The Computational Requirements for the Matrix

goombah99 writes "Nick Bostrom discusses the computational requirements needed to simulate human existence. He offers a proof based on the anthropic principle, that you are almost certainly a computer simulation and not "real". The idea is that given that humans don't go extinct in geologically short time then eventually computer capability will allow complete simulation of the human cortex. Consequently, there must be far more simulations running in future millennia than seconds since you were born. Thus its astronomically more likely you are a simulation than real ... if humans don't go extinct shortly. Recalling the 13th floor, Robin Hanson discusses how one should try to live in a simulation. David Wolpert also weighs in on the physical limits of Turing machines for simulation of the universe. This also may explain why time travel seems impossible: we dont meet visitors from the future since only the present is being simulated."

Comments

and this my friends is why

[cyrax777]

drugs are bad mmmmkay

Re:and this my friends is why

[LBArrettAnderson]

my thought exactly. There's no way processor speed can continue at its current pace to that point. It would have to be nearly infinately fast to simulate all the 10000000000000000000000000000000000's of atoms i can see right now, and even put an electron microscope up to and see formations of. There's just too much to simulate, that is, of course judging that this person is saying that WE will be able to do it eventually. I don't doubt that it's possible that processors are a lot faster beyond the matrix (since they use optic processors where the speed of light is a trillion times faster there than it is here). But for someone or something in our universe to accomplish something like that would be ridiculous. There's way too much going on.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Dylan Zimmerman]

Well, you see, the funny thing is that you don't need to simulate the atoms at all. All that you need to simulate visually is the smallest object a person can resolve with his unadied eyes. Everything else is simply mapped on top of that.

For touch, you just simulate the smallest texture difference that a human can feel. For sound, all you need to do is simulate the sounds that a human can hear.

All of these would need to have a certain safely margin to account for people whose senses are better than others, but all that you really have to feed the brain is sense data. As long as it is input propperly,

Now, you would need to physicaly simulate things, but you can reduce the complexity of a model arbitrarily if you are willing to sacrifice quality. The computer detects that we don't need high quality simulations of tables, so it only simulates where the corners would be and fills the rest in as a polygon.

Of course, all of this assumes that you have a more-or-less sentient computer. It would have to be able to decide when we don't need obscenely high quality simulations in order to save its processor power. That wouldn't require true sentience, but it would take quite a bit of clever AI programming.

All of this is a gross simplification. It would still be impossible with modern computing methods because it would require a computer larger than Jupiter, and that's not even with a power source.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. The idea is that you don't need to simulate the world, but just the part that YOU percieve. For example, I don't need to simulate the tree in the forest (it does NOT make a sound when nobody is there to hear it). If you only simulate things that humans can actually see at any moment in time (ie: feeding impulses into your brain - and making your brain think its reality) then the computation involved isn't that great (well, huge, but isn't impossible).

Just consider current generation of 3D games. Some games can make your heart beat faster, or make you jumpy, etc. The point being that eventhough at a concious level you know it's only a game, your brain is still fooled subconciously into thinking the game might be real, and thus, makes your heart go faster and pumps up the adrenaline (as if you're gonna be running away from that monster for real).

Now, imagine that game with 3D goggles, perfect sound, etc, where YOU are not conciously awear that it is a game...

This is the future, and I think we'll see it far sooner than most people realize (20 years tops).

Re:and this my friends is why

[Aglassis]

There's no way processor speed can continue at its current pace to that point. It would have to be nearly infinately fast to simulate all the 10000000000000000000000000000000000's of atoms i can see right now

They don't necessarily have to be that fast. Its not like there is a time limit since they are defining time. Even if they took 10000 sec to simulate 1 sec, it would not alter our perception since it is only based on the past. It will still be 1 sec to us.

And why not assume that they did some simplifications? Why should we assume that the universe that we exist in the the one that the simulators run? It could be much different and the laws of physics different as well. It may be able to run simulations of huge amounts of atoms because that may be a trivial amount of processing time to a much more complex universe.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Wes Janson]

Incorrect. For a more primitive being, perhaps animals at the zoo, such an environment would suffice. However, if you are creating a virtual world where the smallest resolution is only a few microns, you will inevitably run into problems when the intelligent beings of that world attempt to use science to learn. If our world were virtual, and had no detail below 10 microns, or a tenth of one, or a thousandth, scientists with knowledge of what should be, would notice. Experiments could be devised using lasers in such a virtual world to demonstrate the smallest possible "pixel size", and the cat would be out of the bag immediately. For a simulation to run effectively and keep it's inhabitants unaware of their situation, it requires complete, total, perfect simulation of what we think of as reality.

Re:and this my friends is why

[TheLink]

I'd mod you up but I have no points.

And even if our bodies are "real" and not simulated and we are just wired in like in the Matrix, our minds could possibly be slowed down to allow the simulator to keep up.

For example, we could be in a simulation that was set up to keep space travellers entertained and their minds from decaying too fast whilst they traverse vast distances in near suspended animation - no FTL. And perhaps something went wrong and that was eons and eons ago, so the current bunch of people are descendants genetically engineered by the "ship", but have no idea it's a simulation.

And skipping to the ending:

Of course the heroine finds the debug sequence, wakes up and since her brain is no longer underclocked she manages to beat the evil AI (still limited to simulator speed) to the punch and save the day...

Nah... :).

Re:and this my friends is why

[TheLink]

Uh, what if someone builds a device to look at smaller objects than the unaided eye can see?

There are so many ways to do that, that it might conceivably be better to simulate at a lower level than to deal with all the possible special cases, or allow people to detect the flaws.

As for processing limitations, it's might not be impossible if you can underclock the minds of participants - put them in suspended animation or something.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, reality is what we perceive. A computer can only simulate worlds which are less complex than the world in which the computer exists, but if the simulation is closed, its inhabitants have no way of proving that it's a simulation. They simply have no way of knowing how things are in the real world. Even bugs in the simulation would appear as an empirically found law of physics to them. A laser in such a world would not exist except as a function of the basic elements that exist in the simulation. However, such a simulation would obviously need to either be seeded without science and develop it by itself or overthrow the science it was seeded with.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Naikrovek]

High level emulation. If there is a microscope for you to look through, it is being emulated, then whatever has created the microscope can program it to rewrite everything you look at with it in a way that makes sense to your species.

it would be mind-numbing to write (much less RUN) a program that would fully emulate every atom in the world at all times. all you have to do (ask anyone in movies) is emulate the minumum amount to look realistic on screen. if someone needs to look closer, emulate what they're examining properly, only while they are examining it. Otherwise you can very easily emulate a white box with bumpmaps, rather than the wood, the drywall, the paint, the electricity, and everything else that makes a wall. until someone examines the wall, you can get away with just a white box with paint-like bumpmapping.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Dylan Zimmerman]

Then you simulate what would be seen. Everything could be treated as a surface with a varying transparency and a texture mapped on top of it. You wouldn't have to visually simulate anything smaller than the eye could resolve, but if needed, the simulation could simulate portions in more detail.

It would be easier from a programming standpoint to simulate all of the individual atoms, but that would be prohibitively slow. We're talking tens of thousands of years for less than a second of simulation time using conventional computers on anything less than a planetary scale.

Quantum computers and chemical computers could speed it up greatly, but it would still take massive amounts of raw processing power to keep track of all of those atoms, let alone let anything interact with them.

You can never see anything smaller than the smallest dot that your eye can perceive. However, you can design devices to enlarge objects (or increase the resolution of your eye, depending on how you look at it).

One of the huge problems with The Matrix is the question of how people were actually put into it. If anyone had memories of the real world, then they would undoubtedly find a way to pass them on to their children. So, that implies that none of the first generation of Matrix denizens was ever outside the Matrix at any prior point in their lives. Yet they had parents. The programs in the Matrix aren't compassionate at all, so they certainly couldn't have raised the children. Perhaps they had been imprisoned for millennia, but if that were the case, I would have expected the robots to have wiped out the last of the independent humans. Due to the way memories are stored, there is no way to erase specific memories from the human mind without some serious brain damage. We can only stop new ones from forming. Perhaps the robots were able to create synthetic sets of memories for the first parents, but again, how? That would require someone in the Matrix in the first place so that his memories could be copied. Perhaps the first parents were willing subjects? I don't really see that as in The Animatrix, the general populace was destroying the robots in the streets. That would be like southern whites agreeing to be slaves to some blacks during the Civil War. Very few would. Perhaps enough did that they were the first generation.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the worst case: I make an observation, then I look away and you stop simulating what I don't see. Then I look again and make another observation. What do I see? The more you don't simulate, the more randomness must be perceived, because causality extends through unobserved reality. You have two options: What I see is either random or you simulate everything which has an influence above randomness on what I'm supposed to see (actually that is only one choice: level of randomness). If you start post-simulating, the world becomes less fluid for an external observer, if you choose randomness, the world may become less realistic und thus less interesting for an external observer. A little randomness can have huge consequences, see chaos theory. Too much randomness is something to stay away from. It may be preferable to have the falling tree in the forest make a sound.

Re:and this my friends is why

[spongman]

Surely the results of such experiments could be faked. For example, it could be simple to build a 'matrix' where the value of PI could be, say, 5, or where Newton was correct and light permeated space the instant it was emitted and mass had not effect on time.

Hell, there are limits to our own understanding of both the extremely small and the extremely large. What if those limits are not that far from the limits of our "simulation"? How would you tell? Build bigger accelerators/telescopes? How big would they need to be?

Our knowledge of "what should be" is based purely on obseravtion. We're always testing the boundaries of our knowledge. But who's to say that when we delve deeper into the depths of the cosmos we won't discover a message:

"game over, insert coins to play again."

or

"Hi, this is God, I'm not in right now, please leave a message."

Re:and this my friends is why

[Slurm-V]

If our world were virtual, and had no detail below 10 microns, or a tenth of one, or a thousandth, scientists with knowledge of what should be, would notice

Surely it would be less cyle intensive to only run that kind of software when such thing were being measured or observed. They're entirely likely to figure out how to counteract Heisenberg in the next version.

Re:and this my friends is why

[B'Trey]

Incorrect. All that needs to be simulated is what you actually perceive. In modern games, the engine calculates what can and can't be seen and doesn't draw the things that can't be seen. A simulation would use a much more sophisticated version of that algorithm. If you're looking through a microscope, microbes are individual simulated. If you aren't looking through the microscope, then they aren't simulated, or are simulated in the aggregate to calculate gross effects that might be perceivable (such as tainted meat causing food poisoning.)

