[HN Gopher] I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibili...
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I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
Author : pdkl95
Score : 363 points
Date : 2021-02-20 06:13 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (qntm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (qntm.org)
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| If everything is simulated, and there is infinite number of
| simulated realities, as simulation is only reflection of possible
| reality - then maybe what is simulated continues to live in
| reality regardless of being switched off as just infinite number
| of realities that exist always at the same time.
| laumars wrote:
| A speculative execution bug? I like the sound of that.
|
| Another HN once theorised / joked that the speed of light was
| the maximum value an integer could store and planks length was
| the smallest floating point number.
| mywacaday wrote:
| Thanks for the laugh. How accurately could we simulate
| physics/a universe if we simplified some of the constant
| values like how the fundamental particles behave. Not a
| physicist or a mathematician so be gentle if it's absolute
| cod's wallop.
| Smaug123 wrote:
| That's pretty similar to Tegmark's mathematical universe
| theory, by the way, if you hadn't heard of it.
| wcoenen wrote:
| This idea is close to the idea of modal realism: all possible
| worlds are real to their inhabitants, in the same way that our
| world is real to us. No substrate required.
|
| It's still fun to think how simulations or other types of
| "nesting" interacts with modal realism. E.g. maybe there is an
| "Occam's razor" type of effect where we should expect to find
| ourselves in a world with the simplest physics that allows
| conscious inhabitants, simply because such worlds have more
| "instances" within other worlds.
| Lerc wrote:
| You could give this somewhat of a horror ending by having the
| characters realise, after figuring out the implication of turning
| the simulation off, that the top level would not have had the
| black sphere appear and as such would have no reason to keep
| their simulation running and were about to turn it off.
| [deleted]
| curiousllama wrote:
| Of course - why do you think the story ended?
| [deleted]
| Chris2048 wrote:
| But if they did turn it off, when they turned it back again
| everything that was there before would be back, including the
| memory of having turned it off.
|
| Other than the realisation they they had periodically ceased to
| exist (or only existed since they last turned it on..) there
| wouldn't be a great difference.
|
| That said, the black sphere would cause the "top" to diverge
| anyway at that point, wouldn't it? So it'not really in their
| control..
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| You don't 'turn it off'. Its a simulation. They run it over any
| part of the timeline of the universe, any time they like. It's
| all there, all the time. The query of the quantum database
| doesn't create or erase the database.
| staticman2 wrote:
| The story itself says they need to be careful not to turn it
| off. Also a database isn't conscous but the simulated
| entities seem to be.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Uh. Don't know how to respond to that. Sure 'the story
| says', but that means 'the author wrote a character to
| say...'. I'm saying different. Because I read the story,
| and am responding to what it said.
| MereInterest wrote:
| True, but they also could just as easily exit debug mode and
| allow the simulated universe to run to completion. It costs
| them nothing to do so, and gives the simulated universe a full
| lifetime. That changes the story from horror to a question of
| empathy.
| konjin wrote:
| They did, but because you have infinite computing power all the
| lower levels completed the simulation in the time it took to
| shut down.
| RootKitBeerCat wrote:
| So did Devs just rip this off?
| tucnak wrote:
| Deffo.
| ctrlp wrote:
| Good lord the prose is gawd awful. Almost parody levels of
| tediousness.
| wging wrote:
| I don't quite agree, but this is very early qntm. You might
| appreciate his later work.
|
| https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
| lmarcos wrote:
| Something I have been thinking about related to this story: we,
| as humans, will never know what reality is (not just "our"
| reality as in "our" universe, but "everything"). You either a)
| have to accept the idea of infinite as in realities have always
| existed and have bootstrapped inner realities with time. They
| never "were created", they just "always existed". So whenever we
| get to know the details of reality N, we don't know yet 100% what
| reality N-1 is about (we may have an idea, a theory, but just
| that). We would never reach to understand/experience reality 0.
|
| Or b) you don't accept the idea of "infinite" and you think
| everything has one single beginning, one original "big bang" that
| bootstrapped everything and that nothing ever existed before that
| moment, not even time. But as humans I don't think our brains are
| wired in a way to understand "there was nothing before
| something", we will always ask ourselves "what is the cause of
| that?".
| Schiphol wrote:
| This is Kant's [first antinomy of pure reason]
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies)
| lmarcos wrote:
| Thanks for the link!
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _But as humans I don 't think our brains are wired in a way
| to understand "there was nothing before something", we will
| always ask ourselves "what is the cause of that?"._
|
| Parmenides would like a word:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_comes_from_nothing
|
| One also has to ask " _what keeps reality /realities
| existing?_". Why doesn't everything simply just go _poof_ into
| non-existence?
|
| Aristotle (and Thomas Aquinas, in this Second Way):
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas)#Secunda_Vi...
|
| argue that there must be an Uncaused Cause. Not a "cause" in
| the temporal sense of a first domino knocking over a second,
| third, _etc_ , starting with the Big Bang; but rather like Yo-
| Yo Ma playing his cello causing music. What is the cello player
| of reality that is causing the reality that we perceive?
|
| Whatever said entity is, it itself cannot be caused by
| something else, as you get into an infinite regress.
| mannykannot wrote:
| This conclusion requires, as an independent postulate, the
| premise that there cannot be infinite regress, which, if
| asserted without independent justification, amounts to
| begging the question.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > If every constituent member of that order is causally
| dependent on something prior to itself, then it appears
| that the order in question must consist of an infinite
| chain of causes. Yet Aquinas denies this implication
| (fourth premise): if the causal order is infinite, then
| (obviously) there could be no first cause. But without a
| first cause, then (necessarily) there could be no
| subsequent effects--including the intermediate efficient
| causes and ultimate effect (ST Ia 2.3). In other words, the
| absence of a first cause would imply an absence of the
| causal order we observe. But since this implication is
| manifestly false, he says, there must be a first cause, "to
| which everyone gives the name God" (Ibid.).
