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Simulations again

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Robert J. Cordingley

Simulations again

This article showed up on my Google News today:

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/12/17/what-if-reality-were-really-just-im-universe/

that I thought raised interesting tho' philosophical questions. Why
would anyone write a simulation that questioned it's own existence? Is
it possible for a simulation to run an experiment that interacted with
anything outside it's own simulated environment?

Robert C

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Bruce Sherwood

Re: Simulations again

Here's my own hopefully amusing version of this: Some years ago when they were popular my wife and I enjoyed playing the "Myst" type of computer adventure game, where you go around in a beautifully rendered world looking for clues to solve puzzles. What are the criteria for a good game? From our experience, the puzzles need to be organic to the game (a chess puzzle is intrusive in a game that has nothing to do with chess), and, as with good pedagogical practice, the puzzles need to be at just the right level of challenge. If the puzzle is too easy, it's not interesting, and if the puzzle is too hard, it's just too frustrating.

If we're in a good game/simulation, we should be encountering puzzles that are organic to our world, and which are at the right level of challenge. It struck me as suggestive that we humans were able to discover that the identity of neutrinos emitted by the Sun fluctuates sinusoidally on their way to Earth between electron-type neutrinos and muon-type neutrinos, with a wavelength of the oscillation determined by the extremely small mass difference between these two kinds of neutrinos. If the mass difference were much smaller, the oscillation wavelength would be too long for us to notice the effect, and if the mass difference were much larger we would have noticed the effect much more easily (too easily?). Perhaps that mass difference has been carefully chosen by the gamemaster to represent an interesting challenge for us humans.

We might try to catalog how many such puzzles have been constructed with just the right level of challenge. If there are a lot of them, maybe we're in a game.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

This article showed up on my Google News today:

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/12/17/what-if-reality-were-really-just-im-universe/

that I thought raised interesting tho' philosophical questions. Why would anyone write a simulation that questioned it's own existence? Is it possible for a simulation to run an experiment that interacted with anything outside it's own simulated environment?

Robert C

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Bruce Sherwood

Re: Simulations again

I forgot the most interesting part of the neutrino puzzle. That there is a mass difference was discovered indirectly by observations of neutrinos emitted by the Sun due to fusion reactions in the Sun. There were only about 30% as many neutrinos observed as was predicted from standard solar and nuclear physics. No one could find a flaw in either the measurements or the theoretical prediction, so finally some theorists came up with the idea that the neutrinos emitted by the Sun were in a superposition of states, oscillating between electron and muon types, and this idea has been confirmed by experiments at particle accelerators on Earth. The explanation for the "missing solar neutrinos" is that the detectors were only sensitive to neutrinos in the electron state, and those in the muon state weren't seen

Here's the kicker. If the tiny difference in the tiny masses of the electron and muon neutrinos had been something different, it could have been the case that the distance from Sun to Earth would have been such that nearly all neutrinos would reach Earth at the right time to be in the electron state, in which case we would have been satisfied that the neutrino flux was consistent with the predictions of solar physics, and there would have been no puzzle to engage our interest.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Bruce Sherwood <[hidden email]> wrote:

Here's my own hopefully amusing version of this: Some years ago when they were popular my wife and I enjoyed playing the "Myst" type of computer adventure game, where you go around in a beautifully rendered world looking for clues to solve puzzles. What are the criteria for a good game? From our experience, the puzzles need to be organic to the game (a chess puzzle is intrusive in a game that has nothing to do with chess), and, as with good pedagogical practice, the puzzles need to be at just the right level of challenge. If the puzzle is too easy, it's not interesting, and if the puzzle is too hard, it's just too frustrating.

If we're in a good game/simulation, we should be encountering puzzles that are organic to our world, and which are at the right level of challenge. It struck me as suggestive that we humans were able to discover that the identity of neutrinos emitted by the Sun fluctuates sinusoidally on their way to Earth between electron-type neutrinos and muon-type neutrinos, with a wavelength of the oscillation determined by the extremely small mass difference between these two kinds of neutrinos. If the mass difference were much smaller, the oscillation wavelength would be too long for us to notice the effect, and if the mass difference were much larger we would have noticed the effect much more easily (too easily?). Perhaps that mass difference has been carefully chosen by the gamemaster to represent an interesting challenge for us humans.

