"God does not play dice" and a non-obvious God

[Elixir]

I think it could know everything about the current state of the world but probably not every little detail about the future

So… not causally involved then? Or just a slow learner? Maybe we’re a cutting edge experiment, exploring realms previously unrealized by gods? Hoping it will provide a PhD thesis subject for this godlet you imagine?

 

[excreationist]

I think it could know everything about the current state of the world but probably not every little detail about the future

So… not causally involved then?

I believe it intervenes but not in a way that is obvious to skeptics. Skeptics would explain it away as coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud (which is what the intelligent force wants). It is a bit like in "The Imitation Game" video in the first post - they were able to exploit information from Enigma machines without raising any suspicions by using statistical analysis....

Or just a slow learner?

What do you mean?

Maybe we’re a cutting edge experiment, exploring realms previously unrealized by gods?

I don't think it involves a scientific experiment.

Hoping it will provide a PhD thesis subject for this godlet you imagine?

It can't be proven - the Bible says "do not put God to the test".

A quote from "God" in Futurama that I'm a big fan of:

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

 

[Elixir]

I believe it intervenes but not in a way that is obvious to skeptics

… or demonstrable by believers of course.
Just like all religious fantasies.

 

[excreationist]

I believe it intervenes but not in a way that is obvious to skeptics

… or demonstrable by believers of course.
Just like all religious fantasies.

I think a lot of theists think that God can be proven....

 

[Elixir]

And ... what you think theists think, is relevant here how?
Again; my assertion is that no supernatural intervention is demonstrable - by theists or anyone else.
Lots of people have been fooled.
"Magicians" abound.

 

[excreationist]

And ... what you think theists think, is relevant here how?
Again; my assertion is that no supernatural intervention is demonstrable - by theists or anyone else.
Lots of people have been fooled.
"Magicians" abound.

Ok I agree.

 

[Jarhyn]

And ... what you think theists think, is relevant here how?
Again; my assertion is that no supernatural intervention is demonstrable - by theists or anyone else.
Lots of people have been fooled.
"Magicians" abound.

Oh, I know plenty of ways to demonstrate it, but mostly they involve experiments and observations only possible at Geneva, at the LHC.

Maybe some things demonstrated via the gravity wave detection network?

You would have to say, "there's going to be a gravity wave coming in from over there in 3... 2... 1..."

Or

"Watch this!" *Snaps fingers* *a number of fundamental particles leave tracks on the detector which describe a graviton precipitating, and the beam isn't even going*

The god would have to show off and prove it.

 

[Elixir]

LIGO will enable a lot of amazing deductions. That’s not one of them imo.
But IANAP

 

[Jarhyn]

LIGO will enable a lot of amazing deductions. That’s not one of them imo.
But IANAP

Well, the point is that it opens up continuing null hypothesis. I in fact remain hopeful to be proven wrong about any thing. It's one of the bizarre perversions that fuel me, to be proven wrong.

The point is that by leaving the question open, we find new ways to examine what our universe is, and isn't.

I halfway expect that in the next 30 years or so, someone will establish a relationship of math that successfully explain the universe in its entirety as a fundamental property of the natural numbers, and then we can similarly discount we are a "simulation" in any meaningful respect so long as the math continues to be consistent as evidence that we are not!

I think this might have something to do with the discussion of "mathematical multiverse" @Swammerdami was mentioning?

Then, it's entirely possible for BOTH to be true.

 

[Swammerdami]

. . . I halfway expect that in the next 30 years or so, someone will establish a relationship of math that successfully explain the universe in its entirety as a fundamental property of the natural numbers, and then we can similarly discount we are a "simulation" in any meaningful respect so long as the math continues to be consistent as evidence that we are not!

I think this might have something to do with the discussion of "mathematical multiverse" @Swammerdami was mentioning?

Then, it's entirely possible for BOTH to be true.

I referred to Max Tegmark's  Mathematical universe hypothesis. He has written a whole book on this, I guess, which I've never read. In fact I formulated a similar hypothesis myself long before I'd ever heard of Tegmark. My version may be more general than his because I don't even care about mathematical structure or consistency. The Wiki article is probably clearer, but I'll try to explain the hypothesis myself.