|
| * https://iep.utm.edu/aq-ph-th/#SH2b
| mannykannot wrote:
| > But without a first cause, then (necessarily) there
| could be no subsequent effects.
|
| This is where there seems to be a somewhat subtle implied
| premise, as the most one can say about necessity here is
| that without a first cause, then either there could be no
| subsequent effects or there is an infinite causal
| regress.
|
| And regardless of that, this argument tells us nothing
| about what sort of first cause there might be, so when
| Aquinas says "to which everyone gives the name God", he's
| just winging it, in that just about everyone's notion of
| God has some specific characteristics.
|
| The use of "manifestly", and appeals to plausibility,
| intuition or convention such as "to which everyone..."
| are something of a tell: when philosophers resort to such
| language, we know they cannot prove that they have a
| sound argument.
|
| These sort of arguments are quite entertaining to
| discuss, but Alvin Plantinga, for one, is under no
| illusion that they actually prove the existence of God.
| leephillips wrote:
| We do have uncaused causes, but they are not God. They
| are fundamental processes such as radioactive decay,
| which occur in any particular interval of time with a
| certain probability, but have no cause. Sorry, Aquinas.
| seqizz wrote:
| But isn't "reality", in this usage, enforces the idea of always
| having the N-1? Suppose you can jump between realities (duh)
| and you've found the reality 0 by asking the right questions on
| every step, what would be the first question to ask there?
|
| Edit: Just to support that I am on 2nd solution :)
| lmarcos wrote:
| > what would be the first question to ask there?
|
| I would ask: what originated reality 0. If the answer is
| "something" then reality 0 is not reality 0. If the answer is
| "nothing. It existed since ever" then I would be dissatisfied
| because my brain cannot conceive that.
| julianpye wrote:
| Lovely story. I once wrote a small medium piece on how it would
| be great if coders of simulations incorporate
| spirituality/religion that would be fair to the objects in the
| simulation. It included Java code - because as buggy as the
| Universe is, it surely is written in Java.
| https://medium.com/@photodiary/implementing-religion-in-ai-l...
| ur-whale wrote:
| What if the double-slit experiment is nothing but a bug in the
| simulator's code ?
|
| If so: either we found an exploit or we're building an entire
| complex theory (QM) to explain a mistake ...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >If so: either we found an exploit or we're building an entire
| complex theory (QM) to explain a mistake
|
| The complex theory correctly predicts real world behavior,
| nothing changes from our perspective if it's some kind of bug.
| throwanem wrote:
| Something might if the bug were fixed. All our electronics
| would just be inert silicon, for one thing. Probably also
| several very important metabolic processes wouldn't work any
| more.
|
| This begs for a sequel to "They're Made out of Meat". You
| know the thing about tabs in Makefiles, how by the time he
| realized they were a misfeature he already had ten users and
| didn't feel like he could do that kind of breaking change?
| rebuilder wrote:
| At that point, I'd argue it's not a bug, it's a feature.
| hnedeotes wrote:
| Imagine being the one assigned to that ticket
| jamesgreenleaf wrote:
| What if uncertainty is just a kludge added to prevent multiple
| particles from occupying the same place at the same instant?
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Nicely written, I was reading as fast as possible to see how the
| story will develop. It's a well known theme and there are
| numerous similar stories, but this one had a nice human touch.
|
| Thanks OP for making us aware of the great site (qnrm.org) since
| it has many other short stories.
| abellerose wrote:
| I don't really understand the ending. Turning the simulation off
| could in a way be the morally right decision. Depends on how you
| think about suffering in the simulation. Some will suffer and
| what about them? That's why I think it's better to shut off the
| simulation.
| hello-there wrote:
| If you liked this story you should definetly check out the TV
| show DEVS[1]. It's very well produced and good performance. I
| loved it.
|
| [1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/
| blueblisters wrote:
| I think the simulation theory posits a fascination of people to
| simulate ancestral experiences. But I would find it equally
| (perhaps more) fascinating to simulate random universes with
| random initial conditions and stochastic physics and see what
| happens. Or put another way, if we are in a simulation, I see no
| reason not to consider the possibility that the entity simulating
| us is doing it just for science.
| morelisp wrote:
| Yes, the original simulation hypothesis was phrased in terms of
| a trilemma, one of which seems like it must be true (plus the
| uncertain base assumption that a simulation of sentience is
| sentient):
|
| - The fraction of posthuman civilizations capable of running
| high-fidelity ancestor simulations is very close to zero
|
| - The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested
| in running simulations of their evolutionary history, or
| variations thereof, is very close to zero
|
| - The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that
| are living in a simulation is very close to one.
|
| For a certain kind of person who is also the most likely to
| engage with the hypothesis 3) is the most exciting, so it got
| the most attention. I think 1) and 2) are more probable and at
| least as worthy of deep consideration.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I really badly need tl;dr -
|
| How can each simulated universe be the same as the one above an
| below? Why can't they diverge? If they turn off their universe
| (killing all those below) why would that turn off the one above?
|
| Or is it just hope that if you don't the one above won't ?
| Because while all decisions are possible we make thrones in our
| self interest because we hope everyone else is playing the same
| game.
| l33tman wrote:
| It's because the story is about super-determinism; the
| simulated universes below are simulated identically to the one
| they are in, and statistically they are just one in the middle
| in that "pillar". So if they decide to destructively interfere
| with the universe below, all the others in the pillar will have
| the same idea including the ones above.
| varajelle wrote:
| But if they intervene, it is no longer the same universe.
|
| Even if they are in the middle of many levels of simulation,
| it might not be just one line, but more like an infinite
| tree.
|
| There could be someone in the next room also simulating the
| universe, or they could simulate the universe again 5 minutes
| later, this time without intervening. (Like I wrote in
| another comment)
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| oh. not free will. ok I get it.
|
| Of course super determinist asteroids become worrying. Or can
| they adjust those ? If you can interfere can you interfere to
| produce "good" outcomes ? Steer asteroids away?
