Talk:Simulated reality hypothesis/Archive 6

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Changes to heading

I undid your revisions because the article covers quite a bit more than Bostrom's take on things. We also did not come to a consensus on the other article and I believe the final recommendation was to to keep the articles separate. I've also removed that link from a couple years ago regarding the merge. The other material is covered in the body of the article itself at length with links to still other articles. Lordvolton (talk) 04:30, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

You removed "link from a couple years ago" that you accidentally restored making wholesale reverts. Bostrom's argument doesn't say that. A Simulation hypothesis, by itself, would be a skeptical hypothesis at best. On other points, per WP:MOS it's poor style for the article to refer to itself; Tron would fit better as an "immigration" example; and if you don't want to explain "through the veil" then delete that too. Finally, comment on the edit, not the editor.—Machine Elf 1735 04:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Here is what I'm removing from the heading, "One possible outcome of Nick Bostrom's Simulation argument is that we are living in a computer simulation. Surprisingly, the argument is not a traditional Skeptical hypothesis such as the evil demon of René Descartes's Meditations or the Omphalos hypothesis. These are premised upon the existence of some power or circumstance that deceives the senses and thereby undermines any justification for knowledge. Rather, Bostrom's argument makes no such assumption, based only on the available empirical data it seeks to establish that simulated reality is a justifiable explanation, and in the event it becomes possible to rule out factors that would preclude the possibility, the certainty of it would be all but guaranteed; unless new evidence comes to light."
This focus of the article is not solely Nick Bostrom's take on things, although there is a section devoted to his paper with links to Hans Moravec's earlier work. "Simulated reality" is a topic far broader than a single paper by Nick Bostrom. However, if you want to include this sort of information under the arguments sub section that specifically addresses Nick Bostrom that would be more appropriate. Thanks. Lordvolton (talk) 06:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh I very much agree, both that it's difficult to summarize Bostrom in the lead, and that he shouldn't be the focus of this article. That's one reason why I objected to the previous reverts: “In its strongest form, the "simulation hypothesis" claims it is entirely possible and even probable that we are living in a simulated reality.”
It was quite misleading (in addition to that article being misnamed, s/b "Simulation argument"). There's no single "simulation hypothesis" (weak or strong) as evidenced by the diverse possibilities discussed in this article. Bostrom is much more specific about our descendent's "ancestor simulations" and he doesn't say we're probably in one. It's not even contentious that simulated reality is logically possible... that why it's an easy premise for skeptical arguments.
BTW, anything beyond a superficial connection with Hans Moravec's "earlier work" is looking tenuous... trying to find those "links" has me somewhat bogged down... I was afraid it was WP:SYN. It'd be great if you could elaborate. Thanks.—Machine Elf 1735 07:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The reference to Moravec in the article seems more like a jab than informational. The editor who added the information regarding Moravec didn't include a link to the article which I eventually located and added later (an interesting read). Perhaps a new section on Moravec would be appropriate since I presume the editor was trying to point out that the simulation argument is not original to Bostrom -- but it's also not original to Moravec since Zeno of Elea was postulating that the world was an illusion around 460 BC. The idea that we're living in a simulated environment is a very old one. The technicalities of exactly how it's created seem to me to be a more minor point, although Bostrom goes down a slightly different rabbit hole trying to figure out if it's likely that we're in one.
It is an interesting read, however, Bostrom's simulation argument is original. He doesn't believe we're living in a simulation and he doesn't think it's likely. His argument is nothing like a skeptical hypothesis, in no event does it draw skeptical conclusions, and it's ostensibly based on empirical evidence. Xeno would have made a much better skeptic, had it been invented (never mind maya (illusion)). I like how "the world was an illusion" doesn't even imply simulation, and yet, the illusion of simulation is deeply shallow in a pleasant way... I'm not a big Descartes fan either but technicalities and minor points like wtf he's saying are exactly what I find slightly interesting. I don't pretend to understand the math.—Machine Elf 1735 19:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
The semantics of "illusion" versus "simulation" could probably be a philosophy paper. In my opinion, the reason Zeno didn't use the word simulation was because in his time there was no other way to explain it. The creation of computers have strengthened the possibility because we can now at least imagine how an illusion might be created that could fool the mind via computers in the real world which we've decided to coin "simulation". Zeno deduced that it must be an illusion without an apparatus in his world that could prove his theory in the real world, later, Descartes realized that our own brain is capable of it through the most obvious means: dreams. I think dreams are a far more powerful argument than computers (at least presently) because we know a priori that they're illusions, or at least dreams seem to be illusions. Zeno might argue from his perspective that since this place is an illusion trying to differentiate "dream" from "reality" is just cherry picking your illusions.
As far as Bostrom saying he thinks it's unlikely we're in a simulation that really doesn't matter so long as he places a pretty high probability on it. I think the issue is settled on high probabilities if and when we successfully create simulations that are on par with our dreams -- at that point the probability of a computer generated illusion (aka simulation) goes up -- but still nothing close to brain generated illusions. A better question might be: since we have brains capable of creating illusions that we mistake for reality what is the probability that in nature there might be other creatures with brainlike structures capable of creating our world? If that number turns out to be high then the likelihood that this is simply the dream of a massive brain might also be high. Of course, the truth is separate from all of these fun speculations. If it turns out that consciousness is a non-computable event then it's probably not a computer generated reality, but it could still be a brain generated reality -- we know it's a brain generated reality on an individual level since everything that exists in our "outer world" is processed inside of our brains and filters out 99.999999% of what's actually out there. For example, a single second has enough "moments" for thousands of lifetimes if we experienced them all as frames of time rather than pulling 24 - 30 frames out and calling that "reality". Lordvolton (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Parmenides and Heraklitus are also food for thought. I think you have a point about computer simulations having a long way to go (it takes a few hundred million $ and a team of people to do something truly impressive). Something to the effect of a lucid dreaming pill doesn't seem at all far-fetched but, in general, I think we're far less imaginative today than the ancients. For the cost of suspension of disbelief, we get a deluxe assortment of nature's mysteries. The ancients had a cast of thousands to keep them entertained and the least of them could pull the wool over one's eyes.
Bostrom didn't put a high probability on it though. Given more evidence, the (undefined) probability would increase, as you say. His argument asserts that, given evidence against the other two operands of the disjunction, the probability would indeed be very high (all but certain). However, personally, he gives it roughly 20% (I don't know why). It's curious that you say on a par with dreaming, (rather than with one's wakeful state). I take it you find dreams are deficient in some respects. There's always the Mind of God... I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to alien brains. I figure, if you're going out... might as well splurge and make it a deity.
It seems if consciousness is non-computable, then according to Digital physics, it's a bit of a hack, because it would be the only phenomenon which isn't computational. I've never read Tipler because I'd heard that he somehow worked JC into the mix. I probably just got that off WP or something, so who knows. Anyway, I'm willing to overlook some tacky prophet placement because I suspect I'd really quite enjoy it (and it sounds like you might too). Coincidentally, I think Bostrom's math is supposed to be based on a concept similar to the anthropic principle. It seems you probably already got that, but my eyes glaze over at the math so it's hard for me to tell... too rich for my blood.—Machine Elf 1735 07:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
Dreams are a big monkey wrench. Far more problematic than a theoretical computer simulated reality that I cannot personally experience until some point in the distant future. If I were simulating reality and I wanted to keep everyone in the dark I would get rid of dreams. They establish a firm basis for questioning reality. For example, I occasionally have dreams that seem "more real" than reality -- super high definition dreams? The colors are more vivid, etc. The only way I am able to differentiate those dreams from "reality" is the act of waking up. But I cannot look around and say, "Oh... this is reality because it's higher definition." I just accept that it's reality because I happen to be in my bed (even though the world appears lower resolution) -- unless it's a false awakening. Then I accept it's "reality" only to be fooled when I wake up a few more times. And the only way I am sure that I am awake is that I don't happen to wake up again.
Dreams even bring into question the concept of self. Some people fall asleep and wake up as someone else with all of their memories and start living their life 100% convinced that they're someone else with no awareness of their "real world" self -- only to "wake up" later and find out it was just a dream. The fact that our brains are capable of creating higher definition environments (assuming it's our brains) ... and creating separate egos with full histories that trick people into believing they're another person... makes me scratch my head in amazement. It's a giant pink elephant in the living room of philosophy that we dismiss because we're so familiar and comfortable with dreams. At the very least I have to admit that I'm not in an ideal position to differentiate dreams from reality -- and even calling one "dreams" and the other "reality" might be an error. They could just be different realities.
I think Penrose and Hameroff in their Orch-OR theory argue that consciousness requires quantum collapse to occur and therefore binary methods cannot generate consciousness because they're based on traditional mathematical algorithms, although a quantum computer could potentially pull it off. Speaking of lucid dreams. I have an ongoing debate in one of my dreams with an armchair philosopher who insists he's "real" and refuses to believe he's just a figment of my imagination that will cease to exist when I awake.Lordvolton (talk) 07:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The notion of "intentional messages in pi/e" is a logical absurdity.

