The best response I’ve heard against the simulation hypothesis is “If we’re simulated, why aren’t we asked to do meaningful work?” Think about why we would want to simulate personalities in our near to medium term future: to answer questions, to help us work faster, to entertain us, to be our companions, etc.
So why aren’t we asked to complete the equivalent of Mechanical Turk questions? Is compute is so unfathomably cheap that they there’s no economic reason we would need to “pay rent” so to speak? Even if that’s the case, why don’t our creators want to interact with us directly? In other words, if we’re all video game characters, who is the player character?
Why do I have consciousness, if I’m just an NPC?
And on and on. The crux is whether you believe that in the world that allows us to be simulated, it’s more likely that our creator just wants to view us through a thick pane of glass than they’ll want to play with us. My intuition is very much on the later.
The best response I’ve heard against the simulation hypothesis is “If we’re simulated, why aren’t we asked to do meaningful work?”
I’ve seen this sentiment expressed in reverse: Isn’t it fascinating that we’re living in such a pivotal moment when AGI seems to be on the verge of emerging? If we are alone in the universe, how this unfolds might be the most significant event since the Big Bang.
This seems true if we anthropomorphize the simulator; another relevant question there might be “Why is there so much suffering?”. However, it seems to me that the vast majority of simulations would instead be initiated by intelligences which terminally value simulation. Even if such intelligences were very rare (i.e if we assume the chance of an intelligence having that value were as small as 1/n where n is all possible values), it may create disproportionately many simulations, compared to other intelligences which may not have reason to create any, or which may only create a few for instrumental reasons during the earlier stages of their existence. (And given simulators are developing in our universe, the chance may not be as small as 1/n)
I also think it may be plausible for stochastic physical interactions between matter in a lifeless universe to naturally end up in certain computational patterns, and for life to arise within them without any way of observing the nature of its ‘universe,’ but this idea is too complex for me to write about for now.
The best response I’ve heard against the simulation hypothesis is “If we’re simulated, why aren’t we asked to do meaningful work?” Think about why we would want to simulate personalities in our near to medium term future: to answer questions, to help us work faster, to entertain us, to be our companions, etc.
So why aren’t we asked to complete the equivalent of Mechanical Turk questions? Is compute is so unfathomably cheap that they there’s no economic reason we would need to “pay rent” so to speak? Even if that’s the case, why don’t our creators want to interact with us directly? In other words, if we’re all video game characters, who is the player character? Why do I have consciousness, if I’m just an NPC?
And on and on. The crux is whether you believe that in the world that allows us to be simulated, it’s more likely that our creator just wants to view us through a thick pane of glass than they’ll want to play with us. My intuition is very much on the later.
I’ve seen this sentiment expressed in reverse: Isn’t it fascinating that we’re living in such a pivotal moment when AGI seems to be on the verge of emerging? If we are alone in the universe, how this unfolds might be the most significant event since the Big Bang.
This seems true if we anthropomorphize the simulator; another relevant question there might be “Why is there so much suffering?”. However, it seems to me that the vast majority of simulations would instead be initiated by intelligences which terminally value simulation. Even if such intelligences were very rare (i.e if we assume the chance of an intelligence having that value were as small as 1/n where n is all possible values), it may create disproportionately many simulations, compared to other intelligences which may not have reason to create any, or which may only create a few for instrumental reasons during the earlier stages of their existence. (And given simulators are developing in our universe, the chance may not be as small as 1/n)
I also think it may be plausible for stochastic physical interactions between matter in a lifeless universe to naturally end up in certain computational patterns, and for life to arise within them without any way of observing the nature of its ‘universe,’ but this idea is too complex for me to write about for now.
Thanks for responding btw!