We might try to catalog how many such puzzles have been constructed with just the right level of challenge. If there are a lot of them, maybe we're in a game.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:
This article showed up on my Google News today:

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/12/17/what-if-reality-were-really-just-im-universe/

that I thought raised interesting tho' philosophical questions. Why would anyone write a simulation that questioned it's own existence? Is it possible for a simulation to run an experiment that interacted with anything outside it's own simulated environment?

Robert C

Arlo Barnes

Re: Simulations again

But then that implies a false positive: if in other configurations we don't notice it as a puzzle, then we only (or are more likely to) notice the more 'puzzle-like' phenomena, and interpret that as meaning we are in a game.
But is a game the same as a simulation? Sure, games can have elements of simulation (where I define simulation as recreating a system in perhaps simpler terms) but I believe it exists as a separate conceptual entity.
Besides, it seems that all these discussions of whether we live in a real universe or not get caught up in circularity because we generally define reality as the universe.
-Arlo James Barnes

Bruce Sherwood

Re: Simulations again

Yeah, I'm aware that my idea doesn't hold water -- just playing. Evidence that we're not in a game is that the putative gamemaster didn't block my note from appearing. If you hadn't responded, I would have had confirmation of my idea.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Arlo Barnes <[hidden email]> wrote:

But then that implies a false positive: if in other configurations we don't notice it as a puzzle, then we only (or are more likely to) notice the more 'puzzle-like' phenomena, and interpret that as meaning we are in a game.
But is a game the same as a simulation? Sure, games can have elements of simulation (where I define simulation as recreating a system in perhaps simpler terms) but I believe it exists as a separate conceptual entity.
Besides, it seems that all these discussions of whether we live in a real universe or not get caught up in circularity because we generally define reality as the universe.
-Arlo James Barnes

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Steve Smith

Re: Simulations again

And aren't we all trying to "Level Up"? Wasn't every step of evolution (the relative plateaus of complexity?) like Prokaryiote to Eukaryote, like multi-cellular, like O2 Breathers, like vertebates, like warm-bloodeds, like tool users, like fire users, like language users, like nation-state creators, etc... Our search for the GUT is now perhaps eclipsed by our search for the key to life itself... etc.?

Also, how different is this idea of universe as simulation from Digital Physics?

- Steve

Yeah, I'm aware that my idea doesn't hold water -- just playing. Evidence that we're not in a game is that the putative gamemaster didn't block my note from appearing. If you hadn't responded, I would have had confirmation of my idea.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Arlo Barnes <[hidden email]> wrote:

But then that implies a false positive: if in other configurations we don't notice it as a puzzle, then we only (or are more likely to) notice the more 'puzzle-like' phenomena, and interpret that as meaning we are in a game.
But is a game the same as a simulation? Sure, games can have elements of simulation (where I define simulation as recreating a system in perhaps simpler terms) but I believe it exists as a separate conceptual entity.
Besides, it seems that all these discussions of whether we live in a real universe or not get caught up in circularity because we generally define reality as the universe.
-Arlo James Barnes

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Carl Tollander

Re: Simulations again

There would be some assumptions involved on why the sim was made.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2824#comic

"Optimizing one's level" may be one of those strategies that didn't pan out so well. Kind of an artifact that seems to turn up occasionally, but doesn't get much processor time.

On 12/17/12 9:44 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

And aren't we all trying to "Level Up"? Wasn't every step of evolution (the relative plateaus of complexity?) like Prokaryiote to Eukaryote, like multi-cellular, like O2 Breathers, like vertebates, like warm-bloodeds, like tool users, like fire users, like language users, like nation-state creators, etc... Our search for the GUT is now perhaps eclipsed by our search for the key to life itself... etc.?

Also, how different is this idea of universe as simulation from Digital Physics?

