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If we live in a simulation, how much computer memory does it need ?


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Just started listening to this MU podcast about the simulated universe.  There seems to be some very interesting anecdotes.  Phillip K. Dick, the SF writer apparently has fragmentary memories from other simulations which is where he gets some of his writing from.

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021/10/26-17-mu-podcast-fine-tuning-the-simulation/

I can identify with this as I am one of the people who remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison, and also have experienced some other inconsistencies.

Edited by OverSword
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On 11/5/2021 at 11:37 AM, lightly said:

I don't get it.   A simulation of what?  Matter?  At this instant i could choose ,from hundreds of options, what to think ,or do, next.  Real choices with real results...not simulated choices with simulated results.   It makes absolutely no sence to me.

You can prove that?  Almost every choice you make has a predictable outcome, right?   

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On 11/4/2021 at 7:00 PM, jethrofloyd said:

If we live inside a sophisticated computer simulation what happens if a computer attacks by a virus?

It's programmed to compensate for such situations; it just makes the politicians pass equality legislation.

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Of course, if we are NOT in a simulation, it does resolve a lot of issues.  ;) 

But it also makes us even less important than we thought we were.  Imagine a single grain of sand in the Sahara desert, already rather concerned about its insignificance in the grand scheme of things,  suddenly realising it doesn't even really exist :o 
 

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2 hours ago, OverSword said:

You can prove that?  Almost every choice you make has a predictable outcome, right?   

Prove what?  That I ,or anyone else, have nearly infinite options of things to think or do ,in this instant, to choose from?   Real choices, with real results.    Predictable outcomes?  ....none that I know of. 

        I really don't get the idea of simulations.  A simulation is a SIMULATION of reality?  Not Real. ?

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12 minutes ago, lightly said:

Prove what?  That I ,or anyone else, have nearly infinite options of things to think or do ,in this instant, to choose from?   Real choices, with real results.    Predictable outcomes?  ....none that I know of. 

        I really don't get the idea of simulations.  A simulation is a SIMULATION of reality?  Not Real. ?

A simulation is real to the simulations populating the simulation.  In the simulation the people are also simulations.   Tell me, do you think you've ever had an original thought or idea?  List it.

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2 minutes ago, OverSword said:

A simulation is real to the simulations populating the simulation.  In the simulation the people are also simulations. 

Thanks ,  ya, I hear the idea.     Maybe it's just my severe lack of knowledge and understanding of all things digitized...but, I can't believe that any simulation could come any where near accurately simulating the complexities of experiencing reality.   

     In my mind it appears sort of like the difference between a simulated moon rock ...and the real Universe.  

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Just now, lightly said:

Thanks ,  ya, I hear the idea.     Maybe it's just my severe lack of knowledge and understanding of all things digitized...but, I can't believe that any simulation could come any where near accurately simulating the complexities of experiencing reality.   

     In my mind it appears sort of like the difference between a simulated moon rock ...and the real Universe.  

But if you were a simulation you would have no reference to gauge how accurate the simulation is.  

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On 11/4/2021 at 8:58 PM, ercbreeze said:

Here we go again with this nonsense.  What would be the purpose?  All that work for what?  

Off site gambling.

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14 hours ago, OverSword said:

But if you were a simulation you would have no reference to gauge how accurate the simulation is.  

Ah,  right.  Partly what puzzles me is when people reason that a machine and a living being can be equivalent.  Some even reason that because a machine is capable of doing thousands of computations per second, that somehow even possibly makes them superior to living, THINKING , beings.    ...in my mind..being ALIVE makes us infinitely superior to any computational device.

.???.

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3 hours ago, lightly said:

Ah,  right.  Partly what puzzles me is when people reason that a machine and a living being can be equivalent.  Some even reason that because a machine is capable of doing thousands of computations per second, that somehow even possibly makes them superior to living, THINKING , beings.    ...in my mind..being ALIVE makes us infinitely superior to any computational device.

.???.

