Can we prove life is a simulation? | Anil Seth vs Anders Sandberg on the simulation theory
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 เม.ย. 2022
- Anil Seth and Anders Sandberg argue over the simulation hypothesis.
This excerpt is from a debate recorded at our HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London 2021. To watch the full debate titled Lost in the matrix and panellists Anil Seth, Anders Sandberg, Massimo Pigliucci, and Sabine Hossenfelder lock horns over the possibility of our "reality" being a simulation head to:
iai.tv/video/lost-in-the-matr...
#TheSimulationTheoryDebunked #SimulationArgumentCorrect #AnilSeth
Anil K Seth is a British professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and co-director of the CIFAR Azrieli program in Brain, Mind & Consciousness.
Anders Sandberg is James Martin Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and his research centres on the ethical and social implications of future technologies and human enhancement.
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What do you think? Does the simulation argument hold? Can we ever prove it? Let us know in the comments below!
To watch the full debate head over to iai.tv/video/lost-in-the-matrix?TH-cam&+comment
I really appreciate the back and forth discussions. We don't see enough discourse at this level of civility.
Does anyone know how to restore the climate app to it's default settings?
If we are a simulation then quantum mechanics finally makes sense.
The three sides of a triangle have to be the founding fathers of alien technologies.
You're right, I think Quantum Physics exist because of the simulation. That's why a state of a qbit can be 1 and 0 until we see it. Once you see it, the state doesn't change... Needs less computing power... Samething in a video game, when you're not looking, things are not rendered so it can be anything or everything until you look at it or see it... That makes no sense in a base reality from my perspective.
@@Goudgeon69 So that maybe explains all this superposition, until observation..
Should have said noticing it, because doesn't only imply the vision...
@@Goudgeon69 Agree. Probably complex objects as electrical circuits and chips in a computer counts as an observation or measurement too.
Just put ads on the full videos here on TH-cam..
I imagine the phrase "We are living in a simulation" is likely a half truth and the actual truth is too complex for the human mind to ever understand. For instance, an evolved computer that would be advanced enough to do that wouldn't even be considered a computer anymore, and therefore a simulation wouldn't be a simulation. The words don't exist for what it would be. It would be like an amoeba evolving into a human and still calling it an amoeba, seeing the human as single individual cells.
My 8th grade science teacher over 50 years ago: "For all we know we are no more than the dream of an amoeba in the bloodstream of a flea." In 1988 Star Trek TNG literally had the ship's computer give consciousness to a holograph simulation in the episode, Elementary, Dear Data. Neither of these imaginings make it so.
I don't have strong opinions on the Simulation Hypothesis. But Hossenfelder and Seth always come across as incredibly closed-minded to anything outside of the materialist paradigm... even though just about everyone now embraces that materialism has gaping holes. Check out Hossenfelder's debate with Kastrup if you want to see just how frustrating and absurd that closed-mindedness can be!
she is embarrassing! A shame to Germany also, because she just about perfectly examplifies so many of her compatriots' worst characteristics....
Simulation Hypothesis is simply indistinguishable from Last Thursday-ism.
0:58 Anil be like - Damn it ! here we go again
Last time I checked simulated rain still makes you wet.
Maybe the evidence is the fact that the fundamental particles of the universe are probability functions. That just happened randomly? Feels like an advanced programmer if you ask me
1:33 Cherenkov Radiation :)
"Cogito ergo sum." (I think, therefore I am.) Ergo, the Simulation Hypothesis depends on the possibility of a simulation producing real consciousness. I think this is why the first few minutes of the discussion focused on whether software running on a machine can be conscious. Understanding what produces our consciousness needs to be accomplished before we can hope to prove whether our reality is not a simulation.
Another possibility is that a few of us are brains in vats, and everyone else is simulated and not conscious (analogous to bots).
Our, hypothetical, simulation does not necessarily run on a computer.
@@jareknowak8712 : State an example of an alternative.