Remember, the simulation has to know exactly what you're doing and what you're perceiving in order to feed the information to your brain. If you turn your head, that isn't a physical motion. The simulation detects the impulses that indicate you desire to turn your head, and adjusts your visual and physical feeds to simulate that motion. So it's certainly capable of determining that you are peering through a microscope and adjusting the level of detail accordingly. How detailed is the simulation? Precisely as detailed as it needs to be, but no more.

One interesting result of this is that observation would affect the behavior of the universe. Also, changes in the environment, such as the presence of a second slit in a screen, might alter the algorithm used to calculate the behavior of, oh, I don't know, maybe photons.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause and effect transcend observation. The only reliable way of simulating a world with certain basic rules is to simulate these rules all along, not simplifying them when no one looks. Simplifying the calculations removes information about the state of the simulation. That is most likely going to be detected at some point, and then the rules you want the inhabitants of your simulation to perceive would be invalidated. If you don't simulate all quarks, then the inhabitants will sooner or later realize (sic!) that quarks are not what you want them to be.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

it would be mind-numbing to write (much less RUN) a program that would fully emulate every atom in the world at all times. all you have to do (ask anyone in movies) is emulate the minumum amount to look realistic on screen.

I dont think that it would be all that mind numbing to simulate every atom. In fact, we have a process to do such a similar thing, and have been doing that for at least 45 years. It's called cellular automation. We use it to model fluid dynamics among other things. THe rules tend to be rather simple, and easy to compute, the results totally unpredictable. If we are a simulation, then chances are that were just a massive cellular automation running on a massive alien computer. Chances are that they dont even know we exist. CHances are that we will build a massive cellular automation to model our own world, in an attempt to better understand our environment, in the process it's possible that we could create virtual intelligent beings, and be totally unaware they even exist.

Re:and this my friends is why

[spongman]

how very euclidean of you. there are plenty of 2D geometries where the circumference of a locus equidistant from a point is not 2PI times that distance.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Eythian]

All of this is a gross simplification. It would still be impossible with modern computing methods because it would require a computer larger than Jupiter, and that's not even with a power source.

Here you assume that the system running the simulation exists in a world much like the one we experience. It's pretty easy for us to simulate a simple 2D world, for all we know, this is some dumbed-down simulation with 'only' 3 dimensions.

Re:and this my friends is why

[qubex]

Actually we do know the Universe's smallest "pixel size": the Plank Scale. Who's to say whether this is a computational limit imposed upon our simulation by external beings or a true physical limit?

Also, it isn't actually true that a computer cannot simulate soomething more complex than itself. If time is no object, it can simulate something a million times more complex than itself in a very long period of time. Who's to say that maybe a single second in our simulated world takes a million, maybe even a billion years to compute in "real time"?

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words: God doesn't care.

Re:and this my friends is why

[jetmarc]

> Well, you see, the funny thing is that you don't need to simulate the atoms
> at all. All that you need to simulate visually is the smallest object a
> person can resolve with his unadied eyes. Everything else is simply mapped
> on top of that.

From a programmer's point of view, this is a bad idea. After all, you will
need special plugins for every device that aids the eyes. You have to check
if any of your simulated physicians invents a tool like a microscope, and
then hot-upgrade your simulator to provide consistent results to him.
Although more work at the beginning, you save yourself a lot of time and
hassle when you just do it right from the start.

Re:and this my friends is why

[znode]

all you have to do (ask anyone in movies) is emulate the minumum amount to look realistic on screen.

On the Summer Reading List thread, many slashdotters mentioned The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Within Ch. 6 was a description of how Prime Intellect "rewrote" the Universe, as follows:

"No, you wouldn't. Let me ask you something. If I leave here...if I go back to civilization...does this forest continue to exist?"
"I can leave it running in your absence if you want."
Caroline wanted to throw up. Now even the forest wasn't real. Nothing was real. "Don't bother. Get rid of it."
Instantly, it disappeared. She was standing in an antiseptically white space so pure and seamless and bright that the eye balked at reporting it to the brain. She was standing on a hard, smooth surface, but it was not visible. There were no shadows. There was no horizon; the floor and the sky looked exactly the same, and there was no transition from one to the other. She might have been standing on the inside of some enormous white ball.
Prime Intellect was still there. "What is this?" she asked.
"Neutral reality," Prime Intellect said. "The minimum landscape which supports human existence. Actually, not quite the minimum. I could get rid of the floor. But that would have startled you."

So basically, the visual portion of this world would just be like a raytracer running constantly. Whatever the eye can see it simulates and draws; out of the eye, nothing is (and need to be) simulated.

Re:and this my friends is why

[spongman]

You're right, I'm sure such changes would have drastic effects on the type of universe inside the simulation. Mathematics would remain the same, but Physics would be different (maybe just a hint of green?). But if you were born in such an environment (assuming, of course, you could be), life wouldn't seem so strange subjectively. Although, to an observer living in a "universe" with different rules that environment might seem quite strange. There's no real reason why the universe inside the Matrix looked somewhat like the world outside (except it's just cheaper to film it that way).

Mouse's comments at the dinner table addressed this directly.

Re:and this my friends is why

[sg_oneill]

As long as it is input propperly, the brain shouldn't be able to tell the difference between reality and the simulated world.

Especially if the computer is programmed with the assumption that the brain should not be allowed to be aware of the LOD (wow, I never thought I'd use that term in philosophical debate).

BTW, anyone with keen interest in tihs topic with a good sci-fi tastes have just gotta read greg egans "Permutation City". Its a classic.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Jerf]

One interesting result of this is that observation would affect the behavior of the universe. Also, changes in the environment, such as the presence of a second slit in a screen, might alter the algorithm used to calculate the behavior of, oh, I don't know, maybe photons.

Only if the simulation is poorly written, which we can't assume. It is not conceptually difficult to imagine that the "zoomed in" parts of reality exactly match the approximation to a fine enough level of detail that we can not tell the difference, even in principle.

So observation doesn't affect anything in any coarse way, it just affects the depth of the simulation, and there's no experiment you can run from the inside to tell what's going on. Simulation or no, the double-slit experiment will behave the same, or the simulation is broken.

Re:and this my friends is why

[frankthechicken]

This is the future, and I think we'll see it far sooner than most people realize (20 years tops).

Ahhh, this must be the Duke Nukem Forever game you are talking about.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Chakde Phate!]

Incorrect. All that needs to be simulated is what you actually perceive. In modern games, the engine calculates what can and can't be seen and doesn't draw the things that can't be seen. A simulation would use a much more sophisticated version of that algorithm. If you're looking through a microscope, microbes are individual simulated. If you aren't looking through the microscope, then they aren't simulated, or are simulated in the aggregate to calculate gross effects that might be perceivable (such as tainted meat causing food poisoning.)

This is the premise of Stephen Baxter's short story 'Phase Space'. It was some time since I read it, but the idea was that all humanity lives in a simulation which does exactly what you describe, and simulates only what we are looking at at the time. The 'hardware' behind the simulation gets more and more complicated over time to cope with our increased understanding of the universe.

Eventually, the simulated universe ends because some human suspects this and fires a laser beam at Alpha Centuri to prove it. He reasons that it would be impossible for the simulation to expand to fill such a large volume that quickly, and so the laser beam wouldn'd bounce back...unfortunately, the simulation just shuts down. As the great Terry Pratchet said, if someone put a big red button in a cave with "End of the World Button -- DO NOT TOUCH" written on it, the paint wouldn't have time to dry...

Re:and this my friends is why

[Glytch]

Who's to say that maybe a single second in our simulated world takes a million, maybe even a billion years to compute in "real time"?

Man, this place looks expensive. I feel like I'm wasting a fortune just standing here.

Re:and this my friends is why

[meta-monkey]

I work at a computer architecture and networking research lab at a university. I write simulators to simulate more advanced computer architectures that haven't been built yet. I run those simulations on computers I have access to now. Sure, it takes a minute of real time to simulate a milisecond of simulation time, but the "simple" computer is simulating the "complex" comptuer.

This could certainly apply to a simulation of our universe, also. Maybe we're all running in slow motion in our simulation, because it takes a minute of real time to simulate a milisecond of our time.

Re:and this my friends is why

[NoInfo]

Well, it should be modded up, but it's not actually important. Humans will invent cause and effect, even if it doesn't exist. This thread is mostly about humans inability to see outside, and why that negates 'problems' like these.

The scientists are going to try to deduce what-caused-what even if the only actual 'cause' is some Matrix-generating heuristic that doesn't actually always tie to a simple law or rule. It could even be tied totally to something outside the 'Matrix'. For instance, if every other Tuesday in the world housing the simulating processors (regardless of the time being represented in the Matrix), the 'sun' servers go down for maintenance, there is no way for them to figure out the true cause. Now they may notice that it happens more frequently when the sun starts acting up (bugs) or that soon after it appears brighter (after-patch bugs), but they're going to have to choose some "cause" in their science that can never actually be 100% accurate. (Kinda interesting that this sounds familiar to the equations in our own world, even though those equations do seem to get better and better.)

The point is that cause-and-effect will be generated by the humans in any environment they exist in. It's not necessary to code cause-and-effect in to a great degree, but I'll agree that it is helpful. Yet, the 'virtual' science they invent could very well be completely foreign to ours even if the simulation is based on very good heuristics simulating our world. That doesn't mean that humans wouldn't lead happy, normal, and productive virtual lives.

Additionally, the AI has plenty of control. If the AI wants to invalidate a discovery, a simple upgrade/patch can make the experiment irreproducible. Humans will not fully accept science that can't stand-up to experimental/imperical refutations.

Want to invalidate cold fusion? Oh, that's been fixed in the latest patch (thanks, auto-update). Is the AI unhappy that humans found that dangerous atom-splitting exploit? I'm sorry, in this version, you're going to have to try much harder to split the next atom. Or it's only possible for very rare materials.

But, don't despair, in this new update, all orgasms last a tenth of a second longer and (Hurry-This-Week-Only!) we're decreasing the chances your ball will land on 0 or 00. Enjoy!

