Apologies for slow reply fishfry, but another topic has consumed much of my attention and I didn't even see your notify in my mention list.

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. — fishfry

I meant to say that 'we are 'simulated (biological beings)'. Your interpretation of those words was 'we are (simulated biological) beings', which is perhaps what Data is. Data is an imitation human in the same world as its creator. The sim hypothesis is that we're biological beings in a different (simulated) world. I've said this over and over, included in the very statement you quoted above your response there.
No, it's not Blade runner. No robots/replicants. You seem quite determined to paint a very different picture from the one Bostrom posits. Your running with this idea for most of the post seems more designed to disengage than to communicate.

I say your mind is just your own subjective experiences and thoughts.

This works.

I mean, you do have subjective experiences, right? You don't just eat breakfast.

In my world, I do both. I am not in the GS world, so I don't do either there.

No mind object. Disagree. There IS a mind object.

I find 'process' not to fall under the term 'object'. It's not an assertion of ontology, just how I use the language.

Apologies for slow reply fishfry, but another topic has consumed much of my attention and I didn't even see your notify in my mention list. — noAxioms

Ok thanks. I was wondering if perhaps my last post was so far off the mark that you gave up on me (possible); or so brilliant that I thoroughly refuted your argument (unlikely); or you just got bored (also possible. I'm simulated out myself).

The last thing I remember is that you said the sims have actual bodies, made in the sim factory operated by the simulators. If I understood you correctly, that has massive implications and I find it hard to believe this is what Bostrom had in mind.

I meant to say that 'we are 'simulated (biological beings)'. — noAxioms

What on earth is a simulated biological being? Like an android with a soul? Like Data on Start Trek, but with a biological body? A manufactured human. What else can you mean? By simulated to you mean manufactured?

Or are you falling back on saying the simulation exists only in the execution of the computer?

Your interpretation of those words was 'we are (simulated biological) beings', which is perhaps what Data is. Data is an imitation human in the same world as its creator. — noAxioms

Yes. Just not biological, but that's an implementation detail. More like the replicants in Blade Runner.

The sim hypothesis is that we're biological beings in a different (simulated) world. — noAxioms

I do not know what that means. I gave a couple of examples. In Westworld (the tv series) the Hosts, as the lifelike bots are called, are geo-fenced within the park. The theme of the show is that they escape.

But I gather you don't mean that. You mean something else, but I can't fathom what that is.

I've said this over and over, included in the very statement you quoted above your response there. — noAxioms

I'm sure the fault is in my own understanding, but I have no idea what you're talking about. How would we simulate a physical bot that is not in the same world as us? Explain this point to me because you have lost me completely.

No, it's not Blade runner. No robots/replicants. — noAxioms

No robots, no replicants. Ok I misunderstood you.

But when WHAT? There is a factory that rolls sims off the assembly line, imbues them with self-awareness and will (illusory or no) ... but these sims don't live in the world of their makers? Where do they live?

You seem quite determined to paint a very different picture from the one Bostrom posits. — noAxioms

Not at all. I'm just trying to understand your interpretation of it, which frankly is crashing up on the rocky shoals of a point that you are being terminally vague about. The sims have bodies but the bodies are not in the world of the simulators. Where are they?

Your running with this idea for most of the post seems more designed to disengage than to communicate. — noAxioms

Not at all. You said the sims have bodies. That's a massive assumption that leads to all kinds of problems for anyone who claims that. I pointed those out.

(me) I say your mind is just your own subjective experiences and thoughts.
This works. — noAxioms

Yay. You agree. We can talk about minds without discarding physicalism.

In my world, I do both. I am not in the GS world, so I don't do either there. — noAxioms

Where are you?

I find 'process' not to fall under the term 'object'. It's not an assertion of ontology, just how I use the language. — noAxioms

You have a very funny way of putting things. You think you have explained to me that the sims have bodies that live in their own world. I can't make any sense of this.

Ok thanks. I was wondering if perhaps my last post was so far off the mark that you gave up on me (possible); or so brilliant that I thoroughly refuted your argument (unlikely); or you just got bored (also possible. I'm simulated out myself). — fishfry

I'll sign off if I feel I'm done. Don't like to ghost a conversation. Your post was way off the mark, which made it very easy to keep the reply short.

