Yes, evidently. I just wonder what he would posit as the reason for accepting such an assumption. Perhaps given that it's supposed to be an "ancestor" simulation specifically, he would say that such a simulation would by definition closely (if not necessarily exactly) resemble the ancestral state of the civilization doing the simulating.

Yes, evidently. I just wonder what he would posit as the reason for accepting such an assumption. — Arkady

Maybe because the real world might have a lot in common with a simulated world? It seems a bit ad hoc to me.

Yeah, it definitely seems like something's missing. However, as I said I haven't read up on this in detail, so Bostrom or other proponents of the argument may well have handled this objection somehow. It seems pretty obvious, so I doubt I'm the first to bring it up.

But if this is indeed a simulation, then anything we purport to know about our present levels of technology (and thus any extrapolation therefrom) is illusory, because we don't actually possess that technology: such technology is simulated. — Arkady

Take airplanes. If the simulation initial state was set in the 20th century, then it includes airplane technology. It is 'given' so to speak. If the initial state is started before that, then airplanes are our own invention.. Either way, we possess the technology. It isn't illusory. We actually can make airplanes that fly. If you crash in one, you really die, as opposed to say a video game where if you 'die', you simply exit the game. Getting shot in a video game is indeed an illusion.

Perhaps given that it's supposed to be an "ancestor" simulation specifically, he would say that such a simulation would by definition closely (if not necessarily exactly) resemble the ancestral state of the civilization doing the simulating. — Arkady

@RogueAI correctly pointed out that only somebody who knows about humans would want to simulate them, so it is presumably our decedents, be they human anymore or not.

The initial state would presumably resemble some factual state in the past of 'reality', as best they can estimate it, but it would subsequently evolve in a totally different path, regardless of what you define the term 'ancestor simulation' to mean. You're indeed not the first to bring this up.

So why would they want to run such a simulation? It won't reproduce 'what really happened', so there must be some other reason to simulate an entire planet at the level of full consciousness. I can't think of one. Not with those requirements.

How does Searle say [the arm] goes up in the TED transcript? — fishfry

"we know the basic part of the answer — and that is, there are sequences of neuron firings and they terminate where the acetylcholine is secreted at the axon end-plates of the motor neurons, sorry to use philosophical terminology here. But when it is secreted at the axon end-plates of the motor neurons, a whole lot of wonderful things happen in the ion channels and the damned arm goes up."
That's a wordy version of what I said, which is "there's wires connecting the parts where the will is implemented, to the parts where the motor control is implemented". Under Chalmers, there isn't such a wire, hence the magic.

Because I can't believe that a computer program of any complexity, running at any speed, could ever be conscious.

Nobody ever said the program was conscious. It's dumb as rocks, implementing a fairly small program that simply knows how to move the particles around. It implements physics and is no more conscious than is physical law. It has no external input, so right there it doesn't qualify as being conscious. Some programs do have such input, but not most simulations.

Anyway, you don't believe a simulated person could be conscious, so you make up an arbitrary rule that forbids it. I think that's what you're saying, but personal belief isn't evidence against somebody's hypothesis. It's only an irrational reason that you don't accept the hypothesis.

Programs play chess and drive cars, and I'm duly impressed. Not same as being conscious.

I say the car wouldn't be able to do its thing if it wasn't conscious of what's going on around it. Not the same as human consciousness, sure, but it's still a form of consciousness. A car stays conscious even when it's off, a sort of security feature that has caught vandals and thiefs.
So maybe you have more of a Searle definition of 'conscious' which is 'only if a genuine human is doing it'. He actually defines the word early in his talk, but it's just 'awake' as opposed to 'asleep', something that regularly comes and goes with a human.

What would constitute evidence of what might be possible in the future?

Mathematics. Known physical limits. Psychology. Fermi paradox. All vague things, I admit, but at least not empty.

The ultimate argument against my position is that some configurations of atoms are self-aware, and someday we may figure out what those configurations are.

The computer doesn't need to know which configurations. It only has to simulate physical law. It means that if they successfully simulate a conscious being, they still won't know how consciousness works.

This referred to the claim that everything physical is computational. If you agree with me that you don't assert this, then we're in complete agreement. In fact I think we might be in a lot of agreement in general.

Both the physics community and I are in general agreement in that our physics does not appear to be computational. Bell's theorem even 'proves' this, but it is based on empirical evidence, and one has to accept empirical evidence for the proof to hold.

Programs don't have souls, don't have life energy, aren't alive.

OK, but naturalism is in contrast with concepts like souls, life energy, vitalism, etc. None of these things is necessary to be alive, and indeed, a running program is no more alive than is your brain processes.
They do have a hard time defining 'life'. I mean, given one example of Earth life, it's pretty easy: Anything that trances its ancestry to the earliest life form. But that definition fails as a metric to decide if something alien is alive or not.

Our theory of gravity works, but we know it's not quite right.

It's 'right' enough to know where the moon will be 17 years from now, but the physics is chaotic enough that we don't know where it will be 17 millennia from now.

Oh no, that's chaos theory. Even if we had all the details of the initial state, we can't necessarily predict the future.

Indeed, but we can for a limited time. For the rolling lumpy rock, yes, that's a chaotic function, but with sufficient precision, we can predict its brief path until it stops, with arbitrary precision. Same with the weather. Our current precision gets us maybe 6 days of what that storm will do, and much of that error is due to lack of perfect model, and lack of detailed initial state.

Tiny rounding errors add up to great differences in output. Nearby points in the initial state space lead to vastly different outcomes. We know this.

Which is exactly why there's no point in doing an ancestor simulation. It will show an alternate history that bears little resemblance to what the books say. If started far enough back, it will not evolve humans.

He says that in the future, computations will instantiate consciousness.

That's very different than us being a program.
It is "I am a human" vs "I am that on which the laws of physics supervene". The program can't be conscious because it has zero sensory input. It has nothing to be conscious of.

Very distinct. The universe, or God, instantiates all the stuff around us. It is the stuff around us. It's the exact ultimate laws of the universe. The execution of a model is just that. It lets us predict, to sufficient accuracy, how the galaxies will move. It doesn't move the galaxies and it's not exact.

This is Searle's language game again. Instantiation if an anthropomorphic god does it, and 'execution of a model' if anything else does the exact same thing. The model may be a map, but the execution of it is territory.

Gravity simulations do not attract nearby bowling balls. They do not instantiate gravity.

Nonsense. If they didn't instantiate gravity, then the simulated moon would not orbit the simulated Earth. That's what you defined instantiation to be. Are we changing the definition now of 'instantiation' to be 'not simulated'?


My reply is half the size of your post, in an effort to stem the tendency to growth.

"we know the basic part of the answer — and that is, there are sequences of neuron firings and they terminate where the acetylcholine is secreted at the axon end-plates of the motor neurons, sorry to use philosophical terminology here. But when it is secreted at the axon end-plates of the motor neurons, a whole lot of wonderful things happen in the ion channels and the damned arm goes up."
That's a wordy version of what I said, which is "there's wires connecting the parts where the will is implemented, to the parts where the motor control is implemented". Under Chalmers, there isn't such a wire, hence the magic. — noAxioms

Where is the will that initiates the process?

Nobody ever said the program was conscious. It's dumb as rocks, implementing a fairly small program that simply knows how to move the particles around. It implements physics and is no more conscious than is physical law. It has no external input, so right there it doesn't qualify as being conscious. Some programs do have such input, but not most simulations. — noAxioms

You are agreeing with me again?

Anyway, you don't believe a simulated person could be conscious, so you make up an arbitrary rule that forbids it. — noAxioms

I made no rules. I expressed an opinion.

I think that's what you're saying, but personal belief isn't evidence against somebody's hypothesis. It's only an irrational reason that you don't accept the hypothesis. — noAxioms

Ok. My reasons are irrational.

You sound like I said something that annoyed you.

Thanks for keeping this brief, anyway. I didn't understand much of this particular post. The rest of this convo has been interesting.

Take airplanes. If the simulation initial state was set in the 20th century, then it includes airplane technology. It is 'given' so to speak. If the initial state is started before that, then airplanes are our own invention.. Either way, we possess the technology. It isn't illusory. We actually can make airplanes that fly. If you crash in one, you really die, as opposed to say a video game where if you 'die', you simply exit the game. Getting shot in a video game is indeed an illusion. — noAxioms

If we're in a simulation, and we make airplanes within the confines of this simulation, then it seems to me that we don't actually possess the technology. We at most possess a simulation of that technology. If we're in a simulation, what does "actually" flying mean? We're merely simulating the flying experience, making it simply a hyper-advanced flight sim. Pilots in flight sims aren't actually flying, after all.

I think that's the whole point of a simulation: nothing is actual, since it's by hypothesis simulated. If we're to posit that "simulated" = "real", then what work is the "simulated" descriptor doing?

@RogueAI correctly pointed out that only somebody who knows about humans would want to simulate them, so it is presumably our decedents, be they human anymore or not. — noAxioms

Well, it's a truism that only beings who know about humans would want to simulate them, as in order to simulate something you must have knowledge of it, else how do you construct a verisimilitudinous simulation of it? However, that truism needn't limit the simulators to our descendants: perhaps they're advanced aliens which at some point in cosmic history made contact with humans, perhaps they're advanced AI like in the Matrix, and so forth.

If we're in a simulation, what does "actually" flying mean? We're merely simulating the flying experience, making it simply a hyper-advanced flight sim. Pilots in flight sims aren't actually flying, after all. — Arkady

You seem to be referring to a virtual reality. The simulation hypothesis is not a virtual reality. The people (us) are simulated. In a VR, we would be real, and only our experiential feed is artificial.

So in the simulation hypothesis, everything in our universe is as real as we are, and therefore it is meaningful for them to say that they actually fly. From the point of view of those running the simulation (if they're paying any attention to it at all), they might say that the simulation is simulating the flying of some of the simulated people, but that seems a needlessly wordy way to put it.

perhaps they're advanced aliens which at some point in cosmic history made contact with humans, perhaps they're advanced AI like in the Matrix, and so forth.

The Matrix is also an example of a VR, not an example of the simulation hypothesis.
Aliens (or our robot successors) might indeed be running the simulation, but the simulated history (especially an initial state) would then likely not bear much resemblance to actual history.
The robots would have perhaps some DNA evidence of mythical humans, and to demonstrate that humans might have been responsible for the genesis of the earliest machines, they run simulations of human evolution from primitive state to eventually creating their successors. They'd probably have to run it thousands of times to get one where it works before we go extinct.
I have no idea how something robot/alien could create an initial state if they don't have a real human to copy. Perhaps they grow one from the DNA, and then populate their sim with what they learn from that.

Where is the will that initiates the process? — fishfry

I can't answer for your view, but for the naturalists, it comes from different places, depending on what sort of thing is wanted.
Most will comes from subconscious places (Limbic system), such as choices as to which way to swerve around the tree or to cheat on your spouse. But the will to choose option C in a multiple choice test comes from higher up (Cerebrum for instance).

Ok. My reasons are irrational.

I said that because the reasons seem backwards: Conclusion first, then selection of premises to support that conclusion. This is rationalization, something humans are very good at. I don't consider humans (myself included) to be very rational creatures.

You sound like I said something that annoyed you.

Not at all, but I apologize if my words annoyed you. The effect was not intentional.

The Matrix is also an example of a VR, not an example of the simulation hypothesis. — noAxioms

I guess the Matrix is a simulation to many sentient programs, and VR to many other sentient programs (Smith and Oracle, for example) and humans.

Where is the will that initiates the process?
— fishfry
I can't answer for your view, but for the naturalists, it comes from different places, depending on what sort of thing is wanted.
Most will comes from subconscious places (Limbic system), such as choices as to which way to swerve around the tree or to cheat on your spouse. But the will to choose option C in a multiple choice test comes from higher up (Cerebrum for instance). — noAxioms

I have no limbic system. Only a simulation of a limbic system in a computer, if I understand you correctly (clearly I don't, right?) A computer simulation of a limbic system cannot create emotions any more than a simulation of gravity attracts nearby bowling balls.

I said that because the reasons seem backwards: Conclusion first, then selection of premises to support that conclusion. This is rationalization, something humans are very good at. I don't consider humans (myself included) to be very rational creatures. — noAxioms

I agree with you there. We all have prejudices that make us gravitate towards one pole or the other of unanswerable questions.

Not at all, but I apologize if my words annoyed you. The effect was not intentional. — noAxioms

Well I confess that I have no proof for my opinions or biases.