Re:and this my friends is why

[MoogMan]

Well, if "this" is a simulation then chances are that it is not perfect. In this case someone *will* eventually find a problem. Providing that the creators are not perfect, they could never create a flawlessly closed simulation.

Buffer overflows == Wormholes? Null pointers == Black holes?

Re:and this my friends is why

[B'Trey]

Certainly, simplifying the calculation removes information about the state of the simulation. So what? We don't have access to any more information than the simulation does; therefore we have no way to prove that the simulation's calculations are incorrect.

Your argument essentially boils down to the claim that we would be able to run our own simulation (either a computerized simulation or a pen-and-paper calculation), and compare the results of it to "reality." However, calculating the future state of a system necessarily relies upon determining the present state of the system. When we determine the present state to some degree of precision, we tell the simulation that it needs to pay more attention to those details.

I Want Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the red pill?

woooah

[mjdth]

this article is way too deep for 3 am. i'll just wait until /. accidently reposts it sometime later this week at a more reasonable hour.

but either way, i wouldn't believe this because it would be too scary if it were true.

Re:woooah

[pyrote]

That's what they were wanting you to say... it's all written... here on this cd.

Re:woooah

[evilviper]

The /. has you...

Follow the white rabbit...

Re:woooah

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how it's truth would change anything (from your mind's perspective, at least), so I'm not sure why you would find it "too scary." Consciousness built on neurons made of atoms is no more real than consciousness built on simulationed neurons made of simulationed atoms. Consciousness is as consciousness does.

Re:woooah

[MainframeKiller]

I don't see how it's truth would change anything (from your mind's perspective, at least), so I'm not sure why you would find it "too scary." Consciousness built on neurons made of atoms is no more real than consciousness built on simulationed neurons made of simulationed atoms. Consciousness is as consciousness does.

My Momma always said life is like a box with a cat in it, you never know if it is alive or dead...

What do you expect, it's 5 am and I'm stuck at work!

screw it.

[cfscript]

i don't care if the entire universe is real, a computer simulation or an atom in a giant being.

hypothesise all you want, it doesn't change the fact that A is A and you have to go to work on monday. the last thing the current american society needs is a new kantian theory to overtake it.

i'm all about philosophy and learning as much as i can, but no matter what, existence exists. wish all you want, carrie anne-moss isn't going to magically appear, and your troubles won't disappear until you get off your ass.

Re:screw it.

[Matthias Wiesmann]

I agree, the most annoying thing about the article "How to live in a simulation" is that it makes the classical IMHO erronous assumption that the simulator (the entity that controls the simulation) is basically like us.

This text roughtly assumes that the simulator is basically an american guy and the main reason for simulating a universe is to go to a party. Very deep philosophy. The simulator might well be a zen poet two centuries in the future interested in the pattern of human emotions, or some alien student trying to build the most absurd form of life. There is simply no way to know. So trying to please this simulator is completely absurd.

The talk about seeing the weaknesses in the simulation because certain parts are not simulated also takes the wrong perspective. Assuming you build a simulation that is not homogenous, you will make sure that the where there are simplifications they will have little influence (i.e they are not noticable). As for the hypothesis that certain people are not true, I don't like when people start talking about true/chosen/über/whatever people.

This is just some guy projecting his own bias on some theoretical entity and using this to justify his own (egoistic I might add) approach to live as being "logical". I agree that this is not what american society needs, but I fear it is what it wants. Of course, this has been the stuff of religions for centuries, replace simulator by god and voilà!

Re:screw it.

[MsGeek]

hypothesise all you want, it doesn't change the fact that A is A and you have to go to work on monday. the last thing the current american society needs is a new kantian theory to overtake it.

No matter what the "true" structure of the world is, whether there is an objective reality behind it or not, the fact remains that in order to survive and function in the world one needs to pretty much live ones life as if A truly equals A.

Any amount of philosophizing notwithstanding, if you are walking towards a brick wall, you will avoid getting hurt if you treat it as a solid object and not as an illusion or a simulation.

You needn't be a Randroid to operate this way. It's just common sense. You deal with local reality as it is until and unless you have to deal with phenomena that indicates otherwise.

Existence may or may not exist. We could be living in a simulation, hooked up to each other like one big Beowulf Cluster. We could be just a dream in the mind of Brahman. But in everyday life, operating as if reality is what it is is very necessary.

There is nothing wrong with speculating about the nature of the real. Just remember to maintain your airspeed lest the ground come up and smite thee.

Episode of Star Trek

[ScottGant]

The episode was "Ship in a Bottle" where Moriarty and his love are sent off in a computer simulation at the end. They think it's all real, but they're really just both in a simulation of the galaxy.

At the end, Barkley wonders if he himself is part of a simulation and says "Computer, end program".

Ok, that's it. I'm a Nerd.

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[mati]

Thank you for reminding me how good Star Trek used to be :)

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[Treskin]

Taking bets on how many people actually say "Computer, end program" out loud while reading this post.

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[MyHair]

No, silly. That's passe. People will be sshnuke'ing the whole internet looking for backdoors (and wearing tight leather). That's the current hip thing.

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Me:"Computer, end program." DSFSDVXcvxvxcvzzzz [NO CARRIER]zzzzzzzz

What if

[katalyst]

There is no end to what ifs.....
For example, if a charecter being simulated in a 13th floor styled simulation, did not understand the concept of wireframes (when he reaches the "edge" of the simulated world), would he consider it abnormal?
Similarly, in our "real world", space - the outer void - the vaccum - can be a means of conserving memory by being empty space, so that the "system" is able to process high detailed simulations on planets.... maybe only one planet has life (simulated) because the "system" is only capable of processing the complex simulations of one such biosphere
All i'm trying to say is that it's possible to come up with innumerable theories.. its exciting, it stimulates are brains, but HOW SERIOUSLY are we supposed to take them?

So...

[orange_6]

I'm simulated.

Can I still be stimulated?

Looks like a TNT32 card and a 500mhz to me

[CrazyJim0]

Its not bullet time, so much as FPS lag.

why ohh why..

[Squarewav]

The matrix was a good movie but come one thats it a movie. it had so many holes in the plot like why the robots did not just switch too nuclear or something far more powerfull then sucking body heat from people who are living in a virtual world. It seems like every week or so slashdot posts a story about some long ass report about how the matrix could be real. You dont have to justify likeing a movie, just enjoy the movie how it is a kung foo/super human/slowmotion fights. reminds me of that theme song from mystery science theater 3000 (something like) "if your wondering how they eat and sleap and other science facts, repeat to yourself its just a show you shood realy just relax"

Re:why ohh why..

[KrispyKringle]

Better than suggesting alternative power, why doesn't anyone ever point out the laws of thermodynamics?

This is always what got me about The Matrix. There is even a comment somewhere along in the first movie about how the living are fed the waste of the dead. Well, great, but what about conservation of energy? Where is this energy actually coming from? In our normal ecosystem, it comes from the sun via photosynthesis. Here, no sun, no plants, people eating people...sounds like perpetual motion.

And even if we do accept that animals can somehow power these machines, why don't they just use pigs or cows or something? Or give lobotomies on birth? Eh?

But as you said, quit thinking about it all seriously, and just enjoy the movie. It's a vehicle, and not every aspect should be taken at face value or should be expected to make perfect sense.

Re:why ohh why..

[Kierthos]

Exactly... it shouldn't have been "What is the Matrix?" but "Why is the Matrix?". We have a number of AIs that are so ruthless (from humanity's standpoint) that they see no problem using human's as a fuel source, yet they let them "live their lives" inside the Matrix.

From the point where the first guy who could manipulate the Matrix freely showed up, they should have been giving frontal lobotomies to all the new fuel cells.

Or the robots could have "fled" to space, leaving behind the humans who just ruined their own ecosystem...

Of course, the AIs aren't completely logical and unemotional... Smith never would have snapped in the first movie otherwise... one of the by-products of true intelligence.

Kierthos

Re:why ohh why..

[Caltheos]

I was under the impression that "humans powering the matrix" more referrered to their neural pathways being used as a gigacluster...the body heat is a handy dandy by product....and frontal lobots would kinda be like clocking an amd 3200 to 33mhz

Re:why ohh why..

[stwrtpj]

reminds me of that theme song from mystery science theater 3000 (something like) "if your wondering how they eat and sleap and other science facts, repeat to yourself its just a show you shood realy just relax"

Oh great. That means not only are we a simulation, but I have the likes of Crow T. Robot watching it and making pithy comments about my life.

You mean I can dodge bullets?

[SolubleFrank]

No, I'm telling you your just trapped.

Much like religion

[mrbeaton]

For any religion that believes that we are placed here by a higher being, we essentially are living in a simulation. God created us and is now sitting back watching us run around.

One of the articles mentions ways to change one's behavior upon realization that it is all a simulation... sound familiar?

Re:Much like religion

[eaglebtc]

A simulation...but for what though? To what end are we practicing? If, as you propose, God is running a giant simulator down here, then what "real" life is he mimicking?

Food for thought...

Can the Matrix simulate independent thought?

[eaglebtc]

I believe it is possible in 2199 for an advanced computer to simulate an existence like SimCity.

However, if everyone is a digital projection controlled by a computer program, then how is it the humans inside the matrix are capable of independent thought? Why isn't it like "Big Brother" in George Orwell's 1984, where the Thought Police were always watching for crimethink? Even if the computers' super-advanced AI engine could simulate thoughts *for* the human, and trick them into thinking they came up with it themselves, then why would the system allow a human to discover what is outside the Matrix? Is there a certain amount of "tolerance" built into the system? I guess that would explain the need for "agents."

...But if no one was allowed to think a "wrong" thought...there would be no law enforcement, but no one would care because they wouldn't need to be taught about obeying the rules because no one would ever think about breaking them (The Pre-Crime Division would take care of that) ;)

Soo...this goes back to my initial inquiry -- where does the independent thought come from? Is it somehow hardwired to the person's brain through the matrix? If so, they need subconscious experiences (daydreams, nightmares, etc.) in order to have independent thought. So the Matrix must have had a certain level of tolerance built in.

But.... if the Matrix *was* built by a race of cruel machines designed to control humans, then why was the Matrix programmed the way it is? Are they torturing humans with a life they once knew, before AI came into play and destroyed that which they had?