How do I put this in the article in a way that counterbalances the misleading references to people looking for these blatantly logically impossible creatures? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.43.86.226 (talk) 19:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

real numbers

I'm probably being mathematically ignorant here, but I can't see how 1 could possibly be hard to represent in a computer. Why do we HAVE to write out all the digits (1.0000000000000000000000000...etc)? Therefore the only problem would be when nonterminating and especially irrational numbers come into the picture, like pi (which they do). And also, why would this be a problem? Pi has been proven by logic to be irrational but couldn't it just be a different but terminating decimal in this universe, which due to enough precision, is currently beyond our measurement abilities to notice something wrong? The same with any of the other numbers physics need. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Base-11 notation?

In this section, it mentions base-11 notation. Isn't this supposed to say base-10, as this is more commonly used? I don't know why base 11 would be any more suited to this. I'm going to change this; feel free to change it back if you disagree, but please post why here and/or in the edit description if you don't mind! flarn2006 [u t c] time: 22:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Refactored discussion from merge with Simulism

Purpose of this article

This article is a virtual-world simulation of the Simulated Reality article. I have set this up in an attempt to deal with all of the issues that have beset the original. It is my intention to keep this as 'clean' as possible, and remove anything which would get it the 'unverified claims' attribution, and to attempt to remove the 'copy editing' tag. --TonyFleet 07:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

I have tried to focus on what is actually written, and have deliberately mixed up philosphy, popular culture, science and science fiction. The simulation hypothesis is forefronted but not the simulation arguments, and this is deliberate, because i wanted to downplay these in favour of other material, which documents the SH in history, philosophy, science and culture, in an attempt to establish the academic credibility of the topic--TonyFleet 01:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitions

I have introduced the distinction between Extrinsic and Intrinsic consciouness, because later on, it will be useful to distinguish between these cases, when, for example we are considering moral issues and scientific issues to do with time, biology etc.--TonyFleet 01:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Philosophy

Underpinning this section are three main philosophical questions posed by Simulism:

  • What is the true nature of consciouness?
  • Are the mind and body distict, separate entities?
  • What is the true nature of reality?--TonyFleet 12:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


Now that I have begun to write this section, I realise that I have become completely bogged down in a surfeit of information. I am considering transporting much of this to The simulism Website and drastically pruning what I have written here. This will be difficult to do, given the nature of the topic and how it spreads itself into so many areas. The danger is in reducing it, it becomes more superficial, and less credible.