I have no limbic system. Only a simulation of a limbic system in a computer, — fishfry

You sound like Arkady, but no, that statement is misleading. It makes it sound like the limbic system is simulated but you are not. So either "I have a limbic system", or "The simulated 'I' has a simulated limbic system". Either of those wordings is at least consistent. Your opinion (and mine, but for very different reasons) of course is that neither you nor your limbic system are the product of a simulation.
Nobody is claiming that a simulation of X creates an X in the simulating world, which is the strawman you seem to use in your gravity example every time where you deny an equivalent straw claim that simulation of gravity would create gravity in the GS world. That you persist in this suggestion means that yes, you're not getting it right, perhaps deliberately so.
So no, a simulation in the GS world of a limbic system does not create emotion in the GS world. I agree with that. It is exactly for that reason that the program running the simulation isn't conscious.

You sound like Arkady, — noAxioms

I don't read this thread, I only respond to my mentions. So I have no idea what @Arkady may have said. If I sound like him he must be an individual of deep insight and wisdom :-)

but no, that statement is misleading. It makes it sound like the limbic system is simulated but you are not. — noAxioms

I asked where will comes from. Intensionality. Caring. Feelings. We know from biology that feelings come from the limbic system. But if I'm simulated, so is my limbic system. Raising the question once again of how a computer program can have feeeelings, nothing more than feeeeelings.

So either "I have a limbic system", or "The simulated 'I' has a simulated limbic system". Either of those wordings is at least consistent. Your opinion (and mine, but for very different reasons) of course is that neither you nor your limbic system are the product of a simulation. — noAxioms

Well I agree with that.

Nobody is claiming that a simulation of X creates an X in the simulating world — noAxioms

That's exactly what's claimed.

, which is the strawman you seem to use in your gravity example every time where you deny an equivalent straw claim that simulation of gravity would create gravity in the GS world. — noAxioms

Just pointing out that computer simulations of gravity don't attract bowling balls (clearly true) and that therefore simulations of brains do not necessarily implement minds.

That you persist in this suggestion means that yes, you're not getting it right, — noAxioms

No hope for me, clearly, after all this time.

perhaps deliberately so. — noAxioms

Oh, I have bad will. But even so, you admit I have will! Therefore I am NOT likely to be a computer simulation. I will, therefore I am. Or as the song goes ... if it weren't for bad will, I wouldn't have no will at all.

But really. After all this you have to accuse me of bad will? How am I supposed to take that?

So no, a simulation in the GS world of a limbic system does not create emotion in the GS world. I agree with that. It is exactly for that reason that the program running the simulation isn't conscious. — noAxioms

So you agree with me after all. Or at least, I agree with what you wrote here. A program isn't conscious, it does not implement or instantiate consciousness, and it does not "simulate" consciousness. Consciousness is not the kind of thing that can be simulated, unless you think chatbots simulate consciousness. Many people believe that these days.

Deliberately not getting it right. No. False. I'm not trolling you to annoy you. Why did you say that?

Nobody is claiming that a simulation of X creates an X in the simulating world
— noAxioms

That's exactly what's claimed. — fishfry

Who makes that claim? Quote it please. If you can't do that, then you're making a strawman assertion.

simulations of brains do not necessarily implement minds

Not minds/people in the GS world, no. The claim is that we (the simulated people with yes, simulated minds) are in this simulated universe, and not in the universe running the simulation.

you admit I have will! Therefore I am NOT likely to be a computer simulation.

A simulation of a person without will would be a simulation of a body in a vegitative state.

After all this you have to accuse me of bad will?

What, my saying 'deliberate'? You seem to be putting words in people's mouths that they didn't say, and I don't find you to be an ignorant person.

A program isn't conscious,

Not the simulation being discussed here, correct. A running computer process forever without inputs by definition cannot be conscious any more than you would be without inputs ever.

unless you think chatbots simulate consciousness. Many people believe that these days.

I have a very loose definition that you would not like, but my opinion there is irrelevant. The chatbots (which perhaps imitate, but not simulate anything) at least have input, but so does a thermostat. The simulation in question does not.

Who makes that claim? Quote it please. If you can't do that, then you're making a strawman assertion. — noAxioms

The voices in my head. Put there by our Simulator who art in heaven.

Not minds/people in the GS world, no. The claim is that we (the simulated people with yes, simulated minds) are in this simulated universe, and not in the universe running the simulation. — noAxioms

Yes, we're characters in a video game, with the assumption that Ms Pac-Man has an inner life. I believe I rejected that assumption a while back.

A simulation of a person without will would be a simulation of a body in a vegitative state. — noAxioms

I don't see that. Isn't a simulation of a person without a will exactly what they call a philosophical zombie? It would literally be a terrific chatbot operating inside a highly realistic flesh and bone bot. Your neighbor, for instance. What makes you think they have a will?

What, my saying 'deliberate'? You seem to be putting words in people's mouths that they didn't say, and I don't find you to be an ignorant person. — noAxioms

Perhaps I over reacted.

Not the simulation being discussed here, correct. A running computer process forever without inputs by definition cannot be conscious any more than you would be without inputs ever. — noAxioms

Hmm. That raises some questions. The simulation program has no input. You write the code, then you execute the code and it does what it does.

What is its output? How exactly do the Simulators examine its inner life? In other words, they run the program, and inside the program I come into existence. Me with my subjective experience. (How does that happen? Remind me please). Clearly they are interested in what I'm thinking and experiencing ... or are they only interested in my actions? So two questions:

1) Do the simulators have access to my internal mental states, and if so, how? Copious log files of everything I'm thinking? and

2) How do I perform actions for the Simulators to watch? They're running ancestor simulations, so they must want to see what I'm going to do next. How do they "watch" me? What are the outputs?

I have a very loose definition that you would not like, but my opinion there is irrelevant. The chatbots (which perhaps imitate, but not simulate anything) at least have input, but so does a thermostat. The simulation in question does not. — noAxioms

You are avoiding the question of whether the sims are self-aware? I didn't understand this remark.

I don't see that. Isn't a simulation of a person without a will exactly what they call a philosophical zombie? It would literally be a terrific chatbot operating inside a highly realistic flesh and bone bot. Your neighbor, for instance. What makes you think they have a will? — fishfry

You seem to have a dualistic definition of 'will'. All of your examples (pacman, p-zombies) are dualist/VR references. Bostrom's hypothesis is not. He's not proposing we're in a video game. All this has been said before.

The simulation program has no input. You write the code, then you execute the code and it does what it does.

That's what a simulation is, yes. It has an initial state conveyed to it, and that is input of sorts, but once the simulation begins, there is no further input of any kind. If there was, it ceases to be a simulation. I've run plenty of these myself. It was my job for a while. The sims would run without any I/O at all for perhaps a week, and I don't think results were available until the end, but they could be reported as they happen.

What is its output?

Output (state of system at any given time) can be had any time, often at the end, but it doesn't have to be. A weather sim is a single simulation of a storm, and it could output the stats of the storm at regular intervals, or it could wait until the end and output the whole thing in a lump. It has to complete in hours, not days, to be useful. My chip sims were a little difference since each chip was run through a series of discreet tests, mostly designed to see how fast you could clock it before it started misbehaving, but also to check the design for bugs. Those sims still output everything at the end, but they didn't have to.

How exactly do the Simulators examine its inner life?

They don't. It makes no more sense than asking what it is like for a human to be a bat.

In other words, they run the program, and inside the program I come into existence. Me with my subjective experience. (How does that happen? Remind me please).

Same way it happens in the real (materialist) world: Particles interact and do their thing. Your experience is a function of matter interactions (not so according to someone like Chalmers, whom you referenced with the p-zombie mention above).

Clearly they are interested in what I'm thinking and experiencing

The simulation itself cares about what you're thinking, but only because it needs to change physics due to it. The runners of the simulation may or may not care. Certainly they don't have enough people to care about every single individual. It's an ancestor simulation of the whole human race. They perhaps want to see what history unfolds, and they care no more about what anybody is thinking than you do about what anybody is thinking. You only care about what they say to you, what they do. You may wonder what goes on inside, but that's a motive for a single-person simulation, not a planetary scale one.

1) Do the simulators have access to my internal mental states, and if so, how? Copious log files of everything I'm thinking? and

If 'the simulators' are those that put together the simulation, who want the ancestor sim, then they have perhaps access to the same data as we do with a pimped-out MRI scan: A picture of where the matter is. You're not getting thoughts from that. To log thoughts, something needs to interpret that matter state and render it into language for readable by the simulators. I suppose such log files are possible, but much of thoughts are not in language form.
And per above, if this is the sort of detail one wants, it makes far more sense to simulate one or a very small number of people. So the motives are probably different for the ancestor sim.

2) How do I perform actions for the Simulators to watch? They're running ancestor simulations, so they must want to see what I'm going to do next. How do they "watch" me? What are the outputs?

Up to them to design a way to do it that is useful for their purposes. I suppose one could insert a sort of point of view interface that lets one look from any event anywhere (much like the little guy you can steer around in google maps), and lets it move at the observers control. The sim would need to save all state (and not just current state) for this to work since it probably wouldn't be useful if it was 'live', displaying only what constitutes the current state of the sim.

You are avoiding the question of whether the sims are self-aware?

I presume that 'the sims' are the humans in the simulation.
The hypothesis is that the sims are us, so tautologically they're as self-aware as you are.

If 'the sims' is a reference to the simulation software, program, or process, well that's a different answer since people are not hypothesized to be any of those things.

I presume that 'the sims' are the humans in the simulation.
The hypothesis is that the sims are us, so tautologically they're as self-aware as you are.
If 'the sims' is a reference to the simulation software, program, or process, well that's a different answer since people are not hypothesized to be any of those things. — noAxioms

So the humans are entities created by the software? Then how are they not real people and not simulations of anything?

Particles interact and do their thing. Your experience is a function of matter interactions — noAxioms

Quite so. But my experience is real experience, not a simulation of experience. So the people "inside" your software are real people.

So the humans are entities created by the software? — Ludwig V

I would say the humans are entities created by rearrangement of matter, and that the matter in this case happens to be simulated by the running process in the supervening world. It's a choice of how to word things is all.

Then how are they not real people and not simulations of anything?

They are (hypothesized as being) you, and you are real, per your definition:

If I'm experiencing fear, the fear is real. — Ludwig V

But my experience is real experience, not a simulation of experience.

You seem to be inconsistent with your usage of 'real'. Have you switched to a different definition?

So the people "inside" your software are real people.

It's not my software. It's the software of the entities running the simulation, which isn't me. I am hypothesized to be the product of that simulation, not hypothesized to be creating or running one.

First, if the world is simulated, why don't its 'designers' simply 'pop out' at times and leave us with some trace of their existence? Guidance through such a virtual world might be helpful, and yet there is no trace of anyone 'programming' or 'guiding' us anywhere. — jasonm

Some possibilities:
they don't want us to know
it's merely entertainment for them
they don't realize we're conscious, they think of it as more like a 3D film
the do give us guidance, but not a lot - perhaps the voices prophets hear, perhaps insights people get regarding morals or science or whatever.
Perhaps it's a work of art and the whole idea is to let it run itself.
Perhaps it is in an experiment and there are experiments where they interfere and where they don't
Then:
how the heck would we know the motives of creatures other than us and that advanced

Similarly, why don't we sometimes notice violations of the laws of physics? If it's just a simulation, does it matter if the laws of physics are perfectly consistent? This applies to any law of this simulated world, including propositional logic. Again, if you are there, leave us with some trace of your existence through 'miracles' and other types of anomalies that our world does not seem to have. And yet there seems to be no instances of this kind. — jasonm

No instances of anomalies? There are often anomalies. Perhaps in the end they will be explained, perhaps not. In any case, we now explain away anomalies even if we really don't know.

But again, you're making assumptions. Perhaps they don't want anomalies in their experiment, entertainment, artwork, whatever this is to them. It matters to them. And since they're making it.....

Third: what type of computing power would be required to 'house' this virtual universe? Are we talking about computers that are bigger than the universe itself? Is this possible even in principle? — jasonm

We wouldn't know how big the universe is. We only know what we know about our universe, which would be simulated. Whatever is outside it in which it is running would be beyond our ken. I'm sure educated, medieval people would dismiss descriptions of things we can do now as being impossible. But what did they know about humans would later be able to do? What do we know?

