Could our Universe be a simulation? How would we even tell? (Ars Technica article)

[C C]

Even our commonsense belief about time, where the universe is the product of a regulated, continuing process that outputs short-lived changes in it (a view known as presentism) crosses paths with aspects of simulated reality. In contrast to the physics treatment of time being a structure of co-existing differences, known in philososphy as eternalism (also: What is time?). Few seem to be clued-in that our rival ontological views about "time" also correspond roughly to an immaterialism versus materialism dichotomy.

IOW, in a broader conception or category that the idea of "simulated reality" could be subsumed by, the origin of what's perceived wouldn't even have to be technological (like an artificial computer). Matter particles being, say, statistically governed excitations in fields (generic context) already takes one beyond the original dogma of a "material substance" and its supposed static permanence. Fluctuating field disturbances start looking equivalent to flickering information states that are misconstrued as "concrete, enduring stuff" at higher observational levels.

John Archibald Wheeler: "It from bit symbolises the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe."

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Could our Universe be a simulation? How would we even tell?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/...even-tell/

EXCERPT: . . . That’s it. That’s Bostrom’s simulation argument: That once somebody, somewhere, at some time, develops the ability to create faithfully simulated brains, most brains in the Universe will be housed in some computational facility.

Crucially, this line of thinking does not immediately lead to the conclusion that we are living in a simulation. Instead, the argument ends in a trilemma, three possible conclusions that, absent any additional evidence or convincing argument, are all equally valid.

Conclusion #1: For some reason, our future descendants, or any other beings living in the Universe, will be unable to build such a simulation, either because of some limitation in computing that we can’t yet fathom or because all intelligent species manage to kill themselves off before embarking on the journey of building ancestor-simulations. While the idea is a little depressing, it’s not that far-fetched. We’re not even close to the necessary level of computational sophistication, and we’ve managed to develop globe-killing nuclear weapons and civilization-disrupting climate change.

Conclusion #2: For some reason, our future descendants, or any other beings living in the Universe, will be unwilling to build such a simulation. They totally could if they wanted to, but they don’t. Perhaps there’s an enormous amount of social pressure or self-policing that prevents every super-advanced society from building large numbers of simulated brains. I mean, I feel kind of bad when I kill pigs in Minecraft, so maybe as the eons go by, this distaste evolves into a universally consistent Butlerian-Jihad-style proscription against this class of sophisticated simulations. Or maybe we can’t fathom what post-humans want to spend their time on, and nobody in the far future even bothers running such a simulation because it’s not interesting to them.

Conclusion #3: Our future descendants, or any other beings in the Universe, totally can and totally want to build large numbers of simulated brains, in which case the vast majority of all conscious beings in the Universe are digital rather than biological, so the raw probability of us being simulated quickly approaches one. We are likely living in a simulation.

Trilemma laid out, we now get to the fun part of philosophical inquiry: the arguing. But I want to make one thing very clear. Despite the claims of some science popularizers, the simulation argument is not pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is the act of pretending to make scientific claims without the rigor that science requires. But Bostrom is a trained, professional philosopher going about his day job, which is to be philosophical. Bostrom is not making scientific claims or advancing testable hypotheses. He's making a philosophical argument based on clearly defined assumptions and a rational line of thinking. That’s not pseudoscience any more than carpentry or accounting is.

Indeed, Bostrom’s argument stops at the trilemma. His paper continues, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the three possible conclusions (with a strong preference for #3), but in the end, that’s as far as the assumptions can take you. So it’s up to us to decide where we land.

One option is to take the trilemma at face value and accept the uncertainty that comes with it. Our future descendants may or may not build a simulation. We may or may not live in one. That’s it. There are no answers, no big revelations. It's an interesting dinnertime conversation, but it ultimately leads to nowhere we weren’t before; there’s no new knowledge or perspective on reality to be gained here. Shrug your shoulders, have a drink of possibly simulated beer to take the edge off the existential crisis, and move on with your life.

While I won’t begrudge anyone for taking that position, Bostrom’s argument allows us to dig deeper into the nature of computation, consciousness, and even reality, and we can do that by poking and prodding at the assumptions and conclusions of the argument itself. And that’s a lot of fun, so we’ll keep going... (MORE - missing details)

[stryder]

A belief that the universe is the product of a regulated, continuing process that outputs short-lived changes (presentism), rather than a structure of co-existing differences (eternalism), is already crossing paths with aspects of simulated reality. Few seem to be clued-in that our rival ontological views about "time" also correspond roughly to an immaterialism versus materialism dichotomy.

IOW, in a broader conception or category that the idea of "simulated reality" could be subsumed by, the origin wouldn't even have to be technological (like an artificial computer). Matter particles being, say, statistically governed excitations in fields (generic context) already takes one beyond the original dogma of a "material substance" and its supposed static permanence. Fluctuating field disturbances start looking equivalent to flickering information states that are misconstrued as "concrete, enduring stuff" at higher observational levels.

