After reading the above post I realized that this article is simply talking about Plato's allegory of The Cave. Derp.

[azatoth]

Lol, that happens when you lose your contact with nature around you. Go pick crops with your bare hands for a month or two and there will be no more question whether a computer is coordinating you.

 

Any ideas you have about nature and spending time in the woods or by a stream tell you absolutely nothing about whether this is a simulation though, gaarg. Sufficiently advanced technology could simulate that just like anything else.....

 

True, but it's so much harder to believe it then, with all the hard reality around you. Living behind a computer screen however...

 

I don't really see a difference. It's all the same, be it in front of a computer or in the woods. It's only your mind that wants to make it seem different, but in the end it's exactly the same.

 

And reality could well be an illusion. As modern physics seem to point to the fact that what we consider reality is just a tiny bit of a far deeper and more complex underlying reality.

[Guest Rambo]

I think the very fact that we can even conceive of this idea and imagine a possible future where we have technology that could do exactly the same thing, should at least make anyone pause for thought for a moment.

 

If anyone is interested http://www.simulation-argument.com/

[chim]

Psychedelics made me believe this.

[chassis]

Read a book few years back all about the different legitimate theory's of the origin of the universe. I didnt read the article but is this the automated programme theory? Where you start out with like a 5 digit number and preform the same task over and over getting a new and more advanced number each time but never repeating.

 

That was a fun book.

[Guest sirch]

bottom line. the only people this should matter to are those with very specific religious views that they hold dear. To anyone else this should just be somethig interesting to think about.

 

not really. 'God', whatever that might be or not be, could be controlling the mega computer.

there could millions of 'God's' controlling millions of mega computers, inside which there are 'Universe's', planets, civilisations, cultures, etc. lol, a bit like 'Sims' !

anything is possible. if you can think it then it can be done in 'real (3-Dimensional) life', eventually........ somehow

[goDel]

wow. there's a 20% chance this thread lives inside a computer. mindblowing!!

[Guest sirch]

inside the computer, inside a computer, inside another computer..