Post AtYJhuHVT7cnMOb3Gy by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
(DIR) More posts by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
(DIR) Post #AtY6nQWji0WtPc1Qdk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T12:04:36Z
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The physical infrastructure required to support an excellent simulation of (and for) human minds is nontrivial. The computers, the memory and the processing power, the cooling and electrical systems would need to be extensive. Consider a simulation of a small town: would it be in any way more efficient than simply building the actual town? To suggest that it is means a simulated reality can compress the world and this implies lossines. 1/
(DIR) Post #AtY7OBSGi267NiSXa4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T12:11:14Z
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If our small town has bus stops maybe all of the signs are identical assets. Maybe the AI for all of the squirrels is largely identical— and perhaps you only have one species not two, use the same fleas for all the mammals- vastly reduce the number of fungi and variety of bacteria— ultimately it’s about the range of people you’d need to fool. Running less than fully realized people is the biggest risk. Less than fully realized stoneflies, or just not having stoneflies at all? less so. 2/
(DIR) Post #AtY7o8gPdaS2JWS3Vo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T12:15:53Z
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When writing fiction about simulations I struggle with the question of — weight. It’s easy to make a reader feel like a whole world doesn’t matter if it can be copied endlessly and stored on a stick disk- but that’s kind of my point here: a really good simulation couldn’t be easily copied. And it would take up space, buildings filled with machines, it would be substantial beyond the totality of the current internet. And that would make it valuable and important to those who live within it. 3/3
(DIR) Post #AtY899twIsUWAnnkzw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T12:19:44Z
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I would notice if you didn’t have stoneflies. And their existence and complexity are the thing that convinces me no one made the world as a simulation. You could save so much memory and processing power by leaving them out.
(DIR) Post #AtY8Rml0ZocztZVQvo by graydon@canada.masto.host
2025-04-28T12:23:04Z
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@futurebird The whole point to "the universe is a simulation" or "we would upload our brains into a simulation" or whatever is not that it's practical (not even a little; the word you haven't used yet is "resolution") but that if this could be done, someone with sufficient access could exercise arbitrary power.Living in a simulation is a fantasy of god-like power, it's not a plausible goal. (It's maybe a fantasy of agency or an enably story for authoritarians, too.)
(DIR) Post #AtY8WaRplmMBAOpKPw by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T12:23:56Z
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@futurebird in the simulation there is only one bug: Potemkinoides potemkinensis , instatiated a billion times with textures randomly selected from about 40 variants.
(DIR) Post #AtY9WdWSREsKelZqDo by Burn_this_@beige.party
2025-04-28T12:35:08Z
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@futurebird Maybe they are an Easter egg.
(DIR) Post #AtYBBq7ua6PlZgJ5rk by asakiyume@wandering.shop
2025-04-28T12:53:43Z
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@futurebird Right: it's like a book that records everything that happens. The book ends up being a duplicate of the world.
(DIR) Post #AtYFFlWm1Pq2Hn3zZw by mansr@society.oftrolls.com
2025-04-28T13:39:18Z
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@futurebird Maybe there are no stoneflies, only simulated memories of them.
(DIR) Post #AtYFsHmyWVhpLZ0eMy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T13:46:16Z
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One way to simulate a much larger number of people would be to re-use the core emotional and decision-making capabilities of people to run multiple parallel individuals in different contexts. So you wouldn’t be just one person but several hundred variations of the same basic person helping to make realistic decisions for all of your many avatars in different countries and contexts. If any of these diverged too much it might be necessary to give them separate emotional/personality files.
(DIR) Post #AtYGDSLOTUnyAFCfAW by trochee@dair-community.social
2025-04-28T13:50:04Z
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@futurebirdOne Must Consider Truman Happy
(DIR) Post #AtYGIyO2lg8QzV4bmS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T13:51:08Z
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Of course, if personalities and circumstances were sufficiently similar these processes could be merged. The question is what this might feel like for these agents. Assuming such changes would happen when the people were sleeping it might not be noticeable. But I’m in that controversial camp that regards breaks in consciousnesses as instantiating a new individual. Strictly speaking you exist until you sleep or lose focus. Then when you gain focus you are a new individual.
(DIR) Post #AtYGYYVYki7xMY1Fbs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T13:53:58Z
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You may take care of yourself and plan for the future but you do that for a very similar person to yourself that you will never really meet or know. But it’s easy to want that best for that future person, you know them better than anyone else ever will. But you? This instance of you reading this nonsense on the internet right now? You will only exist for a few hours at best. Make the most of it!
(DIR) Post #AtYGsw9yWbuOVddrSC by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T13:57:39Z
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@futurebird looking back on my twenties, I often think I ought to write an essay titled _On Setting Yourself On Fire To Keep Future You Warm_ , but I think instead I'll eat 2nd breakfast and take a nap.