All this makes me want to see "Revolutions." I hope they answer all these questions, like "Who Created The Matrix?" It's too human, too sympathetic to be built by cold, heartless machines. There is religion in the matrix, so someone had to program that in.

Re:Can the Matrix simulate independent thought?

[spacecowboy420]

So are you suggesting distributed computing via humans for our robot leaders? To what end? Do they wanna find aliens too?

Re:Can the Matrix simulate independent thought?

[malloci]

...But if no one was allowed to think a "wrong" thought...there would be no law enforcement, but no one would care because they wouldn't need to be taught about obeying the rules because no one would ever think about breaking them (The Pre-Crime Division would take care of that) ;)

Wasn't that the premise of the original matrix (the one built prior to the trilogy)? It was a paradise, but the problem was that no one believed it and so massive amounts of people would wake from it. Hence the reason why the second matrix was built (going back to Agent Smith's description in the first movie).

I always thought the matrix was more a playground for individual minds to play in. If you set up an environment that is engineered to look like our world, place the minds in the system with some initial parameters (e.g. you are a programmer looking for work and like potato chips and coffee, etc) and then let those objects loose in the system, things should flow fairly smoothly. The matrix was more like a drug to keep the minds of their batteries happy basically, and the reason they chose this section of our history is that it was "the height of our civilization". But even Neo has a choice by the architect in the second movie.

I would say that control came by limiting choices. This comes from the societal structure that is put in place, something which most people are more than happy to live within. The few that refused to accept that were shown a different reality (i.e. unplugged from the matrix). However, the one wrench that Matrix:Reloaded tossed into the mix was Neo's ability to sense the machines on the other side. This would indicate that the true architects of the matrix built a buffer zone in which those minds that didn't believe the first matrix would wake up into the second thus saving them as a power source for a while longer and ensuring that every once and awhile you could flush those who would attempt to destroy your creation. By controlling the resistance you have complete control as Orwell showed us in 1984.

Re:Can the Matrix simulate independent thought?

[squiggleslash]

people are more than happy to live within. The few that refused to accept that were shown a different reality (i.e. unplugged from the matrix). However, the one wrench that Matrix:Reloaded tossed into the mix was Neo's ability to sense the machines on the other side. This would indicate that the true architects of the matrix built a buffer zone in which those minds that didn't believe the first matrix would wake up into the second thus saving them as a power source for a while longer and ensuring that every once and awhile you could flush those who would attempt to destroy your creation.

Actually if what's presented as the real world in the first film turns out to be a simulation too, then everything is up for grabs, including the notion that human beings are batteries (or the associated theory that Morpheus has misunderstood and human beings are controllers for nuclear fusion plants), and, indeed, that the Earth, if it exists at all, has been taken over by machines.

I think that's why it's such an interesting twist. It's extremely open ended. We have, just off the top of my head:

• The prevalent theory - that the "Real" is a buffer zone so people who want to escape from The Matrix have somewhere to go without The Matrix losing them. This is a popular theory for obvious reasons, but if it's real, the question has to be asked why is the simulation of a universe where machines have taken over if machines really have taken over? Why tell the "truth" if an equally good lie would suffice?
• The "war with the machines" could have occured in someone else's simulation, and so the machines - constructs of a virtual world's imagination - have created an artificial world within an artificial world.
• That there's a real world, a simulation of the real world, and "The Matrix", and that Neo's been in the real world and has, some how, slipped into a simulation at the end of Reloaded.

Odd.

[Soko]

This also may explain why time travel seems impossible: we dont meet visitors from the future since only the present is being simulated."

IOW, branch prediction in the Great Itanium in the sky isn't working too well, is it?

Here's anoher one for your Saturday Night "Isn't that fucked up?" discussions: I've always wondered if time actually is linear. We and our physics are stuck in the current space/time continuum, and therefore we would have no idea if time actually followed say, a sine wave, since we would have no other point of reference.

Whoa.

Soko

So that means...

[BanSiesta]

So I'm just a piece of code then? I bet I'm not even indented properly. Bastards!

I hope I don't get optimized away...

Re:So that means...

[bnenning]

I bet I'm not even indented properly.

Then for your sake I hope the universe isn't a big Python script.

This brings to question....

[basser]

Does terminating the game of life make us mass murderers?

Re:This brings to question....

[CoolVibe]

No, that makes Conway a great sadist.

What the......?

[BWJones]

O.K., aside from the rather schizoid posting, I clicked on the link and actually read some of this stuff. Why? Because it's 1:40 a.m. and I can't read any more real science without it leaking out of my ears. So, at the end of the article, filled with leaky logic and propositions that would get an undergraduate philosophy student in trouble, I get to this:

Another event that would let us conclude with a very high degree of confidence that we are in a simulation is if we ever reach the point where we are about to switch on our own simulations. If we start running simulations, that would be very strong evidence against (1) and (2). That would leave us with only (3).

and I have to wonder.....this guy is a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford? Jeez, what are they paying these guys for? Pop culture derivative drivel about a movie whose sequel sucked?. This is like high school philosophy where you would sit around drinking beer in someones mom's basement saying "so, dude, how do we know if we are really here?" Please. I'm all for arts and liberal education, but let's work at thinking about things that can make a difference.

Re:What the......?

[ScottGant]

He does state on his that the proposition entitled "The Simulation Argument: Why the Probability that You are Living in the Matrix is Quite High." which is the article that Slashdot links to is in his words a "Brief, popular synopsis. But read the original paper instead if you can."

The ORIGINAL proposition is here:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulati on.html

Re:What the......?

[maxpublic]

The sad thing is that a lot of what passes for modern 'philosophy' is the same drivel being spouted by this guy, only 'cleaned up' in a tautological fashion so that said drivel is impossible to disprove. Also impossible to prove in any meaningful sense, but modern philosophy doesn't recognize empiricism as a valid approach (and in fact tries to deny it by placing much of its supposition in the fantasy realm of the 'metaphysical').

What I find interesting is that people actually get *paid* to indulge in this masturbatory nonsense. Talk about an amazing con....

Max

Re:What the......?

[Soko]

Jeez, what are they paying these guys for? Pop culture derivative drivel about a movie whose sequel sucked?. This is like high school philosophy where you would sit around drinking beer in someones mom's basement saying "so, dude, how do we know if we are really here?"

And you asked that question because...it might have been fun? Aren't these people entitled to a little fun too?

Please. I'm all for arts and liberal education, but let's work at thinking about things that can make a difference.

IME, the human body works better longer if it's exercised regualrily, and with different regimens. Concentrating on a single regimen can lead to specialization of the body, which can be bad - I would guess Arnold Schwartzeneggar isn't a great gymnast, for instance. The human brain is no different - it requires different types of stimuli frequently to remain at it's peak.

As well, seeing college professors think - and using pop culture to give the thought processes a well known context - may stimulate a few young minds into becoming great minds by giving them cause to be exercised. I'd say thier doing thier jobs - getting people to think and hopefullly learn something.

Soko

Re:What the......?

[Snowspinner]

The sad thing is that a lot of what passes for modern 'biology' is so ridiculously practical as to ignore basic questions like why making a drug to save someone's life is worthwhile - what's so innately valuable about life? Modern biology is entirely unconcerned about ethical questions, relying on the unproven, unargued, and unacknowledged a priori assumption that knowledge about life is good.

What I find interesting is that people actually get *paid* to indulge int his masturbatory nonsense. Talk about an amazing con...

Right, now that we've shown that it's possible to gratuitously flame all sorts of academic disciplines, can we move on to an understanding that philosophy, like every other discipline, is a really complex thing that requires detailed study to make useful comments about. A non-graduate philosophy student has about the same chance of meaningfully engaging a graduate philosophy student as an undergraduate biology student does of being useful on the cutting edge of biotech.

Suffice it to say that there are a lot of very good arguments why, despite the problems you have with contemporary philosophy, it's still the best way to go. A relatively simple one, first formulated by J. Hillis Miller about deconstruction, is that if it were the case that we were living in the Matrix, even if that possibility seems unpleasant and intuitively unlikely, wouldn't it be best to know? Especially since almost all new ideas, and even lots of old ideas, seem intuitively unlikely.

The biggest problem philosophy has as a discipline is people who think that what they discuss in the bar at 2am is remotely similar to what's discussed at a graduate or above philosophy seminar. It's not. Real philosophy is, quite honestly, vastly too complex for 99% of the posterbase here. Many of them could probably successfully study it and some might be able to get on to a PhD in it. But as it stands, the number of people on this board who are qualified to seriously comment on post-doctoral work in philosophy is negligible. /rant off

And by that same logic...

[Larne]

the number of things that don't exist is vastly greater than the number of things that do. Therefore, statistically speaking, you don't exist. Any evidence to the contrary is just the product of your diseased, nonexistent, imagination.

Re: And by that same logic...

[ColaMan]

Sadly,

If there are an infinite number of worlds, then there will (by the nature of infinity) be an infinite number of inhabited ones as well.

Sorry.

Bad logic is fun

[gunner800]

There is only one planet Earth. There are astronomically more planets than Earth. Therefore, we're probably on some other planet.

Problem is, the probability of the existence of a simulation is not the same as the probability of us inhabiting that simulation. Plus, the existence of massive comuting power does not imply that that power is used for a certain task.

Not Exactly...

[KrispyKringle]

"(1) The chances that a species at our current level of development can avoid going extinct before becoming technologically mature is negligibly small

(2) Almost no technologically mature civilisations are interested in running computer simulations of minds like ours

(3) You are almost certainly in a simulation."

...So if you think that (1) and (2) are both false, you should accept (3).

Obviously this last sentence is meant more to play up the conclusion that we are in a simulation. (2) is the most plausible; it is incomprehensible to me (though admitedly I may be of a lesser mind that those running the simulation) why greater beings would waste CPU time on mere humans.

In all seriousness, though, if we assume 2 to be true and 1 to be false, we can most certainly dismiss 3. And if we assume 1 to be true, where does that leave us?

"Let us consider the options in a little more detail. Possibility (1) is relatively straightforward. For example, maybe there is some highly dangerous technology that every sufficiently advanced civilization develops, and which then destroys them. Let us hope that this is not the case."

Of course most mutations die out. This is how evolution works. Obiously, we can assume that if evolution has gotten us this far, it is likely that it will have created similar intelligent beings and perhaps even more advanced than us (or we ourselves will acheive such a level of mental greatness).

