Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Impenitent
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Impenitent »

Arising_uk wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 4:02 am
Impenitent wrote:we agree to disagree
In what sense, you think there can be Logic without things?
logic applies to language

language names (describes) "things"

language (the description) is not the "thing", nor do "things" necessarily follow the rules of language... (ask Ludwig)

there is no guarantee the future will resemble the past

-Imp
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Arising_uk
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Arising_uk »

Impenitent[/quote wrote:
logic applies to language

language names (describes) "things"

language (the description) is not the "thing", nor do "things" necessarily follow the rules of language... (ask Ludwig)

there is no guarantee the future will resemble the past

-Imp
Because there are things there is Logic, a thing cannot be and not be, etc. Even without things with a language this will hold for things without language. As long as there are things Logic is timeless and eternal.
p.s.
Logic also applies to thought unless you think thought is only language that is, which I don't.
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attofishpi
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by attofishpi »

Noax wrote:
Arising_uk wrote:Now whether what we sense is a simulation or an emulation is by-the-by I think.
If it was either of these, 1. what would be the thing being simulated (or emulated)? 2. If that more real (or native) thing exists, why the need to simulate it?
1. The thing being simulated\emulated would be reality.
2. The need to simulate would be a result of entropy.

In other words - the system of reality for a human is more efficient when simulated. For example, if i put your brain on a rack and simulate reality via neural connections providing you all five senses, then the rate of entropy is decreased.
wtf
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by wtf »

attofishpi wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 9:54 pm 1. The thing being simulated\emulated would be reality.
I confess I never understand this line of thought.

If I program into a supercomputer a state of the art, highly accurate simulation of gravity; and I run the simulation; and I put a bowling ball near the supercomputer running the simulation; the bowling ball will not experience a gravitational field from the computer. Well, other than from the mass of the computer hardware itself of course.

A simulation of the behavior of a thing is not the same as the thing itself.

We can simulate the early evolution of the universe after the big bang. But that's not the universe.

You could simulate every neuron of a brain; and you would be simulating the observable behavior of the brain. But you would not necessarily be creating consciousness.

If you think that DOES create consciousness, that is an assumption without supporting evidence.

When I play Ms. PacMan, I never believe the little cartoon characters gobbling up the electronic dots have a subjective life or represent any aspect of reality beyond their existence as icons in a video game.
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attofishpi
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by attofishpi »

wtf wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 11:06 pm
attofishpi wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 9:54 pm 1. The thing being simulated\emulated would be reality.
I confess I never understand this line of thought.

If I program into a supercomputer a state of the art, highly accurate simulation of gravity; and I run the simulation; and I put a bowling ball near the supercomputer running the simulation; the bowling ball will not experience a gravitational field from the computer. Well, other than from the mass of the computer hardware itself of course.

A simulation of the behavior of a thing is not the same as the thing itself.

We can simulate the early evolution of the universe after the big bang. But that's not the universe.

You could simulate every neuron of a brain; and you would be simulating the observable behavior of the brain. But you would not necessarily be creating consciousness.
On all your points above - so what? If a human is born into it and only knows it to be reality - then to the individual - it IS reality.
wtf wrote:If you think that DOES create consciousness, that is an assumption without supporting evidence.
No. Consciousness existed as part of original reality, but eventually reality (that consciousness is familiar with) is simulated to improve efficiency.
[wtf" wrote:When I play Ms. PacMan, I never believe the little cartoon characters gobbling up the electronic dots have a subjective life or represent any aspect of reality beyond their existence as icons in a video game.
I'm impressed with your comprehension of what is real.
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Vendetta
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Vendetta »

wtf wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 11:06 pm
attofishpi wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 9:54 pm 1. The thing being simulated\emulated would be reality.
.

A simulation of the behavior of a thing is not the same as the thing itself.

We can simulate the early evolution of the universe after the big bang. But that's not the universe.
In order to create a simulation of something, there requires to be something there to base the simulation on. That which the simulation is based on is considered true reality in that sense.
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by wtf »

Vendetta wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 12:56 am In order to create a simulation of something, there requires to be something there to base the simulation on. That which the simulation is based on is considered true reality in that sense.
When you simulate, say, a human brain; and when your simulation is very very good; how do you determine whether or not you have created self-awareness? And not just a convincing behavioral simulation?
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Noax
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Noax »

attofishpi wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 9:54 pm
Noax wrote:If it was either of these, 1. what would be the thing being simulated (or emulated)? 2. If that more real (or native) thing exists, why the need to simulate it?
1. The thing being simulated\emulated would be reality.
2. The need to simulate would be a result of entropy.

In other words - the system of reality for a human is more efficient when simulated. For example, if i put your brain on a rack and simulate reality via neural connections providing you all five senses, then the rate of entropy is decreased.
Given no system can simulate itself real time (if we could, we could simulate a faster computer than the one doing the simulation), it would require far more entropy to do the simulation than the reality it simulates. If the universe is a simulation, we have no evidence the simulation runs under physics that has a concept of entropy. We have no evidence of physics at all, since we're fed lies.