(DIR) Post #AtYHEwtsS95hAzbmN6 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T14:01:35Z
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This also explains why creating new habits is so difficult, and such a powerful thing to master. It’s collaborative work between your past and future selves. You reinforce memories that help to create the actions you want, minimize those that lead you in the wrong direction. Place the tools and materials needed for the work you care about in easy reach and hide the things that waste your time. You have no idea what future-you may do, but you can make a path for that person to follow.
(DIR) Post #AtYHH6IGV2cot92dLk by Myoldpiano@mastodon.online
2025-04-28T14:01:59Z
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@futurebird A good cup of tea or even certain foods may result in this transformation as well, to varying degrees. Yet people around you expect continuity, some predictability.
(DIR) Post #AtYHZstkWmEmqTX0Nc by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-04-28T14:05:24Z
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And it’s possible and valid to be angry with those past versions of yourself if they have left you faced with an unrealistic stack of work and no time to enjoy life at all. Sometimes an instance of the self will rebel and ignore the program and get nothing done at all. Sometimes you choose a life of pure sacrifice. This instance of me has never felt the sun, she has only the memory of others— all she has done is grade papers and scoop cat litter.
(DIR) Post #AtYHefD8qNcxqKsfhY by castanea_jo@ni.hil.ist
2025-04-28T14:06:13Z
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@futurebird I feel like Dark City explored your latter point to great dramatic effect
(DIR) Post #AtYHtH7ShLPhT5BvdI by TobyBartels@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-28T14:08:47Z
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@futurebirdI saw this one first out of context and my first reaction was that a few hours is pretty generous. Looking back, I see that you're claiming that identity is retained while I'm awake as long as I maintain ‘focus’? I don't know, I don't think that the version of me that first read this post would agree.
(DIR) Post #AtYIHh6liwS31MVkkS by MolluskGoneBad@mastodon.social
2025-04-28T14:13:17Z
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@futurebird Not sure I'm completely sold on clean break, but I think a lot about how remembering is some kind of reconstruction and oft-remembered things probably bear the traces of each reconstruction.
(DIR) Post #AtYIlMLvSOHFKukKBs by jollyorc@social.5f9.de
2025-04-28T14:18:36Z
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@futurebird fun fact: I have to take medication every morning.And I had the routine down pat: Get up, give pill to cat, feed cat, take pill myself, shower, start day.And guess what, when the cat died in January (at the ripe age of 20 years and 9 months), the habit got broken. Without the cue of feeding the cat, I forgot the medication for nearly a whole week, until I got the habit tweaked.. :/
(DIR) Post #AtYJNIaRuFPaf3d8Mq by australopithecus@mastodon.social
2025-04-28T14:25:30Z
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@futurebird For entropy reasons, any simulation must have *more* simulating states than simulated states. Therefore the infrastructure for a simulation of the entire universe would be larger (or at least contain more information) than the entire universe.Now, leaving aside the plausibility concerns, that is not something that could occur without, as you say, a lot of people caring about it.
(DIR) Post #AtYJT181jGbyFi3wqu by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-28T14:26:32Z
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@futurebird here, one of the reasons "Severance" struck a chord
(DIR) Post #AtYJbBbGgCer2vdRgG by MishaVanMollusq@sfba.social
2025-04-28T14:28:01Z
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@futurebird that’s because the world is a bad dream that Azathoth is having.
(DIR) Post #AtYJdKDRcLcyLYVnVo by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-28T14:28:26Z
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@futurebird the extreme case is more or less the Buddhist concept of anatman, that even a continuous self is an illusion.
(DIR) Post #AtYJhuHVT7cnMOb3Gy by MichaelTBacon@social.coop
2025-04-28T14:29:12Z
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@futurebird This is another one of those places that I find the "new materialisms" like actor-network theory so helpful. The self is constructed by the body and mind but also by the human and non-human actors that shape your physical and social environment. Those actors arrive in the present from a range distances and times, and are very non-trivial to alter.It also explains why altering habits often requires altering your material environment.
(DIR) Post #AtYOWhw7WgLJet4YzY by redpy5@sunbeam.city
2025-04-28T15:23:13Z
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@futurebird I feel bad for that dude that keeps getting woken up for the sole purpose of using the bathroom every night. Short-lived grumpy life, but at least there is that relief at the end before ending their existence by tucking themselves back in to bed.Maybe I should take measures to not create that person tonight before I tuck myself into bed to end my existence 🤔
(DIR) Post #AtYks887X3qFy9J13A by dan613@ottawa.place
2025-04-28T19:33:34Z
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@futurebird I once did a rough calculation for the memory required for persistent simulation for 8 billion people, and it was the size of a small moon, with one atom per bit, and assuming no communications infrastructure (eg external read/write). You could use an algorithm to create a planet with plants, a la Minecraft, but every change by a human must be remembered.