This is a fun intellectual debate (and clearly meant to gain the limelight) but its a bit overblown, too, I think.

Of course the universe is a simulation...

[ites]

But Occam's razor says we do not need to assume humans and computers are resonsible for it. The simulation is all around us... some examples:

- you consider the world to be composed of things with surfaces and textures, yet in fact most of everything is interatomic space. Matter is a simulation.
- you consider yourself to be a being, complete and individual, yet you are built from trillions of cells each with a lifecycle, not to mention hosts of other organisms that cohabit your body, even your gene pool. Individuality is a simulation.
- you think you are reading this text, and yet it is just a sprinkling of letters and dots and random ideas. Language is a simulation, the Internet also.
- you believe you exist, and yet we are truly just temporary assemblages of matter acting as hosts for the multilevel game of life. Existence is a simulation.

But none of this means much: as in the Matrix, if I stab your simulated heart with a simulated knife, your simulated body will simulate death. And your simulated consciousness will try very, very hard to avoid that. Welcome to the Real World.

Time Travel Impossible?

[crashnbur]

This also may explain why time travel seems impossible: we dont meet visitors from the future since only the present is being simulated.

It wouldn't matter when what or who is simulated or how or why or where. If it is indeed a simulation, the "architect" of the system could organize some feasible means of simulating beings from some imaginary future, which -- within the confines of the simulation -- would constitute time travel.

If this indeed were a simulation, the rules would only be as strict as the design allowed, and they would only be broken when the designer(s) allowed...

...unless, of course, you buy the Architect's explanation in the Matrix Reloaded that a perfect design, by which sentient entropy would never lend itself toward a "system crash", is slightly impossible.

#include "universe.h"

[rice_burners_suck]

If we really are living in a simulation, I think we need to send someone outside to hook up a NAT server, so we can connect the Internet to the world that encloses ours.

Advantages: We will be able to communicate with the people who run our world from the "real" world. I can already see people on IRC asking all kinds of favors, like "I want to be rich. Someone important. Like an actor."

Disadvantages: Script kiddies will get into the machines of the "real" world and they'll perform a DOS attack. Next thing you know, you're just walking down the street minding your own business when suddenly the street you were on turns into a toxic waste dump and a couple of identical cats walk by.

But anyway, if we ever do build a simulation, we should definitely connect our Internet into the world we make. That way, people who figure it out will be able to communicate with us. We'll tell 'em we're God... Screw the Prime Directive.

Re:I don't know...

[KrispyKringle]

Yeah, there are a lot better, non-we-are-living-in-a-Matrix reasons to assume that time-travel, at least in both directions in time (as opposed to the approaching-the-speed-of-light-so-time-goes-slower -empirically-tested-to-be-true-Einstien way) is totally, logically impossible.

For example, let's assume time travel is possible. We can go both ways in the fourth dimension. This basically removes any sort of chronological constraints from our actions. In other words, ordinarily, if I want to drive a car, I first have to obtain it. But in this universe, if I want a time machine, I can go back in time and teach myself how to make a time machine so I can go back in time to teach myself how to make the time machine. You get the idea.

So if I decide I want a time machine right now, why can't I just teach myself how to make one so that I can go back in time to teach myself how to make one? Yeah. That's what I thought.

Where do I submit patches

[Timesprout]

Cos I have a few changes I would like to make to this simulation. Simple things like

Person* Timesprout = GetPerson(xxxxx); Timesprout->physique = "Addonis";
Timesprout->attraction_level = "irristible to supermodels and actresses;'
Timesprout->wealth = BILL_GATES->wealth * 10;
Timespout->abode[0] = "Island paradise surrounded by beautiful nubile girls";
Timesprout->car[0] = "Ferrari spider";

I'll see how these work out before commiting more.

Re:Where do I submit patches

[Soko]

And the output:

Warning: Use of undeclared variables on line 1

Compiler error at line 2, missing ";"

Compilation aborted.

If you're going to program life, you'd better be a damned good coder.

Soko

Re:Where do I submit patches

[robbo]

If you're going to program life, you'd better be a damned good coder.

Well, the preferred method seems to have less to do with good code and more to do with greedy self-replication. The good code grabs the mutex, consumes all the IO resources and forks like crazy while the bad code starves until it catches the 'kill -KILL' signal.

Please read his original paper

[ScottGant]

Slashdot linked to what Dr. Bostrom called a "Brief, popular synopsis. But read the original paper instead if you can."

Here is the original paper:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.ht ml

Whoa

[Iron Monkey543]

I just had my 8th Corona. All of this crap just made more sense.

life();

[aardwolf204]

So what your saying is that if life as we know it is a simulation then the meaning of life() is Return 0;

If you can't tell the difference...

[irritating environme]

What does it matter if what we view and perceive is "reality" or a simulation? You can't detect the difference, you were born into this "reality", simulated or not, and I'd bet that you'll die in it too.

There isn't any evidence of artifacts of some simulation, beyond the existence of the laws of physics. And there certainly isn't any way to break it. If there is a higher power/controlling computer, they don't seem to care about us that much.

In terms of what we mathematically define as computation (given the observed rules of the simulation we know as life), it would be pretty hard to simulate what scientists view, measure, and track with our computational technology. The geometric rate on our computational engineering will probably slow drastically in the next century (to be liberal), so we can't count on a trillion times more space and speed.

Best Post Yet -eom-

[schlach]

I think, therefore I think I am.

Really good eipsode

[aardwolf204]

A conniving character from Sherlock Holmes takes control of a holodeck fantasy and traps the senior staff inside of it.

While enjoying a Sherlock Holmes mystery fantasy on the holodeck, Geordi and Data request that Barclay investigate some anomalies in the program. While doing so, Professor Moriarty appears and informs Barclay that the computer system has created him so well in the fantasy that he has come alive! According to Moriarty, Picard has held him hostage in the fantasy for over four years.

Startrek.com's Synopsis and multimedia for this EP... I'm a nerd too.

Re:Really good eipsode

[nomadic]

Since the holodeck routinely causes that kind of severe trouble for the crew, you'd think they'd stop using the damn thing. It's like, if every other week my toaster tried to kill me, I'd eventually get rid of it.

Not really

[dfeist]

Two baseless claims.
First, we won't ever have the computing power to simulate a universe. That's simple to find out: If you want to simulate something completely, Your computer hase to be bigger than what you want to simulate. Because somewhere you have to store all the information, and you'll need exactly as much quantums to store the information about them as you simulate. Conclusion: we won't be able to even simulate the earth.

For sure, that doesn't yet prove we aren't a simulation. One can't prove or disprove anything about that, and that's why this isn't science.
There could of course be a universe with enough storage and computing power to simulate our universe (and that could again be a simulation etc). If you know something about quantum physics maybe you can imagine what computing power is necessary - for each single quantum, you need to compute the forces to each other, and some probabilities, too. We're far from even simulating very little amounts of matter today.
But saying it would be more probable we're being simulated is like giving probabilities for the existence of a god - ie one can't say anything about it. It's outside of what one can give something like probabilities for.
The only thing we could look for was if we find evidence for that our universe is simulated with computers similar to the ones we're using today, ie we could search for typical errors or something like rounding...

Re:Not really

[AvantLegion]

Even if we cannot simulate the entire world it is very possible that we could simulate entire towns/cities non-stop for the minds of those enslaved/inside.

By Jove, I've figured it out! Like, there's not enough power to simulate all of America. So only the coasts are simulated! That's why nobody knows anyone that actually lives in, say, Topeka or Tulsa! THERE IS NO TULSA! Only fake video feeds of it!

Re:Plato's Cave

[Nihilanth]

any good art leads you to more. How many people never heard of the cave allegory or gnosticism before seeing the matrix? I mean, for me, it was P.K.Dick that introduced me to the idea, and i never got around to reading -him- until Linklater mentions him in the movie "Waking Life" (yeah, ive had a lot of Dick to catch up on).

There are probably better ways of judging the movie than scoring how much time it spends regurgitating what everyone's said about the cave allegory already, but all of these methods are by and large predicated on waiting for the actual story to finish. You know..see where they're going with it.

Birds, man.

[The Rolling Blackout]

Has anybody else noticed that the avian framerate is a little... er, off?

I mean everytime they move their heads there's like no interstitial animation whatsoever. Same goes for insects. Freaky. Plus my email has been acting up - yeah, I think the Gnostics had it right all along...

log file

[Spazmogazm]

So the whole life flashing before your eyes when you die is just your log file being tared, gzipped and dumped to a tape on a shelf somewhere.

False anthropic principle applications

[xihr]

This is a common misapplication of the anthropic principle. All the weak anthropic principle (which is the only one appropriate) states is this: For you to be here now, conditions in the Universe must be right to allow you to be here. In probabilistic form, it simply states: The probability of your existence being made possible by the history of the Universe is 1.

Most people with something to prove use this to make probabilistic arguments based on the probability of life, or the number of existent civilizations, but these are misguided. The anthropic principle tells you nothing about how many civilizations are out there, or how likely other similar creatures are, it simply says that for you to be here, the Universe must allow your existence.

Arguments such as the ones made in this article are based on a faulty understanding the anthropic principle. They are assuming a probability distribution that they not only have no reason to believe is true, but which the anthropic principle says nothing about.

Re:False anthropic principle applications

[macterra]

It is true that either Dr. Bostrom or you has a faulty understanding of the anthropic principle. Dr. Bostrom has written a book about it: Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. I'm not saying that makes him right necessarily, but others may want to take that into account before assuming he has committed such an elementary error.

Re:False anthropic principle applications

[nothings]

I'm certainly not an expert on the anthropic principle, but let me see if I can at least make an analogy here.

Suppose you have four bags. One bag contains ten pennies, one a hundred pennies, one a thousand pennies, and one has ten nickles. (If you want the sensible version of this analogy, imagine that each bag has some number of pennies and some number of nickles, in interesting variations. I'm making it really simple.)

Suppose I pull a penny out of a bag, but you don't see which, and I say, which bag did I pull the penny out of, the ten-cent bag, the fifty-cent bag, the dollar bag, or the ten-dollar bag?

The only thing probability tells us conclusively is that I didn't get it out of the fifty-cent bag, which has only nickles.

Of the remaining bags, just because one of them has more pennies, that doesn't mean it's more likely I pulled a penny from that bag.