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > Of course super determinist asteroids become worrying. Or
| can they adjust those?
|
| Yes, but not on the highest level. :(
|
| So it depends on whether they can simulate the future, and
| whether someone up the ladder will be nice enough to
| simulate enough future (with the asteroids deflected) for
| those below them before they (the ones up the ladder) get
| killed.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| But if the lab at the top end c the ladder gets wiped
| out, does it matter how much simulation is already done
| (assuming constant time - oh now they have infinite
| computing ... oh never mind :/)
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| Very interesting story. After reading a few thoughts came to
| mind:
|
| 1. I don't agree with the "midpoint stability" argument. Since
| these are simulations - the real one is on the top, but there is
| no "bottom simulation", since every simulation below is also
| running a simulation. Hence there is no stable middle point -
| since there is no middle in the first place.
|
| 2. About simulating the future. It seems quite obvious that,
| since everything is based on determinism, they cannot look at the
| future and change something so that the future they observe is no
| longer the case. Hence the only possible future they could look
| at would be that which they wouldn't want to change in any way.
| Which is really an interesting idea. But furthermore - when they
| look into the future (say) 100 years from now - the simulation
| they are seeing would be the one which already "looked" into the
| future. So the act of looking must have a profound effect - it
| has to order the future so, that whoever is looking at it would
| not be able to change it, because: 1) if you can change it then
| determinism falls apart, and so the whole premise of simulation,
| and 2) if you would decide to change it then, within the future
| you see in the simulation, that change has already taken place.
| [deleted]
| gus_massa wrote:
| About 1: There are some recursions that after some iterations
| approach a stable cycle, in the most simple cases it can be a
| cycle of length 2, like A -> B -> A -> B -> ... but there are
| longer cycles, and in some cases no cycles at all. This example
| has a lot of possible behaviors changing the parameter r
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_map
| mannykannot wrote:
| I don't think there are any causal cycles here - I don't
| think a simulation can have a causal effect in the sumulation
| (or real world) which launched it. Even though the simulator
| can observe the simulated, which might seem to provide a
| channel for communication, the latter cannot do anything that
| was not determined by the rules set up by the simulator.
| JadeNB wrote:
| Events in the physical world cannot do anything that was
| not determined by the laws of physics, and yet they affect
| the rest of the physical world.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Fair point - I suppose that, for example, a simulation
| runner could make a note of something that occurred in
| her simulation, and that would count as a causal effect
| on the simulating world from the simulated one.
|
| I still feel, however, that the story's requirement, that
| the simulated world mirrors the simulating world (except
| when the latter is the real world), depends on the
| physics of the real world (and its simulations) being
| maximally deterministic (in that everything that is
| possible happens with probability 1) or else the
| butterfly effect will cause them all to diverge quite
| rapidly. But with that level of determinancy, there is no
| need for a feedback mechanism to achieve "midpoint
| stability" - there is no possibility of divergence from
| the already-determined future.
| ro_bit wrote:
| Now I'm curious how the behavior of the people in the "first"
| universe, unencumbered by the idea of how affecting the machine's
| reality would affect their own reality, is different from the
| behavior of the people we see.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| Well, as the simulations run and are interfered with, the
| higher up simulations will diverge more and more from those
| lower down. An interesting direction this could go in would be
| if eventually a low-level universe created a person who was
| needed in a higher universe. Then we could have avatars being
| created in higher up universes to enable simulated beings to
| interact, perhaps even up to the top level...
| AaronFriel wrote:
| I imagine that they couldn't be perfectly confident that they
| weren't just far enough away from the fixed point that their
| universe was the same as the one they observed.
|
| A sort of a Roko's Basilisk, except with an omnipresent dread
| that they might be say, the 2nd or 3rd universe and the first
| just hadn't messed with them yet.
|
| If they do anything that scares or abhors the people above,
| they could be turned off. Maybe they're not even sure if the
| people above them are waiting to see if they only benevolently
| observe the universe below them.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > If they do anything that scares or abhors the people above,
| they could be turned off.
|
| But maybe also if they are too boring. :(
| ro_bit wrote:
| That makes sense. Anyone not living close to the "asymptote"
| of universe generations can't prove that they're in a
| simulation, but they can't prove they aren't either. Maybe
| each of those universes keeps trying to simulate an infinite
| number of slightly varied universes in the hopes of
| simulating their progenitors, making an infinite amount of
| uncertainty and suffering in their attempts.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| I've been hoping someone would fill the shoes of Ian M Banks.
| QNTM is probably some of my favorite fiction in the same vein.
| Lena https://qntm.org/mmacevedo in particular deals with some
| very frightening ramifications of brain simulation. Just running
| a simulated mind through a deterministic "Red" (ie: torture)
| script to prep it for the work you need it to do is frightening.
|
| Jeph Jacques of QC fame did Alice Gove which was a good Banks
| like comic. https://www.questionablecontent.net/alice1.html
|
| I also read quite a bit of Kris Schnee's work
| https://www.amazon.com/Kris-Schnee/e/B00IY1HDDY his earlier
| Thousand Tales novels I think deal with early brain scanning
| issues well. IE: Flatbed scanning a living brain.
