Of course you can end up with a state that has a lower minimal description length. However, almost any interaction is gonna end up adding bits.
In what? the platonic mathematical space?
Yes, and yes this is very ill-defined, and yes it’s not clear why the set size should matter, but the simulation argument rests on the very same assumption—some kind of equal anticipation prior over causes for our universe? So if you already accept the premise that universe counting should matter for the simulation argument, you can just reuse that for the “anticipate being in the unscrewed with universe” argument. (Shouldn’t you anticipate being in a screwed with universe, even if you don’t know in which way it’d be screwed with? Hm. Is this evidence that most hosts end up not screwing with their sims?)
If we’re only talking about the platonic mathematical space, then why does it matter what hosts do or do not do to their simulations?
The entire thing (host and simulation) is one interacting mathematical unit. There might also be a mathematical unit that represents the simulation, independently of the host, but we can count that separately.
There are an infinite number of mathematical structures that could explain your observations. An infinite number of those involve simulations, and an infinite number of them don’t involve simulations. Of the ones that involve simulations, an infinite number of them are “screwed” with and an infinite number are “unscrewed”.
So, if we want to choose a model where everything in the platonic mathematical space is “real” (One one level I want to condemn this as literally the most un-parsimonious model of reality, and on another level I’ll just say that you have defined reality in a funny way and it’s just a semantic distinction) and then we want to figure out where within this structure we are using the rule that “the likelihood of a statement concerning our location being true corresponds to the number of universes in which it is true and which also fit our other observations”, then we have to find a way of comparing infinities.
And that’s what you’re doing—comparing infinities. So … what mechanism are you proposing for doing so?
I don’t know, but the fact that out of an infinity of possible universes we’re practically in the single-digit integers, has to mean something. Ask a genie for a random integer and you’d be surprised if it ever finished spitting out numbers in the lifetime of the universe; for it to stop after a few minutes of talking would be absurd. So either we’re vastly wrong about the information theoretic complexity of our universe, or the seeming simplicity of its laws is due to either sampling bias, or MU is wrong and this universe really just happens to just exist for no good answerable reason, there’s a ludicrous coincidence at work, or there has to be some reason why we are more likely to find ourselves in a universe at the start of the chain, whose hosts are not visibly screwing with it. The point is to add up to normality, after all.
No, you can subtract information from things. Edge case: what if the host just replaces every bit in the hard drive with all 0′s?
In what? the platonic mathematical space? Or the subset of universes that a given host universe simulates?
I think I do get your meaning, but it doesn’t seem very well defined...
Of course you can end up with a state that has a lower minimal description length. However, almost any interaction is gonna end up adding bits.
Yes, and yes this is very ill-defined, and yes it’s not clear why the set size should matter, but the simulation argument rests on the very same assumption—some kind of equal anticipation prior over causes for our universe? So if you already accept the premise that universe counting should matter for the simulation argument, you can just reuse that for the “anticipate being in the unscrewed with universe” argument. (Shouldn’t you anticipate being in a screwed with universe, even if you don’t know in which way it’d be screwed with? Hm. Is this evidence that most hosts end up not screwing with their sims?)
If we’re only talking about the platonic mathematical space, then why does it matter what hosts do or do not do to their simulations?
The entire thing (host and simulation) is one interacting mathematical unit. There might also be a mathematical unit that represents the simulation, independently of the host, but we can count that separately.
There are an infinite number of mathematical structures that could explain your observations. An infinite number of those involve simulations, and an infinite number of them don’t involve simulations. Of the ones that involve simulations, an infinite number of them are “screwed” with and an infinite number are “unscrewed”.
So, if we want to choose a model where everything in the platonic mathematical space is “real” (One one level I want to condemn this as literally the most un-parsimonious model of reality, and on another level I’ll just say that you have defined reality in a funny way and it’s just a semantic distinction) and then we want to figure out where within this structure we are using the rule that “the likelihood of a statement concerning our location being true corresponds to the number of universes in which it is true and which also fit our other observations”, then we have to find a way of comparing infinities.
And that’s what you’re doing—comparing infinities. So … what mechanism are you proposing for doing so?
I don’t know, but the fact that out of an infinity of possible universes we’re practically in the single-digit integers, has to mean something. Ask a genie for a random integer and you’d be surprised if it ever finished spitting out numbers in the lifetime of the universe; for it to stop after a few minutes of talking would be absurd. So either we’re vastly wrong about the information theoretic complexity of our universe, or the seeming simplicity of its laws is due to either sampling bias, or MU is wrong and this universe really just happens to just exist for no good answerable reason, there’s a ludicrous coincidence at work, or there has to be some reason why we are more likely to find ourselves in a universe at the start of the chain, whose hosts are not visibly screwing with it. The point is to add up to normality, after all.