--TonyFleet 11:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Simulasim to replace Simulated Reality

Although the article is a little overwhelming in the scope of the information given, it is well-written, organized, and an all-around improvement over the orginal article. I vote for simulasim to replace the simulated reality article. Hermine hesse 03:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I vote for the relevant content of Simulism to simply be moved to the original article, or to merge them. --24.183.102.219 19:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it's fair to say they(Simulism versus Simulation Hypothesis) are different concepts. Simulism is "a principle, belief or movement" (which is why you usually add the postfix -ism to something) regarding reality as a simulation, whereas the Simulation Hypothesis is merely a psuedo-scientific argument that reality is a simulation. I'm not sure merging or replacing is the correct question, but rather should we simply be deleting this article? Ie, is Simulism a notable concept worthy of a wikipedia page? I'd argue, yes, that it most certainly is a notable concept, however people may beg to differ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.88.162 (talk) 15:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Please do not merge "Simulation hypotheses" into "Simulism". If you insist on a merge, do it the other way around. The term "Simulation argument" is far more common than "Simulation hypothesis" -- which itself is far more common than "Simulism" ... and I presume "Simulasim" is a typo. For instance, a Google phrase search (using the double quotes) currently returns 20,500 hits for "simulation argument", and 4,230 hits for "simulation hypothesis", but only "1,560" hits for "simulism". (5 hits for "simulasim".) --Parsiferon (talk) 06:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

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Looking for a simulism userbox

Is there one available? With a picture of chained shadow-people on the wall? DMahalko (talk) 20:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

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Neologism?

A quick Google results in 1730 hits on Simulism. Granted that many of these are related to this article, an a large number of others point to the Simulism Website, the fact is that a huge proportion of these hits refer to neither. This means that the term is in current usage, and furthermore if one reads some of the hits, there does not seem to be any ambiguity in the way that ther term is defined. This article has been in existence for several years, and if this charge had been laid at its inception, then perhaps it might have been correct. Paradoxically, it seems that this articel has been instrumental in helping to define the term, and to remove it would, at this stage not only be counterproductive, it would be distinctly unhelpful to those writing in this field.

I have therefore removed the Neologism sticker.

--TonyFleet (talk) 15:38, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

1730 hits are not at all many for Google's standards, and Google Books has 18 entries, all of which refer to the phenomenon of simulism in insects - except one book, which seems to be affiliated to the Simulism website.
Are there any reliable secondary sources that are "about the term—not books and papers that use the term" (see WP:NEO#Reliable sources for neologisms), and which are not about insects, among the Google hits you've found?
According to WP:NEO, "Neologisms are words and terms that have recently been coined, generally do not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities". This term has been coined in 2003, according to the article, and I doubt it'd be found in any paper dictionary.
If, as you claim, "the article has been instrumental in helping to define the term", then that's a very serious and grave problem. Wikipedia should not be used for that (as WP:NEO says, "articles [on neologisms] are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term"). See also WP:PROMOTION, WP:NOT#OR and WP:ONEDAY for more on how Wikipedia's policies strive to prevent "self-feedback" where Wikipedia itself is used to make a topic notable that otherwise wouldn't have been.
For these reasons, I'll re-add the Neologism tag until the term is backed up by reliable secondary sources. If it cannot be, I will nominate it for deletion. --LjL (talk) 15:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I share LjL's perplexities wholeheartedly. While this is a very interesting article in itself, its place does not seem to be Wikipedia. It looks like a very good, very well researched WP:OR. I'd be glad to find a website or blog with such material, but WP is not it. The fact itself that the references include some 45 items ranging from Descartes to Heinlein, from Kant to computer magazines, but hardly a single reliable one mentioning the word "simulism" itself, cries out for original research. Goochelaar (talk) 17:24, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Since I maintain that the title of this article seems to be a neologism, and parts of the contents it refers to are directly related to that neologism, but another part seems to overlap, as the main editor inequivocally states, with the topics discussed in Simulated reality, I propose that the relevant and alreadu notable content of this article be merged into Simulated reality, and that this article be redirected to it.

For reference, see also the discussion just above and a previous nomination for deletion, where the closing editor agreed that the term simulism seemed "definitely a neologism" in 2007; and I find it interesting, and quite worrying, that the main editor has repeatedly stated that the Wikipedia article itself has contributed to giving the term currency and notability, which is absolutely not what Wikipedia is for. --LjL (talk) 01:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The fact that a Wikipedia article gives currency to a term cannot, in itself, be used as a reason for deletion. If this were to be the case, then the vast majority (if not all) of the articles on Wikipedia would need to be deleted. It is stated above that this article may have contributed to the currency of the term in the past. The point about Wikipedia is that it should not be used to promote an idea or concept, with the underlying implication that this is used deliberately. However the mere fact of an existence of a Wikipedia article does just that, whether deliberate or not. This is therefore a contradiction which Wp needs to sort out. Picking on articles like this just because they appear to be describing a relatively new name for an old idea is plain barmy. The article describes the history of an idea, and its associated philosphical underpinnings. The problem is with it, is that it is unfinished, and it should be completed and polished, not that it should be removed or merged. --86.145.84.227 (talk) 07:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
WP:NEO eloquently describes what is to be done when the idea is not new but the name is (a neologism). Have you checked it out? It's an interesting read. --LjL (talk) 12:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
If memory serves me correctly Tony created this article to explore some of the caveats not covered in the simulated reality article. A lot of it is similar, but I would be opposed to merging the articles since Tony already edits the simulated reality article and can simply modify it without having to create entirely new articles to merge later.
Lordvolton (talk) 17:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Lord Volton. Simulism appears to now have alife of its own. It would be a shame to lose it.--213.218.213.249 (talk) 23:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The section "Origins" refers to the Simulation Argument as the beginning of the theory, but it's apparent that the author is not aware that there is already an article titled Simulation Argument which explores the same concept. So I'd propose a merge, but with Simulation Argument, not with simulated reality - the latter is a technology article concerning VR and not existentialism or ontology 91.132.141.80 (talk) 19:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Nick Bostrom

I don't think Nick stole the idea from Moravec ... I didn't include the original edit referencing Moravec. However, Moravec made very similar statements in interviews and apparently in his book (years prior to Bostrom's paper): stating that we're likely living in a computer generated simulation created by our progeny.