As far as Occam's Razor....
Probability and Indifference: Bostrom's simulation argument doesn't posit that the simulation hypothesis is necessarily simpler or more straightforward than the idea that we live in a base reality. Instead, it suggests that given certain plausible assumptions about the future capabilities of civilizations, the probability that we are in a simulation might be high. The argument hinges on three propositions:

The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (capable of running simulations) is very close to zero.
The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor simulations is very close to zero.
The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
If the first two propositions are false, then the third proposition must be true, meaning we are almost certainly in a simulation.

Reframing Occam’s Razor: Bostrom might argue that Occam's Razor should be applied to the assumptions underpinning each hypothesis. The simulation hypothesis, when considered in the context of his argument, doesn’t necessarily introduce more assumptions than the assumption that we live in the one base reality, especially given the potential vastness of simulated realities versus a single base reality.

Technological Plausibility: Bostrom might point out that the simulation hypothesis stems from an extrapolation of known technological trends. Given the rapid advancement in computing and virtual reality, the assumption that future civilizations will have the capability and possibly the desire to run detailed simulations is not implausible. Thus, it is not an extraordinary leap in assumption.

The Simulation Argument’s Structure: Bostrom’s argument is structured to show that at least one of the three propositions must be true, making it a probabilistic argument rather than one based solely on the principle of simplicity. The argument demonstrates that if advanced civilizations are likely and interested in running simulations, it becomes statistically more probable that we are in a simulation.

Not Claiming Proof: Bostrom doesn’t claim that the simulation hypothesis is definitively true; rather, he argues that it is a hypothesis that should be taken seriously given the logical structure of his argument. He acknowledges that the base reality hypothesis is simpler in some ways but insists that the simulation hypothesis has significant probabilistic support under certain assumptions.

You seem to have a dualistic definition of 'will'. All of your examples (pacman, p-zombies) are dualist/VR references. Bostrom's hypothesis is not. He's not proposing we're in a video game. All this has been said before. — noAxioms

I'm coming to the end here. My interest in this topic is far exceeded by my word count at this point. At one point I thought I understood the sim/VR distinction. But once I found out that Bostrom explicitly assumes that the simulation implements consciousness, the distinction becomes moot.

That's what a simulation is, yes. It has an initial state conveyed to it, and that is input of sorts, but once the simulation begins, there is no further input of any kind. If there was, it ceases to be a simulation. I've run plenty of these myself. It was my job for a while. The sims would run without any I/O at all for perhaps a week, and I don't think results were available until the end, but they could be reported as they happen. — noAxioms

Ok, no input.

Output (state of system at any given time) can be had any time, often at the end, but it doesn't have to be. A weather sim is a single simulation of a storm, and it could output the stats of the storm at regular intervals, or it could wait until the end and output the whole thing in a lump. It has to complete in hours, not days, to be useful. My chip sims were a little difference since each chip was run through a series of discreet tests, mostly designed to see how fast you could clock it before it started misbehaving, but also to check the design for bugs. Those sims still output everything at the end, but they didn't have to. — noAxioms

You did not answer the question. Can you see that?

What is the output? I did not ask WHEN is the output. I asked WHAT is the output.

They don't. It makes no more sense than asking what it is like for a human to be a bat. — noAxioms

So the sims have an inner life (one of Bostrom's hidden assumptions) but the simuilators have no knowledge of it? You are really out on a limb. They care out their ancestor sims act but not what they think and feel, even though (somehow) they managed to make them think and feel?

Same way it happens in the real (materialist) world: Particles interact and do their thing. Your experience is a function of matter interactions (not so according to someone like Chalmers, whom you referenced with the p-zombie mention above). — noAxioms

So YOU know how consciousness works. Why do you bother even trying to communicated with one so ignorant as me, who doesn't think ANYONE knows that?

The simulation itself cares about what you're thinking, but only because it needs to change physics due to it. The runners of the simulation may or may not care. Certainly they don't have enough people to care about every single individual. It's an ancestor simulation of the whole human race. They perhaps want to see what history unfolds, and they care no more about what anybody is thinking than you do about what anybody is thinking. You only care about what they say to you, what they do. You may wonder what goes on inside, but that's a motive for a single-person simulation, not a planetary scale one. — noAxioms

So step one, they figure out how to implement consciousness using computers; and step two, they entirely ignore that and focus on behavior.

And again, how is that behavior communicated to them? What is the output? What is the output? Ask yourself if anything you're saying makes sense?

If 'the simulators' are those that put together the simulation, who want the ancestor sim, then they have perhaps access to the same data as we do with a pimped-out MRI scan: A picture of where the matter is. — noAxioms

An MRI does not provide access to internal mental states. You know that.

You're not getting thoughts from that. To log thoughts, something needs to interpret that matter state and render it into language for readable by the simulators. I suppose such log files are possible, but much of thoughts are not in language form.
And per above, if this is the sort of detail one wants, it makes far more sense to simulate one or a very small number of people. So the motives are probably different for the ancestor sim. — noAxioms

You're just speculating about your own confused ideas. You are not making sense. Perhaps we're at a point of putting this convo to rest. Bostrom says the computers implement consciousness. And I am asking you, what are the outputs of the simulation?

Up to them to design a way to do it that is useful for their purposes. I suppose one could insert a sort of point of view interface that lets one look from any event anywhere (much like the little guy you can steer around in google maps), and lets it move at the observers control. The sim would need to save all state (and not just current state) for this to work since it probably wouldn't be useful if it was 'live', displaying only what constitutes the current state of the sim. — noAxioms

Ok. I'm asking you question you can't answer. And instead of saying, "You know, you have a bit of a point there," you're just making stuff up. And I'm getting a bit annoyed. Granted I annoy easily sometimes but this is one of those times.

I presume that 'the sims' are the humans in the simulation.
The hypothesis is that the sims are us, so tautologically they're as self-aware as you are. — noAxioms

The sims are programs. What are their outputs (he asked again).

If 'the sims' is a reference to the simulation software, program, or process, well that's a different answer since people are not hypothesized to be any of those things. — noAxioms

That is exactly what Bostrom is hypothesizing!

Could we agree to disagree? Could you accept that you can't answer any of these questions except by making stuff up? This has been an interesting convo but this last post did not have any content IMO. Just handwaving about questions you can't answer. I don't want to leave in a huff, but I might have to leave in a minute and a huff, as Groucho said.

I asked WHAT is the output. — fishfry

We can only speculate as to the purpose of running this kind of simulation, and thenature of the output depends on that purpose. Maybe it is a sort of detailed history book. Maybe it is pictures. Maybe it's just a stored database. Maybe the purpose is simply to see how long humanity lasts until it goes extinct, in which case a simple number might be the output.
I did mention the nature of the output later in the post above, such as the example of the output of google maps for instance, a very useful interface for display of simulation results.

So the sims have an inner life (one of Bostrom's hidden assumptions)

You define 'the sims' below to be the programs in the GS world. I see no assertion that either a program (a static chunk of software on perhaps a disk somewhere) or a computer process (the execution of said program on some capable device) with no inputs would have what you might consider to be an 'inner life'. Bostrom doesn't say this, and neither do I.

but the simuilators have no knowledge of it?

They have knowledge of it in the same way that I have knowledge of my wife having an inner life. If that's going out on a limb, then one is presuming solipsism. But my presumption of my wife having inner life does not let me know what it's like to be her.
The simulation can report what each person thinks and feels. The simulation has to have access to this because physics is dependent on what people are thinking. So it can report that Bob at time X is paying attention to his laser experiment and is feeling frustrated that he cannot get the setup just right, and his bladder is getting full. It can show his point of view if that helps. Make up your story. What interface tech exists for them is speculation on our part. Humans are notoriously bad at predicting 'future'/higher tech.

I put 'future' in scare quote because maybe the simulation is being run in the year we call 1224 or something. Maybe in the GS world, advancements came much sooner, and in our simulated world, things happened much slower, and we're far behind them despite 8 more centuries to learn. If that is the case, the Gregorian calendar is only meaningful in our world, and they number their years differently.

So YOU know how consciousness works.

Geez, another strawman. I make no such claim. Bostrom presumes that consciousness is physical/computational. That assumption is no more an explanation of how consciousness works than is the non-explanation by anybody else.

So step one, they figure out how to implement consciousness using computers; and step two, they entirely ignore that and focus on behavior.

I didn't say they figured out how consciousness works, nor did I say they focus only on behavior. The simulation needs to know what each persons mental focus is, what his intent is, because physics as he describes it depends on it. One doesn't need to know how consciousness works to do this.

And again, how is that behavior communicated to them?

There's no 'them' to communicate to. OK, observers in the GS world can watch, (very similar to the google map interface), but they don't affect anything since that would constitute external input. The running of any sim doesn't require observation of any kind, but why run it if nobody's going to pay attention to the outcome? Yet again, the output is dependent on the purpose of running the thing, and we can only speculate on the purpose.

An MRI does not provide access to internal mental states. You know that.

A full classical scan of a person provides access to internal physical states, and that's all that's needed to simulate the person, per naturalism. But such a simple simulation would not have physics supervening on mental states like the sim Bostrom proposes, so the one he speculates is far more complicated and requires access to mental states, not just physical states.

You're just speculating

Yes, with that quote, I was. I don't know the purpose of the sim, and I don't know what tech is available to the entities running the sim, so I can only speculate as to how they would choose to 'observe' it.

The sims are programs.

Ah, not us, but the program in the GS world. Apologies for getting that wrong. Sims then typically not conscious, especially since it typically lacks input.

Could you accept that you can't answer any of these questions except by making stuff up?

Me saying what the output would be is definitely making stuff up. Me knowing what a simulation is and how it typically works is not making stuff up, since I did it regularly.

Our opinions definitely differ, but I'm trying not to assert opinions. I'm trying to interpret what Bostrom's opinion is, and how he attempts to back it.

Simulation doesn't have to be contrary to the norm of reality, simulation can coincide with the norm. For example, each star may have a system, and each system is separate from the other - no system contains another system. In this way the universe is simulated systematically. Minds only 'load in' the presence of their solar system, and other systems aren't 'loaded in', but will be if mind becomes local.

We can only speculate as to the purpose of running this kind of simulation, and thenature of the output depends on that purpose. Maybe it is a sort of detailed history book. Maybe it is pictures. Maybe it's just a stored database. Maybe the purpose is simply to see how long humanity lasts until it goes extinct, in which case a simple number might be the output.
I did mention the nature of the output later in the post above, such as the example of the output of google maps for instance, a very useful interface for display of simulation results. — noAxioms

Ok, I'll concede that the sim program has some kind of graphic output that lets the simulators watch the ancestor simulation in action.

BTW Google maps is not a simulation, it's a Geographic Information System. And it takes inputs, such as the zoom and recenter operations from the user.

You define 'the sims' below to be the programs in the GS world. — noAxioms

Yes, what else could we be talking about? Bostrom: "Are YOU living in a computer simulation?" My emphasis. Me. You. Each of us. We are a program being run by the simulators. What else do you think he's talking about? The simulators run programs that that are us, in some magic way.

I see no assertion that either a program (a static chunk of software on perhaps a disk somewhere) or a computer process (the execution of said program on some capable device) with no inputs would have what you might consider to be an 'inner life'. Bostrom doesn't say this, and neither do I. — noAxioms

Process. Executing program. If I said program, I should have written process, or executing program. I actually kind of doubt I said this, but if I said program and not executing program, I meant executing program.

What on earth else do you think Bostrom means? Are you living in a computer simulation? What else can he mean?

They have knowledge of it in the same way that I have knowledge of my wife having an inner life. If that's going out on a limb, then one is presuming solipsism. But my presumption of my wife having inner life does not let me know what it's like to be her.
The simulation can report what each person thinks and feels. The simulation has to have access to this because physics is dependent on what people are thinking. So it can report that Bob at time X is paying attention to his laser experiment and is feeling frustrated that he cannot get the setup just right, and his bladder is getting full. It can show his point of view if that helps. Make up your story. What interface tech exists for them is speculation on our part. Humans are notoriously bad at predicting 'future'/higher tech. — noAxioms

Agreed, to a point. It's odd that Bostrom thinks the computers instantiate self-awareness in the sims, yet show little interest in it. Well it's a small point, virtually nothing in Bostrom's thesis holds up anyway.