Creating a conscious artificial intelligence is one goal of those working on AI.  Lets pretend that we are a simulation and we were created by science 1,000 years more advanced than what we ourselves currently possess, and we were created to exactly replicate humans in a simulated reality.  What kind of experiment could be done to test this? That's the big question at this point I think.  I wish I was smart enough or well enough equipped to answer that.

edit: Just think if we could discover that this was fact and hack our own code.  We could become immortal superhumans perhaps.  That could be cool.

Edited by OverSword
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5 hours ago, OverSword said:

Creating a conscious artificial intelligence is one goal of those working on AI.  Lets pretend that we are a simulation and we were created by science 1,000 years more advanced than what we ourselves currently possess, and we were created to exactly replicate humans in a simulated reality.  What kind of experiment could be done to test this? That's the big question at this point I think.  I wish I was smart enough or well enough equipped to answer that.

edit: Just think if we could discover that this was fact and hack our own code.  We could become immortal superhumans perhaps.  That could be cool.

Yup,  that is one of the main goals being discussed...   Maybe it's my lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject... which makes me think it is impossible for a machine to be truly conscious.     To me...Consciousness, and artificial intelligence, sound completely different .   ??      I can't fathom how any sort of artificial intelligence could be conscious .  But..It will be interesting to see what is developed. 

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6 minutes ago, lightly said:

Yup,  that is one of the main goals being discussed...   Maybe it's my lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject... which makes me think it is impossible for a machine to be truly conscious.     To me...Consciousness, and artificial intelligence, sound completely different .   ??      I can't fathom how any sort of artificial intelligence could be conscious .  But..It will be interesting to see what is developed. 

Look up some Lex Fridman's podcast's.  Lex is a professor that is developing AI for self driving vehicles and has a ton of really interesting guests on covering  all sorts of subjects, many related to this type of thing.

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On 11/9/2021 at 5:41 PM, OverSword said:

What kind of experiment could be done to test this? That's the big question at this point I think.  I wish I was smart enough or well enough equipped to answer that.

As per the OP -- 10^93 bits is a lot of storage, so if we're in a simulation, then I'd expect to see some shortcuts being made, for efficiency purposes.

In short -- I'd expect to see two different items using the same bit of storage.

Which is what appears to be happening with quantum entanglement -- where the change to one entangled particle is instantly communicated to the other entangled particle, regardless of distance.

Two different particles. One shared set of properties. No known physical mechanism for them to synchronize themselves.

But as a programmer -- it looks suspiciously like using a pointer.
 

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On 11/9/2021 at 10:41 AM, OverSword said:

Creating a conscious artificial intelligence is one goal of those working on AI.  Lets pretend that we are a simulation and we were created by science 1,000 years more advanced than what we ourselves currently possess, and we were created to exactly replicate humans in a simulated reality.  What kind of experiment could be done to test this? That's the big question at this point I think.  I wish I was smart enough or well enough equipped to answer that.

edit: Just think if we could discover that this was fact and hack our own code.  We could become immortal superhumans perhaps.  That could be cool.

Or...more likely, we would wind up erasing our own program and .....     v   a   n    i      s      h     .....

With only the files from the days of Neanderthal left...but then again...that would be cool too...

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If we are a simulation...then who created the simulation?  And what if the creators of our simulation were also simulations?  Who created them?  and on and on and on

No matter where you go...the answer always leads back to the same place...there is no discernable beginning of anything...constant change...

Maybe like the Mandelbrot Set eventually we end up where we began only to realize...   Oh yeah, we did create all of this didn't we...and then gone again deeper into our own creations.....

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On 11/4/2021 at 11:51 AM, OverSword said:

I'm thinking that not every single atom in the observable universe would need to be in memory.  Only the ones that we are likely to actually have interaction with.  For example, the Andromeda Galaxy.  That galaxy would not have to be much more than the simulation of radio waves that tell us about it and a simple three dimensional image simulating the amount of detail that we can observe.  

Only our solar system really. The rest is just hidden until the likelihood of it being explored goes up.