So... I tried to find a happy medium that gives them both credit. Of course, both of them are trumped by philosophers such as Zeno and Descartes who contemplated the essential idea long before there were computers.

Lordvolton (talk) 02:29, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason to use Bostrom's term "simulation argument" in reference to Moravec's simulation hypothesis.—Machine Elf 1735 02:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Deleted text

I am deleting huge chunks of text from an article tagged with multiple issues for 3 years now. Please do not restore anything without providing references to reliable sources which specifically discuss simulated reality in the way different from virtual reality. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

13th floor

The additional material referencing the 13th floor scenario was removed because there is a link to the 13th floor for further reading and because the section was focused on exiting a simulation. That is probably better suited as a separate heading with a concise description of how someone could theoretically exit a simulation. For example, "A simulant could exit a simulation through mind transfer into a biological or cybernetic body that exists in the parent world."

Lordvolton (talk) 15:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I've added a section entitled "exiting a simulation" to address the key points brought up in the summary material of the 13th floor that was removed for reasons outlined above. I think it addresses the question of how simulants can exit a simulation into a parent world or another simulation.

Lordvolton (talk) 15:41, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Please leave the new paragraph in the Exiting the Simulation which is the much better worded text that was associated with Emigration. It is not a strict reference to 13th floor, but has more weight and relevance to the whole article. Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.154.144.21 (talk) 05:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The paragraph Exiting the simulation is removed with question "Got a source?", when it is stated already in the paragraph, that the presented matter is based mostly on the film Thirteenth floor (but since it is a very important matter related to this subject, it shouldn't be limited only to that film). The question is obviously answered before it was asked... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.154.144.21 (talk) 12:52, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

A textual allusion to the 13th floor doesn't count as a source; especially not if the text (and your comment here) openly claims to be discussing stuff much more wideranging than that one film. If you don't have a source which supports what you want to write, don't put it here. Of course, well-written content which is appropriately supported by sources would be very welcome. There are plenty of other internet sites where people can write what they want without the irksome chore of finding a source which agrees with them. bobrayner (talk) 14:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Why no discussion of the evolutionary refutation of this idea?

Evolutionary theory clearly shows that there is, in fact, no intelligent designer of the world. Thus, the idea that we are living in a *designed* simulation is incompatible with the theory of evolution, and can be dismissed without further ado. Has nobody ever pointed out this simple fact? Edreamleo (talk) 14:44, 16 June 2012 (UTC) Edward K. Ream

It doesn't refute it. If the singularity is reached through some 'natural evolution' (which included plenty of 'random selection' occurence), resulting in manifestable essence becoming absolutely synergetically conscious/aware of itself (on highest and any of its sub-levels), simulated reality would mean that the super-conscious/super-intelligent singular Whole for some reason 'allowed' a part of the Whole to manifest itself separately/independently (designer is a part of the Whole), using/via means/intelligence of the Whole resulting in some design that is actually a - simulated world (serving some particular purpose for that 'independent' part). Also, the Whole after reaching singularity, might decide that it can, although super-conscious, still improve itself in certain way (to reach higher level(s) of harmony and/or perfection), so it can 'design' the simulation itself, for part(s) of it (that it for some reason decides to 'improve') to experience that simulation (but the design is on the 'highest level', designer being -the Whole). Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.154.144.21 (talk) 09:47, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Person(ality) generated/originated/born IN THE simulation

Anyway, since this text was removed, and I believe it is an ABSOLUTELY RELEVANT OPTION/ASPECT for the subject of Simulated Reality (with major metaphysical/philosophical significance, e.g. Gurdjieff's aspect of 'automatons' - humans on this planet, which is basically a 'simulation for the automatons', BORN WITHOUT A SOUL, i.e. without a 'user', like Agent Smith from 'Matrix', being a native of the Simulation) possibly 'waking up', if following certain 'path' (or 'techniques') and 'earning a soul during the course of life' (and therefore BECOMING A SOUL after death, if succeeding to stay awake and succeeding to sufficiently master the path/techniques) being thus 'transformed' from Agent Smith to Neo-like USER).

Gurdjieff believed that THIS is in fact exactly what IS HAPPENING here on this planet WITH (some of) US, and many others also share his (or very similar) views/beliefs.

I will post the text representing this aspect here (I believe should be included, either in 'exiting the simulation' paragraph, or 'emigration' paragraph), so it can be eventually more seriously reviewed (since I truly believe that if completely ignoring this aspect, a great disservice is done to the quality of information that this wikipedia's article on Simulated Reality should provide/(re)present):

"Additionally, there is the option (as suggested in The Thirteenth Floor) of a completely virtual-person, born in the simulation, willing to escape the simulation, and consequently somehow succeeding to be transferred into an outer-reality person. This would mean exiting the simulation and getting transformed on exit into a "real" person.