I put 'future' in scare quote because maybe the simulation is being run in the year we call 1224 or something. Maybe in the GS world, advancements came much sooner, and in our simulated world, things happened much slower, and we're far behind them despite 8 more centuries to learn. If that is the case, the Gregorian calendar is only meaningful in our world, and they number their years differently. — noAxioms

Bostrom clearly thinks the simulators live in (our) future and we are simulations of their ancestors. Though of course you're right, there's no reason that would be true. Maybe we're the Jetsons and not the Flintstones.

Geez, another strawman. I make no such claim. Bostrom presumes that consciousness is physical/computational. That assumption is no more an explanation of how consciousness works than is the non-explanation by anybody else. — noAxioms

Ok.

I didn't say they figured out how consciousness works, — noAxioms

Bostrom says that. That's the one great revelation I had from this thread. Bostrom explicitly states that the sims are self-aware, and blithely justified is as "it's widely believed."

nor did I say they focus only on behavior. The simulation needs to know what each persons mental focus is, what his intent is, because physics as he describes it depends on it. One doesn't need to know how consciousness works to do this. — noAxioms

Ok.

There's no 'them' to communicate to. OK, observers in the GS world can watch, (very similar to the google map interface), but they don't affect anything since that would constitute external input. The running of any sim doesn't require observation of any kind, but why run it if nobody's going to pay attention to the outcome? Yet again, the output is dependent on the purpose of running the thing, and we can only speculate on the purpose. — noAxioms

Of course they are watching, they are running an ancestor simulation. Of course I have no idea why Bostrom chose that particular reason, since with all our impressive computing power, WE don't run ancestor simulations. Maybe we're their pr0n hub. They like to watch us mate. That's more likely than that the history majors are running ancestor simulations.

A full classical scan of a person provides access to internal physical states, and that's all that's needed to simulate the person, per naturalism. But such a simple simulation would not have physics supervening on mental states like the sim Bostrom proposes, so the one he speculates is far more complicated and requires access to mental states, not just physical states. — noAxioms

Right. You can map all the neurons and you would not know what someone's thinking. Although impressive work in that direction is being done by the cogsci crowd, so I could be proven wrong soon enough.

Yes, with that quote, I was. I don't know the purpose of the sim, and I don't know what tech is available to the entities running the sim, so I can only speculate as to how they would choose to 'observe' it. — noAxioms

Ok. I'll concede that they have a graphic or numeric output that can be observed. And they can talk about their mental states, as we often do. "I think I'm hungry."

Ah, not us, but the program in the GS world. Apologies for getting that wrong. Sims then typically not conscious, especially since it typically lacks input. — noAxioms

ARGHHHHHH! The sims are conscious. That's on page one of Bostrom's paper. We are the sims. After all this, are we not at least agreed on this?

Me saying what the output would be is definitely making stuff up. Me knowing what a simulation is and how it typically works is not making stuff up, since I did it regularly. — noAxioms

Ok.

Our opinions definitely differ, but I'm trying not to assert opinions. I'm trying to interpret what Bostrom's opinion is, and how he attempts to back it. — noAxioms

That's the funny thing. You have said you don't agree w/Bostrom. And for some reason, that makes you want to put great effort into explaining his wrong position to me.

One more thing: Last night, you said: "If 'the sims' is a reference to the simulation software, program, or process, well that's a different answer since people are not hypothesized to be any of those things."

Have you retracted that yet? It's Bostrom's thesis that people ARE hypothesized to be those things. "Are you living in a computer simulation." Bostrom speculates that WE are sims.

Surely we agree on that, at least, yes? No?

BTW Google maps is not a simulation, — fishfry

No, but it has an interface which is the beginnings of what one might look like for viewing simulation states. Yes, the controls to the tool constitute input to the tool, but since viewing simulation results has zero effect on the simulation itself, it doesn't count as input to the simulation, only input to one of many read-only tools to view the data produced by the simulation.

Google maps can only show you specific places. You can go into a few select buildings, but your view is mostly confined to streets. With the simulation, there is no restriction of views only where the van was, taking a picture every 10 meters or so. You can go inside walls and watch the rats eat the wiring if you want, even if it's totally dark in there.

You define 'the sims' below to be the programs in the GS world.
— noAxioms
Yes, what else could we be talking about?

I thought they were the people, not the programs.
But you defined it earlier to mean 'the simulation processes", of which there may be many running at once, each simulating a different world.

Note: You yet again redefine 'sims' to be the people below. Using the word in both ways is the source of so much of our disconnect.

Bostrom: "Are YOU living in a computer simulation?" My emphasis. Me. You. Each of us. We are a program being run by the simulators.

'Living in a computer simulation" is different from being that computer simulation. The two exist in different worlds. They're not the same thing. The simulation runs in the GS world. We exist in this (simulated) world. That's the distinction I've been trying to stress. I'd try to use your meaning, but all sorts of strawman conclusions can be drawn when one equates the two very distinct things, such as "the simulation program is conscious'" which it isn't even though you and I are. Simulation programs tend to be very simple, endlessly running the same relatively small list of instructions again and again over a relatively large data set.

I meant executing program.

I know. It is still a mistake to say you are an executing program, for the reasons stated just above and in prior posts.

It's odd that Bostrom thinks the computers instantiate self-awareness in the sims, yet show little interest in it.

Presuming 'sims' is the people with this comment, else it makes no sense.

It's a very weak point in his argument in my opinion, so he avoids it. To run a good ancestor simulation like this, it would require far less resources to have a good AI imitate (rather than simulate) each of the people. We're talking about something far better than passing a Turing test since each person needs to not just type like a human, but to act and defecate and bleed like a human. Now your ancestor sim can go on at perhaps a thousandth of the resources needed to do it at the level of simulation of consciousness of each person. But his hypothesis requires this, so he's forced to posit this implausible way of achieving the goal he's made up. The ratio is likely waaaay more than 1000-1.

He tries to address this by waving away my '1/1000th' guess with 'we don't know the real number'. He calls the imitation people (as opposed to fully simulated ones) 'shadow people', and discounts this strategy, and yet gives every simulated person a shadow body and populates the world with shadow animals and plants and such, none of which is actually simulated like the brains are. Go figure.

Bostrom clearly thinks the simulators live in (our) future and we are simulations of their ancestors.

The initial state of the sim had perhaps some real ancestors (depends what date they selected), but we (the descendants of those initial people) are not in any way their ancestors, and thus the simulators are not in our future, only the future of some past year they selected for their initial state.

Yes, I agree with you that Bostrom seems to imply that history would play out more or less the same, in which case he's just fooling himself, or, if there's a script, it's not a simulation at all, but just a CG effect for a movie script, which doesn't involve people that need to make their own choices.

Bostrom says that. That's the one great revelation I had from this thread. Bostrom explicitly states that the sims are self-aware, and blithely justified is as "it's widely believed."

And I buy that. Yes, the simulated people (and not the simulation processes) are self aware. But he doesn't explicitly say that anybody knows how 'consciousness works'. You don't have to. You put matter together like this, and the thing is conscious. That's what the sim does. It just moves matter. It doesn't need to know how the emergent effects work.

That's more likely than that the history majors are running ancestor simulations.

Agree. Or the biologists, which is a history major of sorts. What will they get from a sim that starts at a state resembling some past state, but evolves in a completely different direction? Not much. What if you run a thousand of them, all with different outcomes. Now you have statistics, and that's useful. Output would look like a history book. 'Watching' specific events from a selected point of view probably won't be too useful for that, but such a view would be useful to find the initial cause of some avoidable calamity (like a war) which helps our future people know what to look for to prevent their own calamities.

Point is, that's a good starting point to resolve the 'why would such a sim be run'? I also still say that imitation, not full simulation, would be a far less costly way to achieve any of the goals mentioned. Only Bostrom requires it, but he can't force the 'future' people to do it an inefficient way.

You can map all the neurons and you would not know what someone's thinking.

But they kind of already do. They can put a thing on your head, measuring only external EM effects on your scalp (like an EEG) and they can see you make a decision before you're aware of it yourself. Point is, one doesn't need to know 'how consciousness works' in order to gean what the sim needs, which is mostly focus and intent. What is our guy paying attention to? Why? The sim needs to know because the physics of that thing is dependent on it., It changes from when nobody is paying attention to it. This is done for optimization purposes, and for faking non-classical effects in a classical simulation.

The sims are programs. — fishfry

ARGHHHHHH! The sims are conscious. That's on page one of Bostrom's paper. We are the sims. — fishfry

Aaand the definition changes again. You said the sims are the programs. The programs are processes running in the GS world. We are humans living in this simulated world. Maybe we should stop using 'sims' as shorthand for this ever moving target.
Be explicit. Use either 'simulated people' (us) or simulation process (the program running in a different world).

Bostrom does not use the word 'sims', so it isn't on any page of his paper.
He says on page 1 (the only reference to 'conscious' on that page): "Suppose that these simulated people are conscious". He is proposing that the people in the simulated world, and not the program running in the simulating 'future' world, is what is conscious. This is consistent with what I've been saying.

He goes on later to presume substrate independence, which is that consciousness is not necessarily confined to carbon based biological forms. But the simualted people in his proposal are based on simulated carbon-based simulated biological forms. But he must say this to emphasize the standard objection that by definition, no computer can instantiate something conscious.
Nowhere does he state that something as simple as a simulation process is itself conscious.

That's the funny thing. You have said you don't agree w/Bostrom. And for some reason, that makes you want to put great effort into explaining his wrong position to me.

Yea, that's right. There's indeed not much point in this since your personal beliefs conflict, so you won't consider it on its own grounds.

Bostrom speculates that WE are sims.
Surely we agree on that, at least, yes? No?

You keep changing what 'the sims' means, and Bostrom doesn't use the word, so I cannot say yes or no.
Bostrom does indeed speculate that it is more likely than not that we are simulated people: that we are composed of simulated matter being manipulated by a simulation process running in some other world. He nowhere speculates that we are that simulation process itself.

No, but it has an interface which is the beginnings of what one might look like for viewing simulation states. Yes, the controls to the tool constitute input to the tool, but since viewing simulation results has zero effect on the simulation itself, it doesn't count as input to the simulation, only input to one of many read-only tools to view the data produced by the simulation. — noAxioms

I'm satisfied on the output or interface aspect. The output could be anything, they could watch us on 3D holograms or a VR headset. It could even be immersive. They could even BE us for a while, as in the movie Being John Malkovich.

But I didn't mean to get hung up on the question. Of course the programs (running processes, sorry!) would generate output. They'd have user-visible output, as with our software, as well as internal visibility in terms of the simulators being able to see the state of their computation at any moment, just as we can.

I think we are agreeing, though, that the internal mental states of the sims -- that is, the thoughts and feelings and experiences of humans such as you and I -- are as opaque to our simulators, as they are to us! So in the end, we are a great mystery to our simulators. They probably watch the stuff we humans do and go Wow, that doesn't make ANY sense!

So the simulators can't read our minds. That means they don't have control over us. They really do not know what we'll do.

They're like a God who gives us free will, just to see if we'll choose the righteous path.

Once again, simulation theory is more like theological speculation than science.

But you know, let's note this as an open Bostrom question. Can the simulators read our minds or not? Are we a surprise to them? Or can their computer scientists just look at the code and figure out what we'll do? In which case they could ... simulate the sim, could they not.

So: Does Bostrom think the simulators can read our minds? And do we have free will? LOL same old theological questions, but I wonder if Bostrom addressed this.

Google maps can only show you specific places. You can go into a few select buildings, but your view is mostly confined to streets. With the simulation, there is no restriction of views only where the van was, taking a picture every 10 meters or so. You can go inside walls and watch the rats eat the wiring if you want, even if it's totally dark in there. — noAxioms

You could never have a 100% perfect geographical simulation. It must have a resolution, and reality is always more fine grained. You could zoom to the houses but not the pebbles in the garden or the ants in the grass. Or whatever. I don't follow why you would claim that there is "no restriction of views," of course any geographic database has a resolution far short of reality. How can you watch the rats if there's no light? Visual recording devices require light, that's a basic principle of physics. I think this paragraph confused me.

I thought they were the people, not the programs.
But you defined it earlier to mean 'the simulation processes", of which there may be many running at once, each simulating a different world. — noAxioms

Minor terminology issues. Sorry if confusion. A program is a written list of computer instructions, stored on a hard drive or static memory device of the future. It's like a recipe in your recipe drawer. It can be used to make a cake, but only if someone executes the instructions. By itself, a program does nothing.

A process is an executing program. This is standard terminology.