Now, you might think, well, but if instead of me picking a penny from a bag, that's a bad analogy, the better analogy to the anthropic principle is to talk about the point of view of the pennies. If we average across all pennies, we're more likely to see the point of view of a penny in the ten-dollar bag.

The real problem is this: only one of the four bag exists, and we have no way of knowing which one exists, and no basis for assigning any probabilities to them. Probabilities are best understood as the statistical properties of potential things, e.g. if the probability of a die rolling a 2 is 1/6, I'm saying, if I rolled the die a lot of times, the number of times would come up 2 would approach 1/6 of the attempts.

But we don't get to choose from multiple possible universes to accumulate statistics from them. That's meaningless. So you can't meaningfully assign probabilities to various alternate possible universes.

Let me make that explicit. I show you the penny, and I ask you which bag I took it out of. And you say, 1/3 probability the ten-cent bag, 1/3 probability the dollar bag, and 1/3 probability the ten-dollar bag, and 0 probability the fifty-cent bag.

Now, I reveal, that I made a conscious choice not to draw from the ten-cent bag, and I flipped a coin to decide between the other two. Does that make the probability 1/2 for the dollar and ten-dollar bags? Or is the truth just that I pulled it from the dollar back with probability 1, and from the others with probability 0, and there's really nothing more to be said?

Here's a similar thing to tangle with: suppose on Monday it rains, and on Tuesday it doesn't rain. The weatherman predicts a 70% chance of rain on Monday, and a 30% chance of rain on Tuesday. Was he right? What does that even mean? How would you go about measuring the accuracy of weather predictions? You could keep count, and find out for each percentage whether they actual number of times it rained matched that percentage. But, say over the course of the year it rains on average 1/5 of the time. A weatherman who predicts a 20% chance of rain every day will come out perfect, but be the most useless prediction.

Personally, I think the "matrix" agument has other more important flaws since you can pick a single fixed universe to make it work in. The substrate-independence argument seems a little weird when applied to a single machine computing 10M people's brains--it's not clear to me that anything approaching 10M independent experienceable consciousnesses would occur. But most importantly, I think outcome (2) is the most likely; people wouldn't be that interested in running such detailed simulations (of human brains sufficient to generate substrate-independent consciousness) for long periods of time; what's the point in simulating results you're never going to see?

In college I completed the requirements for an undergraduate philosophy degree, but this kind of angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin business is exactly why I decided to stop spending any time thinking about non-concrete crap.

The Matrix?

[Sunlighter]

You can download the Boost library for C++ and have a Matrix in your own computer already. I think it even has a Matrix class. So you can pose and possibly answer important questions like:

• Is the Matrix square or rectangular?
• If it's square, what is the Determinant of the Matrix? (My hypothesis: The One. But we'll have to see the last movie to find out.)
• If it's square, what is the Cofactor Matrix?
• If the Matrix is square, does it have an Inverse? What is it?
• Is it a floating-point Matrix, a Matrix of exact arbitrary-precision rationals, or a Matrix of bits like the ones Knuth used in his MMIX processor? (Maybe it's a Matrix of Unicode code points, which would explain those freaky green displays.)
• If it is floating-point, how does it deal with round-off errors? How does it deal with denormals, infinities, and NANs?
• If it is rectangular, what would be the result of Gauss-Jordan elimination? (I can imagine Agent Smith wanting to use that.) How long would it take to compute? (If it's not wider than it is long, Gauss-Jordan won't do much good, although in that case you could use Gauss-Jordan on the transpose of the Matrix. If the Matrix is square, Gauss-Jordan will only produce the Identity Matrix.)

Sure is interesting to think about. (Heh heh...)

The author forgot one important factor...

[mankei]

I just skimmed through the paper. Very intriguing. But I think the author overlooks one important factor in our civilization: Human stupidity. It's well known to be infinite, so his probability calculations would definitely blow up somewhere and his final result would be invalid. We are more likely to have some superpower with an idiot president to start a new world war which ends the human civilization, before we can develop the technology of a "matrix" to simulate human thoughts.

That explains why...

[foobario]

... so many people I meet could be replaced by small shell scripts without any noticeable effects.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Obligatory matrix bastardisation

[comet_11]

Trinity: Morpheus, the post was modded down, I don't know how.

Morpheus: I know, they used the overrated exploit. There's no time, you're going to have to get to another post.

Trinity: Are there any trolls?

Morpheus: Yes.

Trinity: Goddammit.

Morpheus: You have to focus, Trinity. There are mod points at Wells and Lake. You can make it.

Trinity: All right.

Morpheus: Go.

Relativity

[mecanicaz]

Well, it's that easy...
You're trying to use humanly words and concepts to to explain something beyond your reach.
Words like "simulation", "processing power", "time", "think" and "entertain" are out of question here, you're acting like the "Sims" trying to think while they only get things the binary way, they don't even understand what a touch or smell is let alone the words themselves.
So it's the same here, you're trying to attribute humanly concepts upon God who's the maker of these concepts.
For example you cannot attribute time to God because he's out of time, he's looking at it in a somehow similar way you look at your code.

Re:Time travel

[zakezuke]

I'll agree that the 21st century may prove to be most interesting. We have this delightful computer revolution, but do people expect time traveling historians to pop out of the woodwork and say, "hi, i'm a time traveler, how the hell are you". Even if you met someone who said that, chances are you'd they they were nuts.

My point is the fact the people who use this as an argument suffer from a self importance complex. For example, let's say you were in africa, and never saw monkey. This does not mean they don't exist... either you were not were the monkeys were, or the monkey's just were not interested enough to say hello.

Old philosophy

[Aceticon]

Cogito ergo sun (I think therefore i am.)
Descartes, ( Born March 1596, died Feb 1650)

This all goes down to the old questions:

• Do I really exist?
• Does the world around me exists?
• Is the world as i percieve it to be?

Descartes tried to answer the first question.

While trying to explain the other two, don't forget that the only proof that you have that the world out there exists comes through your senses. For all you know, there are no other people out there - maybe your senses are being mislead:

• by a complex computer simulation
• by a powerfull telephatic entity
• by a drug
• by yourself - you've suffered psychological trauma this is all a dream
• ...

According to Descartes, the only thing you can be sure about is that you exist.

Re:Old philosophy

[blancolioni]

Descartes tried to answer the first question.

Descartes tried to answer all three.

We get to self-existence. Since everything has a cause, there must be a root cause, and this must be God. God, as we all know, created the world, therefore that exists too. And since God is good, he wouldn't lie, therefore the senses must provide an accurate picture.

Thre's a reason everybody stops after Cogito ergo sum, and that's because the rest of the reasoning was a bit, well, dodgy.

I'm sure I've misprepresented it a bit, but Rene can always speak up if he feels slighted. No? Well, then.

Re: In the "What Is The Point" category...

[tantrum]

If the world really was a simulation, it would be probable that the humans escaped into the simulation, as a way to get away from hunger/pollution/whatever. The new lifeform (based in a computer) could use the energy from the sun, and only need to calculate whatever is studied at the moment.
DarwinBots is a kinda cool alife demonstration, and it stores every "lifeform" as a program that runs in paralell with the other "organisms".

And about the idea of putting a terminator in Colloseum in greece, whows that some people really should learn a little bit more about ancient history. Perhaps a simulation of ancioent rome would be better ;)

In quantum theory there is a "rule" saying that things don't change until you study the object.

Re:why ohh why Does the Matrix need People?

[crulx]

Of course, the notion that the Matrix uses people to gain real energy disobeys Thermodynamics. Someone above made a comment about using humans as "processors", which would have made a much more plausible technical reason for the AI keeping the humans around. But I think this discussion misses the real reason that they went with the power rational with The Matrix. I feel that they wanted to make a metaphorical statement about how people fuel "the Matrix" in reality. Given the heavy Gnostical and Buddhist themes in the movie, we can understand that they mean to show that when we make the choice to believe in reality, we reinforce its power, not only over us, but over others as well. The more we believe that what we see and discern has meaning and substance, the more we get locked into the cycle of arising desires and beliefs. This, in Buddhist terminology, turns the wheel of life by forming a duality between that which we want and that which we do not want, which generates karma and hence causes reality to appear right before our eyes. Thus the power metaphor seems appropriate. Those "plugged into the Matrix", i.e. those who continue to believe in reality, "power the Matrix", i.e. cause the wheel of rebirth to turn. Honestly, I would feel surprised if the W bros didn't heavily debate using a flawed physical representation ("power plants") over using a much more profound, but subtler, idea of humans adding processing power as a reason for imprisonment. They must have decided that the computer metaphor would get lost on most of the audience and thus dumbed it down. You notice that the "power plant" idea does not appear in the 2nd movie at all except for an oblique reference to "you need us". They merely used it as a crutch to help people suspend disbelief while watching the movie.

By understanding the Message of The Matrix, you will come to understand many of the logical inconsistencies in the film. Everything in that movie got put there for a reason and the W bros felt no shame altering some of the content so more people would understand the Message. So while it may ire geeks, it makes the movie easier to swallow for people new to these sorts of ideas. I personally just pretend that Morphius said, "Humans can perform up to 10^5 Teraflops (or whatever) of complex operations that the robots steal to add to their available processing power." I think you can see how this would require a much longer dialog between Neo and Morphius to inform the average viewer of what that means.

What do you think?

---
Crulx

Re:Remember...

[bumby]

And sometimes he make rollbacks, that is when you experinse Déjà Vu :-P

We Are A Simulation of a Simulation

[happylinuxguy]

One can go farther than just saying that we are a simulation created by an original race. We are a simulation with the ability to reason and create our own simulation. Therefore it would be possible for a simulated race to create another simulated race, and we could be the 3rd, 4th or nth simulation, with no simulation above us cognizant they are a simulation. Furthermore, simulations need not be run in real-time, they could be run quicker than real-time. However, I argue that each simulation of a simulation will generate some innacuracies, and after a certain number of iterations, simulations would not be self-sustaining; the population would notice the innacuracies. I however, have noticed no innacuracies to date. Therefore if we are living in a simulation of a simulation, we are likely constrained by a finite number, perhaps the 100th simulation or less of a simulation.

Biggest flaw is...

[Pedrito]

I think the biggest flaw in his argument actually supports possibility of living in a "matrix" even more. He assumes that the consciousness of 6 billion people in the world are being simulated. Why? What if I'm the only simulation? All the other people in the world could just be representations for me to interact with.

