(Jul 7, 2023 01:27 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: I’m content with Selma Hayek image(s) 
I’d even be ok with her being the simulator.
Anyways back to this ancestor simulator. Must operate on a different time level, universe time is different than simulator time. So a billion years for us may be a day or two for it. I guess we wouldn’t know, IOW we may be simulated to think everything is older and running on the 24hr clock, what we know of history or even the past is an illusion.
That's a good reason why the prior-in-rank level would want the simulation to be as self-governing as possible (deism) or watched by the AI apparatus itself that could keep up with the changes speed-wise, including editing chores if something goes awry. And in the case of an ancestor simulation, obviously the "supernatural level" would want to stay hidden and not interfere overtly since that kind of contact or interference didn't happen in the original's history.
"Supernatural" really becomes more applicable if the artificial reality is not a copy of another world (strict simulation) and the prior-in-rank level has a completely different nature than the one being generated (i.e., the artificial reality isn't abiding in a technological substrate like a computer). In that case, non-obfuscated intrusion in the form of the miracles or magic wouldn't have to be heavily forbidden.
And, again, "something completely different" can potentially prevent the endless Russian nested doll scenario that our spatiotemporal manner of existence is vulnerable to (need a cause for the cause for the cause...).
But since our world seems to be present itself as wholly "natural" or "sans interference from beyond" -- no sorcery like occurrences -- it would indicate that we'd be in an ancestor simulation. Although it can't be ruled out that an experimental virgin reality that's not a repeat of anything else might also receive a "hands-off" decree, too, for the sake of research.
When or if our own level produces an internally convincing simulation, it will be generated and maintained by an approach similar to the brain's when it is dreaming -- just a lot more governed and less chaotic. There will be multiple antagonistic networks critiquing and challenging each other to maintain a coherent environment and a sensible sequence of past events for the internal observers.
Thus avoiding the impossibility of simulating an entire universe. Including things and events at the tiny level (molecules, atoms, particles) not being maintained or existing except when detecting instruments probe into that stratum. (Otherwise, what a colossal and unnecessary waste of computing power resources that would be, since there are no conscious observers down there.)
Quote:If everything is a simulation then is time also? We’re just pre-programmed to think of time the way we do….idk
Well, if a prior-in-rank level should be completely different in nature from our own (no technology as we know it necessary), then I suppose rather than changes being generated step-by-step by a computer processes (
akin to the presentism conception of time), there might alternatively be a block universe where all changes co-exist (past, present, future integrated together). And the "flow of time" is a product of the brain's consciousness (neural states and their cognitive, memory-based effects being segregated as different states along the worldline of the human body, thus only an apprehension of changes in isolation from each other, rather than experiencing a lifetime all at once or as an integrated whole).
But of course, that renders the level of the simulators so radically different (no computational technology method required) that the relationship between our world and theirs might no longer fit a strict "simulation hypothesis" paradigm. But still, as aforementioned. "something completely different" is required eventually to avoid a recursive fallacy or Russian nested doll scenario.
Jul 7, 2023 06:37 AM
(This post was last modified: Jul 7, 2023 08:46 AM by C C.)
