FeepingCreature comments on Does the simulation argument even need simulations? - Less Wrong

7 Post author: lmm 11 October 2013 09:16PM

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Comment author: FeepingCreature 13 October 2013 05:13:04PM 1 point [-]

The problem with mathematical realism (which, btw, see also), is that it's challenging to justify the simplicity of our initial state - Occam is not a fundamental law of physics, and almost all possible universe-generating laws are unfathomably large. You can sort of justify that by saying "even universes with complicated initial states will tend to simulate simple universes first", but that just leaves you asking why the number of simulations should matter at all. (I don't have a good answer to that; if you find one, I'd love if you could tell me)

Comment author: lmm 13 October 2013 06:32:21PM 0 points [-]

Like I say, I think a good theory of anthropics is the best hope for this. Under UDASSA it's "obvious" that one would be most likely to find oneself in a simple universe - though that may just be begging the question, as I'm not aware of a justification for using a complexity measure in UDASSA.