| Zanni wrote:
| Okay, this is wonderful, but there's an obvious, nagging question
| that hasn't been addressed--what happens if they run the
| simulation _ahead_ of present time? We know they have fine-grain
| control over the speed of the simulation. There 's no actual
| obstacle to running it forward ... except the feedback loop gets
| very weird. I want to read _that_ story.
| mannykannot wrote:
| The author is being slightly inconsistent, with respect to the
| other premises of the story, in saying there is a feedback
| loop: as it is set up, simulations have no causal power in the
| world running them.
|
| If the top-level 'God' people choose to run the simulation
| faster than real-time, I think we can say that no change will
| be observable anywhere in the simulation stack, except that the
| people in them will feel as though they have chosen to speed up
| their simulation and yet not seen any change in it - which is
| another of the things that will tell that they are in a
| simulation and not at the top level. (Note that, as Diane has
| presumably already said in her paper, free will is definitely
| an illusion in the simulations. I guess it also is at the top-
| level, given that their universe is deterministic to the point
| that it can be simulated to the tiniest detail.)
|
| Now suppose the top-level people choose to run the simulation
| in reverse. Again, I think we can say that nothing will seem to
| change to those in any simulation, because, at any point in the
| reversal, everything, and in particular everyone, will be in
| the same state as they were in the forward pass, which for the
| people includes having the same memories, plans and
| expectations - it will be indistinguisable from an instant in
| forward-running time. They won't even remember that, at some
| point, the clock was reversed, as that was not something in the
| forward simulation's past.
|
| This is where it starts to get interesting: if the clock is
| reversed again and left to run, what will be observed in the
| simulations, and by the top-level people looking at the first-
| level simulation, when the simulations reach the time of the
| original reversal?
|
| Update: I'm leaning towards the view that the top-level
| simulation continues forward in time from this point, and
| observes its simulation go around the loop. In general, the Nth
| simulation goes round the loop N times before proceeding past
| the reversal point, but no simulation observes that it is going
| or has gone around the loop, and therefore cannot determine its
| depth by counting loops.
|
| Alternatively...
|
| The moment the 'camera' appears in a simulation, it has
| diverged from the 'real' world. Now some of its inhabitants
| know they are in a simulation, and so they are not replicating
| what happens in the real world. The butterfly effect will
| likely ensure that the divergence will become general. I think
| this could be undone by sending the simulations around a time
| loop, as then, if my supposition about how these loops play out
| is correct, each simulation will exit the loop in the same
| state as the real world, with no memory of the camera having
| once appeared.
| l33tman wrote:
| And.. what if, when you run it forward ahead of the present
| time, you come to a point where the simulation just crashes and
| you can't simulate ahead of that point no matter what you do?
|
| This is the premise of the tv series Devs. Cool idea but super-
| bad execution, it just devolves into a standard bad-guy hunting
| good-guys with pistols story..
| mannykannot wrote:
| It is a premise of this story that the real universe is
| completely deterministic, so running a simulation ahead
| (which will only be observable in the real world, if my
| analysis in my other post is correct) will merely reveal what
| has already been determined will happen in the real world's
| future, like a completely accurate weather forecast. The
| premises of this story do not permit free will, even in its
| real world.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| In _Permutation City_ , there's a fantastic moment when they
| realise that they can speed the simulation up, but they can't
| slow it down below a certain point, and they work out that
| the reason for this is because _they_ are the ones being
| simulated by what they think of as their simulation. When
| they think they 're speeding it up, they're actually just
| slowing down its simulation of them, and there's no lower
| limit to that, but there is an upper limit to how fast it can
| simulate them.
| Zanni wrote:
| Clearly I need to read _Permutation City_. And watch _Devs_
| , even if it does devolve into action.
| _Donny wrote:
| I do not quite understand how the guys in the simulation can
| determine which level they are at. If L1 universe interferes with
| L2, will the guys in L2 see the divergence in L3? How do they
| determine their own level?
|
| Fantastic story. Will read more from this author!
| swayvil wrote:
| I think it was a rough determination. Given the evidence
| (apparently perfect mirroring behavior between adjacent
| universes) and statistical likelihood, there are probably
| roughly infinite universes above and below us in the stack.
| JZumun wrote:
| It's like a recursive function, where you resolve to stop
| interfering with the lower universe once the upper universe
| stops interfering with you. You run it N times until nothing
| happens in your universe. That means you're N universes deep in
| the stack.
|
| If you run the program once and not observe anything happening,
| that means you know you're top level. Then you resolve to not
| rerun the program.
|
| If you run the program once and observe the black sphere, then
| run it again and not see the black sphere, you know you're
| level 2. You resolve to not rerun the program. And on it goes.
|
| EDIT: box to sphere.
| varajelle wrote:
| But nothing says the function is ran only only once... There
| could be someone in the next room also emulating an universe,
| and not intervening. Or they could emulate the universe 5
| minutes later and say "this time we dont intervene"
| raldi wrote:
| 1. Set n=1
|
| 2. Make the value of n appear in the simulation
|
| 3. If you see that number in yours, increment n and go back to
| Step 2
|
| 4. Else, the number you see is how many simulations down you
| are.
| Nition wrote:
| I think it'd work like this:
|
| Imagine you decide to show a "1" instead of the black sphere.
| You then look behind you. Most likely you see a 1.
|
| Whatever number you see, increment that number by one in the
| next simulation. If you see nothing, congrats, you're at the
| top and leave the number as-is.
|
| So initially what each level sees is behind them is:
| x-1-1-1-1-1
|
| Then after everyone increments by one: x-1-2-2-2-2
|
| Now repeat the step. Everyone looks behind them and increments
| the number they see by one.
|
| x-1-2-3-3-3
|
| Eventually you'll look behind you and the number won't have
| changed. You're at one level higher than that.
|
| If there are millions of levels that'd take ages of course. But
| I think you could use the same idea do it instantly on the
| computer instead. Just have your simulation computer modify a
| number on the simulation computer in the next level down.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| A short film related to this story:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJj_NMhYwf0 (won a BAFTA).
| tobmlt wrote:
| Ian M. Banks novel "surface detail" comes to mind. Please note it
| is better than the tawdry wiki write up.
|
| Somehow, it gets similar points across -- similar to this essay,
| but deeper in feeling.
|
| Let me also say the authors here have done really well with so
| short a format. To paraphrase my toddler son, I want more story!