Briefly, there is nothing special about "existence."

Am I correct that in a Simulation hypothesis, if the simulated system is so complex that it has creatures who act and think like us, then those creatures really ARE conscious, and are just as real as us? My hypothesis is similar, but even the simulation is unnecessary!

Imagine a novel with a character, say Don Quixote. In the novel, Quixote experiences his life and certain emotions, and he really does experience those things. Of course the strength of his experiences will be very weak since what we call real life is millions of times more intense than any novel. Consider a generalization of Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum. In the novel Don Quixote "thinks" he thinks, therefore he IS (though only weakly).

In a simulation, conscious entities really are conscious even though they're just software threads. In a sufficiently complex movie, the characters almost "have a life of their own." In my hypothesis you don't even need the simulation or film: the fact that it COULD be simulated makes a universe real.

This is probably quite unclear, but I'm afraid further explanation would just dig me in deeper!

 

[Jarhyn]

. . . I halfway expect that in the next 30 years or so, someone will establish a relationship of math that successfully explain the universe in its entirety as a fundamental property of the natural numbers, and then we can similarly discount we are a "simulation" in any meaningful respect so long as the math continues to be consistent as evidence that we are not!

I think this might have something to do with the discussion of "mathematical multiverse" @Swammerdami was mentioning?

Then, it's entirely possible for BOTH to be true.

I referred to Max Tegmark's  Mathematical universe hypothesis. He has written a whole book on this, I guess, which I've never read. In fact I formulated a similar hypothesis myself long before I'd ever heard of Tegmark. My version may be more general than his because I don't even care about mathematical structure or consistency. The Wiki article is probably clearer, but I'll try to explain the hypothesis myself.

Briefly, there is nothing special about "existence."

Am I correct that in a Simulation hypothesis, if the simulated system is so complex that it has creatures who act and think like us, then those creatures really ARE conscious, and are just as real as us? My hypothesis is similar, but even the simulation is unnecessary!

Imagine a novel with a character, say Don Quixote. In the novel, Quixote experiences his life and certain emotions, and he really does experience those things. Of course the strength of his experiences will be very weak since what we call real life is millions of times more intense than any novel. Consider a generalization of Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum. In the novel Don Quixote "thinks" he thinks, therefore he IS (though only weakly).

In a simulation, conscious entities really are conscious even though they're just software threads. In a sufficiently complex movie, the characters almost "have a life of their own." In my hypothesis you don't even need the simulation or film: the fact that it COULD be simulated makes a universe real.

This is probably quite unclear, but I'm afraid further explanation would just dig me in deeper!

This is one of the reasons I have very mixed feelings about playing Dwarf Fortress at all: that regardless of whether it is a simulation, the things that exist in that simulation live, die, eat, breath, feel joy, and feel suffering by some definition of these things close enough to our own that to play the game badly is to be exactly the sort of monster we may accuse a creator god of being.

 

[Bomb#20]

Am I correct that in a Simulation hypothesis, if the simulated system is so complex that it has creatures who act and think like us, then those creatures really ARE conscious, and are just as real as us? My hypothesis is similar, but even the simulation is unnecessary! ... In my hypothesis you don't even need the simulation or film: the fact that it COULD be simulated makes a universe real.

^^^^ This. ^^^^
A simulation is just an extended series of mathematical operations along the lines of X = A + B. But mathematics is timeless. Calculating X = A + B doesn't cause X to equal A + B. X has always been equal to A + B. The point of computing a simulation is to make the computed quantities observable outside the simulation. From a point of view inside the simulation it can make no difference whether anyone carries out the computation or not.

 

[Elixir]

If we are all immersed in a simulation, it makes no difference, by ex-cre’s own admission, because we have no vantage from outside the sim.
It’s like a harmless and meaningless surmise that the universe might be contracting and expanding a trillion fold every ten seconds.
Yeah sure. Maybe it’s so. But so what?

