Your first question is different depending on some things. If you play the lottery for the usual reason (because people are irrational and cannot do math) then it is safe to say that you will not only be better off not doing any updating if you magically end up in the winners’ pool, but you probabilistically have no idea what Bayes’ theorem is. This is me looking at you, hypothetical irrational person.
However, if you buy a lottery ticket in order to test whether you’re in a simulation, then you have to consider that one of four things is true:
You are not in a simulation.
You are in a simulation, and the simulators do not want you to know. In which case, do not bet on being able to find out. But it brings up more questions, like why are we able to talk about simulations at all?
You are in a simulation, and the simulators do want you to know. In which case, why use something esoteric like lotteries? It’s an antiprediction that it would be something other than a lottery, like an angel appearing in your bedroom and telling you himself, or something.
You are in a simulation, and the simulators want sufficiently clever people to be able to figure out they’re in a simulation.
Something I haven’t thought of. I always include these on my lists but I never think about them because it’s a tautology that I have not done so.
I think #4 is the only interesting possibility, so it might make sense to buy one lottery ticket, but that’s not really very clever as tests go. I wouldn’t recommend more than that, though; they’re addicting. You could also attempt to perform private miracles to see if they work, though that’s even less clever. I admit to having done this.
But it brings up more questions, like why are we able to talk about simulations at all?
Because things are connected, and to make humans unable to talk or conceive of simulations would require great changes to the simulated history in many other places.
In the scenario where future humans are running the sim to simulate their own (exact or approximate) past history, simulated humans have to know and talk about simulations, because they are simulating the original humans who proceeded to build simulations!
6 You are in a simulation, and the simulators care much more about accuracy and non-intervention than about if you can figure out you’re in a simulation or not, as long as you cant convince the general public of it.
I see you as arguing that the probability of winning the lottery still seems to be low, even in “strange worlds” (like simulations). I agree. It just seems to be much higher, which is what we need. The physical probability of me selecting the winning numbers is several orders of magnitude smaller than the seeming ‘mental salience’ of the possibility; and the mental salience is a much better estimate of the odds if the universe is ‘fundamentally mental’ (ie, a simulation put together by intelligent beings, or other related strange possibilities).
So, it still seems to be an excellent test; if we buy a ticket and win, we can conclude that we are in a simulation (or other ‘strange world’).
I don’t think abramdemski was referring to a “generic” simulation, as if you were running the laws of physics in a computer, and it happens that consciousness arose in the world (like replicators arise in a Game of Life). Or anything like that.
I said “holodeck”, if I got the concept well, then in the real world there is a player, and only one, who is running through a simulation, where he is a PC, while all others are non-self-aware NPC. And in this scenario, the player doesn’t want it to be clear that he is inside a simulation (in most CRPG there is no in-game evidence that it is just a game, only very few do), but on the other hand, he does want unusual things to happen to him—like winning at the lottery. Even if the sheer luck of the PC is suspicious—like it is in most games and movies.
So the hypothesis “I am in fact a player who is controlling the PC in a game, in which the scenario is that the PC gains the lottery and then can have fun with the money” does make sense. And indeed, if you had a >10^-8 chance of it being true, after winning the lottery, you should have a decent chance of it being true.
But I don’t think a 10^-8 prior is really that low for such a scenario. You’ve a lot of “and” in it, and each “and” does a multiplication of the probabilities...
But I don’t think a 10^-8 prior is really that low for such a scenario. You’ve a lot of “and” in it, and each “and” does a multiplication of the probabilities...
Well, maybe… I suppose it’s “difficult to estimate”. My intuition is that there will be some “strange possibilities” which make the probability of winning the lottery much higher. But maybe those particular “strange possibilities” have a prior probability significantly lower than 10^-8, since we have to pick them out of the space of possible “strange possibilities”...
Your first question is different depending on some things. If you play the lottery for the usual reason (because people are irrational and cannot do math) then it is safe to say that you will not only be better off not doing any updating if you magically end up in the winners’ pool, but you probabilistically have no idea what Bayes’ theorem is. This is me looking at you, hypothetical irrational person.
However, if you buy a lottery ticket in order to test whether you’re in a simulation, then you have to consider that one of four things is true:
You are not in a simulation.
You are in a simulation, and the simulators do not want you to know. In which case, do not bet on being able to find out. But it brings up more questions, like why are we able to talk about simulations at all?
You are in a simulation, and the simulators do want you to know. In which case, why use something esoteric like lotteries? It’s an antiprediction that it would be something other than a lottery, like an angel appearing in your bedroom and telling you himself, or something.
You are in a simulation, and the simulators want sufficiently clever people to be able to figure out they’re in a simulation.
Something I haven’t thought of. I always include these on my lists but I never think about them because it’s a tautology that I have not done so.
I think #4 is the only interesting possibility, so it might make sense to buy one lottery ticket, but that’s not really very clever as tests go. I wouldn’t recommend more than that, though; they’re addicting. You could also attempt to perform private miracles to see if they work, though that’s even less clever. I admit to having done this.
Because things are connected, and to make humans unable to talk or conceive of simulations would require great changes to the simulated history in many other places.
In the scenario where future humans are running the sim to simulate their own (exact or approximate) past history, simulated humans have to know and talk about simulations, because they are simulating the original humans who proceeded to build simulations!
6 You are in a simulation, and the simulators care much more about accuracy and non-intervention than about if you can figure out you’re in a simulation or not, as long as you cant convince the general public of it.
I see you as arguing that the probability of winning the lottery still seems to be low, even in “strange worlds” (like simulations). I agree. It just seems to be much higher, which is what we need. The physical probability of me selecting the winning numbers is several orders of magnitude smaller than the seeming ‘mental salience’ of the possibility; and the mental salience is a much better estimate of the odds if the universe is ‘fundamentally mental’ (ie, a simulation put together by intelligent beings, or other related strange possibilities).
So, it still seems to be an excellent test; if we buy a ticket and win, we can conclude that we are in a simulation (or other ‘strange world’).
I don’t think abramdemski was referring to a “generic” simulation, as if you were running the laws of physics in a computer, and it happens that consciousness arose in the world (like replicators arise in a Game of Life). Or anything like that.
I said “holodeck”, if I got the concept well, then in the real world there is a player, and only one, who is running through a simulation, where he is a PC, while all others are non-self-aware NPC. And in this scenario, the player doesn’t want it to be clear that he is inside a simulation (in most CRPG there is no in-game evidence that it is just a game, only very few do), but on the other hand, he does want unusual things to happen to him—like winning at the lottery. Even if the sheer luck of the PC is suspicious—like it is in most games and movies.
So the hypothesis “I am in fact a player who is controlling the PC in a game, in which the scenario is that the PC gains the lottery and then can have fun with the money” does make sense. And indeed, if you had a >10^-8 chance of it being true, after winning the lottery, you should have a decent chance of it being true.
But I don’t think a 10^-8 prior is really that low for such a scenario. You’ve a lot of “and” in it, and each “and” does a multiplication of the probabilities...
Well, maybe… I suppose it’s “difficult to estimate”. My intuition is that there will be some “strange possibilities” which make the probability of winning the lottery much higher. But maybe those particular “strange possibilities” have a prior probability significantly lower than 10^-8, since we have to pick them out of the space of possible “strange possibilities”...