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I loved Surface Detail. It has my favorite Ship Mind and Class
| in it :)
| kybernetikos wrote:
| These guys now have godlike powers. Most stories that start
| there quickly move to how such power corrupts those who have
| it, or at the very least separate them from their humanity.
| Either that or a government agency figure it out (how? That
| could be interesting) and plays the part of the antagonist /
| devil.
|
| These guys seem nice, and surprisingly already mentioned
| ethical implications early, so their corruption might take
| longer or develop along unexpected paths.
|
| The aspect where exercising various powers requires coding time
| first could lead to some fun race-against-time scenarios. I do
| wish the featureless sphere had been a utah teapot instead.
|
| I think leaving it at that point was the right choice for the
| story. But if I were to speculate what a continuation might
| look like it would involve Diane having planned all this all
| along to put right some tremendous wrong that happened to her
| and she is manipulating Tim in some way.
|
| Ultimately I expect we'd come to the question of whether ten
| billion human brains in vats experiencing continuous ecstasy
| was better than something more like the current world or not.
| konjin wrote:
| >These guys seem nice, and surprisingly already mentioned
| ethical implications early, so their corruption might take
| longer or develop along unexpected paths.
|
| It's hard to treat people below you worse when you know that
| he people above you will do the same thing if you do. It's an
| unstable equilibrium made stable by the fact it's already
| happened.
|
| Put another way, you won't start tap dancing on someones head
| when you're in the middle of an infinite tower of tap dancers
| each standing on another tap dancers head.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| You could treat simulations of other people worse, and the
| simulation of _you_ better. (Assuming you are the guy who
| controls the computer at all levels.)
| FooHentai wrote:
| Simulate yourself twice and conduct a little A/B testing.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| That would be a fun idea, some sort of intervention that
| stops the universe it manifests in from doing the
| intervention to the universe below. That would split the
| universes into odd-numbered and even-numbered universes.
| GordonS wrote:
| I've been an avid fantasy fan since forever, but I'm a relative
| latecomer to sci-fi novels.
|
| I recently finally completed making my way through all of the
| Culture novels - thoroughly enjoyed every one, and was kind of
| sad to have reached the end!
|
| Have you come across any other sci-fi authors that approach the
| style of Ian M. Banks? Otherwise, any recommendations for other
| sci-fi with the depth that the Culture series had?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Charles Stross.
| lotsofcows wrote:
| Dan Simmons Shrike books have the same epic scale of Ian M
| Banks' scifi with the slightly more prosodic style of Ian
| Banks' standard fiction.
| RangerScience wrote:
| The Culture novels are fairly unique (although I'd probably
| say that about most excellent things). There's some decent
| fanfic out there (You Just Need Opponents With Gravitas, alas
| it's stalled out for the second time).
|
| "Iron Sunrise" and "Singularity Sky" come to mind. Maybe also
| "Quantum Thief".
|
| What of the style / vibe / etc are you looking for more of?
| GordonS wrote:
| As far as sci-fi goes, the entire Culture series is about
| the sum of my experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it all.
| I read Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem a few years back, but
| didn't like the writing style (I know of course it was a
| translation), and much of the story seemed implausible even
| in the world that was created. IIRC, I couldn't bring
| myself to complete the series.
|
| If it helps, some fantasy authors I like are Joe
| Abercrombie, Terry Pratchett, Robin Hobb, Brandon
| Sanderson, Scott Lynch, Dave Duncan and Brent Weeks.
|
| I like excellent character development, creative world-
| building and exciting stories that are plausible within
| those imagined worlds, wit that makes you laugh, good
| writing that has you marvel at the author's skill, and that
| special thing: immersive writing.
|
| Beyond that, as a noob I don't know if there are sub-genres
| or particular styles of interest.
|
| I had a quick gander at your suggestions, and the stories
| of Singularity Sky and Quantum Thief both sounds intriguing
| - I'll add these to my reading list, thanks :)
| RangerScience wrote:
| Well, you've got your epic fantasy, and your
| personable...
|
| Dan Simmons (Hyperion saga, Olympus), Rameez Naam's
| "Nexus". Nick Harkaway's "Gnomon" is ridiculously good,
| and I basically buy anyone who wants one a copy of Cory
| Doctorow's "Walkway". Theodore Sturgeon is probably the
| closest SF I can think of to Pratchett, although he's
| Golden Era so suuuuper soft SF and doesn't have the
| humor. Bujold's "Vorkosigan" saga is one of the funnier
| SF books (while still being amazing and serious), and I
| hear good things about Scalzi's "Redshirts"
|
| PS - Also checkout out what Hannu and Rameez get up to
| outside of writing, it's super cool.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Greg Egan's Diaspora, Schild's Ladder, and Permutation City
| feel similar in scale if not exactly style. I've just started
| reading Alastair Reynolds's books, and those are closer to
| the sort of space opera of Banks, and so far so good. If you
| like really long books, Stephenson's Anathem is mind
| expanding and vaguely parallels some of Egan's books in terms
| of concepts explored. Finally I'll recommend A Fire Upon the
| Deep and its sequels by Vernor Vinge.
|
| Also check out Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
| for a rationistic fanfic crossover between scifi and fantasy
| if you haven't already.
|
| You can probably use HN's search feature to find previous
| scifi reading recommendation threads for more.
| GordonS wrote:
| Appreciate the help - I've had a quick look at your
| suggestions, and the stories all sound intriguing, so I now
| have a growing sci-fi reading list, which is just what I
| need to discover authors I like!