@@brothermine2292 allow me: something so damn advanced that would not really be able to associate it to a computer, but if you want to be very pedantic about it, it would be a form of computer. That's the only thing imaginable, able to simulate something like the reality we know.
@@byamboy : I think you've acknowledged that something capable of running a simulation can be classified as a computer... even if it uses some future advanced technology that would be difficult for the computer engineers of today to understand.
Presumably it would need to be very fast and massively parallel... assuming it's simulating the minds of billions of people, not just me and a few "lucky" others.
@@brothermine2292 Well, I did do that. But don't think it has to be that much processing power/or intial data. On the one hand, If the simulators used self-replicating minimal engines, algorithms and mechanisms and if they just set up the absolute basic conditions for life to evolve on its own (this might be one of the conditions needed to make the experiment more "scientifically clean" and unbiased), without their interference, you might need a lot less energy. Energy creation itself might be absolutely no problem, by the way. Think about it, what if they are as big compared to us, as we are to bacteria? On the other hand, they could just simulate on demand: like, our moon for example is not really there unless we travel to it, and then, the moon's interior side will stay unsimulated, until we decide to check it out. Do you see where I'm going with this? You can end up saving enough data processing power as to not have to worry about it. The very fact, that we can even envision that they might be using these mechanisms to save power, already kind of sounds like a weird proof that the simulation is able to talk and reflect about itself thus fulfilling a very important function expected from it.
Consciousness being free of its own substrate sounds right to me. I imagine breaking free from the torrents of sensation to become a strict mathematical constructivist often pursuing irrational philosophical questions that can only lead nowhere, so we become noise detectors and noisy artists.
So the evidence for simulations would be meeting advanced aliens who have created simulations; but if this is evidence for our being simulated it follows the advanced aliens we've met are also simulated, and what's more they're simulations simulating other simulations.
So what kind of substrate are we and the aliens in our simulation running on, that also allows for us simulating other minds.
Simulated turtles the whole way down.
Because we don’t have the tools to explore now shouldn’t stop exploration of thought … Sabine and anil are close minded
It is not about having tools, but about the very possibility of their existence.
We could be the first base reality. Then we give origin to infinite others and in many of which we will re-emerge as simulated versions of ourselves, like a mirroring game, in the forever and forever fuitless pursuit to understand what(why) we are.
If simulating an universe turns to be possible, then it would be almost sure that we are just a simulation too.
@@MarcosPerez-wx1fx that's awesome, man! :-D very true!
@@jakee5059 More like something extremely evil created this game we call life.
We could be in vats ... And like a dream changes times perception, thats how they could study long periods in a short amoint of time. They just have to tap into time perception
Simulation Theory can never be a Theory of Everything because someone has to make the first simulation. Any simulation will be based on physical laws that were already there!
@@jakee5059 No the computer is based on physical laws, think about it!
Even someone as intelligent and informed as A. Seth is very uncofortable with ignorance.
It is a quintlemna.
Sandberg begins with the assumption that some previous iteration of humanity already reached the ancestor stage, and we (21st century minds) aren't one of those ancestors.
The fifth possibility is the obvious one: that we *are* the first iteration, and have not yet reached the stage of building the simulation framework, starting up the program, and thereby becoming the "ancestors", ourselves.
But if it’s possible? The odds that we are the first seem quite small to me.
The computer simulation is not the only possible simulation.
This theory it outside of the verifiable area, just like the existence of God.
Agree, seems quite similar to me.
Where is the time stamp guy when you need him??
does "living in a simulation" mean the same has "living in an unexplainable existence" or is it simply unique and perceptional.... ........ think its a great pondering , can be therapeutic and give life more value and joy, and so too the opposite, and is that what the question is trying to get me to realize, ,,,, similar to someone asking how sight is possible? can people see? why, how, is the wind blowing? how does someone feel sad? do we live in a busy city? does transportation require gas? or anything......... .... and if anyone could answer this question, yes or no, ..... then what ? and when it comes to this crossing, does it realize, what a racket, how can i profit from this, ?? can or must we exist in what we are conscious of ? where theres a will..... someone always used used to say "where theres a will, theres something to discourage"...... oh my goodness..... great discussion all, thanks for sharing
Whats all this talk about life being a stimulation? Oh, simulation - never mind.
