= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Lumifer comments on Open thread Jan. 5-11, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (150)
Ugh, so all you have in an argument to authority? A few centuries ago the scientists had a consensus that God exists. And?
No, I'm telling you that "evidence of simulation" is an expression which doesn't mean anything to me.
To go back to Alsadius' point, how are you going to distinguish between "this is a feature of the simulation" and "this is how the physical world works"?
I gave my observation, which is basically deferring to physicists.
"evidence of simulation" may not mean anything to you, but surely "physicists announce finding evidence of simulation" means something to you? Could you give an example of something that could happen where you wouldn't be sure whether it counted as "physicists announce finding evidence of simulation"?
Right now, as I'm not trained in physics, I'd defer to the consensus of experts. I expect someone who wrote those kinds of papers would have a better answer for you.
Or is your problem of defining "evidence of simulation" something you'd complain about even if real experts used that in a paper?
Yes, it means "somebody wanted publicity" (don't think it would get as far as grants).
Yes, of course. I do not subscribe to the esoteric-knowledge-available-only-to-high-priests view of science.
Which is why I laid out a bunch of additional steps needed above:
You seem to be taking parts of my argument out of context.
Me neither, but I'm trying to use a hypothetical paper as a proxy because I'm not well versed enough to talk about specifics. On some level you have to accept arguments from authority. (Or do you either reject quantum mechanics or have seen evidence yourself?) Imagine that simulation was as well established in physics as quantum mechanics is now. I find it very hard to say that that occurrence is completely orthogonal to the truth of simulation.
The problem is that you offer nothing but an argument from authority.
Well, of course I have. The computer I use to type this words relies on QM to work, the dual wave-particle nature of light is quite apparent in digital photography, NMR machines in hospitals do work, etc.
In any case, let me express my position clearly.
I do not believe it possible to prove we're NOT living in a simulation.
The question is whether it's possible to prove we ARE living in a simulation is complex. Part of the complexity involves the meaning of "simulation" in this context. For example, if we assume that there is an omnipotent Creator of the universe, can we call this universe "a simulation"? It might be possible to test whether we are in a specific kind of simulation (see the paper you linked to), but I don't think it's possible to test whether we are in some, unspecified, unknown simulation.
My position is that it is possible for us to get both Bayesian evidence for and against simulation. I was not talking at all about "proof" in the sense you seem to use it.
If it's possible to get evidence for a "specific kind of simulation", then lacking that evidence is weak evidence against simulation. If we test many different possible simulation hypotheses and don't find anything, that's slightly stronger evidence. It's inconsistent to say that we can't prove ~simulation but can prove simulation.
I'm curious if you understand QM well enough to say that computers wouldn't work without it. Is there no possible design for computers in classical physics that we would recognize as computer? Couldn't QM be false and all these things work differently, and you'd have no way of knowing? Whatever you say, I doubt there are no areas in your life where you just rely on authority without understanding the subject. If not physics, then medicine, or something else.
Of course there is -- from Babbage to the mechanical calculators or the mid-XX century. But I didn't mean computers in general -- I meant the specific computer that I'm typing these words on, the computer that relies on semiconductor microchips.
How do you know your computer relies on semiconductor microchips? Could you explain to me why semiconductor microchips require QM to work?
I looked :-)
See e.g. this.