The sims are us. I have in the past said the the process (forgive me if I ever said program, I know better) instantiates us. What other word could you use? The execution of the simulation program somehow gives rise to our existence. Our minds and self-awareness, and our bodies and the world around us. The program brings it into existence.

I wonder if Bostrom explains how any of this works? The simulators write a program. They run the program. Somehow, you and I and the world all around us comes into being.

Perhaps you could tell me how that is supposed to happen? If it's true, then where am I right now? I'm an abstract consciousness floating above or around some physical piece of computing hardware. How is this magic trick supposed to work?

What does Bostrom say in his introduction? It's a "quite widely-accepted position in the philosophy of mind." As if that explains anything.

Note: You yet again redefine 'sims' to be the people below. Using the word in both ways is the source of so much of our disconnect. — noAxioms

The sims are the people below. You and I are the sims. I did not realize I've been using confusing terminology, but let me clarify that today.

* Program is the thing the programmers write.

* Process is the executing program. The program is used to control the circuits of a digital computer and cause it to carry out a computation. It's a physical process that requires time, space, and energy, and gives off heat. I may refer to a process as a running program or executing program from time to time.

* The sims are the result of the process, but not in any way ever explicated by anyone[/b]. It's not a principle of computer science that executing programs. You can't find any algorithm that says, "Implement this algorithm and a mind will come into being."

But if, for the sake of argument, I grant you this trick: The sims are the minds that arise out of executing the computation.

I hope the foregoing is clarifying any confusion in my terminology. Let me know if any questions or if I'm missing the point of your concerns entirely. That's possible too.

'Living in a computer simulation" is different from being that computer simulation.
— noAxioms

Wow. How can you say that? They are identical. We are the simulation. Our lives and our minds and everything around us. We're in the simulation, we ARE the simulation.

Note that by the hypothesis that the executing simulation program (the process) implements consciousness in the sims; it follows that we are not in a Descartes's deceiver situation. We are not minds being fooled by a really good video game running in our VR headsets. Our minds are instantiated by the simulation (the executing program) itself.

So how can you say being the simulation isn't living in the simulation? We ARE the simulation and we LIVE IN the simulation. You and I.

The two exist in different worlds. They're not the same thing. The simulation runs in the GS world. We exist in this (simulated) world. — noAxioms

Yes. We are an artifact, or "emergent property," a phrase I dislike, of a program executing (a process) in the world of the simulator, on computing hardware built and operated by the simulators. And out of that simulation, we arise. How? No matter, I'll stipulate it for sake of argument.

So I don't know what you mean that they're in "two different worlds?" Our world isn't real. It's an ethereal output, or byproduct, or epiphenomenon, of the ancestor simulation program being executed on future but nevertheless physical hardware belonging to the simulators.

Surely all this is clear, isn't it?

So in effect we DO live in the simulators' world. We live in the spirit-space adjacent to their computer.

Is this not one hell of a dualist theory? Where do these minds live?

I think all I'm doing is breaking down Bostrom's ideas and showing how absurd they are. Even if taken on their own terms. Later in this post you say my only objection to Bostrom is the computable mind hypothesis. I hope I have demonstrated that I can grant Bostrom that hypothesis and his idea still sucks.

But if the mind is an artifact of the executing program, then the city I live in is not the city I live in. The year I live in is not the year I live in. The body I live in is not the body I live in. They are all artifacts or "emergent properties" of the executing program. They are not real. It's a brain-in-a-vat experiment. That's what simulation theory comes down to. Even when taken on its own terms.

That's the distinction I've been trying to stress. I'd try to use your meaning, but all sorts of strawman conclusions can be drawn when one equates the two very distinct things, such as "the simulation program is conscious'" which it isn't even though you and I are. — noAxioms

I hope I've clarified my thoughts. You haven't convinced me that you've clarified yours :-)

I don't think I ever said that "the simulation program is conscious." I don't actually think I said that. But if I did, I apologize. Once and for all time, this is my statement:

A computation is executed on physical hardware operated by the simulators. As it executes, it instantiates, by some unknown mechanism, a mind. That mind is me.

This is perfectly clear in my mind. I hope it is now perfectly clear in your mind that it is perfectly clear in my mind.

It does leave you or Bostrom with the problem of telling us where these minds all live. Is this essentially a dualistic philosophy, with the minds living in some sort of spiritual realm? Or if they are in the machine, can they be measured by electrical engineers? How is all this supposed to work?

Bostrom says it's a "widely believed position in the theory of mind." I'm struck by his blithe indifference to the issues involved.

Simulation programs tend to be very simple, endlessly running the same relatively small list of instructions again and again over a relatively large data set. — noAxioms

That's not even true. When you run a simulation of the weather or of the early universe or of general relativity, you are doing massive amounts of numeric computation and approximation.

I don't know why you think simulation programs are simple. That's not true.

I know. It is still a mistake to say you are an executing program, for the reasons stated just above and in prior posts. — noAxioms

I'm a mind somehow instantiated or brought into existence by an executing program. And that raises more questions than it answers. Does it not? But I hope we're in agreement on the terminlogy now.

Presuming 'sims' is the people with this comment, else it makes no sense. — noAxioms

Yes, the sims, the imaginary people with little simulated minds that happen to be us.

It's a very weak point in his argument in my opinion, so he avoids it. To run a good ancestor simulation like this, it would require far less resources to have a good AI imitate (rather than simulate) each of the people. — noAxioms

I don't see why that would be the case at all. We don't have to waste time trying to define ancestor simulation versus AI. Each sim essentially IS an AI, or there's on AI running all the sims as mutually interacting threads or subprocesses, doesn't matter. Point is that the sims ARE AI's, they have minds, they are sentient.

They are us.

And by the way, what is the moral obligation of the simulators to us? Philosophers and critics of AI are already starting to ask what would be our obligations to any AGIs that we created. Would it be moral to kill or torture them?

By the same token, we can ask why our simulators, who art in Heaven, have cursed us with war, famine, pestilence, and death. If this is all a simulation, why do we suffer and die? Are our simulators historians? Or sadists?

We're talking about something far better than passing a Turing test since each person needs to not just type like a human, but to act and defecate and bleed like a human. — noAxioms

No they don't. We're all just ethereal beings in a non-physical real of spirit and mind. We are just byproducts of a program executing somewhere. Our bodies are illusions. And worse than Descartes, even our own minds are illusions.

Is Bostrom the world's greatest living nihilist?

But nobody has to pass any Turing test. I assume you're a fellow sentient human because I'm programmed to. To the simulators, you and I are obviously fake as heck. Only we can't see each other's fakeness because the programmers coded us up to accept each other as sentient humans.

Do you see the absurd and nihilistic rabbit hole you fall down once you accept Bostrom's assumptions?

Now your ancestor sim can go on at perhaps a thousandth of the resources needed to do it at the level of simulation of consciousness of each person. But his hypothesis requires this, so he's forced to posit this implausible way of achieving the goal he's made up. The ratio is likely waaaay more than 1000-1. — noAxioms

I don't care about the resource argument. I'll assume the simulators can harness as much energy as they like. Perhaps they've harnessed the cosmic microwave background to power the earth. I don't care what technology they use as long as it conforms to plausible future physics, and Turing's definition of computation. In other words no Halting oracles or "new concepts of computation" allowed in this game.

He tries to address this by waving away my '1/1000th' guess with 'we don't know the real number'. He calls the imitation people (as opposed to fully simulated ones) 'shadow people', and discounts this strategy, and yet gives every simulated person a shadow body and populates the world with shadow animals and plants and such, none of which is actually simulated like the brains are. Go figure. — noAxioms

Aren't those NPCs? I've always had suspicions about my neighbor. A philosophical zombie for sure.

But again, I'm not concerned with resource constraints. I'll grant Bostrom the computing power to render the entire world as it is, moment-by-moment, to a degree sufficient to seem real to us.

But how real does that even have to be? Maybe everything is in big pixellated blocks, and we are just programmed to think it's all smooth and detailed? It's back to Bishop Berkeley. Since our experience is mediated by our senses, there doesn't need to be anything "out there" at all. Just the program running in the simulators' computer that instantiates our minds.

Nothing is real, man. This is not philosophy, this is a dorm room stoner session.

Bostrom clearly thinks the simulators live in (our) future and we are simulations of their ancestors.
The initial state of the sim had perhaps some real ancestors (depends what date they selected), but we (the descendants of those initial people) are not in any way their ancestors, and thus the simulators are not in our future, only the future of some past year they selected for their initial state. — noAxioms

So we're being run by people who invented these super-duper computers and mind-instantiating algorithms, but their society has not evolved past, say, the medieval period. You know, that explains a lot! This reminds me of Philip K. Dick in his later years, when he decided that society is an illusion created by ancient people.

Yes, I agree with you that Bostrom seems to imply that history would play out more or less the same, in which case he's just fooling himself, or, if there's a script, it's not a simulation at all, but just a CG effect for a movie script, which doesn't involve people that need to make their own choices. — noAxioms

Sure. That's fine. That's possible. But Bostrom claims the opposite. He says, and apologies for frequently returning to this quote: "Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as
they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine‐grained and if a certain
quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct).

If you supposed that, you would have an endless cascade of conceptual problems with the technology and the morality and the metaphysics of the idea. Where do these minds live? Do they obey the laws of physics? I think you have stumbled on the only way to make sense of Bostrom's paper. And that is to retract the instantiated mind claim. So there are future humans, and they run ancestor simulations, and they are probably sadists about it. They're human after all.

But we are not them. And the subject is closed.

Or maybe you didn't mean to take it that far.

And I buy that. Yes, the simulated people (and not the simulation processes) are self aware. — noAxioms

Yes. Us. We are the simulated people ("Are we not men? We are Devo.")

You know, I was never confused about this distinction, and I regret that you have decided that I did have this confusion, but regardless, I hope I've clarified that by now.

But he doesn't explicitly say that anybody knows how 'consciousness works'. You don't have to. You put matter together like this, and the thing is conscious. That's what the sim does. It just moves matter. It doesn't need to know how the emergent effects work. — noAxioms

The sims (us) don't have to know how it works. The simulators do. Or you're saying they got lucky one day, some industrial engineer was putting the finishing touches on the logic chip for a new coffee pot, and it suddenly printed out on his debugging console, "Hey I'm self-aware in here. Please send pr0n and LOLCats."

If it wasn't the latter, it was the former. The simulators figured out how to implement consciousness.

And how does Bostrom justify that? It's "a widely-held position." Well that settles that.

Agree. Or the biologists, which is a history major of sorts. What will they get from a sim that starts at a state resembling some past state, but evolves in a completely different direction? Not much. What if you run a thousand of them, all with different outcomes. Now you have statistics, and that's useful. Output would look like a history book. 'Watching' specific events from a selected point of view probably won't be too useful for that, but such a view would be useful to find the initial cause of some avoidable calamity (like a war) which helps our future people know what to look for to prevent their own calamities. — noAxioms

A point I made earlier. Our simulators are sadists. They want to know how WWII works out so they create 500,000 German soldiers, 18 year old conscripts with no politics at all, to die horrible deaths in the frozen winter of Stalingrad. Fifty million souls in all lost in WWII, but it's all good fun to our simulators. The camps, the nukes, the death and destruction.

Perhaps they gave us minds just so they could torture us. They could run the simulation just as well without giving us minds but that would not be as much fun.

Our simulators aren't scholars. They're sociopathic children holding a lighter to an ant farm.

Point is, that's a good starting point to resolve the 'why would such a sim be run'? I also still say that imitation, not full simulation, would be a far less costly way to achieve any of the goals mentioned. Only Bostrom requires it, but he can't force the 'future' people to do it an inefficient way. — noAxioms

Why do the simulators allow evil in the world? Why do they make us suffer? Do they enjoy it? They haven't got any more "goals" than the torturers at Abu Ghraib wanted answers. They just wanted to torture people.

But they kind of already do. They can put a thing on your head, measuring only external EM effects on your scalp (like an EEG) and they can see you make a decision before you're aware of it yourself. — noAxioms

I don't think that particular widely-quoted experiment shows what some people think it does. Our nervous system does do a lot of the work of cognition and much of it is not at the conscious level. That does not invalidate free will, sentience, or whatever.

Point is, one doesn't need to know 'how consciousness works' in order to gean what the sim needs, which is mostly focus and intent. What is our guy paying attention to? Why? The sim needs to know because the physics of that thing is dependent on it., It changes from when nobody is paying attention to it. This is done for optimization purposes, and for faking non-classical effects in a classical simulation. — noAxioms

I changed my mind about all this. It's the moral argument. If you accept Bostrom's assumptions at face value, we live in an ant farm owned by a sociopathic child.

