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Comment by rmah | Hacker News Reader

That what we're seeing is really reality is the simpler explanation. Because the alternative is that what we see is a simulation ... inside another reality that has full complexity. Which increases the overall complexity. Thus, Occam's Razor says what we see is likely real and not a simulation.

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Check out the original simulation argument paper[0]. The issue is, if we think we are heading to a world in which we can do simulations, it becomes increasingly likely that we are in one of those (presumably very many) worlds, rather than in the one world that existed before the advent of such simulations.

[0] https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

Sounds good because it seems like it explains what our reality is, but it really doesn't. It just pushes the fundamental problem up X simulations into the supposed "real reality". It also assumes that simply simulating a universe would generate consciouss beings which nobody knows the answer to, but my guess is that it would not.

It does push the problem up, but it does let us factor out a lot of complex particle physics which are not needed to run the simulation.

Remember in this case the simulation is not running a model of physical reality - it’s only running a neural net that is fed into your senses.

In that case there are no ‘atoms’ it’s just a concept fed into your mind. Just like in dream it’s hard to question reality, you just go along with it.

These particle physics are still needed. We generally assume the dream you have at night does not take place within a whole universe, yet it is still governt by some rules - for example you may experience gravity within your dream and understand that to move around when actually there isn't any gravity but it seems like it is.

It's equally important to understand and study the rules of this waking dream you are having while reading, not because there are actually atoms out there but because it behaves like there are. You can do physics without metaphysics, altough the two usually get entangled somewhat.

The ‘outside’ reality only needs to be the size of a data center, not the entire universe. And maybe the outside reality only needs to be a trained 100gb model. A much simpler outside reality than we have now. You don’t even need to sim 8 billion people, just 1, you.

Occans razor in this case applies to the complexity giving rise to a situation here though, not the complexity of a described system.

Conventional physics giving birth to our universe is currently the model with the fewest assumptions.

What would have to take place to give rise to a universe the size of a data center, running an AI model of a human? It feels like we have to bake in assumptions of stable physics, a rise of a stable system for that data center, and some path towards creating it and modelling a human.

That said, if we believe we're capable of running billions of believable simulations, then we're more likely to be in such a simulation than ground reality. But a datacenter pocket dimension bakes in a lot of assumptions that make it less likely than our own universe.

The outside universe doesn’t require our complex particles or physics - all that is overkill to run a neural net. Also think of all the data we can store in a fingernail, stable diffusion is like 4gb, what could a 4tb model produce?

You only need a universe the size of a data center with nothing in it but a bit of vacuum fluctuation that causes particles to appear sometimes. Then just wait.

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