The last thing I remember is that you said the sims have actual bodies, made in the sim factory operated by the simulators. If I understood you correctly, that has massive implications and I find it hard to believe this is what Bostrom had in mind.

No factory anywhere. No bodies in the GS world. The bodies are in this world. I, like most people, Bostrom included, presume I have a body.

By simulated to you mean manufactured?

You're thinking of an android. A simulated anything is the product of a computer simulation. A storm simulator has one simulated storm. The storm is probably not created, but is rather already there, part of the initial state. The purpose of simulating it is to see where it goes, and how strong it gets, and which areas need to evacuate.

I do not know what that means.

Then we're pretty stuck. Most people can at least get that much out of Bostrom's abstract. If you can't, but rather insist on this weird replicant track, I don't know how to unmire you.

You said the sims have bodies.

You don't think you have a body then? You think perhaps you were created in a factory instead of being born of your mother? I said that nobody (but you) suggests this, but you persist.

Where are you?

At my keyboard. Both it and I are in this world, the world that I experience. You seem to find that to be an odd answer.

I'll sign off if I feel I'm done. Don't like to ghost a conversation. Your post was way off the mark, which made it very easy to keep the reply short. — noAxioms

Hope you'll explain where sims with bodies live. The phrase doesn't even make sense.

I don't have much more to say on all this. If I'm incapable of understanding where the sims live, so be it. To have any idea what I'm talking about I should read the rest of Bostrom, but I may not get to that.

No factory anywhere. No bodies in the GS world. The bodies are in this world. I, like most people, Bostrom included, presume I have a body. — noAxioms

But our world is imaginary. An artifact of a computation. There is no "sim world" that is a physical world that's created anywhere. Your idea is incoherent. And like I say, I don't have to talk you into that. I can live with agreeing to disagree, pending my reading of the rest of Bostrom's paper, which is way down the to-do list.

You're thinking of an android. — noAxioms

Yes, that's the only way a sim could have a body.

A simulated anything is the product of a computer simulation. — noAxioms

Correct. It has no physical instantiation or existence anywhere. When the execution of my Euclid program finds the GCD of two integers there is no matter created anywhere.

A storm simulator has one simulated storm. The storm is probably not created, but is rather already there, part of the initial state. The purpose of simulating it is to see where it goes, and how strong it gets, and which areas need to evacuate. — noAxioms

It's not a physical storm. I prefer to agree to disagree on this point rather to debate it. Here is where we stand:

* I think you are expressing an idea that is incoherent;

* You think I'm far off the mark and failing to understand something very basic about simulations.

This is not going to get better. I remember at the beginning I asked you if Ms. Pac-Man has an inner life, and you said yes. I believe you are still in this (a) delusion, or (b) funny way of using words that makes it true.

Then we're pretty stuck. Most people can at least get that much out of Bostrom's abstract. If you can't, but rather insist on this weird replicant track, I don't know how to unmire you. — noAxioms

Mired I am, then. I think you must be reading something into Bostrom that isn't there. What on earth can it mean to simulate a physical body ... somewhere? I don't know if the error is yours or Bostrom's. Regardless, what you are saying is incoherent. In my mired opinion, of course.

We definitely agree on where we're stuck. I could live with a graceful quiescence of the convo soon.

You don't think you have a body then? — noAxioms

Not if I'm an artifact of a mind-instantiating algorithm. I'm Descartes, but where even his mind is not his own. A truly horrifying reality.

You think perhaps you were created in a factory instead of being born of your mother? I said that nobody (but you) suggests this, but you persist. — noAxioms

No, you are saying that. But the factory isn't physical either, it's an executing program. Where is the body? How are bodies created? Or is this Ms Pac-Man's inner life again?

Do I have a body like Ms Pac-Man? Is that what you mean? I'm in a 3D display of some sort?

Never mind I don't want to know. I'll stipulate to being mired. I wish I could dispatch a clone to take yet another look at Bostrom's paper, but I probably won't get to it myself, and I'm all out of clones. I'll go with Sabine when she says the simulation hypothesis is pseudoscience. I'm content to leave it at that.