- Steve
Yeah, I'm aware that my idea doesn't hold water -- just playing. Evidence that we're not in a game is that the putative gamemaster didn't block my note from appearing. If you hadn't responded, I would have had confirmation of my idea.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Arlo Barnes <[hidden email]> wrote:

But then that implies a false positive: if in other configurations we don't notice it as a puzzle, then we only (or are more likely to) notice the more 'puzzle-like' phenomena, and interpret that as meaning we are in a game.
But is a game the same as a simulation? Sure, games can have elements of simulation (where I define simulation as recreating a system in perhaps simpler terms) but I believe it exists as a separate conceptual entity.
Besides, it seems that all these discussions of whether we live in a real universe or not get caught up in circularity because we generally define reality as the universe.
-Arlo James Barnes

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Owen Densmore

Re: Simulations again

Administrator

I love the difference in point of view between:

"I think therefore I am"

and

"Why is there something rather than nothing"

The first considers awareness primary, the second physics. I suppose quantum foam? .. you *can't* have nothing?

The problem in the OP article seems to be a lack of a "Turing test" .. if we can devise a way to distinguish between being a simulation vs not. Otherwise tautology.

-- Owen

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:50 PM, Carl Tollander <[hidden email]> wrote:

There would be some assumptions involved on why the sim was made.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2824#comic

"Optimizing one's level" may be one of those strategies that didn't pan out so well. Kind of an artifact that seems to turn up occasionally, but doesn't get much processor time.
On 12/17/12 9:44 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
And aren't we all trying to "Level Up"? Wasn't every step of evolution (the relative plateaus of complexity?) like Prokaryiote to Eukaryote, like multi-cellular, like O2 Breathers, like vertebates, like warm-bloodeds, like tool users, like fire users, like language users, like nation-state creators, etc... Our search for the GUT is now perhaps eclipsed by our search for the key to life itself... etc.?

Also, how different is this idea of universe as simulation from Digital Physics?

- Steve
Yeah, I'm aware that my idea doesn't hold water -- just playing. Evidence that we're not in a game is that the putative gamemaster didn't block my note from appearing. If you hadn't responded, I would have had confirmation of my idea.

Bruce

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Arlo Barnes <[hidden email]> wrote:

But then that implies a false positive: if in other configurations we don't notice it as a puzzle, then we only (or are more likely to) notice the more 'puzzle-like' phenomena, and interpret that as meaning we are in a game.
But is a game the same as a simulation? Sure, games can have elements of simulation (where I define simulation as recreating a system in perhaps simpler terms) but I believe it exists as a separate conceptual entity.
Besides, it seems that all these discussions of whether we live in a real universe or not get caught up in circularity because we generally define reality as the universe.
-Arlo James Barnes

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Arlo Barnes

Re: Simulations again

I doubt a convincing "Turing" test will ever be made, so while we are still just playing around with the idea, another thing to consider is that the gamemaster, being lazy, does not have to create a compelling game (with just the right amount of challenge, as you mentioned); s/he simply has to alter your conviction of what a good game is. Kind of a boring programming job, really.
-Arlo James Barnes

Carl Tollander

Re: Simulations again

Hmm, ok IF one were a sim, then one would have no way of knowing whether one's actions were efficacious or if the response one saw from one's environment were some activity slightly disconnected from one's actions. This might amount to testing whether some aspect of one's environment were an AI, so maybe that's a kind of Turing test.

OTOH, maybe, like a holodeck, not everybody in the simulation is a simulation. So if you were unlucky enough to run your test on a non-sim, you could get fooled.

On 12/18/12 9:19 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:

I doubt a convincing "Turing" test will ever be made, so while we are still just playing around with the idea, another thing to consider is that the gamemaster, being lazy, does not have to create a compelling game (with just the right amount of challenge, as you mentioned); s/he simply has to alter your conviction of what a good game is. Kind of a boring programming job, really.
-Arlo James Barnes

Arlo Barnes

Re: Simulations again

Apropos of the Turing Test: collision detection: The female Turing Test (that is a good blog by the way). Wikipedia also covers the topic pretty well. So it raises questions of how the gender and (species? What is the category under which computers and humans are considered different?) of the questioner, and subjects A and B plus how the test is framed to all involved affects the final verdict.
-Arlo James Barnes