In sum; it may be that the more resources simulants apply to nested simulations, the easier the simulation is to run.
I don’t see how that would be possible. Pretty much anything except a computer is easier to simulate than a computer. You can simulate a whole galaxy as a point-mass if it’s sufficiently far from observers; you can simulate a cloud of billions of moles of gas with very simple thermodynamic equilibria, as long as nobody in the vicinity is doing any precise measurements; but a computer is a tightly packed cluster of highly deterministic matter and can’t really be simplified below the level of its specific operations. Giant, complex computers inside a simulation would require equivalent computers outside the simulation performing those computations.
I think I see what the misunderstanding here was. I was assuming that simulations would tend to have simpler laws of physics than their host universe (more like Conway’s Game of Life than Space Sim), which would mean that eventually the most deeply nested simulations would depict universes where the laws of physics don’t practically support computers (I’d conject that a computer made under the life-level physics of Conway’s Game of Life (a bigger, stickier level than the level we interact with it on) would probably be a lot larger and more expensive than ours are, although I don’t know if anyone could prove that, or argue that persuasively. Maybe Steve Wolfram), and it would bottom out.
While you were assuming a definition of simulation that is a lot closer to the common meaning of simulation, an approximation of the laws of physics that we have, which makes a lot of sense, and is probably a more realistic model of the kinds of simulations that simulators simulating in earnest are likely to want to run, so I think you brought a good point.
Maybe the lower levels of the simulation would tend to be falsified. The simulated simulators report having seen a real simulation in there, they remember having confirmed it, but really it’s just reports and memories.
(note, at this point, in 2020, I don’t think the accounting of compat adds up. Basically this implies that we can’t get more measure than we spend by trading up.)
You don’t seem to have understood. I don’t mean “nested simulations are easier to simulate than lifeless galaxies too far from the subjects of the simulation to require any precision”, drifting matter is irrelevant. I mean that nested simulations are probably easier to simulate than scores of post-singularity citizens running on a diverse mind emulation (or mind extension) hardware cavorting around with compound sensors of millions of parts. But you wouldn’t address that, so perhaps you don’t disagree.
If you’re just arguing that modelling an expanding post-singularity civilization would be more expensive than modelling clouds of gasses, my response would be yes, of course. It’s conceivable that some compat simulations switch into rapture mode before a post-singularity civilization can be allowed to reach a certain size. We wont know whether we’re in such a cost-constrained simulation until we hit that limit. Compat would require the limit to happen after a certain adjudication period has passed. If we wake up in pleasant but approximate dreamscapes one day, before having ever built or committed to building a single resimulation farm, you could say compat would be falsified.
I don’t see how that would be possible. Pretty much anything except a computer is easier to simulate than a computer. You can simulate a whole galaxy as a point-mass if it’s sufficiently far from observers; you can simulate a cloud of billions of moles of gas with very simple thermodynamic equilibria, as long as nobody in the vicinity is doing any precise measurements; but a computer is a tightly packed cluster of highly deterministic matter and can’t really be simplified below the level of its specific operations. Giant, complex computers inside a simulation would require equivalent computers outside the simulation performing those computations.
I think I see what the misunderstanding here was. I was assuming that simulations would tend to have simpler laws of physics than their host universe (more like Conway’s Game of Life than Space Sim), which would mean that eventually the most deeply nested simulations would depict universes where the laws of physics don’t practically support computers (I’d conject that a computer made under the life-level physics of Conway’s Game of Life (a bigger, stickier level than the level we interact with it on) would probably be a lot larger and more expensive than ours are, although I don’t know if anyone could prove that, or argue that persuasively. Maybe Steve Wolfram), and it would bottom out.
While you were assuming a definition of simulation that is a lot closer to the common meaning of simulation, an approximation of the laws of physics that we have, which makes a lot of sense, and is probably a more realistic model of the kinds of simulations that simulators simulating in earnest are likely to want to run, so I think you brought a good point.
Maybe the lower levels of the simulation would tend to be falsified. The simulated simulators report having seen a real simulation in there, they remember having confirmed it, but really it’s just reports and memories.
(note, at this point, in 2020, I don’t think the accounting of compat adds up. Basically this implies that we can’t get more measure than we spend by trading up.)
You don’t seem to have understood. I don’t mean “nested simulations are easier to simulate than lifeless galaxies too far from the subjects of the simulation to require any precision”, drifting matter is irrelevant. I mean that nested simulations are probably easier to simulate than scores of post-singularity citizens running on a diverse mind emulation (or mind extension) hardware cavorting around with compound sensors of millions of parts. But you wouldn’t address that, so perhaps you don’t disagree.
If you’re just arguing that modelling an expanding post-singularity civilization would be more expensive than modelling clouds of gasses, my response would be yes, of course. It’s conceivable that some compat simulations switch into rapture mode before a post-singularity civilization can be allowed to reach a certain size. We wont know whether we’re in such a cost-constrained simulation until we hit that limit. Compat would require the limit to happen after a certain adjudication period has passed. If we wake up in pleasant but approximate dreamscapes one day, before having ever built or committed to building a single resimulation farm, you could say compat would be falsified.