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In a way, we do live within simulation.  The manner in which our perceptual modeling operates, is a simulation.  A personal one, within social sets.

Our senses take in information, transduce them into electrical signals that are interpreted by the brain and reconciled into our experience of reality.

 

So in a manner of speaking, we all simulate our own reality, through the process of our interpretations of incoming sensory data.  All collated and influenced by the parameters of familial and social conditioning. 

 

Donald Hoffman, prominent Neurophysiologist exploring this field for the last 20 years, has released many lectures and interviews on this topic, that explain the process in a very succinct and approachable way.

Edited by quiXilver
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On 11/9/2021 at 2:23 PM, lightly said:

Yup,  that is one of the main goals being discussed...   Maybe it's my lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject... which makes me think it is impossible for a machine to be truly conscious.     To me...Consciousness, and artificial intelligence, sound completely different .   ??      I can't fathom how any sort of artificial intelligence could be conscious .  But..It will be interesting to see what is developed. 

Oh I just remembered something while going through this thread again.  Frank Herbert wrote a series of books about creating an artificial intelligence the first book it titled Destination Void. In it Earth scientists send clones (mostly in storage) out into space, the cover story is they are to populate undiscovered worlds, but the true mission is to create an artificial intelligence.  They end up creating God.

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On 11/16/2021 at 5:55 AM, joc said:

If we are a simulation...then who created the simulation?  And what if the creators of our simulation were also simulations?  Who created them?  and on and on and on

No matter where you go...the answer always leads back to the same place...there is no discernable beginning of anything...constant change...

Maybe like the Mandelbrot Set eventually we end up where we began only to realize...   Oh yeah, we did create all of this didn't we...and then gone again deeper into our own creations.....

Bolded is what has led to the belief that it could be more likely than not we are simulated.  There would be infinitely more simulations than reality.

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On 11/9/2021 at 10:41 AM, OverSword said:

Creating a conscious artificial intelligence is one goal of those working on AI.  Lets pretend that we are a simulation and we were created by science 1,000 years more advanced than what we ourselves currently possess, and we were created to exactly replicate humans in a simulated reality.  What kind of experiment could be done to test this? That's the big question at this point I think.  I wish I was smart enough or well enough equipped to answer that.

edit: Just think if we could discover that this was fact and hack our own code.  We could become immortal superhumans perhaps.  That could be cool.

The whole problem with 'simulation' is the misunderstanding of how dna memory works.  There are original ideas.  If there weren't, we wouldn't have the technology we have today.

Our entire mindset...personal mindsets...is predicated on our own personal dna.  Every thing we do or say or think or experience is part of our memory.  Some of it just dies off...but the repetition of things becomes memory in our very dna.  This is why the iguanas on the island with snakes know to pop one eye out as soon as they hatch to look for snakes.  It is dna memory.  It is the dna memory that we all have that leads to the 'simulated' experience.  We are not simulated.  It is ridiculous to think that we are.  But...belief...itself...is ridiculous.   There are things we know and things we don't.  The things we don't go into the arena of belief.  

 

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12 hours ago, joc said:

The whole problem with 'simulation' is the misunderstanding of how dna memory works.  There are original ideas.  If there weren't, we wouldn't have the technology we have today.

Our entire mindset...personal mindsets...is predicated on our own personal dna.  Every thing we do or say or think or experience is part of our memory.  Some of it just dies off...but the repetition of things becomes memory in our very dna.  This is why the iguanas on the island with snakes know to pop one eye out as soon as they hatch to look for snakes.  It is dna memory.  It is the dna memory that we all have that leads to the 'simulated' experience.  We are not simulated.  It is ridiculous to think that we are.  But...belief...itself...is ridiculous.   There are things we know and things we don't.  The things we don't go into the arena of belief.  

 

I have a feeling you would enjoy the book "Free Will" by Sam Harris.

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14 hours ago, joc said:

The whole problem with 'simulation' is the misunderstanding of how dna memory works.

I don't see how that's a problem for the simulation postulation.

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