You are (mostly) a simulation.

This post was completely rewritten on July 17th, 2015, 6:10 AM. Comments before that are not necessarily relevant.

Assume that our minds really do work the way Unification tells us: what we are experiencing is actually the sum total of every possible universe which produces them. Some universes have more 'measure' than others, and that is typically the stable ones; we do not experience chaos. I think this makes a great deal of sense- if our minds really are patterns of information I do not see why a physical world should have a monopoly on it.

Now to prove that we live in a Big World. The logic is simple- why would something finite exist? If we're going to reason that some fundamental law causes everything to exist, I don't see why that law restricts itself to this universe and nothing else. Why would it stop? It is, arguably, simply the nature of things for an infinite multiverse to exist.

I'm pretty terrible at math, so please try to forgive me if this sounds wrong. Take the 'density' of physical universes where you exist- the measure, if you will- and call it j. Then take the measure of universes where you are simulated and call it p. So, the question become is j greater than p? You might be thinking yes, but remember that it doesn't only have to be one simulation per universe. According to our Big World model there is a universe out there in which all processing power (or a significant portion) as been turned into simulations of you.

So we take the amount of minds being simulated per universe and call that x. Then the real question becomes if j > px. What sort of universe is common enough and contains enough minds to overcome j? If you say that approximately 10^60 simulated human minds could fit in it (a reasonable guess for this universe) but that such universes are five trillion times rarer than the universe we live in, than it's clear that our own 'physical' measure is hopelessly lower than our simulated measure.

Should we worry about this? It would seem highly probable that in most universes where I am being simulated I once existed in, or humans did, since the odds of randomly stumbling upon me in Mind Space seem unlikely enough to ignore. Presumably they are either AIs gone wrong or someone trying to grab some of my measure, for whatever reason.

As way of protecting measure, pretty much all of our postsingularity universes would divide up the matter of the universe for each person living, create as many simulations as possible of them from birth, and allow them to go through the Singularity. I expect that my ultimate form is a single me, not knowing if he is simulated or not, with billions of perfect simulations of himself across our universe, all reasoning the same way (he would be told this by the AI, since there isn't any more reason for secrecy). This, I think, would be able to guard my measure against nefarious or bizarre universes in which I am simulated. It cannot just simulate the last few moments of my life because those other universes might try to grab younger versions of me. So if we take j to be safe measure rather than physical measure, and p to be unsafe or alien, it becomes jx > px, which I think is quite reasonable.

I do not think of this as some kind of solipsist nightmare; the whole point of this is to simulate the 'real' you, the one that really existed, and part of your measure is, after all, always interacting in a real universe. I would suggest that by any philosophical standard the simulations could be ignored, with the value of your life being the same as ever.

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I consider it bad form to do such a massive rewrite, thereby obsoleting the entire previous comment stream.

Regarding your new post, I think you need to taboo the word 'measure' and rewrite all your posts without it. It would make things much more clear for the rest of us. When communicating with others, it is more important to be clear and precise than it is to be compact, and your use of 'measure' is neither clear nor precise to a good number of your audience.

What the frakking Hell? Dust theory on its face gives almost uniformly false predictions. Now, we are admittedly confused about how to assign probabilities in cases like this, but confusion is a bad reason to adopt a radical new view of reality. That's not how confusion is supposed to work.

Can someone explain me what's the point of this post? No offense intended; reading the first paragraph made my mind literally explode wondering what the hell I've just read.

I haven't read Permutation City (a comment mentioned it) and in fact I approached all LW material I've read with only my previous experience and reasoning abilities, and ALL topics such as this that feel so meta, out-of-this-world, and seemingly with no practical implications make no sense to me.

Am I missing something?

Nope, you're pretty much bang-on here. The stuff being discussed has no observables and no practical applications. Mostly, it appears to be a way for the author to feel better about the topic, as he claims to be prone to panic attacks and existential anxiety.

Permutation City is only required reading to understand Dust Theory. I'm arguing that the odds of us being simulated (if the reference class includes the whole multiverse) is extremely high. I also believe in the information theory of identity; this means that part of our consciousness is really being implemented in the physical world. This, following the lines of argument, gives hypothetical future FAIs a motive to simulate us.

