I read this. It seemed like it was very oriented towards an audience which had the impression that “unfalsifiable claims are not real science,” and it seemed to do a good job of explaining to that audience its objections.
It seems to try to differentiate hypotheses which are (a) hard to test, but meaningful and possibly true, from ones which (b) don’t really say anything at all and are compatible with however reality might truly be.
I think that the simulation hypothesis is of the former type.
First, it is saying something discrete about the nature of reality, which differentiates it from ideas which aren’t saying anything. And I agree that this quality is important.
The second point—being testable in principle, even if difficult or impossible for now—is less important to me; it seems to me like even if there were no way to empirically test an idea even in principle, we could still have some probability attached to it being true (just like we can in situations where an idea isn’t testable yet, but may be with future technology).
Still, I’ll note that we could in principle observe evidence which increases or decreases our probabilities in being simulated. For example, we could (in principle) discover a glitch in reality which increases the probability, or (again in principle) observe something really obvious like the sky tearing open to reveal text which reads “you’re in a simulation” (not to imply there would not be other probable explanations for that, were it to happen).
Similarly, there’s ways empirical evidence could decrease our probability in the hypothesis, though they’re a little more complex to imagine. E.g., maybe we search very hard for such glitches and don’t find any, and this decreases (at least slightly) the probability we’re in a simulation not meant to prevent discovery of this fact; or, for a more strong decrease, maybe an ASI solves physics, and finds some compelling reason to believe we’re in the base universe.
I appreciate your engaging with me. I understand how it’s probably frustrating to have a minority view and see people constantly say the opposite thing. If you have other writings or arguments as to why “When Science Can’t Help” is misleading, I’d still be open to reading them.
This is probably as far toward pure Bayesianism as is reasonable to go:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05016
I read this. It seemed like it was very oriented towards an audience which had the impression that “unfalsifiable claims are not real science,” and it seemed to do a good job of explaining to that audience its objections.
It seems to try to differentiate hypotheses which are (a) hard to test, but meaningful and possibly true, from ones which (b) don’t really say anything at all and are compatible with however reality might truly be.
I think that the simulation hypothesis is of the former type.
First, it is saying something discrete about the nature of reality, which differentiates it from ideas which aren’t saying anything. And I agree that this quality is important.
The second point—being testable in principle, even if difficult or impossible for now—is less important to me; it seems to me like even if there were no way to empirically test an idea even in principle, we could still have some probability attached to it being true (just like we can in situations where an idea isn’t testable yet, but may be with future technology).
Still, I’ll note that we could in principle observe evidence which increases or decreases our probabilities in being simulated. For example, we could (in principle) discover a glitch in reality which increases the probability, or (again in principle) observe something really obvious like the sky tearing open to reveal text which reads “you’re in a simulation” (not to imply there would not be other probable explanations for that, were it to happen).
Similarly, there’s ways empirical evidence could decrease our probability in the hypothesis, though they’re a little more complex to imagine. E.g., maybe we search very hard for such glitches and don’t find any, and this decreases (at least slightly) the probability we’re in a simulation not meant to prevent discovery of this fact; or, for a more strong decrease, maybe an ASI solves physics, and finds some compelling reason to believe we’re in the base universe.
I appreciate your engaging with me. I understand how it’s probably frustrating to have a minority view and see people constantly say the opposite thing. If you have other writings or arguments as to why “When Science Can’t Help” is misleading, I’d still be open to reading them.