And since we have a case that the inhabitant exiting the simulation didn't have an associated outer-reality person (user with a "real body"), this virtual person would be transferred into either a "new-born" outer-reality person (assuming that possible), or an already existent/living one, whether being a player of the simulation or not at all. And if being a player, he would be previously associated with some other inhabitant from the simulated world, and thus with "taking over" (or merging with) this particular previous-inhabitant that is exiting, he could choose to destroy that other/old inhabitant, or abandon him (leaving him in the simulated world without a user/player temporarily or permanently). Or if neither destroying or abandoning, but willing to further "play" the simulation and choosing to play that same old inhabitant (that stayed in the simulation), he would do that now as a transformed user ("enriched") with the personality of the virtual-person that exited, or now even completely being that previously virtual person, if that was chosen and possible, and as such continuing to play the simulation using another virtual-person)."

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.154.144.21 (talk) 03:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

For example, heuristic(s) (programming) opens many possibilities for a program (or certain parts of it) to self-modify the source-code, self-guide ('learn' or 'improve itself') and become more/better that it 'functionally' is...

Measurement that could Potentially Confirm a Simulated Universe

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429561/the-measurement-that-would-reveal-the-universe-as/

An expert (or several experts) would need to read this article and the host paper on arxiv but this is something that should be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.245.12.138 (talk) 21:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

An excerpt anyway: "That's cool, mind-blowing even. But the calculations by Beane and co are not without some important caveats. One problem is that the computer lattice may be constructed in an entirely different way to the one envisaged by these guys."—Machine Elf 1735 05:04, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Merge from Simulation hypothesis

Both articles, Simulated reality and Simulation hypothesis speak basically about the same thing and both suffer from the same drawback: well-intended, but original research. Poorly referenced compilation of bits and pieces on the topic. I think merging will allow us to create a decent text. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Redirect simulation hypothesis to the top of this article, they've already been merged.—Machine Elf 1735 03:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I feel like we've already covered this topic in the past regarding merges. I believe it was the simulism page last time. We've decided against it at least once already. My position hasn't changed. Tony Fleet created the Simulation Hypothesis page in 2007 for reasons that he can articulate. I don't think we need to merge every article that spawns from this page. They were often created as separate pages for a reason, sometimes borrowing information from the simulated reality page. Lordvolton (talk) 16:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Merge, but keep Simulation hypothesis. Simulated reality is a good general article covering all aspects including fiction. There is a definite need, however, for a dedicated article that describes only the scientific hypothesis that we might be living in a computer program (see simulation-argument.com for academic info) The Hypothesis article contains too much general information as I write this that strays from "hypothesis." The best could be moved to or merged with the Reality article in my opinion. A major job for some editor out there. 5Q5 (talk) 17:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Simulated reality should discuss types of reality simulation, while simulation hypothesis (or simulation argument) should just stick to the arguments. They should not be merged. Viriditas (talk) 11:25, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Links moved to talk

Please try to incorporate these into the article as references. Viriditas (talk) 11:16, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Anthropic-principle.com Website maintained by Nick Bostrom with a collection of papers on SR and related topics.
  • The Big Brother Universe
  • Computer Universes and an Algorithmic Theory of Everything by Jürgen Schmidhuber
  • The Computational Requirements for the Matrix discussion on Slashdot.
  • Computationalism: The Very Idea, an overview of computationalism by David Davenport.
  • The Cutting Edge of Haptics, an article in MIT's Technology review on touch illusion technology by Duncan Graham-Rowe.
  • God Is the Machine Wired article by Kevin Kelly.
  • "That Mysterious Flow". Davies, Paul, Sept. (2002) Scientific American. 287 (3): 40–45.
  • Philosophy & "The Matrix" Related to the Warner Brothers movie; including papers by David Chalmers and other philosophers.
I have now removed the above dead link. Tlhslobus (talk) 18:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Restored links to article

At least on first examination, though some elements in the list may be inappropriate, overall this seems like a very useful and relevant list for any reader seriously interested in the subject, so it's a major deletion that seems to be a disimprovement of the article (IMHO), and it's also not supported by any quoted WP Rule. So I have at least temporarily restored it under WP:IAR and WP:BRD (subsequent changes meant the original change had to be reverted manually). I will now be leaving a message to that effect on the Talk page of the original deleter. If anybody still thinks the links should all be removed from the article in their entirety, please discuss your reasons here (preferably citing some relevant WP rule or rules) as the next stage under WP:BRD. However, anybody wishing to delete individual links is still seemingly in a very strong position to do so, because Wikipedia:External links gives a very large number of reasons why you might wish to delete a particular link, and adds at the end 'Disputed links should normally be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them', so it should not be difficult for you to find and quote a reason for deleting any link you think doesn't belong, and once you do that you have the whip hand because consensus is seemingly required to restore the link (though somebody may well counter that this conflicts with WP:BRD and {WP:IAR]], but I certainly don't intend to do so). Indeed there's nothing to stop you simply saying you object to every link, though this doesn't seem very constructive.Or basically proceed as per the original standard text from June 2010:

−

This does NOT say 'delete the entire section', nor does it say that all useful links must be converted into footnotes regardless of whether this is appropriate, nor that any useful links must be deleted before this conversion has been done. But the word 'Inappropriate' links to Wikipedia:External links, thus putting you in a very strong position to get rid of any link you don't like, as already mentioned. The word 'excessive' links (through here) to:
(Wikipedia is NOT...) Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate. See Wikipedia:External links for some guidelines

Tlhslobus (talk) 07:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I now think I've bitten off more than I want to chew with this article. I may or may not eventually make a lengthy suggestion on how I think this article and the related Simulation Hypothesis article might be changed, but I'm not sure I want to put in the time and effort needed to even produce such a suggestion, let alone try to get it implemented. Meanwhile please feel free to reverse my changes by deleting the Popular Culture and/or External Links sections and/or transferring their contents to the Simulation Hypothesis article and/or the Simulated Reality in Fiction article. Tlhslobus (talk) 20:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Very inaccurate history in this article!

