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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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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.

If our current layer is a simulation -- and the simulation hypothesis says that we are -- then the Fermi Paradox isn't meaningful.

I don't think we can draw any meaningful conclusions based on the hypothesis that our current layer is a simulation, including conclusions about what ideas are meaningful vs. not meaningful. If our reality is a simulation, we simply have no idea what the rules are of the layer above ours. Either way the only way to figure out the rules of our reality is by observing it, in which case it's useless to talk about whether we're being simulated.

The argument that "our simulators must be simulating something similar to their reality" is I think pretty weak since the only argument in favor of it is that it makes sense to us, based on our logic in this reality. It could be that they're just a bunch of amorphous 10^8^203810681.1-dimensional blobs, one of which happens to simulate realities with our universe's rules. We don't really have any way at all to determine the truth one way or the other besides using our own logic, which again, is equally as simulated as the rest of reality.

Even if it turns out that we, in this layer of reality, can accurately and completely simulate another layer of reality, that still says nothing about the layer above us because the "base layer" could be so much weirder than we can possibly imagine.

I don't think we can draw any meaningful conclusions based on the hypothesis that our current layer is a simulation

You're the one claiming the Fermi Paradox has merit even in a simulation.

The argument that "our simulators must be simulating something similar to their reality" is I think pretty weak

Yes, I know. Are we even having the same conversation? Two posts up I said "This does not tell us much about what the simulators' universe actually looks like, or what resemblance it bears to ours, if any."

You're the one claiming the Fermi Paradox has merit even in a simulation.

I didn't say "we can't draw any conclusions if we're in a simulation." What I said was "We can't draw any conclusions based on the hypothesis that we're in a simulation." Essentially what I'm saying is that that hypothesis gives us very, very little evidence towards anything and so even if we are in a simulation we can reason as if we are not.

Yes, I know. Are we even having the same conversation? Two posts up I said "This does not tell us much about what the simulators' universe actually looks like, or what resemblance it bears to ours, if any."

You're the one drawing conclusions based on hypotheses about what our simulators' universe actually looks like. Namely, your conclusions rely on an assumption that other universes similar to ours are also being simulated, and I don't think that there's any good evidence for that.

Essentially what I'm saying is that that hypothesis gives us very, very little evidence towards anything and so even if we are in a simulation we can reason as if we are not.

Obviously not, since your posture leaves you confused why we aren't apparently in a grabby civilization, and mine solves that. The simulation hypothesis doesn't provide a lot of concrete advice, but it does solves some anthropic dilemmas such as the Fermi Paradox.

Namely, your conclusions rely on an assumption that other universes similar to ours are also being simulated

It does not, in any respect. Already said this several posts up: "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."

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