Your whole reply assumes a real biological brain in this same universe, with the senses hooked to artificial feeds. I was thinking more along completely different lines of the universe being simulated at all, consciousness or not. A BIV has zero proof that its nature is a pink gloopy thing interfaced to a questionably real world. The mind could be anything if it is incapable of examining itself physically. You of all people should know that, given your presumably dualistic stance on mind.
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Noax
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Noax »

Vendetta wrote:In order to create a simulation of something, there requires to be something there to base the simulation on. That which the simulation is based on is considered true reality in that sense.
I've simulated plenty of things that are effectively imagined worlds. Some assign ontic reality to imagined things, so I cannot actually disagree with your statement.
But one does the simulation to see what it does, and often what it does is not part of the original imagined thing. The simulation surprises me, as it should. So given that fact, did the simulated reality actually exist in my imagination first?
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by wtf »

Noax wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 2:12 am But one does the simulation to see what it does, and often what it does is not part of the original imagined thing. The simulation surprises me, as it should. So given that fact, did the simulated reality actually exist in my imagination first?
One hears this point often. "My program did something unexpected. Does that mean my program is clever in some way?"

The answer is of course no, and in fact there's a huge counterexample so obvious everyone misses it.

Every person in the world who has ever learned to program has been surprised by their program. You get an idea, you type it in, you run it -- and it does something unexpected.

There's a name for when the actual program behavior differs from the expected program behavior. It's called a bug!

The truth is that once a program gets to be more than a hundred lines of code, you don't really know ahead of time everything it will do. Programs are hugely complex. That's why writing programs is specialized technical work. Nobody knows how Amazon.com's code works, or how Microsoft Windows works, or how your web browser works. It's normal for software to have behavior unanticipated by the designers and programmers.

For that matter, corporations are full of decades worth of legacy code that nobody understands. The last people who understood the code retired in 1980. Since then they patch it as needed, try not to break things, and throw money at their 2.0 complete rewrite; a class of project with a notoriously high rate of failure.

Nobody knows how software works. That was already true in the 1960's.
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Noax
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Noax »

wtf wrote:There's a name for when the actual program behavior differs from the expected program behavior. It's called a bug!
Not speaking of bugs. I work those out until it works, and when it works, I learn something from the running of the simulation. If I didn't expect to learn something, there'd be no point in writing the simulation. So the output was never fully imagined. An example of something then existing only in simulation.
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Vendetta »

wtf wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 1:39 am
Vendetta wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 12:56 am In order to create a simulation of something, there requires to be something there to base the simulation on. That which the simulation is based on is considered true reality in that sense.
When you simulate, say, a human brain; and when your simulation is very very good; how do you determine whether or not you have created self-awareness? And not just a convincing behavioral simulation?
That's the thing; being able to distinguish the two could incredibly difficult given the complexity of the simulation, especially considering that we as humans want to imagine that the thing we are talking to has consciousness so that we can relate to it. Evidently this is the issue we run into when considering artificial intelligence, as this is what will determine whether we have achieved machine intelligence, or just a very convincing simulation.
John Searle thought that we would never cross the threshold of actual machine intelligence, characterized through his Chinese Room. And I have to say, he makes a good point.
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Vendetta
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Vendetta »

Noax wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 2:12 am
Vendetta wrote:In order to create a simulation of something, there requires to be something there to base the simulation on. That which the simulation is based on is considered true reality in that sense.
I've simulated plenty of things that are effectively imagined worlds. Some assign ontic reality to imagined things, so I cannot actually disagree with your statement.
But one does the simulation to see what it does, and often what it does is not part of the original imagined thing. The simulation surprises me, as it should. So given that fact, did the simulated reality actually exist in my imagination first?
Anything within your imagination, even if it doesn't exist in the real world, has to be based on some components of the real world. So if you're the creator of the simulation, while some aspects of it may not exist within the real world as they are products of your imagination, they still stem from that real world, and cannot exist without that as a baseline. Reality then must be this original world from which the ideas are based, as it serves as the framework for anything that can be created. The simulated reality may exist in your imagination before you create it, but it is only there and as it is due to true reality.
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attofishpi
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by attofishpi »

Noax wrote: Sat May 27, 2017 2:00 am
attofishpi wrote: Fri May 26, 2017 9:54 pm
Noax wrote:If it was either of these, 1. what would be the thing being simulated (or emulated)? 2. If that more real (or native) thing exists, why the need to simulate it?
1. The thing being simulated\emulated would be reality.
2. The need to simulate would be a result of entropy.

In other words - the system of reality for a human is more efficient when simulated. For example, if i put your brain on a rack and simulate reality via neural connections providing you all five senses, then the rate of entropy is decreased.
Given no system can simulate itself real time (if we could, we could simulate a faster computer than the one doing the simulation), it would require far more entropy to do the simulation than the reality it simulates. If the universe is a simulation, we have no evidence the simulation runs under physics that has a concept of entropy. We have no evidence of physics at all, since we're fed lies.

Your whole reply assumes a real biological brain in this same universe, with the senses hooked to artificial feeds. I was thinking more along completely different lines of the universe being simulated at all, consciousness or not. A BIV has zero proof that its nature is a pink gloopy thing interfaced to a questionably real world. The mind could be anything if it is incapable of examining itself physically. You of all people should know that, given your presumably dualistic stance on mind.
Our reality tells us we have a system called a human body which appears to be an extremely complicated gloop of matter capable of consciousness. The example i used suggesting ones brain could be on a rack and fed the inputs of the five senses, was just that, an example. The example i used was to provide a simple method for how the human consciousness could exist, without the need to lug a lump of matter around (the human body) and hence make the entirety of its existence, much more efficient.
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Noax
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Re: Simulation theory and detecting virtual machines

Post by Noax »

Vendetta wrote:Anything within your imagination, even if it doesn't exist in the real world, has to be based on some components of the real world. So if you're the creator of the simulation, while some aspects of it may not exist within the real world as they are products of your imagination, they still stem from that real world, and cannot exist without that as a baseline.
Interesting claim.
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