 

[excreationist]

Am I correct that in a Simulation hypothesis, if the simulated system is so complex that it has creatures who act and think like us, then those creatures really ARE conscious, and are just as real as us? My hypothesis is similar, but even the simulation is unnecessary! ... In my hypothesis you don't even need the simulation or film: the fact that it COULD be simulated makes a universe real.

^^^^ This. ^^^^
A simulation is just an extended series of mathematical operations along the lines of X = A + B. But mathematics is timeless. Calculating X = A + B doesn't cause X to equal A + B. X has always been equal to A + B. The point of computing a simulation is to make the computed quantities observable outside the simulation. From a point of view inside the simulation it can make no difference whether anyone carries out the computation or not.

In order to be cheaper and more efficient I think future simulations would use something like machine learning / neural networks...

Machine learning accelerates cosmological simulations

A universe evolves over billions upon billions of years, but researchers have developed a way to create a complex simulated universe in less than a day. The technique, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings together machine learning, high-performance...

phys.org

It doesn't involve precise math. It's kind of like intuition.
See also:

Amazing new AI system - GPT-3 and generating images from text

GPT-3 is based on 175 billion weights such as a lot of Internet content... It can be used in many novel ways... It is pretty good at comprehending natural language - though sometimes has problems.... https://lacker.io/ai/2020/07/06/giving-gpt-3-a-turing-test.html Recently it was used to...

iidb.org

If not being closely observed it would approximate the 10^57 atoms in our Sun rather than using precise math to simulate it completely accurately.

 

[connick]

. . . I halfway expect that in the next 30 years or so, someone will establish a relationship of math that successfully explain the universe in its entirety as a fundamental property of the natural numbers, and then we can similarly discount we are a "simulation" in any meaningful respect so long as the math continues to be consistent as evidence that we are not!

I think this might have something to do with the discussion of "mathematical multiverse" @Swammerdami was mentioning?

Then, it's entirely possible for BOTH to be true.

I referred to Max Tegmark's  Mathematical universe hypothesis. He has written a whole book on this, I guess, which I've never read. In fact I formulated a similar hypothesis myself long before I'd ever heard of Tegmark. My version may be more general than his because I don't even care about mathematical structure or consistency. The Wiki article is probably clearer, but I'll try to explain the hypothesis myself.

Briefly, there is nothing special about "existence."

Am I correct that in a Simulation hypothesis, if the simulated system is so complex that it has creatures who act and think like us, then those creatures really ARE conscious, and are just as real as us? My hypothesis is similar, but even the simulation is unnecessary!

Imagine a novel with a character, say Don Quixote. In the novel, Quixote experiences his life and certain emotions, and he really does experience those things. Of course the strength of his experiences will be very weak since what we call real life is millions of times more intense than any novel. Consider a generalization of Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum. In the novel Don Quixote "thinks" he thinks, therefore he IS (though only weakly).

In a simulation, conscious entities really are conscious even though they're just software threads. In a sufficiently complex movie, the characters almost "have a life of their own." In my hypothesis you don't even need the simulation or film: the fact that it COULD be simulated makes a universe real.

This is probably quite unclear, but I'm afraid further explanation would just dig me in deeper!

This is one of the reasons I have very mixed feelings about playing Dwarf Fortress at all: that regardless of whether it is a simulation, the things that exist in that simulation live, die, eat, breath, feel joy, and feel suffering by some definition of these things close enough to our own that to play the game badly is to be exactly the sort of monster we may accuse a creator god of being.

Maybe you've hit on something here suggestive of a morbid (or perhaps just a completionist) god. Some of the most entertaining tales in Dwarf Fortress stem from suffering. Carving a statue of your former adventurer and placing it at the entrance of your fortress is fun, but it's even more fun when that statue is inhabited by the ghost of a dwarf who was not properly memorialized after death. How could you enjoy collecting were-zebra teeth, bashed out of their mouths with the pommel of a sword, without losing a few recruits in the process? You'd certainly never see a baby smitten by your resident hammerdwarf during a strange mood if things weren't going south in your fort.

Maybe you've resolved the problem of evil! Like any game where there are good and evil paths, you're missing half of the content (and half the enjoyment) if you only play one side. Maybe our universe is like Knights of the Old Republic and god just wants to get his money's worth by playing the dark side content too. In all honesty, I think that's probably the most forgivable excuse I can imagine for creator gods to allow evil to exist.