John Archibald Wheeler: "It from bit symbolises the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe."

- - - - - - - - - - -

Could our Universe be a simulation? How would we even tell?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/...even-tell/

EXCERPT: . . . That’s it. That’s Bostrom’s simulation argument: That once somebody, somewhere, at some time, develops the ability to create faithfully simulated brains, most brains in the Universe will be housed in some computational facility.

Crucially, this line of thinking does not immediately lead to the conclusion that we are living in a simulation. Instead, the argument ends in a trilemma, three possible conclusions that, absent any additional evidence or convincing argument, are all equally valid.

Conclusion #1: For some reason, our future descendants, or any other beings living in the Universe, will be unable to build such a simulation, either because of some limitation in computing that we can’t yet fathom or because all intelligent species manage to kill themselves off before embarking on the journey of building ancestor-simulations. While the idea is a little depressing, it’s not that far-fetched. We’re not even close to the necessary level of computational sophistication, and we’ve managed to develop globe-killing nuclear weapons and civilization-disrupting climate change.

Conclusion #2: For some reason, our future descendants, or any other beings living in the Universe, will be unwilling to build such a simulation. They totally could if they wanted to, but they don’t. Perhaps there’s an enormous amount of social pressure or self-policing that prevents every super-advanced society from building large numbers of simulated brains. I mean, I feel kind of bad when I kill pigs in Minecraft, so maybe as the eons go by, this distaste evolves into a universally consistent Butlerian-Jihad-style proscription against this class of sophisticated simulations. Or maybe we can’t fathom what post-humans want to spend their time on, and nobody in the far future even bothers running such a simulation because it’s not interesting to them.

Conclusion #3: Our future descendants, or any other beings in the Universe, totally can and totally want to build large numbers of simulated brains, in which case the vast majority of all conscious beings in the Universe are digital rather than biological, so the raw probability of us being simulated quickly approaches one. We are likely living in a simulation.

Trilemma laid out, we now get to the fun part of philosophical inquiry: the arguing. But I want to make one thing very clear. Despite the claims of some science popularizers, the simulation argument is not pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is the act of pretending to make scientific claims without the rigor that science requires. But Bostrom is a trained, professional philosopher going about his day job, which is to be philosophical. Bostrom is not making scientific claims or advancing testable hypotheses. He's making a philosophical argument based on clearly defined assumptions and a rational line of thinking. That’s not pseudoscience any more than carpentry or accounting is.

Indeed, Bostrom’s argument stops at the trilemma. His paper continues, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the three possible conclusions (with a strong preference for #3), but in the end, that’s as far as the assumptions can take you. So it’s up to us to decide where we land.

One option is to take the trilemma at face value and accept the uncertainty that comes with it. Our future descendants may or may not build a simulation. We may or may not live in one. That’s it. There are no answers, no big revelations. It's an interesting dinnertime conversation, but it ultimately leads to nowhere we weren’t before; there’s no new knowledge or perspective on reality to be gained here. Shrug your shoulders, have a drink of possibly simulated beer to take the edge off the existential crisis, and move on with your life.

While I won’t begrudge anyone for taking that position, Bostrom’s argument allows us to dig deeper into the nature of computation, consciousness, and even reality, and we can do that by poking and prodding at the assumptions and conclusions of the argument itself. And that’s a lot of fun, so we’ll keep going... (MORE - missing details)

I pose the proof of us being simulated is through yawns.

In the infancy of computing one of the first things that was done by some of the boffins was the writing of simple viruses. Unlike physical viruses however, at the time they didn't rewrite code and just had a payload that might inconvience the user like turning the screen upside down. (It was more done for humour than damage).

In the case of a simulated environment, it could be suggested that if a universe was created, such simple humour virus would be created. yawns are one of those things that widely occurs (especially in lecture halls), and the problem with them is there is no need for direct contact, just a line of sight and it can trigger the equivalent of a mexican wave in yawns (if there is enough people around).

You can yawn to a webcamera and cause someone on the otherside of the planet to yawn too.

As daft as it might be, I affirm it's proof that the very universe is simulated and the yawn virus is embedded into it's very core.

[Magical Realist]

The simulation could likely reveal itself as such to its subjects thru the occurrence of anomalies--events that seem to have no cause or reason to them. Hence the transpiring of synchronistic coincidences, the paranormal, ufos, Bigfoot, precognitive intimations, psychedelic experiences, and all the other fortean phenomena and quirks that pop up out there.

We would awaken from our programmed dream thru the intrusion of virus-like bugs (conspiracy theories and fanatical ideologies) that proliferate and spread to the extent that we become complacent with the dream.

The universe would want to wake us up from our trance, alerting us the fact that we are trapped inside a simulation. It would surprise us with the irrational in a world that is all too rational. It would insinuate the otherworldly in a reality that all too often appears to completely exclude it.