I’m not sure where you’re going with this. We clearly have a universe, although it’s possible that it’s being simulated at lower detail than it appears. If you had a universe simulating itself, you’d have to simulate N minds, the computer, and the rest of the universe. The computer also simulates N minds, the computer, and the rest of the universe, so in order for it to work correctly, it needs to be simulated at the same detail as the N minds, the computer, and the rest of the universe combined. It’s one thing to simulate the computer to the same detail as everything else combined, but you have to do it including the computer. You’re simulating N minds an infinite number of times.
I thought that you meant “more course grained” according to the experience of the conscious entities in the simulation, not “more course grained” in the sense of including less total stuff (conscious and everything else) than an exact copy of the universe.
So a universe with a lone scientist and ample computational resources could afford to simulate the exact experience of the scientist, but couldn’t afford to simulate everything else at the same time. The confusing bit is that the scientist being simulated wouldn’t be able to tell if the simulation they were watching tick away actually corresponds to another conscious entity, or if the experience of observing a simulation tick away is just sensory data being piped in from the parent universe, in which case the scientist is...well, watching what exactly? Themselves?
I’m not sure where you’re going with this. We clearly have a universe, although it’s possible that it’s being simulated at lower detail than it appears. If you had a universe simulating itself, you’d have to simulate N minds, the computer, and the rest of the universe. The computer also simulates N minds, the computer, and the rest of the universe, so in order for it to work correctly, it needs to be simulated at the same detail as the N minds, the computer, and the rest of the universe combined. It’s one thing to simulate the computer to the same detail as everything else combined, but you have to do it including the computer. You’re simulating N minds an infinite number of times.
I thought that you meant “more course grained” according to the experience of the conscious entities in the simulation, not “more course grained” in the sense of including less total stuff (conscious and everything else) than an exact copy of the universe.
So a universe with a lone scientist and ample computational resources could afford to simulate the exact experience of the scientist, but couldn’t afford to simulate everything else at the same time. The confusing bit is that the scientist being simulated wouldn’t be able to tell if the simulation they were watching tick away actually corresponds to another conscious entity, or if the experience of observing a simulation tick away is just sensory data being piped in from the parent universe, in which case the scientist is...well, watching what exactly? Themselves?