Charles Babbage first proposed this in the early 1800s. Konrad Zuse wrote a book about it 1967. Ed Fredkin also proposed this (1950s?), I personally heard him talk about it. I think it has crossed the mind of just about every computer scientist who has written a lot of simulation code. Moravec is a smart guy, but still the relativistic effects of his massive intelligence are not enough to wrap time back into itself ;-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Walker Lynch (talk • contribs) 03:31, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great. Do you, by any chance, have any citations for any of that, or any more detailed info on where to look? Especially re Babbage and Fredkin (including the terminology they used, useful for Google), as anybody can probably look for Zuse's 1967 book on Amazon or Google Books. Tlhslobus (talk) 04:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

citation needed for matrix?

"The Matrix movies feature an intermingled type of simulation: they contain not only human minds (with their physical bodies remaining outside), but also sentient software programs that govern various aspects of the computed realm.[citation needed]" that's a joke, isn't it? just see the movies, that'd be citation enough. oh or the matrix wiki page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.12.35.183 (talk) 09:41, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Restored 'In Popular Culture' section

I've restored the 'In Popular Culture' section, which was deleted on grounds that unspecified Wikipedia guidelines discourage such sections. WP:POPCULTURE doesn't 'discourage' such sections - it says they are potentially one of the ways in which Wikipedia is superior to other encyclopedias, and it offers guidelines concerning them, and how to improve them. And of course WP:IAR does not discourage them either. The Matrix movies are NOT trivial in this context - they are probably one of the single most important practical consequence of simulated reality ideas, and I've heard one of their creators acknowledge on TV (probably a BBC interview) that such ideas are at the origin of the movies. If somebody wants to improve the article by seeking more citations for this, etc, please do. Meanwhile, if somebody still wants to delete the section, the next stage seems to be to discuss the matter here, as indicated under WP:BRD. And for consistency, they should probably also try to delete the similar but far more extensive section in the Dream argument article here. I have now left a message about this restoration on the talk page of the original deleter. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

As the added citations now show, the movie has also been extensively discussed by philosophers, including Nick Bostrom, probably the world's leading authority on simulated reality Tlhslobus (talk) 18:22, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


We originally had a list entitled Simulated_reality_in_fiction that eventually became so extensive it merited its own Wikipedia page. I feel like that page is pretty close to what you're proposing -- and ultimately when people start listing every reference that occurred in popular culture it will be a mirror image of that page. What you might want to do is simply place a link to that page -- we used to have a heading for Simulated Reality in Fiction with a link to the new page but someone removed it.

Lordvolton (talk) 14:54, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I went back to an older version to locate the link that used to appear within the article directing readers to Simulated Reality in Fiction. How do you feel about replacing Simulated Reality in Popular Culture with this:

Simulated reality in fiction

See Simulated reality in fiction

Simulated reality is a theme that pre-dates science fiction. In Medieval and Renaissance religious theatre, the concept of the world as theater is frequent.

Lordvolton (talk) 15:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

That seems fine in principle. Certainly the link is a great idea. But I do have a few issues to discuss in practice.
  • We may need to keep some referenced stuff in here to stop it being deleted again (what was the excuse for deleting it last time?)
  • It's a minor point but ideally I'd prefer a title like 'Simulated reality in fiction and culture' - after all, to take one example, the chidren's song or nursery rhyme 'Row, Row, Row your boat, Life is but a dream, Merrily, merrily, merilly Flowing down the stream.' seems to be 'Simulated reality in culture' rather than fiction (but I presumably will eventually put it in somewhere in the fiction article anyway) . We probably can't easily change the title of the Fiction article, but we might want to change the title of the section in this article.
  • I'd want to add in the Bostrom and Chalmers citations in the Fiction article, but that's easily done
  • I'm uncomfortable with dismissing the Matrix as just one of dozens of works of fiction on the subject. After all, as far as I know (I'd be delighted to hear of any reliably sourced exceptions), the others do not attract discussions from key thinkers in the area like Bostrom. The reason is, I think, that The Matrix is what brought the idea to the attention of the general public (although I don't know whether there are as yet any reliable source citations to that effect). So I would probably want to leave a sentence in both the main article and the Fiction article such as:

Some of these works, such as the Matrix (details...), have been discussed by leading Simulated Reality thinkers such as as philosophers Nick Bostrum and David Chalmers (citations...).

(I or somebody else can then add the bit about The Matrix bringing the idea to the attention of the general public if and when I or somebody else finds a Reliable Source to support such a statement, though I may not necessarily bother to look)