I know you think this is your simulation, but sorry, it's really mine. I'm the "real" on here.

defining your terms

[SaXisT4LiF]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by modern 'philosophy' but I think you have some misconceptions:

"Modern Philosophy" is a movement in the literature that reflects a more mathematical and scientific approach to the philosophical ideas originating back in ancient Greece. Philosophers usually credit Rene Descartes for the transition, but Descartes is a bad example of good philosophy because his arguments go in logical circles. David Hume is a little better because did take an empirical approach to philosophy. I'll bet you'd enjoy Hume's writing, he insists that the problems in philosophy would all just disappear when the philosophers finally define their terms.

"Post-Modern Philosophy" has developed more recently (perhaps what you meant by 'modern'?) and rejects anything not based on empirical evidence. The goal is to eliminate the underlying universalist assumptions of philosophy in order to bring philosophy closer to reality.

That being said, 90% of all philosophy is "drivel" (as you put it) but the ability to distinguish the remaining 10% is priceless. Secondly, none of it is impossible to disprove. You have several ways to disprove philosophical "drivel":
1: Attack the soundness of the argument. Check that that each step logically follows from the previous. Look for circular reasoning, statements that try to prove themselves.
2: Attack the validity of the argument. Sometimes philosophers say things that downright aren't true.
3: Attack the assumptions. Every argument has them, and if you can destroy them then the rest of the argument will crumble after.

Basically, if you want to challenge philosophy you're going to have to do so in the philosophical arena. When you combat overgeneralizations about reality with overgeneralizations about philosophy you're just making more problems than you began with.

You don't even need a Matrix for simulation...

[SiMac]

Your own brain already simulates the outside world. What? You thought what you saw was really what's out there? Your brain is only showing you part of the story.

Most people don't realize that the brain gives them a description of the outside world, not a picture of it. Try drawing a still life. What? Too difficult? Why? If you actually saw the world as it is, it wouldn't be too difficult, the only problem would be making the brush strokes. But instead, you need knowledge of the technique of perspective, you need knowledge of shading, etc. Why do we need knowledge to draw a world we're seeing with out own eyes?

Furthermore, what our brain presents is not the whole truth, even if it is a partial truth, which this article presents an article against. We see three dimensions of a world that could have many more, according to some theories. Some people only see two dimensions of this world. Some people don't see any dimensions of this world. Why do we assume that other important things, like specifics about the very way things are, are not modified by are brain? They are, at least indirectly, by our evolved emotions, but we assume that there's no modification at the sensory level. When it seems so easy to introduce noticeable differences at the sensory level by hallucinogens, why can't we believe the brain is already doing it to an extent?

The Matrix test

[juha0]

1. Get your self few smoke grenades.
2. Now, make a nice light smoke screen around you.
3. Spin your self around like a maniac.

If your frame rate drops dramatically, it's time to call your Matrix administrator.

God playing SimCity?

[kilonad]

You know, now that I think of it, it does sound familiar. Whenever people first start playing SimCity, they build up a small city and start unleashing disasters on it just to see what they do and to have a little fun. Then they get bored and just kinda leave it running for a while, intervening now and then, until they eventually just leave it the hell alone (or close the program). Seeing as how God was supposedly vengeful in the Old Testament, and hasn't rained down sulfur much lately, I'd say it's possible we all exist in a very advanced version of SimCity.

Re:God playing SimCity?

[Idarubicin]

Seeing as how God was supposedly vengeful in the Old Testament, and hasn't rained down sulfur much lately, I'd say it's possible we all exist in a very advanced version of SimCity.

So you're saying that God just got bored and went away?

What happens when He discovers Quake? Is the Uncertainty Principle the result of sloppy overclocking?

Finally, what happens to us when His mom tells him to shut down the computer and go outside to play?

Re: drugs are bad

[dave_mcmillen]

C'mon, he must be right, he's got equations and everything.

Oh, but wait . . . The quantities in the equations are completely made up and meaningless. So, let me rephrase my earlier assessment: This is complete hookum. Because the number of hypothetical "ancestor simulations" is large compared to the number of actual developing civilizations, we are "almost certain" to be in a simulation rather than real? Huh?

Let me present an alternative, equally plausible hypothesis: The entire universe is being run by tiny, invisible pixies, who implement all the laws of physics by grabbing things and moving them around in exactly the right way when we perturb our environment. (Why they do this is unknown.) Unfortunately, there is no empirical test that can distinguish between this situation and one in which the laws of physics arise just because of the way real particles interact.

Let's all just agree to pretend that we're not living in pixie-world or The Matrix, OK? It makes no difference, anyway, and it's a whole lot simpler. And if you want to kill your neighbour or your boss, you can't console yourself that they were just simulated anyway.

Quantum Mechanics could be simulation artifact.

[goombah99]

I think a lot of people are missing a key points.

Godel's theorem in a nut shell: you cant prove inconsistency in any set of axioms within the context of those axioms.

suppose for a moment that this is a simulation with a finite amount of memory to parameterize the "world". the state of this system is propgated from time slice to time slice by some set of finite difference equations. well this means that everything is perfectly self-consistent. if you devise any experiment within the simulation itself to measure any observable then you will discover it is self consistent. The laws of nature a person living there would formulate would in fact be the correct ones for that system. you would never be able to discover an inconsistency.

consider for example QM. basically in a quantum world there ARE limits on resolution. indeed the limits are surprisingly like how one creates a simulation. for example, in any practical 3-D game the voxels of distant objects have larger volumes than the close by ones that you can see more clearly. likewise fast moving objects in the background are less precisely placed from frame to frame while maintaining on average an accurate speed.

its as though someone gridded the game in such a way as to have hyper cubes of constant delta-P time delta-X. hey wadda ya know that's the heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Indeed its easier to simulate a trajectory if you dont have to do it exactly. simply compute the approximate result with error bars and then any time the result is closely inspected you return a different sample from the approximate distribution. Thus one does not have to memo-ize everthing the game player has looked at carefully, you can recreate it on the fly each time something is inspected at high resolution simply by drawing an approximate sample from the distribution. The fact that two looks never quite agree is written off as the "hiesenberg uncertainty principle", or to the QM notion that inspecting an object can change its state.

Another hiesenberg principle is the energy-time uncertaintly (to measure the energy of something precisely takes increasing amounts of time). Again this is in keeping with a simulation. to compute the simulation to increacing levels of precision will take more time.

and remember folks the simulation does not have to run in real time!

Finally to digress a bit. Just suppose for moment the supposition that this is simulation is true. then might it might also be possible that the people doing the simulation are also simulations. and so on ad infinitum. the interesting thing is that at each layer of this onion it seems to me that the plausibility that you live in a simulation increases. this is because with each subsequent layer the plausibility of sufficient computer power prior to extinction improves.

Re:Quantum Mechanics could be simulation artifact.

[Thing 1]

and remember folks the simulation does not have to run in real time!

Lots of peopel are saying this, and I agree, but I agree the opposite: I believe the simulation runs many times faster than real time.

At first, processing power is slow and you must run simulations slower than real time. However, technology progresses, and eventually the simulation can be run parallel to real time. (As others have said, the simulation does not have to calculate everything, just as Quake doesn't calculate walls and objects you can't see; also, judicious use of lossless compression can keep the memory requirements down; instead of 1 trillion atoms, it just says "chair", etc.)

With the simulation running in parallel, you can simulate the current world and develop technology, while the real world is developing different technology. And of course you can run multiple simulations, so technology (and processing power) will expand much faster than before.

Note that this could be the case even with simulations running slower than real time -- they can also be used to work on advancing technology, because their efforts can be coordinated with the real world.

So at some point we'll have enough processing power to simulate faster than real time. And then technology will really take off, because we'll be able to perform experiments "in the blink of an eye" which would have taken years or perhaps millenia to perform "in the real world."

Of course, it would be nice to eventually be able to make it to that "real world"...

My favorite anecdote is from Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's The Illuminatus Trilogy in which a minor character at one point states, "I've realized that we're all living in a book, and I think I've figured a way out."

He's never heard from again.

Tiny detail but it stayed with me all these years. I want out.

Re:Plato's Cave

[pi_rules]

(yeah, ive had a lot of Dick to catch up on)

No, File under: "Things not to say in prison."

Re:Cani do this?

[glenstar]

Just do a simple: make world. If your kernel config file is propery set up (don't forget the "SIMULATE_EXISTENCE" flag!), upon reboot you will be living in a simulation.

Re:have to

[maraist]

Define free will? Is it the ability to do as you wish? This can't be true because the physical world impedes your activities. You can't travel as quickly as you wish, nor break as many laws as you wish indefinitely.

I would refine this to mean, given a set of instantaneous (time dependent) options, you may choose which-ever one you wish.. BUT, these options are not infinite nor continuous. Thus the physical world around you is limiting your choice. You are molded by your environment necessarily. Moreover, your character will likely be limited in it's sophistication so that it can't see many of the more desirable options. Thus there is a definite degree of pre-determination. Not only do we have few choices in life (which are given to us by the fate of historcal progression), but we are pre-determined (through biology and our own past) as to which choices we are capable of making.

While this still leaves us with an enormous responsibility (in terms of a multitude of diametricly opposed options), I'm not convinced that we are capable of making any decision other than what we were meant to; meaning what our mechanical biology is statistically configured to do. If our brain is nothing more than a mechanical/electronic switch-board which makes value judgements based purely on thresholds of triggering, and those tresholds are altered by periodic chemical states (moods), then we are deterministicly given our past (our prevoius moods and experiences) and our present environment will merely be inputs into this switchboard - the outcome would merely be mechanical. Granted this is only an assumption, but science slowly providing more and more evidence of this.

For example, a person biologically prone to aggression (which isn't normal for a person), when presented with an irratable peer, and absence of calmer people in the surrounding environment to disuade him, is pre-determined + environmentally encouraged to choose to fight. Without a possible alternative, this choice is not freely willed.

For these extreme cases, I do not believe we have much free will.. In softer cases (should I buy coke or pepsi, and thus macro-scopically determine the economic fate of our country), I'm willing to give to the argument of free-will. It is plausible that in the chaotic interaction at the atomic / quantum level, our thresholds (when presented with a nearly 50/50 point) may or may not trigger, thereby altering our decision. In this critical chaotic region, our personality (and the coriolis effect of the earth, solar system and universe) may all come into play. Any concept of a soul, or weighted simulation may make the bizarness of life happen.

