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Ishaan comments on Does the simulation argument even need simulations? - Less Wrong
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Comments (102)
My mistake for using the word "interaction" then - it seems to have different connotations to you than it does to me.
Receiving evidence - AKA making an observation - is an interaction. You can't know something exists unless you can causally interact with it.
How can something non-real exist?
I dispute the idea that what does or does not exist is a question of logic.
I say that logic can tell you how parsimonious a model is, whether it contains contradiction, and stuff like that.
But only observation can tell you what exists / is real.
I'd argue that any simulations that humanity makes must be contained within the entire universe. So adding lower simulations doesn't make the final description of the universe any more complex than it already was. Positing higher simulations, on the other hand, does increase the total number of axioms.
The story you reference contains the case where we make a simulation which is identical to the actual universe. I think that unless our universe has some really weird laws, we won't actually be able to do this.
Not all universes in which humanity creates simulations are universes in which it is parsimonious for us to believe that we are someone's simulation.
You're right, I was being sloppy. My point was: suppose the most parsimonious model that explains our observations also implies the existence of some people who we can't causally interact with. Do we consider those people in our moral calculations?
I can see the logic, but doesn't the same argument apply equally well in the "agreement with Bob" case?
True, but only necessary so that the participants can remember being the people they were outside the simulation; I don't think it's fundamental to any of the arguments.
This is impossible. No causal interaction means no observations. A parsimonious model cannot posit any statements that have no implications for your observations.
But I understand the spirit of your question: if they had causal implications for us, but we had no causal implications for them (implying that we can observe them and they can effect us, but they can't observe us and we can't effect them) then I would certainly care about what happened to them.
But I still can't factor them into any moral calculations because my actions cannot effect them, so they cannot factor into any moral calculations. The laws of the universe have rendered me powerless.
and
I'm not sure I follow these two statements- can you elaborate what you mean?
Wait, what?
So, I go about my life observing things, and one of the things I observe is that objects don't tend to spontaneously disappear... they persist, absent some force that acts on them to disrupt their persistence. I also observe things consistent with there being a lightspeed limit to causal interactions, and with the universe expanding at such a rate that the distance between two points a certain distance apart is increasing faster than lightspeed.
Then George gets into a spaceship and accelerates to near-lightspeed, such that in short order George has crossed that distance threshold.
Which theory is more parsimonious: that George has ceased to exist? that George persists, but I can't causally interact with him? that he persists and I can (somehow) interact with him? other?
Suppose my current actions can affect the expected state of George after he crosses that threshold (e.g., I can put a time bomb on his ship). Does the state of George-beyond-the-threshold factor into my moral calculations about the future?
That George persists, but I can't causally interact with him.
Yes.
My rule: "A parsimonious model cannot posit any statements that have no implications for your observations" has not been contradicted by my answers. The model must explain your observation that a memory of George getting into that spaceship resides in your mind.
As to whether or not George disappeared as soon as he crossed the distance threshold...it's possible, but the set of axioms necessary to describe the universe where George persists is more parsimonious than the set of axioms necessary to describe the universe where George vanishes. Therefore, you should assign a higher likelihood to the probability that George persists.
This is the solution to the so called "Problem" of Induction. "Things don't generally disappear, so I'll assume they'll continue not disappearing" is just a special case of parsimony. Universes in which the future is similar to the past are more parsimonious.
I basically agree with all of this.
So, when lmm invites us to suppose that the most parsimonious model that explains our observations also implies the existence of some people who we can't causally interact with, is George an example of what lmm is inviting us to suppose? If not, why not?
Semantics, perhaps.
I considered things like George's memory trace as an example of an "interaction", the same way as seeing the moonlight is an "interaction" with the moon despite the fact that the light I saw is actually from a past version of the moon and not the current one.
So maybe we were just using different notions of what "causal interaction" means? To me, "people we can't causally interact with" means people who don't cause any of our observations, including memory-related ones.
So you would say that George is not an example of what lmm is inviting us to suppose, because we can causally interact with him, because he caused a memory?
I don't think this is just semantics. You are eliding the difference between causal relationships that exist now and causal relationships that existed only in the past, presumably because you don't consider this difference important. But it seems like an important difference to me.
You're right, it is important.
But in my defense, look at the the original context:
In this context, it makes sense to consider gaps of space and time as irrelevant. This idea is supposed to work no matter what your observations are, even if space and time aren't even involved.
If I know that A causes B and A causes C, and I observe C, then I know that B is true.
We can agree to say that A, B, and C are all part of one causal network. That's how I was thinking of it. A and B are causally interacting. A and C are causally interacting. Therefore, C and B are causally interacting. If causal lines (in any direction) connect C to B, then C and B are "causally interacting". At this level of abstraction, we can even do away with causality and just say that they are "interacting" within one system of logical statements.