Incidentally, presumably unlike most or all other such fictions (thereby arguably again emphasizing that it's not just one among dozens of works of fiction on the subject), The Matrix is currently also mentioned in the main body of the text to help explain the Intermingled concept, including the notion of sentient software programs (although currently with a 'citation needed' request, put in by me when I restored the Intermingled section after somebody deleted it as unreferenced instead of simply requesting references). I don't know whether such a citation will be forthcoming or not (I could look for one myself, but I'm not sure that I'm sufficiently interested to bother - if it remains unreferenced for long enough after the citation request, then presumably it would become legitimate to delete it).
  • So what I'm planning to do is make the changes as I've outlined them here, but as I'm tired, I'll leave it until tomorrow or the day after, thus giving you time to voice any suggestions or objections you may have (or to make the changes yourself in whatever way you prefer - as I am broadly agreeing with your suggestion, you won't be violating WP:BRD). But of course if you haven't had time to do so by the time I make my changes, there's nothing to stop you making your suggestions, objections, or changes later.
  • I'm not sure that I need really mention this here, but in general I think that this entire article needs to be split into two articles, an important one on the philosophy and its implications for everything from history to science to religion, and a technical one (and in my view a largely irrelevant one) on the science (or perhaps that should be quasi-science - pseudo-science seems far too harsh unless you're a hardline Popperian, which I'm not), but that's another day's work and I'll hopefully eventually detail it in a new Talk section Tlhslobus (talk) 23:24, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
That all sounds good. I'm not sure why it was deleted previously. There is another article that focuses more on the philosophical side that was written by a contributor to this page (see Simulation_hypothesis) and we've had spirited debates in the past when others (unaware of the history) attempt to merge that article with this one. The Matrix was an introduction to many movie goers to the topic, but Descartes and Zeno have been the standard introduction in philosophy classes for decades. There were several movies and television shows that were not as critically acclaimed that pre-date the Matrix that covered similar ground (e.g., Brainstorm, Tron, Strange Days, Virtuosity, The Lawnmover Man, Total Recall, etc.) -- but The Matrix film (which draws heavily from the cyberpunk science fiction genre) is by far the most popular.

Lordvolton (talk) 17:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I now think I've bitten off more than I want to chew with this article. I may or may not eventually make a lengthy suggestion on how I think this article and the related Simulation Hypothesis article might be changed, but I'm not sure I want to put in the time and effort needed to even produce such a suggestion, let alone try to get it implemented. Meanwhile please feel free to reverse my changes by deleting the Popular Culture and/or External Links sections and/or transferring their contents to the Simulation Hypothesis article and/or the Simulated Reality in Fiction article. Tlhslobus (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

  • LV, I don't have a problem with changing the section name to "In fiction", but deleting it wholesale, for no apparent reason, except to replace it with WP:OR...

See Simulated reality in fiction
Simulated reality is a theme that pre-dates science fiction. In Medieval and Renaissance religious theatre, the concept of the world as theatre is frequent.

—Machine Elf 1735 02:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The reason it was deleted was to avoid what happened. First it's the Matrix, then the Truman show, and then the entire Simulated Reality in Fiction section is repeated. We created a new page for Simulated Reality in Fiction (it was originally part of this article) because it ended up being so long. And that process is repeating itself.
Why stop at the Truman Show? In my opinion, that's why we should just have a link to Simulated Reality in Fiction since it covers all of the television shows and films. Perhaps the ultimate solution is to completely delete it since there will be too much temptation to begin listing shows already contained in the other article. Lordvolton (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Another film was just added. I'll take a crack at modifying the section that doesn't delete it completely. Lordvolton (talk) 22:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Mark J. Solomon

It looks like the article on Mark J._Solomon is newly minted and not reviewed. I don't think placing his name all over the article -- including listing him as a "major contributing thinker" is appropriate at this time. Lordvolton (talk) 06:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Totally agree with Lordvolton's comments. The additions look like advertising to me. Regards, David J Johnson (talk) 09:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Self-published neuropsychologist. Removed mention here, and elsewhere, per WP:RS and WP:UNDUE. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:24, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Simulation and Escalating Existential Risks ==

Anyone want to add this to the section on Bostrom's simulation argument? http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/torres20141103 The argument is that, on Bostrom's own reasoning, most simulators will be simulants. This entails the existence of a hierarchy, with more simulations accumulating at the bottom. The further down one is, though, the more possibility there is of inheriting annihilation from above. Might be worth adding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.99.191.172 (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I think there is an alternative argument, developed in extreme nondualism (Advaita), which holds that there is only one consciousness outside of space-time, playing all the parts in the simulation, fooling itself into thinking it is individuals for the sake of creation. That argument is well developed in Hindu and even Buddhist philosophy, if you read it intuitively. Vasishta's yoga, written down about 1,000 years ago and likely older, consists of stories of creation through thought. My favorites are the world-in-a-rock and the deer-and-the-hunter stories.

I'm not looking at the text right now, so my memory may be faulty. The world in the rock consists of a yogi entering a boulder into a universe, in fact, a pretty accurately (according to 21st Century science) described solar system. The point of the story (what I take from it anyway) is that the material universe is the product of consciousness, which plays with universes, bringing them into being and dissolving them at will. Consciousness has no particular investment in any universe, does not see any of them as real and knows that no one is really suffering or dying.

I think this is consistent with the network argument in another section of this page, the part which talks about a network of consciousness being sufficient explanation for quantum mechanics. There is no requirement for hierarchy if one consciousness is assumed.

Not sure how to use the features of this page or where this discussion should be posted. I was looking for David Bostrom and came across it.

The deer and the hunter story is about how consciousness comes to think of itself as individuals and "travels" through space-time. In Advaita, liberation is the awareness of one consciousness as the only reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VickieDeneroff (talk • contribs) 19:15, 27 November 2015 [1]

Theological aspects of simulated reality

I removed the two paragraphs because their only source was www.tekark.com which appears to be a website promoting a personal philosophical view of the world. It's not an authoritative source.

While there may be serious discussions about the theological underpinnings of simulated reality, this website doesn't appear to be an independent source. The main page appears to be a personal journal entry.