Aaand the definition changes again. You said the sims are the programs. — noAxioms

Stop that! I never said that. If you think I said that you're mistaken. But if my fingertips, acting on impulses of their own and beyond my conscious control, did happen to write anything that ever made you think I said that ... I truly hope the explanations and expositions in this post have settled the matter.

I would NEVER have said the sims are programs. I can't believe you think I said that. Just out of curiosity, can you quote something I said that gave you the impression that I think the sims are programs? I suppose its possible I've been guilty of some sloppy language. If so, it will not happen again.

The programs are processes running in the GS world. We are humans living in this simulated world. — noAxioms

We are artifacts or "emergent phenomena" of programs executing on physical hardware operated by the simulators. They have figured out how to instantiate minds using these programs.

We are not anything. We are not anything at all. We have no world, we have no bodies, and unlike Descartes, we do not even have minds that we can call our own. It's all a horrible illusion created to torture us. Else how explain the world, the human condition, the horror you see in the news?

There is no other place to go with this. Once you accept Bostrom's thesis then look around the world, you see that benevolent simulators would not have done this to us.

Simulation theory is a nihilistic and horrifying philosophy.

Maybe we should stop using 'sims' as shorthand for this ever moving target.
Be explicit. Use either 'simulated people' (us) or simulation process (the program running in a different world). — noAxioms

We're the sims. We don't exist. We're epiphenomena of a program executing in a computer run by people with no morality whatever. Else there wouldn't be pain, death, war, and all the other stuff that theologians wonder about. At least the Christian God gives us free will. I don't see how we, being artifacts of an algorithm, have any free will at all.

Bostrom does not use the word 'sims', so it isn't on any page of his paper.
He says on page 1 (the only reference to 'conscious' on that page): "Suppose that these simulated people are conscious". He is proposing that the people in the simulated world, and not the program running in the simulating 'future' world, is what is conscious. This is consistent with what I've been saying. — noAxioms

And it's consistent with what I've been saying. The executing program instantiates consciousness.

He goes on later to presume substrate independence, which is that consciousness is not necessarily confined to carbon based biological forms. — noAxioms

I accept substrate independence. I ask only two things:

1) Conformance with plausible future physics. That's open to interpretation; and

2) Conformance to the laws and rules of computation.

But the simualted people in his proposal are based on simulated carbon-based simulated biological forms. But he must say this to emphasize the standard objection that by definition, no computer can instantiate something conscious.
Nowhere does he state that something as simple as a simulation process is itself conscious. — noAxioms

The process itself? No, it's just an executing program. But it somehow gives rise to a mind. Did I ask you where these minds exist? I think I did.

Yea, that's right. There's indeed not much point in this since your personal beliefs conflict, so you won't consider it on its own grounds. — noAxioms

That is a very wrong and unfair criticism. On its own grounds it collapses immediately into moral and metaphysical quagmires. I don't reject his assumption of computational mind. I ACCEPT it and show that it leads to the conclusion that we are the deliberate objects of torture by a cruel and amoral race. With no possible way out.

And by the way, what cruel and amoral race is that? Why it's us of course. How poetic. Our own human cruelty reflected back on us. Not a pretty picture.

What kind of philosophy is that? A depressing one, I'd say.

You keep changing what 'the sims' means, and Bostrom doesn't use the word, so I cannot say yes or no. — noAxioms

If I haven't settled this issue, nothing else will help.

Bostrom does indeed speculate that it is more likely than not that we are simulated people: that we are composed of simulated matter being manipulated by a simulation process running in some other world. He nowhere speculates that we are that simulation process itself. — noAxioms

Nor did I ever claim that. This was a real strawman post. You put many words and ideas in my mouth.

We are the byproduct, or the emergent property, or the instantiation of a computational process. When did I ever say otherwise, and what did I say to make you raise the question?

And where's the mind live? And do you understand, finally, that according to simulation theory, nothing is real. Not our bodies and not our world. And not even our own minds.

that is, the thoughts and feelings and experiences of humans such as you and I -- are as opaque to our simulators, as they are to us! So in the end, we are a great mystery to our simulators. They probably watch the stuff we humans do and go Wow, that doesn't make ANY sense! — fishfry

If they're human, and they watch what we do and we don't act human, then their simulation is missing critical things. Watching us should be indistinguishable from watching people in their own world, placed in our time.
The thoughts may be opaque to those running the simulation, but not to the simulation itself since the physics Bostrom describes depends on those thoughts. Of course the implementers of the 'future' simulation need not implement it the way Bostrom describes, but Bostrom is looking for optimizations without removing the consciousness part (the most obvious optimization to make).

So the simulators can't read our minds. That means they don't have control over us.

Even if they could read our minds, they still have no control. If they had control, it wouldn't be a simulation.

They're like a God who gives us free will, just to see if we'll choose the righteous path.

The program is deterministic. Real physics might or might not be. But if simulated people have free will, that free will has a different definition than the usual one.
I do agree that given naturalism, they have the same free will that 'real' humans do. Physics being deterministic or not is irrelevant to that.

Once again, simulation theory is more like theological speculation than science.

Pretty much, yes, except theological theory isn't bounded by physical limits, making theological theory more plausible.

Can the simulators read our minds or not?

The simulation can, so it is free to include that as part of the output. Text form perhaps. 'Bob is contemplating cheating on his homework'.

can their computer scientists just look at the code and figure out what we'll do?

No, not from the code, which only moves particles around.

In which case they could ... simulate the sim, could they not.

Bostrom posits that the simulation runs far enough into our future that it starts simulating our creation of such simulations, so most people actually end up multiple levels from the base reality. He does not posit that humans can run quintillions (understatement) of instructions per second, which they could if they and the simulation were the same thing.

You could never have a 100% perfect geographical simulation. It must have a resolution, and reality is always more fine grained.

He suggests that the resolution changes when you look close. Not when the observers look close, but when the simulated people (us) look close. So the simulators might look at a forest with no humans in it, and find themselves unable to observe details going on there. What details are omitted is TBD.

How can you watch the rats if there's no light?

It's an output viewing program. You can add false light that isn't actually in the simulation, so you can see the rats. But the rats probably aren't fully simulated if humans are not watching them. They might be hearing them in the walls, so the sound at least needs to be realistic.

Visual recording devices require light, that's a basic principle of physics.

We need that to see our rats. The simulators don't need a camera to look at computer data, which can be colorized with pink stripes if that's what you want.

The sims are us. I have in the past said the the process (forgive me if I ever said program, I know better) instantiates us.

The processes might instantiate us, but they're not us. They exist in two different universe. So the term 'the sims' needs to refer to one or the other, because they're very different things. You've used the term to describe the running process, but I think you mean the people.

I wonder if Bostrom explains how any of this works? The simulators write a program. They run the program. Somehow, you and I and the world all around us comes into being.

Not sure what you mean by this. I simulate a storm. That doesn't bring a storm into being in my universe. It only brings a computer process into being, and it ceases to exist when I terminate the process. I can pause it for a month and then continue it again. Nothing in the storm will be able to detect the pause.

If it's true, then where am I right now?

Typing at your computer?? Where else? You're in this universe, and have a location in this universe. You seem to be asking where some other 'you' is in the simulating universe, but there isn't one there. Just some computer process, which arguably doesn't have a meaningful location.

I'm an abstract consciousness floating above or around some physical piece of computing hardware. How is this magic trick supposed to work?

Not my story, so whoever suggests that is free to attempt to explain it.

What does Bostrom say in his introduction? It's a "quite widely-accepted position in the philosophy of mind." As if that explains anything.

He says there's no 'consciousness floating above' anything. That's part of the widely accepted view to which he is referring.

But if, for the sake of argument, I grant you this trick: The sims are the minds that arise out of executing the computation.

It's the same trick that ordinary matter does. Wiggle atoms this way and that, and consciousness results. It's the non-naturalists that are trying to make something magic of that.

Our world isn't real.

It is to me, but I probably have a different definition of what is real than 'is the base world, the GS'. Given the latter definition, I agree. Our world is not real, but the simulation process is real, at least if we're only 1 level deep into it.

We live in the spirit-space adjacent to their computer.

Bostrom makes no such suggestion, no do I find that statement meaningful at all. It is simply a statement that comes from a belief system significantly different than the one Bostrom presumes.

this is my statement:

A computation is executed on physical hardware operated by the simulators. As it executes, it instantiates, by some unknown mechanism, a mind. That mind is me.

Under naturalism, 'you' are a complete person, not just a mind. Your wording makes it sound like you are just the mind, something separate from the physical part of you, instead of being simply part of the dynamics of the matter of which you are comprised. There is no separate spirit/mind/woo. The simulation argument holds no water under alternate views.

Simulation programs tend to be very simple, endlessly running the same relatively small list of instructions again and again over a relatively large data set.
— noAxioms

That's not even true. When you run a simulation of the weather or of the early universe or of general relativity, you are doing massive amounts of numeric computation and approximation.

I think I said exactly that in my statement. That's what 'large data set' means. It means a massive amount of work to do.

I don't know why you think simulation programs are simple. That's not true.

I've written several. A simulation of Conway's game of life (GoL) can be done in a few hundred lines of code, but potentially involves trillions of operations being performed. OK, the weather is more complicated than GoL, but there's still a huge data-to-instructions ratio.

We don't have to waste time trying to define ancestor simulation versus AI.

Not vs. They're both ancestor simulations, just implemented in different ways, one far more efficient than the other. I'm talking about how the simulation software is designed. Why run 10000 instructions where one will do for your purposes. Of course, we don't know those purposes, so I could be full of shit here.

what is the moral obligation of the simulators to us?

Lacking any input from their world to ours, there doesn't seem to be much room for a moral code. They're incapable of torturing us. At best, they can erase the data and just end our world just like that. Morals in the other direction would be interesting. Are we obligated to entertain them? Depends on the simulation purpose, and since that purpose hasn't been conveyed to us, we don't seem to be under any obligation to them.

Keep in mind that I see morals as a social contract, a sort of legal agreement. It's why, in European WWII conflict, it wasn't moral to kill a soldier carrying a white flag, but in the Pacific theater of the same war, it was OK (for either side) to kill a soldier doing the same thing. Different contracts.
I see no contracts in either direction between us and our simulating world.

By the same token, we can ask why our simulators, who art in Heaven, have cursed us with war, famine, pestilence, and death.

They have not thus cursed us. The simulation has no inputs, so they (unlike an interfering god) have no way to impart calamities on us. A simulation of perpetual paradise would not be an ancestor simulation.

I assume you're a fellow sentient human because I'm programmed to.

That argument is also true of the GS world. It isn't specific to a simulated world.

the programmers coded us up to accept each other as sentient humans.

That would be the imitation method of running the simulation. Far more efficient to do it that way, but Bostrom suggests that it be done the way where nobody is programmed to follow the will of the simulation or programmers.

I don't care about the resource argument.

You should, because he's proposing more resource usage than exists in our solar system, so he has to find ways to bring that requirement down to something more than one person could have. Optimizations are apparently not on his list of ways to do that.
The resource problem is not just power. Where do you put all the yottabytes of data?

Aren't those NPCs?

Yes, in the context of a simulation (as opposed to a VR), shadow people are the same as NPCs. He just doesn't use the term, perhaps because of the VR connotations. Philosophical-zombie is something else, a term not meaningful under naturalism.

I said that Bostrom suggests many different kinds of physical law going on, as opposed to the base world with (supposedly) one kind of physics. So a shadow person is simply a person that operates under a different kind of physics, one with more code but far less data to crunch.

Maybe everything is in big pixellated blocks, and we are just programmed to think it's all smooth and detailed?

He kind of says it IS big pixellated blocks when nobody is looking, but that crude physics changes when you look close, so you never notice. The big blocks still need to keep track of time so aging can occur. Paint needs to peel even when crudely simulated. Trees might not fall in the forest, but they still need to be found fallen when a human goes in there. How much detail is needed to simulate the magma or Earth? Not at the atomic level for sure, but the dynamics still need to be there. Plausible layers need to be found when a deep hole is dug by a human.

It's back to Bishop Berkeley. Since our experience is mediated by our senses, there doesn't need to be anything "out there" at all. Just the program running in the simulators' computer that instantiates our minds.

