If you believe that,— a) a civilization like ours is likely to survive into technological incredibleness, and b) a technologically incredible civilization is very likely to create ‘ancestor simulations’, —then the Simulation Argument says you should expect that you are currently in such an ancestor simulation, rather than in the genuine historical civilization that later gives rise to an abundance of future people.
I don't think this argument quite works? Like, suppose each base civilization simulates 100,000 civilizations. 100 are confused and think the're base civilizations, and the rest are non-confused and know they're simulations being run by a base civilization. In this world, most civilizations are right about their status, but most civilizations who think they're base civilizations are wrong.
I'm calling people who know where they are (i.e. are not confused) not in simulations, for the sake of argument. But this shouldn't matter, except for understanding each other.
It sounds like you are saying that ~100x more people live in confused simulations than base reality, but I'm questioning that. The resources to run a brain are about the same whether it's a 'simulation' or a mind in touch with the real world. Why would future civilization spend radically more resources on simulations than on minds in the world? (Or if the non-confused simulations are also relevantly minds in the world, then there are a lot more of them than the confused simulations, so we are back to quite low probability of being mistaken.)
> Why would future civilization spend radically more resources on simulations than on minds in the world?
I don't think they have to for us to be justified in thinking that we're in a simulation.
Basically, I see three classes of people (assuming for simplicity that you're either a "base civilization" or a "confused ancestor simulation"):
1. People in base civilizations, whose parents couldn't make confused ancestor simulations.
2. People in base civilizations, whose parents could make confused ancestor simulations.
3. People in confused ancestor civilizations.
I see you as saying something along the lines of: «If you're a base civilization, you'd rather have most of your children also be in base civilization rather than in a confused ancestor simulation, because it costs about as much to make a person in a confused ancestor simulation than a person in base civilization, and people in base civilizations are more useful. So there are many more people in group 2 than in group 3.»
But I think we're pretty sure that we're not in group 2, because we can look around and observe that it wasn't easy for our parents to make confused ancestor simulations. So instead, the question is whether there are more people in group 1 or group 3. To think there are more people in group 3, you just have to think that future base civilizations will make tons of ancestor simulations, on top of tons and tons of base civilization descendents.
I agree we aren't in 2. I'm saying that confused simulations don't need to be of ancestors. They could also be of anyone non-confused/in a base simulation. There are a lot of such people, so for every specification of a location in the universe, the number of real people at that location is much larger in expectation than the number of confused simulation people. So I'm disputing 'they will make tons of ancestor simulations'. Even if they make tons of simulations, there are so many other things to simulate.
Slightly off-topic but another assumption I think is built into the simulation argument without enough examination is that simulated beings would be conscious. I don’t think we know enough about how consciousness works to say for sure that digital ‘people’ would actually be conscious. If digital people AREN’T conscious then it doesn’t matter how many ancestor simulations they run in the future: we could notice that we’re conscious so we can’t be simulations. I tend to think that digital people CAN indeed be conscious so this isn’t a strong objection per se, but it’s definitely a consideration that I don’t see mentioned in many discussions of the simulation argument, despite it being a pretty foundational thing.
The reason we're more likely to be simulated than not, confusion and all, is because we're literally "that time a bunch of tarted-up apes with electric sand accidentally created a god."
For things in the future light cone to get wilder, it had to spring from this seed. It's like if we could simulate Romulus and Remus nursing at the wolf and eventually founding Rome - there's always history buffs who want to go back to the roots, and look at / tell stories about the first interesting / empire-scale seeds that happened.
Also, we are *literally* that future god's or god-descendants' cosmogeny myth.
I don't think this argument quite works? Like, suppose each base civilization simulates 100,000 civilizations. 100 are confused and think the're base civilizations, and the rest are non-confused and know they're simulations being run by a base civilization. In this world, most civilizations are right about their status, but most civilizations who think they're base civilizations are wrong.
I'm calling people who know where they are (i.e. are not confused) not in simulations, for the sake of argument. But this shouldn't matter, except for understanding each other.
It sounds like you are saying that ~100x more people live in confused simulations than base reality, but I'm questioning that. The resources to run a brain are about the same whether it's a 'simulation' or a mind in touch with the real world. Why would future civilization spend radically more resources on simulations than on minds in the world? (Or if the non-confused simulations are also relevantly minds in the world, then there are a lot more of them than the confused simulations, so we are back to quite low probability of being mistaken.)
> Why would future civilization spend radically more resources on simulations than on minds in the world?
I don't think they have to for us to be justified in thinking that we're in a simulation.
Basically, I see three classes of people (assuming for simplicity that you're either a "base civilization" or a "confused ancestor simulation"):
1. People in base civilizations, whose parents couldn't make confused ancestor simulations.
2. People in base civilizations, whose parents could make confused ancestor simulations.
3. People in confused ancestor civilizations.
I see you as saying something along the lines of: «If you're a base civilization, you'd rather have most of your children also be in base civilization rather than in a confused ancestor simulation, because it costs about as much to make a person in a confused ancestor simulation than a person in base civilization, and people in base civilizations are more useful. So there are many more people in group 2 than in group 3.»
But I think we're pretty sure that we're not in group 2, because we can look around and observe that it wasn't easy for our parents to make confused ancestor simulations. So instead, the question is whether there are more people in group 1 or group 3. To think there are more people in group 3, you just have to think that future base civilizations will make tons of ancestor simulations, on top of tons and tons of base civilization descendents.
I agree we aren't in 2. I'm saying that confused simulations don't need to be of ancestors. They could also be of anyone non-confused/in a base simulation. There are a lot of such people, so for every specification of a location in the universe, the number of real people at that location is much larger in expectation than the number of confused simulation people. So I'm disputing 'they will make tons of ancestor simulations'. Even if they make tons of simulations, there are so many other things to simulate.
Slightly off-topic but another assumption I think is built into the simulation argument without enough examination is that simulated beings would be conscious. I don’t think we know enough about how consciousness works to say for sure that digital ‘people’ would actually be conscious. If digital people AREN’T conscious then it doesn’t matter how many ancestor simulations they run in the future: we could notice that we’re conscious so we can’t be simulations. I tend to think that digital people CAN indeed be conscious so this isn’t a strong objection per se, but it’s definitely a consideration that I don’t see mentioned in many discussions of the simulation argument, despite it being a pretty foundational thing.
The reason we're more likely to be simulated than not, confusion and all, is because we're literally "that time a bunch of tarted-up apes with electric sand accidentally created a god."
I mean, that's wild and all, but how much have we really checked how wild other things are going to be?
For things in the future light cone to get wilder, it had to spring from this seed. It's like if we could simulate Romulus and Remus nursing at the wolf and eventually founding Rome - there's always history buffs who want to go back to the roots, and look at / tell stories about the first interesting / empire-scale seeds that happened.
Also, we are *literally* that future god's or god-descendants' cosmogeny myth.