That's why George's memory trace causally links me to George.
A = Past George.
B = Present George
C = my memory of George.
Now that I've specified what I mean by a causal interaction, you can see why my answer to ...
...is no, since evidence for the existence of something must imply a causal interaction by my definition.
It seemed like you interpreted "causal interaction" to be a synonym for "effect". And under that definition, yeah, C cannot effect B.
Lesson learned: I shouldn't make up words like "causal interaction" and assume people know what is in my head when I say it. My mistake was that I thought most people would consider the phrase "A and B are causally interacting" to implicitly contain the information that causal interaction is always a bidirectional thing, and infer my meaning accordingly.
edit...
The whole idea I was championing is that in order to earn the label "real", something must interact with you. In other words, it must be within the same logical system as you.
In other words,
If my observation is "C" and "not F"
then "F" cannot be real. "(E=>F)&E" cannot be real. "C" absolutely must be real. "A=>B&C" might be real. "A" might be real. "B" might be real. "A=>B" might be real. "A=>C" might be real. "E" might be real. "E=>F might be real. "W" might be real. So on and so forth, with parsimony assigning probabilities to each.
...That's the definition of "real" that I was primarily defending. I consider what I just said to be opposed to the platonic mathematical definition of reality that is being proposed. The platonic mathematical definition of reality essentially proposes that two logical systems which do not logically interact in any way can both be "real", and that's what I object to. Reality is defined as things which logically interact with me. Therefore if I observe F, then not-F is false.
I do realize that this is mostly a semantic quibble over the meaning of "Real"...but the underlying "things which logically interact with me" exists regardless of what we call it, and I feel like "real" is a label that should be reserved for that. Mathematicians have already taken "true", which used to mean "real' (by my definition) and corrupted it to also mean "tautological". The Set Of All Tautological Statements already has "tautological", so can we please just reserve "real"? There are no other short words to describe "the logical system that I am contained within" left.
(Note: my somewhat exasperated tone concerning verbal appropriation is meant to be facetious )
Not just spelling fascism, I want to be sure I understand you correctly: do you mean effect or affect?
So you're considering the region that's connected by any zigzag of causal events, in any direction? We care about Bob's daughter who we never met? We care about her cousin who is now so far away that not only is she causally disconnected from us, but also from Bob?
I can't claim this is inconsistent, but it seems arbitrary. The category of people I can causally interact with (i.e. can affect and can be affected by) is a natural one, but I don't see why I should regard someone who's in a spacetime that used to be connected to mine but now isn't (i.e. Bob) any differently from someone who's in a parallel spacetime that's never been connected to my own. There doesn't seem to be any empiricallike distinction there.
(nods slowly)
Yeah, OK, point accepted. I had lost track of the original context... my bad.
Thanks for your patience.
TheOtherDave's already covered this part
Second one first:
The only reason we need to assume the simulation is identical to the outer universe is so that our protagonists' memory is consistent with being in either. The only reason this is a difficulty at all is because the protagonists need to remember arranging a simulation in the outer universe for the sake of the story, as that's the only reason they suspect the existence of simulated universes like the one they are currently in.
If the protagonists have some other (magical, for the moment) reason to believe that a large number of universes exist and most of those are simulated in one of the others, it doesn't matter if the laws of physics differ between universes - I don't think that's essential to any of the other arguments (unless you want to make an anthropic argument that a particular universe is more or less likely to be simulated than average because of its physical laws).
Now for my first statement.
Your argument as I understood it is: Even if the most parsimonious explanation of our observations necessitates the existence of an "outer" universe and a large number of simulated universes inside it, it is still more parsimonious to assume that we are in the "outer" universe.
My response is: doesn't this same argument mean that we should accept Bob's bet in my example (and therefore lose in the vast majority of cases)?
See the response to TheOtherDave
Then there has been a miscommunication at some point. If you rephrase that as:
"Even if the most parsimonious explanation of our observations necessitates the existence of an "outer" universe and a large number of simulated universes inside it, it is still sometimes more parsimonious to assume that we are in the "outer" universe."
Then you'd be right. The fact that we have the capacity to simulate a bunch of universes ourselves doesn't in-and-of-itself count as evidence that we are being simulated. My argument is more or less identical to V_V's in the other thread.
I would agree with that statement. If our universe turns out to have a ridiculously complex set of laws, it might actually be more parsimonious to posit an Outer Universe with much simpler laws which gave rise to beings which are simulating us. (In the same way that describing the initial conditions of the universe is probably a shorter message than describing a human brain)