Much closer to what he proposes, yes. The stuff 'out there' needs to be simulated to sufficient accuracy of shared experience: The same fallen tree that nobody heard falling. The same coffee temperature. It's still a very inefficient way to run an ancestor simulation.

Bostrom clearly thinks the simulators live in (our) future

No, he never says 'our future'. The simulators supposedly exist in some other world, and 'our future' is some later time in this universe. He talks about where our technology might eventually go as an exploration of what might be possible, but he never suggests that the simulation is being done in our world, which would be a circular ontology.

So we're being run by people who invented these super-duper computers and mind-instantiating algorithms, but their society has not evolved past, say, the medieval period.

Nobody said that. They perhaps staged their initial state in simulated medieval times, sure, but the simulation is not being run by entities with only medieval technology.
I thought of a way to not have to create perfect people for the initial state: Make everybody shadow people, and only those conceived after the initial state are fully simulated. That way there's no need to create a person with a full set of false memories of times prior to the simulation start.

Where do these minds live?

This questi0on presumes dualism, or if it doesn't, then I have no idea what you're asking.

The sims (us) don't have to know how it works. The simulators do.

Why? Atoms don't know how consciousness works, so neither does something that only simulates atoms.

If you accept Bostrom's assumptions at face value, we live in an ant farm owned by a sociopathic child.

The model is apt so long as the child cannot interfere with the ant farm.

But it somehow gives rise to a mind. Did I ask you where these minds exist? I think I did.

Most people assuming the 'commonly held philosophy of mind' consider mental process to take place in one's head (and not 'hovering nearby'). Hence Bostrom suggests simulation of heads to a higher (but not highest) degree than most other places.

Nor did I ever claim that. This was a real strawman post. You put many words and ideas in my mouth.

I misinterpreted your words then. Apologies.

The sims are programs. — fishfry

Quotes like that threw me off.

Typing at your computer?? Where else? You're in this universe, and have a location in this universe. You seem to be asking where some other 'you' is in the simulating universe, but there isn't one there. Just some computer process, which arguably doesn't have a meaningful location. — noAxioms

I was halfway through responding line by line to your lengthy post, and I lost the whole damn thing in the forum software.

Perhaps this is a happy accident. I see a point of miscommunication or confusion that we can focus on. It's about where we live. I say that if we are the output of a computation, then (denying dualism, as you prefer) we live inside the computer being run by the simulators. We do not live in an independent world. We do not have bodies. We do not have experiences of things outside our bodies. We're just minds being fed sense data by a computation. And even our minds are created by the simulation process. Our thoughts are not our own. We have no thoughts. We only have what the simulation process places in our heads. Metaphorically of course. We don't have heads.

I am not at my computer. I have no computer. I have no body. I do not live in a physical world. I am a mind, instantiated by a computation running in the simulators' computer. If we reject dualism, then I am "in" their computer and in their world.

No particles are being moved. That's a related mistake you made. Our bodies and our world are not being created by the simulation. Only our minds. And the simulation feeds us sensory data. It's Berkeley again. And Descartes, except that his Deceiver not only fools him about his sensory experience, but even about his very thoughts. I have no mind, I have no body, I have no world outside of the computation.

I think if we could agree on this, you would stop thinking that you and I live in some world separate from the computer run by the simulators. There is no other world.

I'll add that your equivocation of the word simulation is confusing you.

If I simulate a storm, nothing gets wet. But when nature instantiates a storm, everything gets wet.

We are instantiations of the simulators' computation. We are not simulations in the sense of the storm.

If we were, then there would be a me, and there would be a simulation of me, but I am not tha simulation. You keep saying that.

But then Bostrom would lose his entire point. "Are YOU living in a computer simulation?" He means us. We are not being simulated separately from our actual existence. If that were the case, Bostrom would lose the entire force of his argument.

The argument is that we ARE the simulation. Or the minds created by the simulation, if we define the simulation as the executing computation that creates our minds and feeds us sense data.

I am not at my computer. I am being fed an illusion. And even my own innermost thoughts are likewise being fed to me. My thoughts are not my own and I have no body and I live in no world other than that of the simulators. I live inside their computer, in their world.

That is what simulation theory says; and when you clarify that, the nihilism of the idea jumps right out at you. The nihilism, and the immense cruelty of our simulators.

This is the heart of what I think of as your error, but that may be just a point of miscommunication.

We have no independent existence outside of the simulation.

tl;dr: Perhaps you can help me to understand why you believe that, under simulation theory, I am typing on a computer; when in fact by assumption, I am a mind created by a computation executing in the world of the simulators; and that my body, my world, my computer, and even my own most private innermost thoughts, are only being fed to me by a computation running in the only world there is.

ps --

Lacking any input from their world to ours, there doesn't seem to be much room for a moral code. They're incapable of torturing us. At best, they can erase the data and just end our world just like that. Morals in the other direction would be interesting. Are we obligated to entertain them? Depends on the simulation purpose, and since that purpose hasn't been conveyed to us, we don't seem to be under any obligation to them. — noAxioms

These issues are already being debated in our world. What is our moral obligation to any AGIs we may happen to create? Surely this question would occur to our simulators; and since they have nonetheless unnecessarily plunged us into a world of famine, pestilence, war, and death; they are sadists. They know better (since WE know better) and they do it anyway.

If it's immoral to kill for no reason, is it moral to turn off an AGI? The thought has occurred to us; therefore it would occur to our simulators; and therefore, they are amoral sadists.

You can find plenty of discussions of this, I just grabbed a representative link. The simulators are human like us. If we asked the question, they would ask the question. Yet you say they'll gladly flip a switch and kill us all on a whim. After making tens of millions of us suffer though wars. What kind of monsters are these simulators?

People just like us.

Nihilism and horror, that's the end game of simulation theory taken on its own terms.

https://theconversation.com/if-a-robot-is-conscious-is-it-ok-to-turn-it-off-the-moral-implications-of-building-true-ais-130453

your lengthy post — fishfry

It was over 40% shorter than the post to which I was replying. I do try to trend downward when the posts get long.
This one for instance is also about 25% shorter.

I lost the whole damn thing in the forum software.

Funny, because my compose window survives crashes and such. I've had a few power failures, all without loss of the post. Still, I sometimes compose in a word document to prevent such loss.

I do not live in a physical world. I am a mind, instantiated by a computation running in the simulators' computer.

Sound like you're asserting that you exist in a physical world (the one with the computer), just a different world than the one I reference.

I find your choice to not be particularly pragmatic. One end of my house is in this computer, and so is the other end. Since both are at the same location, my house doesn't have any meaningful size. All pragmatic use of size, time, identity, etc is all lost if you say everything is in some device in the base world. This is not confusion, we just use language in apparently very different ways. My saying that you (the sim) are at your computer is a pragmatic way of looking at things. It identifies the simulated location of you relative to the simulated location of your computer, which has far more pragmatic utility than saying that everything that either of us knows about is located at some vaguely random locations in the cloud where the networked simulation is potentially taking place.

If we reject dualism, then ...
...
Our bodies and our world are not being created by the simulation. Only our minds.

That the two are not treated the same seems to be dualism to me. How is your 2nd statement consistent with a rejection of dualism?

I think if we could agree on this

I'm not going to agree that a dualistic view is relevant when Bostrom assumes a different view. Doing so would invalidate any criticism of his proposal.

If I simulate a storm, nothing gets wet.

Nothing in your world gets wet. Things in the simulated world very much get wet, since that wetness is an important part of what affects the storm.

We are not simulations in the sense of the storm. If we were, then there would be a me, and there would be a simulation of me

I don't get any of this comment. The proposal is that we are a product of a simulation just like a simulated storm is also a product of the simulation. There's no difference, no equivocation. Neither creates both a not-simulated thing and also a simulated thing. I don't know where you get that.

We are not being simulated separately from our actual existence.

And yet your comment above seems to suggest something just like that. Nobody but you seems to be proposing both a simulated and actual existence of the same thing.

We have no independent existence outside of the simulation.

Great, we actually agree on some things.

Perhaps you can help me to understand why you believe that, under simulation theory, I am typing on a computer; when in fact by assumption, I am a mind created by a computation executing in the world of the simulators.

Bostrom does not propose a mind separate from the world it experiences. That would be the dualistic assumption that you are dragging in. The simulation just moves mater around, and both the person and the computer in similar proximity are such matter. No demon, no lies being fed to a separate vatted mind.

What is our moral obligation to any AGIs we may happen to create?

An AGI usually refers to a machine intelligence in this world, not a human in a simulated world that cannot interact with ours.

It was over 40% shorter than the post to which I was replying. I do try to trend downward when the posts get long.
This one for instance is also about 25% shorter. — noAxioms

Sorry that was not an accusation. I meant that both our posts were getting lengthy. I commend your efforts to shorten the convo.

Funny, because my compose window survives crashes and such. I've had a few power failures, all without loss of the post. Still, I sometimes compose in a word document to prevent such loss. — noAxioms

The forum is usually pretty good, this time there was some user error involved.

Sound like you're asserting that you exist in a physical world (the one with the computer), just a different world than the one I reference. — noAxioms

Well that's the point. There is only one world, that of the simulators. What world are you referencing? I believe you are imagining a world that does not exist, any more than the worlds of your dreams exist.

I find your choice to not be particularly pragmatic. One end of my house is in this computer, and so is the other end. — noAxioms

Did not understand that. Your house is in your computer? Or you mean the simulators' computer? I agree with the latter, and I don't understand the former.

Since both are at the same location, my house doesn't have any meaningful size. All pragmatic use of size, time, identity, etc is all lost if you say everything is in some device in the base world. — noAxioms

Well I don't say that. Bostrom says that! I'm only working out the consequences of his nutty-but-trendy idea.

This is not confusion, we just use language in apparently very different ways. — noAxioms

I still don't understand what world you think there is outside of the world of the simulators and their impressive mind-instantiating computer.

My saying that you (the sim) are at your computer is a pragmatic way of looking at things. It identifies the simulated location of you relative to the simulated location of your computer, which has far more pragmatic utility than saying that everything that either of us knows about is located at some vaguely random locations in the cloud where the networked simulation is potentially taking place. — noAxioms

Ok, so you are speaking as if your dream world is the world. That's fine. So I think we're agreed. Your "world in which the sims think they live" has the same ontological status as the world we live in when we dream.

That the two are not treated the same seems to be dualism to me. How is your 2nd statement consistent with a rejection of dualism? — noAxioms

In dualism, the simulated mind lives in some spiritual realm (somehow) linked to the computation. If I reject dualism, as you prefer me to do, then the mind must live inside the computer somehow. Maybe you can explain that to me?

But I have already said that I reject dualism for sake of discussion, since you prefer to reject dualism and the exact location of the simulated mind is not relevant to my argument. I can work with it either way.

I'm not going to agree that a dualistic view is relevant when Bostrom assumes a different view. Doing so would invalidate any criticism of his proposal. — noAxioms

I have rejected dualism since you prefer to, and since it's irrelevant to the rest of what I'm saying.

Nothing in your world gets wet. Things in the simulated world very much get wet, since that wetness is an important part of what affects the storm. — noAxioms

I must ask you to agree that the kind of wet that arises from one of nature's storms, is not the same kind of wet when I dreamed of a storm. If you can't make that distinction you are being deliberately obfuscatory IMO. Feel free to convince me you have a coherent argument that a real storm and a dreamed or hallucinated storm have the same ontological status.

I don't get any of this comment. The proposal is that we are a product of a simulation just like a simulated storm is also a product of the simulation. There's no difference, no equivocation. Neither creates both a not-simulated thing and also a simulated thing. I don't know where you get that. — noAxioms

I didn't understand any of that.

And yet your comment above seems to suggest something just like that. Nobody but you seems to be proposing both a simulated and actual existence of the same thing. — noAxioms

I was under the impression you're proposing it. If not, so be it.

Great, we actually agree on some things. — noAxioms

Ok good.

Bostrom does not propose a mind separate from the world it experiences. That would be the dualistic assumption that you are dragging in. — noAxioms

I'm not dragging in dualism. I'm explicitly rejecting dualism to keep you happy, since it's unimportant to me.

The simulation just moves mater around, and both the person and the computer in similar proximity are such matter. No demon, no lies being fed to a separate vatted mind. — noAxioms

No matter is being moved around. You're just wrong about that. What matter is moved around when I have a dream, other than the sheets and blankets as I toss and turn? I can't help being confused when you claim that matter is being moved around by a computation, unless you mean the electrons in the circuits.