But the possibility of this does not prove it's existance..

My point finally being, free will is by no means logically sound, though it is not disproven either.

My hero *swoon*

[LiberalApplication]

Godel's Theorem came to mind immediately as I read the original post, and then I came across yours and realized you had fleshed out an appropriate response better than I would have been able to, so suffice to say, "*swoon*".

In any case, I'd still like to tack a few things onto that.

Indeed its easier to simulate a trajectory if you dont have to do it exactly. simply compute the approximate result with error bars and then any time the result is closely inspected you return a different sample from the approximate distribution. Thus one does not have to memo-ize everthing the game player has looked at carefully, you can recreate it on the fly each time something is inspected at high resolution simply by drawing an approximate sample from the distribution. The fact that two looks never quite agree is written off as the "hiesenberg uncertainty principle", or to the QM notion that inspecting an object can change its state.

A large portion of our observation of very small things has involved the flinging of other very small things towards them. It follows then that we'd be compounding the imprecision of "drawing an approximate sample from the distribution" of the thing we are inspecting with the imprecision of the approximation of the thing we are flinging.

In a different sense, it's almost amusing to think that QM may be the result of us having reached the limit of precision of ReallyReallyReallyLongDouble in the system in which we exist, or that maybe somewhere out there at very fundamental level exists a Math.floor().

Back to Godel though:
1) For fun and fluff - So there would be "formally undecidable truths" in our simulation/system. What do you think they might be? "God Exists". "Pepsi really does taste better".
2) Now I'm just going to go off on a semiconscious Sunday-morning rambling here, so don't take me seriously (but humor me if you're so inclined). So in order for everything in our system to be justifiable and explicable, we'd need a more powerful system, a higher level of simulation.

Godel's theorem in a nut shell: you cant prove inconsistency in any set of axioms within the context of those axioms.

Similarly, any simulation we might create in the future must be "less powerful", in that its mechanics of operation (and existence!) can be fully explained within the operating rules of our simulation. This could continue on in both directions. I wonder where we'd be in the ladder of complexity? Would we really be losing "resolution" as our simulations created their own simulations? If we look back to our simulators, then do we assume that all inexplicable phenomena of our existence can be fully justified in their context? If they don't exist, then does that mean that these phenomena are really explainable or not?

Old ideas: Read The Physics of Immortality...

[neurocutie]

For a more expansive view of the physics and religious implications of these simulate all of human existence ideas, read the 1995 book The Physics of Immortality, by Tipler.

Among lots of other things, the idea is that we will all be resurrected at a time close to the end of creation (the universe) in the form of computer simulations. Lots of pseudo-science to back up these assertions...

Re:why ohh why Does the Matrix need People?

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> Someone above made a comment about using humans
> as "processors", which would have made a much
> more plausible technical reason for the AI
> keeping the humans around

It would certainly fit in with agents taking over anything "still hardwired to the system", i.e. programming the wetware of a copper top's brain, overlaying the agent's mind so the agent could take over their avatar.

Remember the Woman in Red scene?

Which reminds me, this was left on the cutting room floor, for obvious reasons:

Mouse: How do the computers know what chicken tastes like? Maybe that's why everything tastes like chicken. They didn't know what it tasted like in reality!

Switch: That's why the Woman in Red's kootch tastes like chicken, eh Mouse?

(Everyone laughs. Mouse is redfaced.)

Dozer: Switch, you goddamned dyke. You are da shit! (High-fives her.)

Re: drugs are bad

[znode]

Let's all just agree to pretend that we're not living in pixie-world or The Matrix, OK? It makes no difference, anyway, and it's a whole lot simpler. And if you want to kill your neighbour or your boss, you can't console yourself that they were just simulated anyway.

Dave's right. It's just like the argument of fate. As long as you do not know what will happen in the future, the question of whether there is fate or not is moot point. You can explain events as fate or as random events all you want, since it has already taken place.

From an existentialist (thus pessimistic) point of view, we simply exist. Attempts to explain otherwise, of how universe is controlled by a greater being, controlled by a fixed law, or in this case, simulated, is merely attempts of humans to create meaning that does not exist. We simply are, our reality simply is, no greater being, no fixed law.

I take this further and say that our reality may or may not just exist, but does not matter. Like the point of infinite Matrices, one simulated by the other, it simply does not matter where the "real reality" is. Within our concepts that are taken for granted anyway (anyone can define "define"? anyone can define "is"? Why does the reflexive law of equality have to be true?), there can many explanations of our reality. And those explanations can be true (whatever true means); but as long as this universe's workings does not change, the explanations are all valid and "true", it simply does not matter which one you believe in - our reality will keep on its ways, existing as it is.

Re:Computational Power Required

[gerardrj]

No. You are missing the big picture...

The human brain is the most complex and powerful computer system in existence today. Granted it's not terrific at raw number crunching, but for pattern matching, association, memory storage, creativity, interaction. etc it's tops.
The machine's computers don't need to run simulations, they just need enough computing power to induce certain perceptions within each brain and to coordinate the functioning of all the brains that are near one another in the simulation. The knowledge to do this it taught/programmed in from birth. Your brain is completely capable of inventing people, having two way conversations with those invented people, and designing and re-designing physical locations on the fly. All without you conciously thinking about it.

Let me describe this more elaborately:
Assume you and I are living in a simulated world while having this conversation. The machines don't need to simulate my typing on the keyboard, or the text on my screen, or the air I'm breathing. My brain knows how to do that (it was tought to by the machines). You brain knows all those things also. There is no need for the main computers to simulate that for the both of us. The main computers simply assure that we can interact from within the same context of this computer system. There has so be some way for the messages to pass between us.

Of course, there's no reason to believe that's even the case. Perhaps you are simply a figment of my imagination, a simulation within my brain, and so is this computer system. Suppose that each and every brain plugged in to the system runs it's own complete simulation, just making things up as it goes along. There is no way to proove that another person actually exists, as anyone else you ask may also not exist, but instead be part of your simulation. As such they would be under your control and say whatever needed to be said. Think about the complexity of your dreams that you recall.
The role of the machines in this case is simply to regulate the simulations we run within our own brains, making sure that they don't become too extreem in the negative or positive sense. There is no need for the plugged in brains to ever communicate with each other.

Then again (and this is a guess), Neo never actually woke up from the Matrix, and the whole "real world" thing is simply another "simulation" introduced by the machines to get this anomoly out of the code. Perhaps Neo was dreaming the entire thing.

If this is just a simulation...

[Geek of Tech]

Okay. If this is just some simulation, then when (and if) we get to the point in our simulated time where we have technology to simulate the world, that would me the computers supporting us would have to use double the resources, because it would be simulating us simulating the universe. So everytime the new simulation got to the point (assuming the guy in charge of us doesn't shut us down) where their technology could simulate the universe then it would require more power. Eventually, to support all the simulations, it would seem that we would need an infinite ammount of memory, because every level of simulation would add so much overhead. One more thing... just still assuming we are in a simulation... do you think we're running under Windows, *nix or Mac? Hmmmmm........

simulation or VR

[samantha]

What has bothered me about this line of thought is the notion of simulations rather than VRs. I would consider it much more likely that we are living with a computationally created reality than that the more limited version of this, that we are a simulation, is true. I kept hoping that the definition of "simulation" would be made clear. Unfortunately it was fairly implicit that the author expects our descendants to create sims of us to play/work/interact with. But why exactly should they wish to do this? And what happened to our "true selves" anyway?

If I was a compassionate future AI determined to do what I could for human beings despite their proclivity to destroy themselves and one another, I might well pop the lot of them into tailored VRs where they could live out their urges over and over again in a sort of VR mediated reincarnational system, until they were adequately housebroken. Then they might be let out onto the main datasphere.

But I find it far less likely that future descendants would be crass enough to run us as if we were real just for their own amusement without consideration of the ethics involved.

Logical Flaw

[DesertFalcon]

"Consequently, there must be far more simulations running in future millennia than seconds since you were born. Thus its astronomically more likely you are a simulation than real ... if humans don't go extinct shortly."

There's a logical flaw here - the author is assuming that the existance of a large number of simulations equates to likelyhood that one or more of the simulations will be used to re-create human life/the human experience of life.

Just because simulations will undoubtedly exist does not mean that those simulations will be used to recreate human beings.

Re:why ohh why Does the Matrix need People?

[hymie3]

Honestly, I would feel surprised if the W bros didn't heavily debate using a flawed physical representation ("power plants") over using a much more profound, but subtler, idea of humans adding processing power as a reason for imprisonment.

What do you think?


Waaay back when the first movie came out, the whatisthematrix.com website had a whole bunch of "in the world of" stories and comics from various authors and artists. It was *very* apparent that the original design was that humans were CPU power for the machines, ala Dan Simmons' Hyperion series.

I don't remember where I read/saw this, but apparently the decision was made by WBstudios that the "brain as CPU" concept would be too difficult to grasp for the general viewing public. From a sci-fi perspective, humans as processors is more appealing, but I suppose from the higher level of "you are a prisoner to your reality", it doesn't really matter *what* the agents use humans for, as long as humans are willing slaves to the matrix.

Time in the Matrix also happened at an accelerated rate over "real time". Three days in RL equated to about twelve years in the matrix.

Fast forwarding and rewinding of the timeline happened often, almost like the matrix world kept re-living the 1990's-2000s. In one of the stories, agents used humans to write, well, agents, implying that there was some sort of "spark of creativity" that the agents leeched from us.

Also, body image did *not* necessarily carry over from the matrix to the real world. Switch, for example, was supposed to be a guy in the real world, but a female (a lesbian) in the matrix.

I haven't seen the Animatrix series yet, but am told that it's much closer to the original vision than what the WBrothers eventually turned out through WBstudios.

Not clocked?

[yerricde]

That might work if our reality were clocked.

There's no reason to believe it isn't. Google for "Planck time".

you're talking about the difference between a slow versus a fast chess game (they are identical), whereas "reality chess" would be a turn-less game

Video games are clocked at 60 turns per second, and the player can't tell. The difference between chess and Starcraft is that in Starcraft, the pieces do not move nearly as far in a "turn".