The argument that we live in a simulation doesn’t make any sense. To experiment on sentient beings without their consent is unethical, and I can’t see that changing, even in the far future. I won’t say it won’t happen, but I would be surprised if it is common. If ancestor simulations are rare, then they no longer outnumber the biological people.
Also, why would you want to run such a simulation at such high fidelity as to have intelligent people embedded therein? That sounds like needless complication and expense. Aggregate human behavior can already be modeled fairly well. The Sims with software people seems like way more than you’d need/want.
Also, what are they achieving? Calling them “ancestor simulations” is ridiculous because even if they could simulate the universe with perfect fidelity: you can’t possibly know the exact quantum state of the universe for some time in the past. Human history is a chaotic system built on the interactions of individuals, the environment, and knowledge. Any little perturbation is going to give you different results, especially over the long run. Given that, at best you’re playing out plausible scenarios. That’s interesting, but not so much so as to overcome the problems highlighted in the previous two paragraphs.
It’s just a poorly constructed argument. I don’t know how much the mundanity of this world is an argument against the Simulation Hypothesis in general, but here with the argument so poorly defined, it has to get in line.
The version of the argument I carry is more like; life is better at creating life than the universe is, and life is generally interested in life. It doesn’t need to be common, even if it only happens 1 time out of 1000, most universes like this are simulated.
Also, why would you want to run such a simulation at such high fidelity as to have intelligent people embedded therein? That sounds like needless complication and expense. Aggregate human behavior can already be modeled fairly well.
I don’t see why that would be true. Society has a lot of lone decisionmakers making contingent, historically significant decisions, and always has.
Calling them “ancestor simulations” is ridiculous because even if they could simulate the universe with perfect fidelity: you can’t possibly know the exact quantum state of the universe for some time in the past. Human history is a chaotic system built on the interactions of individuals, the environment, and knowledge. Any little perturbation is going to give you different results, especially over the long run.
So you run it again and again to sample all of the outcomes and learn the constants :) (that’s probably what physics did anyway)
The argument that we live in a simulation doesn’t make any sense. To experiment on sentient beings without their consent is unethical, and I can’t see that changing, even in the far future. I won’t say it won’t happen, but I would be surprised if it is common. If ancestor simulations are rare, then they no longer outnumber the biological people.
Also, why would you want to run such a simulation at such high fidelity as to have intelligent people embedded therein? That sounds like needless complication and expense. Aggregate human behavior can already be modeled fairly well. The Sims with software people seems like way more than you’d need/want.
Also, what are they achieving? Calling them “ancestor simulations” is ridiculous because even if they could simulate the universe with perfect fidelity: you can’t possibly know the exact quantum state of the universe for some time in the past. Human history is a chaotic system built on the interactions of individuals, the environment, and knowledge. Any little perturbation is going to give you different results, especially over the long run. Given that, at best you’re playing out plausible scenarios. That’s interesting, but not so much so as to overcome the problems highlighted in the previous two paragraphs.
It’s just a poorly constructed argument. I don’t know how much the mundanity of this world is an argument against the Simulation Hypothesis in general, but here with the argument so poorly defined, it has to get in line.
The version of the argument I carry is more like; life is better at creating life than the universe is, and life is generally interested in life. It doesn’t need to be common, even if it only happens 1 time out of 1000, most universes like this are simulated.
I don’t see why that would be true. Society has a lot of lone decisionmakers making contingent, historically significant decisions, and always has.
So you run it again and again to sample all of the outcomes and learn the constants :) (that’s probably what physics did anyway)