 

[Jarhyn]

. . . I halfway expect that in the next 30 years or so, someone will establish a relationship of math that successfully explain the universe in its entirety as a fundamental property of the natural numbers, and then we can similarly discount we are a "simulation" in any meaningful respect so long as the math continues to be consistent as evidence that we are not!

I think this might have something to do with the discussion of "mathematical multiverse" @Swammerdami was mentioning?

Then, it's entirely possible for BOTH to be true.

I referred to Max Tegmark's  Mathematical universe hypothesis. He has written a whole book on this, I guess, which I've never read. In fact I formulated a similar hypothesis myself long before I'd ever heard of Tegmark. My version may be more general than his because I don't even care about mathematical structure or consistency. The Wiki article is probably clearer, but I'll try to explain the hypothesis myself.

Briefly, there is nothing special about "existence."

Am I correct that in a Simulation hypothesis, if the simulated system is so complex that it has creatures who act and think like us, then those creatures really ARE conscious, and are just as real as us? My hypothesis is similar, but even the simulation is unnecessary!

Imagine a novel with a character, say Don Quixote. In the novel, Quixote experiences his life and certain emotions, and he really does experience those things. Of course the strength of his experiences will be very weak since what we call real life is millions of times more intense than any novel. Consider a generalization of Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum. In the novel Don Quixote "thinks" he thinks, therefore he IS (though only weakly).

In a simulation, conscious entities really are conscious even though they're just software threads. In a sufficiently complex movie, the characters almost "have a life of their own." In my hypothesis you don't even need the simulation or film: the fact that it COULD be simulated makes a universe real.

This is probably quite unclear, but I'm afraid further explanation would just dig me in deeper!

This is one of the reasons I have very mixed feelings about playing Dwarf Fortress at all: that regardless of whether it is a simulation, the things that exist in that simulation live, die, eat, breath, feel joy, and feel suffering by some definition of these things close enough to our own that to play the game badly is to be exactly the sort of monster we may accuse a creator god of being.

Maybe you've hit on something here suggestive of a morbid (or perhaps just a completionist) god. Some of the most entertaining tales in Dwarf Fortress stem from suffering. Carving a statue of your former adventurer and placing it at the entrance of your fortress is fun, but it's even more fun when that statue is inhabited by the ghost of a dwarf who was not properly memorialized after death. How could you enjoy collecting were-zebra teeth, bashed out of their mouths with the pommel of a sword, without losing a few recruits in the process? You'd certainly never see a baby smitten by your resident hammerdwarf during a strange mood if things weren't going south in your fort.

Maybe you've resolved the problem of evil! Like any game where there are good and evil paths, you're missing half of the content (and half the enjoyment) if you only play one side. Maybe our universe is like Knights of the Old Republic and god just wants to get his money's worth by playing the dark side content too. In all honesty, I think that's probably the most forgivable excuse I can imagine for creator gods to allow evil to exist.

My greatest achievement revolves around a single Dwarf, Rovod, who died trying to tap a aquifer tile for the waterfall machine.

It took a major feat of engineering to get his body out of the aquiduct without additional drownings, and when it was recovered, his body was buried in a masterwork platinum coffin in the middle of the waterfall, which existed at the entry to the sleeping area for cleanliness purposes.

I'm sorry I used you that way Rovod. As for you bastards that fell into the underground lake before I finished draining it, that shit is on you.

 

[Jarhyn]

@connick I'll admit, I generally tend to feel so bad as to be unable to play that half of the game.

I've... I'll admit that I have on occasion done some awful things: usually my avatars end up some amalgam of monster that ends up having to get put down on a full moon, when it's a werecreature and naked. Sometimes it is vampire necromancer. Thankfully, perhaps, those universes have bugs and will not continue indefinitely. I expect I would not be evaluated well, were the denizens of those universes capable of more intelligence.

Still, it's not like fortresses like that build themselves. A well oiled machine it is, albeit with some tears, and ghosts, and occasional bouts of lethal tantrums.