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.)
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.)