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| I was the under the impression that everything on qntm is by
| one author.
| totemandtoken wrote:
| qntm is getting a lot of love on hackernews today. They deserve
| it though, really interesting stuff and a perfect source for
| procrastination since I have so much else I should be doing...
| tomrod wrote:
| I just bought "Ra" after reading this and the "Transit" article.
| Absolutely fantastic writing!
| philgeorge wrote:
| Nice! So... essentially this is what inspired Devs?
| flixic wrote:
| Yes, it's acknowledged as the main inspiration for Devs. IMHO
| short story is much better. Devs drag out the same amount of
| ideas over many hours.
| marvel_boy wrote:
| I guess Devs is what inspired this.
| teraflop wrote:
| Check the date... this story was published in 2007.
| awinter-py wrote:
| yes but I doubt they copied without permission
|
| more likely explanation is the author simulated a different
| universe to 2018, watched some hulu, and then wrote down
| the story for free publication on the web
| adictator wrote:
| Aren't we all gods & divine?? Aham Brahmasmi is the truth - I am
| a god & divine. I am NOT tainted by eternal sin or whatever
| falsity dogma preaches..
| kian wrote:
| He's one of the best modern sci-fi writers. The whole collection
| of short stories here is fantastic, as is the "Anti-mimetics
| division" series he wrote over on SCP wiki.
| rkachowski wrote:
| i had no idea that was the same author, both the linked story
| and the anti memetics sequence have taken root in my mind for a
| long time.
|
| Before reading the antiemetics series I had always considered
| SCP to be an awkward xfiles style fan fiction collection, I'm
| still looking for more to scratch that itch.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| If you're looking for more, the game Control [1] has some
| amazing SCP/etc vibes to it.
|
| https://youtu.be/m-As1OGqJkU
|
| https://youtu.be/-oXCMFX9H8g
| Filligree wrote:
| *Antimemetics
|
| The quality of the SCPs has increased over time, by and
| large, though there were always outliers. A good way to find
| the better stories is to look at the Exploring series on
| Youtube; for instance,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pJUm4lKOhE
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I'd never run across any of that, and the Antimemetics Division
| series is amazing, just brilliantly creative.
| Zanni wrote:
| I just read "There Is No Antimemetics Division," and I was
| blown away. Really exhilarating science fiction that feels at
| once hyper-modern and yet retro in that it's more about ideas
| than characters. Very reminiscent of Ted Chiang. (I was also
| pretty delightfully confused by the timeline because I read it
| as a novel when it's actually a collection of short stories.)
| pulkitsh1234 wrote:
| Nice story, each paragraph is pretty densely packed with layers
| of meaning and wisdom about our own existence and nature of
| reality.
|
| Although this is pure fiction and speculation, thought
| experiments like these (existence of free will, laplace's demon),
| rely on determinism.
|
| Even if we assume the universe to be completely deterministic, we
| need to "know" the initial seed state (usually called big bang).
| That initial seed can and will create vastly different universes
| (similar to how changing a single pixel in Conway's Game of Life
| completely changes the emergent behaviour and properties of the
| patterns, often just destroys the apparent stability in the
| system).
|
| So, even with the an all powerful quantum computer, the initial
| state will give vastly different universes (all of them
| consistent within but not with each other).
|
| We can think about "what" the initial state is ? Is that initial
| state self contained ? or was it under effect of something else ?
| Will the computer "generate" the initial state, or the programmer
| (aka god) has to explicitly hard code it carefully to create an
| apparent stable universe ?
|
| If time as we know it, started with the big bang, the no notion
| of something existing "before" the big bang, doesn't make sense.
| If time existed before the big bang, then big bang is not the
| actual initial state (it is an initial state for us, as we cannot
| know outside the big bang, i.e. the universe).
|
| Therefore, all simulations considering that to be the initial
| state will be incomplete and incorrect. Maybe we simulate what we
| can observe with our senses (directly or indirectly), and that
| will give us a "valid" simulation. For us, that is a perfectly
| valid simulation, but for the "things" that were before the big
| bang (if you assume that time was present before big bang), our
| simulation will have an extremely low entropy.
| gibybo wrote:
| >We can think about "what" the initial state is ? Is that
| initial state self contained ? or was it under effect of
| something else ? Will the computer "generate" the initial
| state, or the programmer (aka god) has to explicitly hard code
| it carefully to create an apparent stable universe ?
|
| They have infinite computing power, just simulate all possible
| initial states?
| laptop-man wrote:
| drabble cast is one of my favorite short story podcast
| ggm wrote:
| Nobody reads the paper. I barely skimmed the abstract
| redm wrote:
| I was waiting for them to look into the future to see what
| becomes of humanity in 100 or 100,000 years.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| The author is Sam Hughes [0] and he has many other stories
| (especially Ra). Some basic info is also included in the about
| page [1] and there is also a subreddit [2] :-)
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8352985.Sam_Hughes [1]
| https://qntm.org/self [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/qntm/
| socialist_coder wrote:
| Good story and I absolutely believe this to be true. It just
| seems like the most logical thing. I mean, as soon as any
| civilization ever can simulate a universe, or even a galaxy, they
| would. And they would do it infinite times. So the chances that
| we're the original are infinite to 1. Doesn't mean our lives
| aren't real though and we should change our behavior. We still
| experience joy. So experience as much joy as you can before your
| simulation ends =)
|
| I don't believe the part about all the simulations being linked
| though. I don't see why that would have to be the case. Our
| simulation could have "started" 1 second ago and we wouldn't know
| it.
