For some reason you seem to be categorizing the belief-space such that there is a little pocket called Jehovah-ism over here and then simulationism is another distinct island far far away.
The way I see it, theism is a whole vast space of belief-space, roughly dividing from the split based on the question: was the observable universe created by an agenty-process?
The SA leads us into that side of the belief-space, but the type of Jehova-ism you mention is just a little slice of a large territory.
The two may branch in the same direction from that question, but that doesn’t mean that their consequences are remotely similar. You seem to be substituting in cached thoughts from religion as the consequences of simulationism when they really don’t follow from it.
Such as the morality of the simulators having any relation to our own. It would be much easier to simulate a universe from big bang conditions starting with a few basic rules and allow it to evolve from on its own than to deliberately engineer any sort of life forms within it, and the basic rules of our universe do not dictate that any intelligent life form needs a utility function that closely resembles our own.
Assuming it would even be practical for the simulators to single us out for observation, as such a miniscule part of the simulation, and they judge us according to their own utility function, it’s a big leap to suppose that they would do anything about it with repercussions inside our own universe, so for our purposes it probably wouldn’t matter.
Additionally, it’s not established that the simulators would have practical control over the simulation. Given JoshuaZ’s arguments, I concede that it’s theoretically possible that the simulators could predict the output of the simulation in advance without running it, but that doesn’t mean it’s probable, let alone given.
I suspect that a full universe simulation of all of space-time, fifteen billion years of an entire universe, may have a cost complexity such that it could never be realized in any currently conceivable computer due to speed of light limitations. Even a galaxy sized black hole may not be sufficient. You are talking about a Tipler-like scenario that would probably require some massive re-engineering of the entire universe. I can’t rule this out, but from what I’ve read of astrophysicist’s reactions, it is questionable whether it is possible even in principle to collapse the universe in the fashion required. (Tipler figures it requires tachyons in his later response writings)
So no, that would not be much easier to simulate—it would be vastly more difficult, and may not even be possible in principle.
The more likely simulation is one run by our posthuman ancestors after a local Singularity on earth, where they have a massive amount of computation, enough to simulate perhaps a galaxy or galaxies full of virtual humans, but not the entire history of our universe. We must remember that they will want to simulate many possible samples as well. They will also probably simulate hypothetical aliens and hypothetical contact scenarios. Basically they will simulate future important sample time-slices.
Today humanity as a whole spends a large amount of time thinking about the present, slightly alternate versions of the present, historical time heavily weighted based on importance, and projected futures. We already are engaging in the limited creation of simulated realities. The phenomenon has already begun, it started with dreams, language, thought and is more recently amplified with computer simulation and graphics, and just chart that trajectory out into the future and amplify it by an exponential vastening . . . .
This is not the ordinary simulation argument, or even closely related to it. The proposition that you reject, that our universe is simulable in its entirety, is one of the premises of that argument.
I for one strongly predict that our future ancestors will never create a galaxy or multiple galaxies of virtual humans from their own past. It’s ethically dubious, and far, far from being one of the most useful things they could do with that computing power if they simply want to determine the likely outcome of various contact scenarios or the what hypothetical aliens would be like. By the time we’re capable of it, it simply wouldn’t have much to recommend it as an idea.
For some reason you seem to be categorizing the belief-space such that there is a little pocket called Jehovah-ism over here and then simulationism is another distinct island far far away.
The way I see it, theism is a whole vast space of belief-space, roughly dividing from the split based on the question: was the observable universe created by an agenty-process?
The SA leads us into that side of the belief-space, but the type of Jehova-ism you mention is just a little slice of a large territory.
The two may branch in the same direction from that question, but that doesn’t mean that their consequences are remotely similar. You seem to be substituting in cached thoughts from religion as the consequences of simulationism when they really don’t follow from it.
Such as?
Such as the morality of the simulators having any relation to our own. It would be much easier to simulate a universe from big bang conditions starting with a few basic rules and allow it to evolve from on its own than to deliberately engineer any sort of life forms within it, and the basic rules of our universe do not dictate that any intelligent life form needs a utility function that closely resembles our own.
Assuming it would even be practical for the simulators to single us out for observation, as such a miniscule part of the simulation, and they judge us according to their own utility function, it’s a big leap to suppose that they would do anything about it with repercussions inside our own universe, so for our purposes it probably wouldn’t matter.
Additionally, it’s not established that the simulators would have practical control over the simulation. Given JoshuaZ’s arguments, I concede that it’s theoretically possible that the simulators could predict the output of the simulation in advance without running it, but that doesn’t mean it’s probable, let alone given.
I suspect that a full universe simulation of all of space-time, fifteen billion years of an entire universe, may have a cost complexity such that it could never be realized in any currently conceivable computer due to speed of light limitations. Even a galaxy sized black hole may not be sufficient. You are talking about a Tipler-like scenario that would probably require some massive re-engineering of the entire universe. I can’t rule this out, but from what I’ve read of astrophysicist’s reactions, it is questionable whether it is possible even in principle to collapse the universe in the fashion required. (Tipler figures it requires tachyons in his later response writings)
So no, that would not be much easier to simulate—it would be vastly more difficult, and may not even be possible in principle.
The more likely simulation is one run by our posthuman ancestors after a local Singularity on earth, where they have a massive amount of computation, enough to simulate perhaps a galaxy or galaxies full of virtual humans, but not the entire history of our universe. We must remember that they will want to simulate many possible samples as well. They will also probably simulate hypothetical aliens and hypothetical contact scenarios. Basically they will simulate future important sample time-slices.
Today humanity as a whole spends a large amount of time thinking about the present, slightly alternate versions of the present, historical time heavily weighted based on importance, and projected futures. We already are engaging in the limited creation of simulated realities. The phenomenon has already begun, it started with dreams, language, thought and is more recently amplified with computer simulation and graphics, and just chart that trajectory out into the future and amplify it by an exponential vastening . . . .
This is not the ordinary simulation argument, or even closely related to it. The proposition that you reject, that our universe is simulable in its entirety, is one of the premises of that argument.
I for one strongly predict that our future ancestors will never create a galaxy or multiple galaxies of virtual humans from their own past. It’s ethically dubious, and far, far from being one of the most useful things they could do with that computing power if they simply want to determine the likely outcome of various contact scenarios or the what hypothetical aliens would be like. By the time we’re capable of it, it simply wouldn’t have much to recommend it as an idea.