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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30406 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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Grabby Aliens is a Terrible Model

My understanding of Robin Hanson’s Grabby Aliens argument is as follows:

  1. Over time, most of the universe will be claimed by Grabby Aliens, leaving less and less room for other alien civilizations

  2. Therefore, most civilizations in the universe will appear near the beginning of the universe, before the Grabby Aliens are so visible and powerful

  3. Therefore, it’s no mystery that we find ourselves near the beginning of the universe, without other aliens in sight

Please let me know if I’ve misunderstood his argument--I’m sure I’ve lost some detail in this summary but the gist of it is that based on outside view it makes perfect sense that aliens are fairly common but that they’re not visible to us yet.

However, this is obviously the wrong perspective through which to view the issue. The outside view works on a civilizational level, yes. If we accept all premises, it makes sense that most civilizations would find themselves “early” in a cosmic sense. But on an individual level, which I’d argue is the much more relevant perspective, the vast, vast majority of individuals should be born into Grabby Alien civilizations.

So my argument is:

  1. If Grabby Aliens exist, in time most of the universe will be claimed by grabby aliens of one sort or another

  2. If at least one Grabby Alien civilization doesn’t immediately succumb to AI or a similar thing, the incredibly vast majority of sentient beings will be born under Grabby Alien rule

  3. It doesn’t matter what the distributions of early civilizations is, because how individuals are born is a more relevant, powerful, and potentially accurate use of Outside View

  4. Therefore, the Fermi Paradox has not been resolved; it’s just been transmuted into the question “Why weren’t we born into a Grabby civilization at its peak?”

  5. (optional) If going by the outside view, I personally find it more likely that we actually have been born into a Grabby civilization, and are being fooled into thinking we’re alone. This is highly speculative though.

There are of course large weaknesses to using the outside view at all, but I’m just trying to use all the same premises that the original argument did. It frustrates me to see so many rationalists essentially dismiss the issue as solved now that a prominent rationalist has come up with an argument against it, when the argument is so weak.

I’d love to hear what you guys think.

Therefore, the Fermi Paradox has not been resolved; it’s just been transmuted into the question “Why weren’t we born into a Grabby civilization at its peak?”

The Simulation Hypothesis has an answer for you: we were.

I don't see that as an answer at all: it just pushes the question down a level. If we're in a simulation, why weren't we born into a Grabby civilization inside it?

That isn't a very compelling counterargument unless you have reason to believe that the simulators will simulate more experiences within grabby civilizations than not. It may be that bespoke single-player experiences better fit the designs of the simulators, and grabby civilizations in their prime aren't the most useful backdrop for those experiences. Or it may be that the simulators are our own descendants trying to learn more about their pre-grabby past.

That isn't a very compelling counterargument unless you have reason to believe that the simulators will simulate more experiences within grabby civilizations than not

Well that's the whole point of my post. Our current understanding of physics suggests that more experiences will happen inside grabby civilizations than outside, which suggests that for some reason simulators want to simulate that. Positing that we're in a simulation does not change this observation at all.

Our current understanding of physics suggests that more experiences will happen inside grabby civilizations than outside

Agreed

which suggests that for some reason simulators want to simulate that

No, this is where I disagree. You are claiming that a grabby civilization at its peak will simulate more experiences that appear subjectively from within the simulation to be part of a grabby civilization than that do not. But why? You and I know almost nothing about what kinds of simulation an advanced civilization would want to run.

Look, you're conflating two things here.

  1. Based on our understanding of the universe, it appears that more sentient entities will be born within Grabby civilizations

  2. Grabby civilizations are by definition more capable of simulating vast quantities of entities, meaning that more entities will be simulated by Grabby civilizations

My post focused entirely on #1. I don't think #2 is very logical, since we don't really know what the rules of the reality simulating ours are, or if there really are any rules at all. I think it's a bit of a reach to surmise that they will follow similar rules, but assuming that the rules are similar, then I suppose #2 is correct and it's probably a Grabby civilization simulating us.

The point I'm trying to make is that the truthiness of #2 doesn't strongly affect #1. and our observations (inasmuch as outside view can be trusted) seem to support #1.

You and I know almost nothing about what kinds of simulation an advanced civilization would want to run.

Exactly, so we can safely reason as if we're not in a simulation, in which case my post remains uncontested.

Here was your original question:

Therefore, the Fermi Paradox has not been resolved; it’s just been transmuted into the question “Why weren’t we born into a Grabby civilization at its peak?”

The Simulation Hypothesis demonstrates that we are likely not in the bottom layer of reality. If this universe is real, then it looks like we'll soon be able to (and likely will) simulate a large number of sentiences, which means it would have been massively coincidental that our indexical experience was located in the "real universe." This does not tell us much about what the simulators' universe actually looks like, or what resemblance it bears to ours, if any, but it does tell us that we probably aren't in the bottom layer. This suffices to dispatch your purported transmutation of the Fermi Paradox.

If the Fermi Paradox is even meaningful at the layer of the simulators' universe, then the answer is that we probably were born (simulated) into a grabby civilization at or near its peak. If the Fermi Paradox isn't meaningful at the layer of the simulators' universe, then it has been resolved. Take your pick, but either way your purported transmutation of the Fermi Paradox isn't paradoxical anymore.

Yeah, but if the Fermi Paradox isn't meaningful on that base layer, it could still be meaningful on this current layer, which is the layer I was talking about.

More comments

Well that's the whole point of my post. Our current understanding of physics suggests that more experiences will happen inside grabby civilizations than outside, which suggests that for some reason simulators want to simulate that.

I don't understand why you think B follows from A.

Our current understanding of physics suggests that amongst IRL, non-simulated beings more experiences will happen inside grabby civilizations than outside. But there's no reason to think that Grabbys will predominantly run simulations of other Grabbys. If anything, they should be running simulations of any civilizational stage EXCEPT Grabbyness because if they want to know what being in a Grabby civilization looks like, they need only look out the window, no need to sim it.

We should therefore think it probable to be born as (a) an IRL Grabby or as (b) a simulation by but not of a Grabby.

Simulated civilisations are not subject to the same anthropic logic as non-simulated civilizations, because simulated civilizations don't have to deal with pesky encumbrances like "making chronological sense". A simulated civilization neither has to start low tech to become high tech, not does it have to persist for arbitrary aeons into the timeless depths of the cosmos until it dies out. The IRL Grabby simulator can just go "Uhhh, today I feel like starting at the Hypernegentropic Noosphere stage of civilization and continuing until the discovery of Sanguomaxtic Inversiololology, then I'll turn it off".

Assuming we are in a simulation, I don't think we can draw really any conclusions about our simulators, including whether they're Grabby or not. We have literally no evidence at all about that layer of reality except that they simulated us. I can think of countless reasons why they would simulate other Grabby's--maybe they want to simulate a war, or how history would have unfolded differently, etc.--but they're all worthless because we know nothing at all about our simulators.

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