Calculus is a generic algorithmic tool, gravitation is an algorithmic predictive model of some subset of reality, simulationism is a belief about reality derived from future predictions of current physical theory. Yes these are distinct epistemological categories, my point was more that the similarity of simulationism to the older theism is an inadequate reason to dismiss simulationism.
There are statistical arguments for supposing it's true, but not all the assumptions in the mathematical model are given, and it increases the complexity of our model of reality without providing any explanatory power.
This is I believe a common misunderstanding about the SA.
Suppose you are given a series of seemingly random numbers - say from a SETI signal. You put a crack team of mathematicians on it for many years and eventually they develop a complex model for the sequence that can predict it. It also appears that you can derive timing from the signal and determine how long it has been progressing. Then later you are able to run the model forward and predict that it in fact eventually repeats itself . . .
That last discovery is not a change to the model that need be justified by Ockham's razor. It does not add one iota to the model's complexity.
The SA doesn't add an iota of complexity to our model of reality - ie physics. It's a predicted consequence of running physics forward.
The SA doesn't add an iota of complexity to our model of reality - ie physics. It's a predicted consequence of running physics forward.
Not necessarily. Given our understanding of the laws of physics, simulating our universe inside itself would be tough. Note that nothing in the simulation hypothesis requires that we are being simulated in a universe that has much resemblance to our apparent universe. (Digression: Even small amounts of monkeying with the constants of the universe can make universes that can plausibly give rise to life. See here (unfortu...
Many folk here on LW take the simulation argument (in its more general forms) seriously. Many others take Singularitarianism1 seriously. Still others take Tegmark cosmology (and related big universe hypotheses) seriously. But then I see them proceed to self-describe as atheist (instead of omnitheist, theist, deist, having a predictive distribution over states of religious belief, et cetera), and many tend to be overtly dismissive of theism. Is this signalling cultural affiliation, an attempt to communicate a point estimate, or what?
I am especially confused that the theism/atheism debate is considered a closed question on Less Wrong. Eliezer's reformulations of the Problem of Evil in terms of Fun Theory provided a fresh look at theodicy, but I do not find those arguments conclusive. A look at Luke Muehlhauser's blog surprised me; the arguments against theism are just not nearly as convincing as I'd been brought up to believe2, nor nearly convincing enough to cause what I saw as massive overconfidence on the part of most atheists, aspiring rationalists or no.
It may be that theism is in the class of hypotheses that we have yet to develop a strong enough practice of rationality to handle, even if the hypothesis has non-negligible probability given our best understanding of the evidence. We are becoming adept at wielding Occam's razor, but it may be that we are still too foolhardy to wield Solomonoff's lightsaber Tegmark's Black Blade of Disaster without chopping off our own arm. The literature on cognitive biases gives us every reason to believe we are poorly equipped to reason about infinite cosmology, decision theory, the motives of superintelligences, or our place in the universe.
Due to these considerations, it is unclear if we should go ahead doing the equivalent of philosoraptorizing amidst these poorly asked questions so far outside the realm of science. This is not the sort of domain where one should tread if one is feeling insecure in one's sanity, and it is possible that no one should tread here. Human philosophers are probably not as good at philosophy as hypothetical Friendly AI philosophers (though we've seen in the cases of decision theory and utility functions that not everything can be left for the AI to solve). I don't want to stress your epistemology too much, since it's not like your immortal soul3 matters very much. Does it?
Added: By theism I do not mean the hypothesis that Jehovah created the universe. (Well, mostly.) I am talking about the possibility of agenty processes in general creating this universe, as opposed to impersonal math-like processes like cosmological natural selection.
Added: The answer to the question raised by the post is "Yes, theism is wrong, and we don't have good words for the thing that looks a lot like theism but has less unfortunate connotations, but we do know that calling it theism would be stupid." As to whether this universe gets most of its reality fluid from agenty creators... perhaps we will come back to that argument on a day with less distracting terminology on the table.
1 Of either the 'AI-go-FOOM' or 'someday we'll be able to do lots of brain emulations' variety.
2 I was never a theist, and only recently began to question some old assumptions about the likelihood of various Creators. This perhaps either lends credibility to my interest, or lends credibility to the idea that I'm insane.
3 Or the set of things that would have been translated to Archimedes by the Chronophone as the equivalent of an immortal soul (id est, whatever concept ends up being actually significant).