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

My understanding is that a nucleotide of DNA is the best way of storing information. A nucleotide of DNA is about 2 nanometers in diameter by .33 nanometers in length; it stores 1.8 bits of information. The earth, according to some estimates, now contains approximately 10^44 bits of information or something in that ballpark. If you took all the information contained by earth, cultural artifacts, digital information, etc. and stored it on nucleotides of DNA, you would need, if my math is right, about 1^28 cubic meters of nucleotides, The sun is only 1^27 cubic meters. That means, our hypothetical simulated world needs to be stored on a device that is no less than 10 times the size of the average star.

Let's put aside the fact that there is no good reason to build a simulated world in the first place, the sheer size of storing the data to build this simulated world seems preposterous.

Here's the simple reason why you're not understanding all of this. You are refusing to acknowledge what the hypothesis is proposing. Take note of what's being emphasized there because it's important. It doesn't mean, "to accept the hypothesis as being true." So, instead of looking at our reality as a simulation, as the hypothesis proposed, you're looking at a simulation within our reality.

Here's the simple reason why you're not understanding all of this. — night912

This refers to a convo I was in a month ago. I no longer recall the exact point being discussed, nor what I may have said, nor whether I would still say today what I said then.

I'm afraid I can't really engage on this. The sim argument is the kind of thing you have paged into your brain, and then when you're not thinking about it you page it out. Sorry I can't be more responsive to your concerns.

In general there are many reasons why I might not understand something. I believe the other person and I were talking past each other at that point. Some of our basic assumptions differ. Or I could just be dense, missing something obvious or not understanding the argument. I think simulation theory is incoherent, it's essentially meaningless. It doesn't refer to anything. That belief colors everything else that I hear about the topic. So perhaps I am failing to understand in that respect.

You are refusing to acknowledge what the hypothesis is proposing. — night912

That's very insightful of you. You are correct. I find the simulation argument incoherent and devoid of actual content. Or requiring so many unrealistic assumptions as to cross over into speculative fantasy. All in all I think Bostrom's a troll. A high-toned one, to be sure, but a troll nonetheless.

Take note of what's being emphasized there because it's important. It doesn't mean, "to accept the hypothesis as being true." So, instead of looking at our reality as a simulation, as the hypothesis proposed, you're looking at a simulation within our reality. — night912

It's a hypothesis of the argument that future generations of humans much like us enjoy doing ancestor simulations, and that we are one of them. So the argument IS a simulation within our future reality. There are humans, and their self-aware simulations. Leaving unexplained exactly how to make a self-aware simulation. We don't know how to do that and we have no evidence it's even possible. The argument founders from the start.

But now that I've said that you'll probably disagree and I'll be sucked into discussing simulation theory, and I kind of don't want to do that. So if I peter out of this convo relatively soon, please forgive me.

I'll read the entire thread when I get the time, but for me personally, I think the flaw of the simulation argument is the presupposition of the information-processing theory of the mind.

I could write at length about why I think that view is false, but basically I think it's because the existence of mind is not and cannot be an algorithmic phenomenon since you can't prespecify all of it's possibility space.

I think embodiment is crucial to that end concerning relevance realization. I open a door because I've got somewhere to go, I drink from a cup because I get thirsty. But I can also throw the cup, bash someone on the head with the cup, turn the cup into an artwork by painting on it, sell the cup to someone, make someone a cup of coffee, grind the cup down into powder and fashion it into something new. I could go on forever with just a cup. Hence I don't believe the nature of mind is formalizible into a set of algorithmic instructions.

I have written two posts on this, one in which I reject simulation because it contains the false idea that consciousness can be introduced into any entity. A second that describes our universe as the work of an experimenter, with the sole purpose of curbing our arrogance.
https://medium.com/p/b2709f6c48bc
https://medium.com/p/3b0eb3e66048

The simulation argument has the same issue with theism based upon faith. Any epistomological framework has to neccesarily presume all unfalsifiable statements to be false until proven otherwise, otherwise it collapses.

Our experience in a non-simulated world is equivalent to our experience in a simulated one.
Our experience in a world with no God is equivalent to our experience with one.
However, the God explanation and simulation explanation contradict eachother.

In fact, one can create any list of unfalsifiable statements and so each one has its own counter.
Hence, we have to presume all to be false until our experience is able to confirm it (at which point it's no longer unfalsifiable).