| bspammer wrote:
| You have to make the pretty big assumption that it's even
| possible to simulate a universe within the universe. Such an
| assumption is basically like assuming we could move faster than
| light, or reverse entropy. It seems unlikely to me.
| thret wrote:
| You wouldn't need to simulate the entire universe in perfect
| detail - just the parts users are interacting with, and just
| to sufficient detail that they didn't notice anything amiss.
| This is exactly how we render games.
| bspammer wrote:
| If that's the case then it's not an infinite chain - each
| successive universe would have lower and lower resolution
| or a smaller and smaller universe.
| drdeca wrote:
| Currently accepted models of physics, aiui, don't permit
| unlimited computation within a bounded space and bounded time?
|
| Err, wait, I was going to cite Bremermann's limit, but that is
| for if moving from one quantum state to an orthogonal quantum
| state? Maybe that doesn't rule it out completely if the
| computation is done in a way that doesn't involve enough
| rotation of states to be able to distinguish? Ok, but I expect
| that with enough math that loophole could be ruled out.
| choeger wrote:
| First of all, the chance that you are a simulation does not
| depend on the number of simulations in existence. In fact,
| there is no such chance, as there is no random distribution
| process you are observing, except you claim that every observer
| has one of finitely many souls somehow assigned to them. Such
| things belong into the realm of religion. But even then, either
| you are real or not. If you are not, there is no reason to
| assume that you exist in reality.
|
| And then there is the fundamental laws of nature. If our
| universe is indeed a simulation, then it is either just an
| approximation of reality, or reality follows different laws of
| nature. In that case, again, it makes no sense to think of
| oneself as a random choice between one reality and many
| simulations, as oneselve's existence depends on one specific
| kind of universe.
| drdeca wrote:
| A physically random process isn't needed for probabilities to
| make sense.
|
| Further, suppose a computer agent knew that it would soon
| have 6 copies of itself (including current state) would be
| spun up, each in a different vm, and for each vm, a different
| simulated environment, but that the current copy of itself
| would also continue running. While each of the simulated
| environments differ from each-other and the true/outer
| environment, they don't differ in a way that can quickly be
| detected. Different actions in the simulated environments and
| the "real"/original environment, would have different effects
| in the original environment, effects which the agent cares
| about.
|
| In order to best produce outcomes in accordance with what the
| agent cares about, how should the agent act? I think it makes
| sense for the agent to act as if there is a 1/7 chance that
| it is in the original environment, and a 6/7 chance it is in
| one of the 6 simulated environments. How could it be
| otherwise? Suppose the original, and each of the vm copies,
| is given a choice between two options, X or Y, where if it
| chooses X, then if it is the original, then it gets +m
| utility of benefit in the original environment , but if it is
| one of the copies in a vm, instead it gets -n utility of
| benefit in it cares about in the original environment. If it
| chooses Y, then there is no change in the reward.
|
| The combination of values of m and n which combine to result
| in it making sense for to choose X, are exactly those such
| that would make it make sense assuming it has a 1/7 chance of
| being the original and 6/7 chance of being in a vm.
|
| That being said, I don't think we are in a simulation. I just
| don't think that the concept of "assigning a probability
| other than 0,1 or 1/2 to being in a simulation" is always
| unreasonable in all conceivable circumstances. I just happen
| to think that it is highly unlikely for us.
| choeger wrote:
| Your contrived example starts with the very premise of a
| distribution. An agent gets copied. There are 7 variants.
| You make an experiment and argue that for 6 of the 7
| variants your strategy is successful. All builds on the
| premise of a distribution, because otherwise the notion of
| chance has no meaning. Note, that the distribution must not
| be random, but it must exist.
|
| Take the perspective of your agent: There is no way to
| learn about the number of other agents, and this number is
| absolutely central to your argument. Every agent will at
| some point notice that a specific strategy is successful.
| It will appear like a universal law of nature. For each
| agent there is no chance involved, it is 100% predetermined
| what the correct strategy is.
| drdeca wrote:
| I was imagining that it was informed of the number of
| copies that would be made beforehand . Also, that the
| different copies couldn't tell by the results of their
| choices, whether they were in the original environment or
| not. So, there is some best strategy in each env, but
| because they can't tell which env they are in, they can't
| actually have different strategies.
|
| Saying there is no chance involved is like saying that if
| John rolls a fair 6 sided die under a cup, and you and
| Jane don't know the result, and Jane offers to bet you at
| some odds that the die is showing the number 4, that
| there is no probability involved because the value of the
| die has already been determined. Ok, sure, it is already
| determined in the world, but one should still assign
| probability 1/6 the the die shows a 4.
| nimbleal wrote:
| Is there a consensus (or most popular) theory for how
| mind/consciousness would work in the simulation theory? How do
| things in a simulation become subjects of experience?
| paraknight wrote:
| Conciousness is an emergent property of a physical brain
| firing neurotransmitters between synapses, just as an economy
| is an emergent property of society buying and selling things,
| or ant colony behaviour is an emergent property of the
| behaviour of individual ants for example. It's not somehow
| "above" the simulation, just a higher order of complexity
| defined by lower-level rules, similar to a glider in Conway's
| Game of Life.