It does matter and it isn’t pseudoscience… disappointing that Sabin and Seth have their minds closed
Sabine remains silent. Probably wise.
presupposes a conscious simulator . So not the bigger question is it . Trying to sneak in a god?
Ironically, this is but one of the several fronts put up to defend one's psyche against God's existence - just like panpsychism, non-religious spirituality, and sundry nonsenses of the sort...
So what if it is? As pointless as arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and the best rationale for solipsism and psychopathy since predestination.
The simulation hypothesis is maybe the dumbest thing philosophers ever came up with
Simulationists are afraid of reality.
*"...Can we prove life isn't a simulation?..."* A "simulation" of what? In other words, what is the implied *"real thing"* that is allegedly being simulated? Furthermore, this nonsense leads to an infinite regress regarding whether or not the simulators of the simulation are themselves a simulation, and so on, and so on.
The "real thing" that's being simulated is the experienced of being an avatar (our physical body) and through the avatar we believe that we are experiencing physical reality , which is what we call "real life". In reality , what we "experience" is just an interpretation of the electrical pulses( binary information) transmitted by our nervous system.
Infinite regression comes up in numerous scenarios. How can you have a problem with infinity when maths predicts it so consistently? The thing being simulated are individual beings awaking to reality and asking themselves existential questions. That's the simulation. Whoever created us is interested in our curiousity about existence itself.
@@byamboy Because the physical universe cannot be the basis of reality. Limited and changing objects without a mind cannot be something from which the universe will come into existence or develop. Changeability is an attribute of finite and perishable things that cannot be eternal, because if there is change there is also a time when a certain thing was not like that, and if there is a time when a certain thing was not like that, we cannot talk about its eternity because it would never come to the moment when it changed. The only possibility is an eternal and unchanging creator who experiences the past, present and future at the same time. Or the biblical I AM WHO I AM which is the one who creates ex nihilo through the word in his eternal mind. Simulation exists in that domain, but not like a computer.
@@damjankrgovic3990 I am afraid I disagree. I understand that a limited object cannot be eternal, but the energy of the electrons and protons and neutrons and all was there before the object formed and will forever exist after. There's no denying it. With infinite time all configurations of time and space, like dogs, galaxies , universes, fleas, apples, people and thoughts, will come into existence, they will be formed and destroyed an infinite amount of times. Physical reality is nothing, it's just the interface we are communicating through right now. There are infinite interfaces. I can't say the mathematical is the base one, but I know, maths has an integrated and intrinsic ontology to the one of physical existence. Thank you for your comment, it was rather stimulating.
@@byamboy The integration and disintegration of existing elements represents a change in itself, which is not always the same but different in nature because it gives an object with a different configuration. If an object was formed that is different from the previous state when there were only the elements that make it up, then it is not possible that the given elements are the absolute basis of everything, nor that they are eternal, because otherwise it would take an infinite amount of time to reach the given configuration of the object, which is not possible Anything that is subject to change and that does not experience its entire existence at the same time, where there is no past or future but the eternal present, is not and cannot be eternal.Only an infinite and unchanging creator is the solution to that problem, who experiences the past, present and future at the same time and for whom there is no such thing as what will come or what should come.
YOu guys have not clue. I suggest you higher a psychic to teach you remove viewing . Try that.
Just as dumb a question as "Can You Prove it is (a simulation)?" Nerdathon for people with nothing more important to do.
Without a doubt this is not real. Just don't listen to the pavlovian triggers.
Too much talk.
Ridicule. What is it simulating ? You don’t understand the meaning of the work simulation ? It has tu simulate something. This is is not a simulation. You simulate you understand
This is a joke, right?
Bad debate