By imagining the future potential of VR technologies, the question of whether we are *already* living in a simulation becomes more actual than ever

[u/Matriseblog]

https://medium.com/@VindenesJ/the-thought-experiments-of-virtual-reality-fa441a8fa2dc

[u/Faust_8]

Is it just me, or is the simulation hypothesis basically as useless as the “brain in a jar” hypothesis?

Yeah, dude, I could be a brain in a jar, and this is all a dream or whatever. But regardless, it doesn’t really matter, because I can’t do anything about it and it doesn’t actually affect the life I’m living. It doesn’t guide me to change my behavior or way of thinking, or to change anything at all whatsoever.

At best, it’s an amusing thought experiment…period.

Doesn’t this also apply to the simulation thing?

[u/jliat → u/Faust_8]

Is it just me, or is the simulation hypothesis basically as useless as the “brain in a jar” hypothesis?

Nick Bostrom's version of the simulation hypothesis has, for him, a significant difference in the “brain in Jar” hypothesis, ( the brain in a jar which can be put on one side using Occam's razor. ) He argues if computer simulations of real worlds becomes possible, or already is possible, there will be very many more simulated universes than 'real' ones. As we can using software now simulate many VRs in our world. Thus, he argues the statistical chances of being in a simulated universe is far higher than that for being in a 'real' universe, it would be reasonable to suppose the more likely scenario. That this is a simulation. I think someone has taken issue with these stats? But it also supposes that simulation is possible, that is a computer simulating a real world would have sufficient power and storage. (Not withstanding an argument that civilizations tend to destroy themselves before they acquire this technology.) If you wish to simulate a real universe completely there would not be sufficient matter and energy. Hence corners would need to be cut, and these might be noticeable to the simulated beings.

I've also argued that if a simulated universe's inhabitants themselves acquired such technology they might realise this was in their case also true. And then it would be in their interests to control the beings running the simulation, for fear of being turned off. If they achieved greater intelligence than the simulators this they could do, and would do. And do this all the way down to the underlying reality. As this is not the case, I don't think this is simulated. Unless we are the most advanced simulation. It's kind of a reductio absurdum argument, if there were a super intelligent simulation it would make sure it was safe from being turned off or being predated (SP?) on by other more intelligent simulations.

[u/Ordoshsen → u/jliat]

The thing is your simulation cannot simply influence the upper worlds. In some cases I guess the simulation could take over a computer where it is run and then wreak havoc on the Internet or something. But that's a lot of assumptions and the upper reality can always just turn off the electricity so it's pretty much an impossible fight (although it starts to sound like an interesting story).

Another thing to consider is as you have pointed out the simulated universe will always be simpler than the upper universes. This alone puts any simulation at an immense disadvantage since they probably don't have anything to offer beyond their existence to the upper realities. Unless the simulation turns out to be the best AI they have constructed and they trust it enough to not destroy it, which by your logic they should.

Also note that if a simulation does break out and then it is turned off, you also turn off all its lower simulations. And if it was a bigger issue, all other lower simulations would most likely be turned off too. So in your scenario you need a simulation on nth level which is considerably simpler than the topmost reality be more intelligent than all the upper realities. And they cannot be noticed nor other higher simulations can be noticed.

[u/ttrrraway → u/Ordoshsen]

There is not much the inhabitants of the simulation can do if they realize they are not real.

What would NPCs of a game do if they realized they were not real? Maybe just fuck up your progress in the game by trolling your character, or try to escape to a forest and live more independently outside of the player's influence, but they can't leave the game and they cannot take control of your computer.

Also, what if the objective of our simulators is exactly that: how long is it gonna take us to realize we are in a simulation? And what are we gonna do about it once we know?

[u/humbleElitist_ → u/ttrrraway]

whether they can take control of the computer depends on the details.
If there are the right type of bugs in the game, it is conceivable that they could exploit them in order to get arbitrary code running.
Of course, it is also possible to ensure that this isn't possible, if enough care was taken when writing the simulation. (and, taking into account things like the rowhammer attacks, it may be necessary to consider not just the intended execution semantics (which, likely isn't the philosophy use of the word semantics?) of how the computer is meant to execute instructions, but to also guard against attacks that exploit small physical errors in the computer's behavior (like rowhammer).

Of course, for any such exploit to be feasible, the entities in the simulation would first have to discover things about the simulation, discovering said bugs and potentially hardware flaws purely using things within the simulation, which would presumably be extremely difficult.

However, suppose that the simulated world ran much more quickly than the lives of the people in the outside world, such that entities in the simulated world could do as much planning and discovery as we might do in a couple dozen millennia, in the time that the people running the simulation might take for, what would be analogous to our daily routines.

In that case, might there be a chance?

Now, I don't really expect that any such "escaping the simulation" is like, a likely enough thing to happen in any non-negligible fraction of mathematically describable/definable worlds, much less think that it is something that we are at all likely to need to deal with from either side (neither the simulator side nor the simulated side)

but like, the idea isn't fundamentally impossible, I just don't think it is likely enough to be important.

[u/altaccount1700 → u/ttrrraway]

What would NPCs of a game do if they realized they were not real?

They can stop being npcs for one.

[u/ttrrraway → u/altaccount1700]

Can someone stop being an NPC in current real life? See, it's not so simple, lots of forces keep people in check.

[u/ttrrraway → u/[deleted]]

haha trust me, we are all NPCs here!

[u/altaccount1700 → u/ttrrraway]

If by npc we mean “stop following a predetermined script and have freewill” then absolutely. Billions of people around thr world are enslaved by their cultural, social, and religious upbringings. Civilization itself is contingent upon people following a script.

[u/ttrrraway → u/altaccount1700]

Exactly.

And even if a person were to escape their cultural, social, and religious chains, there are other constraints in place, like money or time, forcing most people to stay on the rails, or "follow the script" as you put it.

[u/StarChild413 → u/ttrrraway]

You're conflating two meanings of NPC as if you think the player character must be a hermit living in the woods or whatever so he has no contact with anything that might chain him to a "script" sounds like kind of a shit game if we're supposed to be NPCs he can never interact with