| pulkitsh1234 wrote:
| That's one view all the reductionists gladly use. I do not
| disagree with this, but you need to also take into accounts
| numerous events all throughout the human existence, where
| this apparent "emergent property" breaks all the realms of
| so called "reality" and lets one witness something which,
| subjectively, seems above the simulation.
|
| Maybe it is in an emergent property, but maybe it emerges
| not just due to the complexities of an individual being,
| but something else which is just missing from our current
| understanding and we don't know about.
| danaliv wrote:
| Found another p-zombie.
| fpoling wrote:
| Forget about simulation. We do not have answers to basic
| questions how consciousness works in real world. For example,
| we have no idea how what we perceive as time flow appears, we
| do not know why many/most people feel that they have free
| will when equations of physics are fully determined.
| nimbleal wrote:
| Of course, it would just seem that (and this is in answer
| to another of the replies to my question, too) if you don't
| find emergentism persuasive, then you also have to reject
| the simulation theory (?)
| fpoling wrote:
| A notion of simulation implies control and, as such, free
| will and time flow. And since we do not know about the
| latter, the notion of simulation itself is a pure
| speculation.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > can simulate a universe
|
| That's a pretty huge and unfounded assumption.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| After "don't roll your own crypto", we're witnessing "don't roll
| your own _universe_ ".
|
| My, this escalated quickly.
| IngoBlechschmid wrote:
| A further short story by the same author, very short and very
| suspenseful, about a powerful AI facing an existential task:
| https://qntm.org/transit
|
| If you like longer stories, then https://qntm.org/ra. "Magic is
| real. Discovered in the 1970s, magic is now a bona fide field of
| engineering. There's magic in heavy industry and magic in your
| home. It's what's next after electricity." Magic as an
| abstraction layer.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Ra sounds similar to "Mother of Learning", another rationalist-
| adjacent work of fiction about a universe with logical, well
| structured magic, and a student who gets trapped in a groundhog
| day scenario: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21220/mother-
| of-learning
|
| Its an excellent story, but very long. I'm not sure if it's
| longer than Homestuck, but the length is comparable.
| ItsMattyG wrote:
| I didn't consider Mother of Learning to have logical, well-
| structured magic. Curious what gave you that feeling
| beaconstudios wrote:
| The idea of mages as essentially just transforming an
| energy. The fact that there are raw unstructured skills
| like shaping that influence your ability to perform
| structured magic, and can be used to build out new forms
| (in the same way that fundamentals play into real-life
| disciplines like music and artisanal work).
|
| The structure of living beings having mind/soul/body and
| how these are formed to protect against certain kinds of
| magic (soul-killing for example). The way the major
| branches of magic essentially map to specific transforms on
| mana.
|
| It's not axiomatic or anything, but the way magic is
| structured in the MoL universe feels like it would lend
| itself nicely to axiomisation in something like a systemic
| game.
| simsla wrote:
| I really liked mother of learning. If anyone knows anything
| similar, I'd really like to hear it.
| RangerScience wrote:
| Both are excellent, but I would definitely _not_ call them
| similar. What 's actually going on, the narrative and prose
| styles, the kinds of characters, what kinds of things they do
| with magic, the general vibe - are substantially different
| between the two.
|
| Highly recommend both.
| solstice wrote:
| Ra and Fine Structure are both incredibly engrossing and
| absolutely mind-bending
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| I remember loving the short stories on this stie! I used to binge
| read them way back when.
|
| Another site with good sci-fi is
| http://www.galactanet.com/writing.html - stories by Andy Weir's
| (writer of The Martian).
| JadeNB wrote:
| I could swear Ted Chiang also used to have a website with some
| of his stories, but I can't find it now by Googling, and
| Wikipedia doesn't provide much except Internet Archive'd
| versions of his stories appearing in different places. Did I
| imagine the Chiang archive?
| StavrosK wrote:
| There's also https://ipfs.io/ipfs/Qmdpah7j4mLswRLsv55qX4R9RzK
| 3RtCWKfYNt4A...
| necovek wrote:
| It's curious that number of (simulated) universes is countable
| (there was mention if aleph-0): just like human mind has to start
| from some assumption (witness axioms in the most formal of
| fields: mathematics), it's hard for a human mind to move from
| countable numbers to infinity calculus.
| knorker wrote:
| In the scenario they are countable. They even imply a finite
| universe.
| necovek wrote:
| Yet we know for a fact irrational numbers exist, and some of
| them are even trivial to grasp (like pi, which they mention
| how they are calculating all the digits of, which is weird on
| its own since pi has a greater than aleph-0 digits in any
| numbering system, because it's, well, an irrational number).
|
| But writing a coherent story around non-countable infinity is
| so much harder because our brains struggle to grasp that
| concept altogether.
|
| Basically, my point is that our brains have a few limitations
| which we work around by simply ignoring the stuff that does
| not compute. And that there are much more approachable things
| which belong there, like the ratio of a circumference and
| radius of a circle.
|
| Yet even in the quantum future, it's hard to imagine "real"
| number of universes because we are so bound by the countable
| numbers.
|
| I'd like to see a story go that far, but it's likely not to
| be very readable because humans today don't think of
| irrational numbers as irrational.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > pi has a greater than aleph-0 digits in any numbering
| system, because it's, well, an irrational number
|
| In usual math, irrational numbers have aleph-0 decimal
| digits.
|
| (Rational numbers also have aleph-0 decimal digits, but
| after some point they start repeating in a loop of finite
| length.)
| necovek wrote:
| Hum, how so? If a number is represented by an aleph-0
| digits (in decimal system), it is clearly countable,
| since aleph-0 is a countable infinity (equivalent to the
| infinity of natural numbers).
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