I didn't realize how hard this was to follow if you aren't already familiar with these concepts. Sorry!

Eitan, I think you should set down exactly what you take "Dust Theory" to mean, for at least the following reasons: Not everyone has read "Permutation City"; those who have may have forgotten some details; the book may not nail down all those details firmly enough to make the term unambiguous; you might mean by it something slightly different from what Egan does.

(For the avoidance of doubt, that last one would not necessarily be a bad thing. The most credible thing deserving the name "Dust Theory" might not be quite the same as what's described in what is, after all, a work of fiction with its own narrative constraints.)

Why are you in a simulation and not a Boltzmann brain? If the universe goes on forever after heat death, then there will be an infinite number of Boltzmann brain yous.

I see a coherent, justified universe around me with apparently sound perceptions. Therefore, I conclude that it is overwhelmingly more likely that something is wrong with your reasoning/assumptions than I am a Boltzmann brain.

Seriously, Boltzmann brains are never ever the answer. Why do people keep using them?

Seeing a coherent, justified universe is just a restriction on what kind of Boltzmann brain you are. There is a very simple calculation here (if you've ever taken introductory thermodynamics) and it goes like this:

In an infinite universe, the likelihood of existing in some "macroscopic state of the world" like "your brain is inside your body on the earth in the solar system" or "your exact brain is floating inside a cloud of disordered gas the mass of the solar system" is proportional to how many "microscopic states of the world" correspond that that macroscopic state, where a microscopic state means writing down the states of all the subatomic particles and what they're doing. (This is the assumption that the universe reaches thermal equilibrium).

And because the solar system is so orderly (it's not at maximum entropy), there are many, many, many, MANY more possible microscopic states corresponding to a macroscopic state like "your brain is floating inside a cloud of disordered gas" than there are to the actual states corresponding to a real solar system.

Thus, if Boltzmann brains exist, you probably are one. And if you have an infinite universe that reaches thermal equilibrium, they exist.

Conversely, if I'm not a Boltzmann brain, then it's because the universe happens to not reach thermal equilibrium (e.g. the universe ends, or expands so fast that everything cools to the ground state eventually, or there exists some method of violating the second law of thermodynamics).

In an infinite universe, the likelihood of existing in some "macroscopic state of the world" like "your brain is inside your body on the earth in the solar system" or "your exact brain is floating inside a cloud of disordered gas the mass of the solar system" is proportional to how many "microscopic states of the world" correspond that that macroscopic state, where a microscopic state means writing down the states of all the subatomic particles and what they're doing. (This is the assumption that the universe reaches thermal equilibrium).

And because the solar system is so orderly (it's not at maximum entropy), there are many, many, many, MANY more possible microscopic states corresponding to a macroscopic state like "your brain is floating inside a cloud of disordered gas" than there are to the actual states corresponding to a real solar system.

I don't understand much of this. My argument is that Boltzmann brains would almost certainly experience chaos. So I would have to be in the 0.000000000000000000001% of Boltzmann brains to observe a rational universe (not to mention one that actually predicts the existence of Boltzmann brains). Yes, the rational Boltzmann Brains actually would outnumber their regular counterparts, but that's talking past the problem. The odds are astronomically higher that something is wrong with your science. Maybe FAI figures out how to create negentropy, or breaks out into another universe, or finds a way to have infinite computing power. You suggested some options yourself. All of these have a probability considerably higher than 0.000000000000000000001%.

The idea that you are Bolzmann brain is of the same level of dangerous ideas as your interpretation of Dust theory. Basically it is the same theory. I spent unpleasant evening once thinking that I may be Bolzmann brain. But I solve it after I decided that information theory of personal identity is true, and so the number of copies does not matter, if at least one of them continue its existence.

The fact that you are BB does not exclude the fact that you are in simulation as there are special class of BB - that is Bolzmann supercomputers. It is an AI that appears from nothing and creats a simulation of our world. I think that this may be dominating class of BBs (by number of human observers). It also solves the problem of orderly world view around us.

Now you just repeating Bostrom simulation argument. But why you rewrite early post is not clear as it will be misleading for commenters.