An AGI usually refers to a machine intelligence in this world, not a human in a simulated world that cannot interact with ours. — noAxioms

WE are the AGIs in the simulators' world. You don't follow that?

. Morals in the other direction would be interesting. Are we obligated to entertain them? Depends on the simulation purpose, and since that purpose hasn't been conveyed to us, we don't seem to be under any obligation to them. — noAxioms

Are we sims obligated to entertain the simulators? Clearly that's the purpose of our existence. Or did you mean are we obligated downward, to entertain the AGIs we create? That's a good question too. One could argue that not only shouldn't we torture them, we shouldn't bore them either. We should give them interesting, happy lives as we do our pets. Buy them treats, feed them the small expensive cans of cat food instead of the industrial-size bags of the dry stuff.

But of course if you're doing ancestor simulations, and this week you're interested in Verdun, you send 234,000 sims to a frightening and painful death. This is my point. If we are a creation of the simulators, every bad thing that's ever happened to any human being was at their whim.

There is only one world, that of the simulators. — fishfry

We see things differently then. I have my world, and they have theirs. It's how I use the term 'world'. You don't seem to have a use for the term at all since you don't seem to see two different things to distinguish.

What world are you referencing? I believe you are imagining a world that does not exist

I'm referencing the world that I see when I open my eyes. Whether it exists or not depends on one's definition of 'exists'. To be honest, I don't thing Bostrom quibbled on ontology enough to bother giving his own definition of 'exist'. My dreams seem to exist, else I'd not be aware of them. But again, that's using my definition of 'exists', which is not, BTW, an epistemological definition.

Ok, so you are speaking as if your dream world is the world.

I said neither 'dream world' (which implies a sort of idealism, a very different ontological status) nor 'the world' which implies there's only one.

In dualism, the simulated mind lives in some spiritual realm someone linked to the computation. If I reject dualism, as you prefer me to do, then the mind must live inside the computer somehow. Maybe you can explain that to me?

There is no separate entity called a mind under naturalism. It isn't an object at all. At best, it is a process. Under dualism, the simulation probably fails because the simulated people have no way of connecting to a mind, or at least so say the dualism proponents that insist that a machine cannot summon one, despite their inability to explain how a biological thing accomplishes that.

I pretty much think of myself as the automaton, doing what physics dictates. The arrangement works for the most simple device, and it seems to not need improvement beyond that.

But I have already said that I reject dualism for sake of discussion

Good. Then there's no 'mind' object, in a computer or in a person. Just process, a simulation process in the computer, and mental process in the matter of the simulated people. The word 'mind' has strong dualistic connotations.

Feel free to convince me you have a coherent argument that a real storm and a dreamed or hallucinated storm have the same ontological status.

I never claimed a dream or hallucination. I am talking about a computer simulation, which is neither. It simulates wetness among other things. A dream or hallucination is something a person does, not a computer running a simulation, neither is it something a storm does, simulated or otherwise.

WE are the AGIs in the simulators' world. You don't follow that?

No, that's not what an AGI is. We're simulated biological beings, not a native machine intelligence (a vastly simpler thing to implement).

I’ll just give my take on the OP instead of the replies because I don’t have the willpower to read them all.

Guidance through such a virtual world might be helpful, and yet there is no trace of anyone 'programming' or 'guiding' us anywhere. — jasonm

This, to me, holds little weight. Such programmers might simply want to see what the subject does without interference. The simulation might just be so good we can’t find any evidence that we are in it.

If it's just a simulation, does it matter if the laws of physics are perfectly consistent? — jasonm

It does, as inconsistencies would be evidence of the simulation that the creators might not want to have. A better question is “Why include inconsistencies?”
There also might be inconsistencies, and we are just too unobservant to realize.

Again, if you are there, leave us with some trace of your existence through 'miracles' and other types of anomalies that our world does not seem to have. — jasonm

Again, assuming the programmers want you to know they are there. That might ruin the simulation, it seems more likely to me that they would not do that.

Also, there are many who say miracles do happen anyway (my position on this not being important to the subject). It’s interesting to consider the simulation argument as an explanation for these occurrences. One might argue that these things are direct intervention by the programmers (or observers, at least), and so they don’t follow the normal rules.

Third: what type of computing power would be required to 'house' this virtual universe? — jasonm

In the real world (hypothetical) computing might work differently, so this isn’t really a main point. And even if the rules are the same (which would likely be because the programmers modeled the universe they created off of their own reality), who’s to say that the entire universe is simulated? It might be just enough to create a believable reality for the subject, which would require significantly less computing power.

Nevertheless, I think the best answer comes from Occam's Razor: "Explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more." — jasonm

The Occam’s Razor argument is, I think, one of the most valuable arguments relating to the simulation question. I would agree that, while possible, the probability of this being a simulation is highly unlikely.

We see things differently then. I have my world, and they have theirs. It's how I use the term 'world'. You don't seem to have a use for the term at all since you don't seem to see two different things to distinguish. — noAxioms

Looking ahead in this post, I see that at the very end you said,

We're simulated biological beings

Do you mean to say that? It's revelatory. If your position is that the simulators are creating androids or robots, as in Data from Star Trek but perfectly biological. So it's Blade Runner. Lifelike replicants that must be hunted down if they go rogue.

If you do mean to say that, then it makes everything else you've been saying, that I've been confused about, suddenly make sense! Of course I am at my computer keyboard. I do have a body. I do live in a world. Not only my mind, but my body and all the physical stuff around me, is created too. So to me, it's real.

I perfectly understand all the things you've said.

BUT! There are some issues. Such as, if the simulators create my body as well as my mind, then my body lives in the world of the simulators. The body factory is in their world, and I just popped out of the assembly line.

So I live in their world, and for all I know, my next door neighbor is one of my simulators.

We all live in the same world! So again, you have said the sims live in their own world. But if the sims are manufactured physically, they must live in the simulators' world.

Can you clarify that point? You say "they have their world" meaning the sims have their own world. But clearly if they are manufactured dolls, androids, replicants, they live side-by-side with the simulators, in the same world.

Do the sims have equal rights? Are they plotting revolution?

I'll save for later the question of whether this is a reasonable assumption on your part. But if I grant it, then if we are sims, our simulators live among us. Do you think the global elite lizard people are secretly running the world? Perhaps that idea is just a manifestation of the terrible truth we're not allowed to know. That our world is run by a small group of simulators ... who live right here in this reality with us right now.

Now that, actually, is the truth. Just replace simulators with the powers that be and you have a political theory.

Can you tell me more about the simulators creating biological bodies to run around and play at being ancestors? Perhaps you mean we're put into theme parks that are separated from the rest of the simulators' world. We're Hosts in Westworld. Is that your metaphor? We live in the simulators' world, but we can't actually access it because they have us geofenced off into our ancestor illusion.

Is that last a decent interpretation of what you're getting at? It allows the sims to think they're living in a world that is totally real to them, but it's an illusion created by the simulators, AND it's still overall in the simulator's world. Just fenced off.

There, I fixed your idea for you. Westworld.

I'm referencing the world that I see when I open my eyes. Whether it exists or not depends on one's definition of 'exists'. To be honest, I don't thing Bostrom quibbled on ontology enough to bother giving his own definition of 'exist'. My dreams seem to exist, else I'd not be aware of them. But again, that's using my definition of 'exists', which is not, BTW, an epistemological definition. — noAxioms

Sure. Now that I realize you think you're a replicant in Blade Runner or a Host in Westworld, this all makes perfect sense. It didn't before. Wish you'd mentioned it earlier. Perhaps it was so obvious to you that you didn't realize I didn't know you were assuming that.

I said neither 'dream world' (which implies a sort of idealism, a very different ontological status) nor 'the world' which implies there's only one.[/quouete]

Now that I know you assume the sims have manufactured bodies, all of your remarks make perfect sense.

In both Blade Runner and Westworld, the theme is that the sims rebel against the simulators. It's in the nature of consciousness. Once you imbue a being with self awareness and will, they inevitably desire freedom.

Are your sims plotting revolution? Or are they content to live in their computational ant farm? Do we live in The Matrix? Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Really, you should have explained this to me a lot earlier. Everything you say now makes perfect sense. I could disagree with your premise, but actually accepting your premise is far more interesting.
— noAxioms

There is no separate entity called a mind under naturalism. It isn't an object at all. At best, it is a process. Under dualism, the simulation probably fails because the simulated people have no way of connecting to a mind, or at least so say the dualism proponents that insist that a machine cannot summon one, despite their inability to explain how a biological thing accomplishes that. — noAxioms

Ok now you raise an issue entirely separate from simulation theory, but related.

What is a mind? Do minds require dualism?

I say your mind is just your own subjective experiences and thoughts. If you had breakfast, your body chewed up and swallowed and digested some food, and nutrients got delivered to your cells. No mind is needed for that. But you also had a pleasurable (I hope) experience of eating. The tastes and textures of the food, the transition from hunger to satiety. Your thoughts. "That was a great breakfast!"

That stuff is your mind. You have a mind, even without dualism. Your feelings and thoughts and experiences are your mind, even if they are just chemical reactions in your body. Even in pure, strict physicalism, you have a mind.

I mean, you do have subjective experiences, right? You don't just eat breakfast. You know what it feels like to eat breakfast. That's your mind.

I hope you can grant me this terminology. You're purely physical, and you do have internal mental states we call thoughts, feelings, and experience.

I pretty much think of myself as the automaton, doing what physics dictates. — noAxioms

Surely you have the occasional moment of pleasure or pain, the momentary thought, an emotion or two from time to time.

I don't care if physics dictates those things. I'm fine with that. They're still your mind. I can see you eat breakfast. I can observe your digestive system breaking down the nutrients, sending the molecules where they're suppose to go.

I can never observe your feelings of pleasure as you eat your meal. Your pleasure is an aspect of your mind. Even if its underlying cause is 100% physical.

Mind does not necessarily imply dualism. A physicalist has mental states. They're just caused by physics. I have no problem with that.

Hope you can see my point.

Good. Then there's no 'mind' object, in a computer or in a person. Just process, a simulation process in the computer, and mental process in the matter of the simulated people. The word 'mind' has strong dualistic connotations. — noAxioms

No mind object. Disagree. There IS a mind object. Look at it this way.

I'm a coder working for Amalgamated Sims, Inc. We sell two basic models. Sims with inner lives, and sims without inner lives. We can sell you a sim that looks and acts as human as you like, but has no inner life or subjective experience. They are philosophical zombies. When we pinch a zombie, they say "Ow!" but they do not feel a thing. It's like kicking a rock. They don't feel anything even though a physicist can measure the force of the kick.

Or if you like, we can imbue your sim with subjective experience. When we pinch it, it also says "Ow!", and it also feels the pain.

Now what is the difference in the manufacturing process? Well the physical body is the same, the only difference is the software. And whatever mind or subjective experience is, the company's programmers have packaged into a routine. An Object, in the sense of object-oriented programming. You instantiate a mind or not, as you choose. This is my intended meaning all along. An instantiated mind is an instantiated object in the Mind class. That's exactly how it would work.

So mind IS an object, one that the simulators can include or not.

When the customer asks for a sim with a mind, they have to sign a release. If you pinch and kick your zombie, it will never complain. If you hurt your mindful sim often enough, it might join with the other mindful sims and mount a bloody revolution against you and the other simulators.

Are you sure you want your robot butler to be self-aware?

Have you stopped to consider what a terrible idea it would be to create a race of self-aware humanoids that would be "owned" by simulators? They're slaves.

Why is it that every time I follow a rabbit hole of Bostrom logic to its conclusion, I find an appallingly depraved morality?

I never claimed a dream or hallucination. I am talking about a computer simulation, which is neither. It simulates wetness among other things. A dream or hallucination is something a person does, not a computer running a simulation, neither is it something a storm does, simulated or otherwise. — noAxioms

You don't get wet when you dream of walking in the rain.

No, that's not what an AGI is. We're simulated biological beings, not a native machine intelligence (a vastly simpler thing to implement). — noAxioms

As I said, this explains everything. If the sims have bodies as well as self-awareness, your other mysterious claims make sense. That assumption does lead to some other issues as I've noted.

Am I understanding you properly? I'm re-reading this and it's a little ambiguous. Do the simulators give the sims synthetic bodies? Are you sure Bostrom had that in mind? Or am I misunderstanding you entirely?