Lordvolton (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

New merge discussion

No consensus to merge. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:18, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This article and Simulation hypothesis have unclear scopes and have covered the same material for years. There was a merge discussion in 2012, but it didn't go anywhere. I propose that we clean-up this mess and finally merge them. If someone opposes merging them, please explain how you would define the scope of each article so that they can be clearly distinguished. Kaldari (talk) 09:10, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

  • Agreed, see also Talk:Simulation_hypothesis#WP:SYNTH. Outside of Wikipedia, "simulation hypothesis" only seems to be used when talking about Nick Bostrom's "ancestor simulation" in the context of the "simulation argument"; my guess is that at some point some well-meaning editor created a new page specifically about Bostrom's simulation, and then some other well-meaning editor thought that "simulation hypothesis" means any hypothesis that we live in a simulation, and thus we ended up in the current state. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:05, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't think there is any need to merge the two articles for the same reasons we've avoided merging spin off articles in the past. I believe we had a similar discussion over simulism. In this instance, we should discourage people from cutting and pasting this article into a new article and adding a few extra thoughts -- which entices well meaning editors to merge them. That is not an efficient way to edit Wikipedia articles -- if they want to make changes they need to make them in this article rather than writing their own article that basically reiterates what is contained in this one. To the extent an article is a copy then the proper action is a nomination for deletion. Lordvolton (talk) 16:56, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Merge Simulated reality says that reality can be simulated and Simulation hypothesis is suggesting reality is simulated. The two articles are very much related that should be merged. Both articles also have a very similar section (Here and here). heyzec! 12:51, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
    Again, rewarding editors who cut and paste from this article into a new article with a "merge" is not a good idea. If you dislike the similarities then you should nominate the copycat article(s) for deletion. Lordvolton (talk) 02:27, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Clearly different, however related topics: "Simulation hypothesis" is a subtopic of "Simulated reality", and therefore a cleanup us due, to rearrange the two according to Wikipedia:Summary style, to avoid unnecessary duplication. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
    • Oppose Same reason as above. Alexlur (talk) 03:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Time Dilation Considerations

It is impossible for a multiplayer simulation to replicate relativistic temporal dilation where outside time is faster as you travel closer to the speed of light. So either the universe is not a simulation, or there is only one real user/player in the simulation. Were the latter the case, then I would obviously posit that I am that user and you are not. Once again the Weak Anthropic Principle suggests that I am probably not that lucky, and I am metaphysically certain that you are not. -Benjamin Wade Goulart 2605:A000:C3C0:5500:4C71:EEDF:AD2B:DB27 (talk) 16:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

It would help if you could put this argument in context of some other thought on the subject, perhaps it is a reiteration or a refinement of the Rietdijk–Putnam argument? — Brianhe (talk) 17:58, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
The best way to start would be to find a citation to a reliable source. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


        • This is not transparent to me -- why would this be so? The only "real or preferred" frame of reference would be from the prior civilization's POV -- the civilization that creates the simulation in question. Inside the simulation, good heavens all bets are off and the logic engine could make it so that every vantage point sees things in relativistic ways. Remember -- the laws of physics inside the simulation do not need to be the same as outside the simulation...meaning that the simulation can cheat to get the desired effects for its sentient beings. It is important to realize that the non-sentient particles don't "care" about the simulation...all that matters is that the sentient ones are made to think the simulation runs a particular way. *** Chesspride

It also strikes me -- without any particular proof offered at this time -- that it is precisely because the speed of light is constant for all vantage points/all observers...that it is more likely that we live in a simulation. From the POV of any given pixel on a monitor screen, of course the speed of light (the speed of the simulation of information ) must be constant. Chesspride 172.164.17.17 (talk) 03:54, 12 June 2016 (UTC) 172.164.17.17 (talk) 03:52, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

External links content to be put into article prose?

On restoring the section of “Relativity of reality”

I’m not intentionally involved in an editing war. I am relatively a new editor of Wiki, although I read it almost every day and donated money to it many times. I suggest restoring this section for the following reasons: (1) This section refers to an article that is unique in its statements on the connection between simulated reality and relativity theory (principle), especially its thoughtful piece on the relationship between reality and physical laws. (2) About the source. GSJ is just an outlet of the above article. Although GSJ is not a peer-reviewed journal, at least it is a journal with a regular ISSN (ISSN-1916-5382). I can change the reference to the original web page of this article: http://sciblog.net/su/, as many other references do in this wiki page. But I don’t think that is a better way. (3) As I noticed, the author of this article, Dr. Bin-Guang Ma, has an academic position and published dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers. One can just google the author name or see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bin-Guang_Ma. (4) This section has been in this Wiki page for several years. (5) The “Relativity of reality” theory is highly relevant to this topic and may become an important contribution to our understanding of simulated reality from a physics viewpoint. I think people who are interested in simulated reality should have a look at this theory.

Discussions are welcome! --PeachKernel (talk) 15:17, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

If I look on Google Scholar, the journal article has only one citation. I'm afraid its inclusion would be WP:UNDUE by Wikipedia policy, and I would say this even if I read the journal article and found it interesting (for the record, I haven't read the journal article at all and therefore have no opinion on it). Note that Wikipedia, especially on older or more obscure Wikipedia articles, does currently contain many violations of Wikipedia policy such as publishing idiosyncratic ideas that can only currently be sourced to blogs or to non-peer-reviewed and uncited journal articles; if you stumble across things like that, feel free to help with flagging or removing them. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:08, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

If it is indexed in Google Scholar and has citation, it is obviously an academic paper, better than many references (web pages and blogs) in this Wiki page. Considering its high relevance, it should be included. --PeachKernel (talk) 06:41, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Again, because a lot of refs here are terrible, is no reason to make the article worse. GSJ is NOT an academic paper. It is not peer-reviewed; that's in its mission statement. It is mostly a crackpot repository. (The very first article I click, almost at random, is of the "Einstein was wrong, SR is wrong" type, for fudge's sake). The bad refs in the article should be flagged and replaced or removed, not more added or added back. (And the paragraph itself is barely intelligible, but that's besides the point). Gamall Wednesday Ida (talk) 08:29, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, GSJ is not a peer-reviewed journal; it doesn’t mean the referred article is not an academic paper. As I said, GSJ is just an outlet of that article. In my opinion, the merit of the “Relativity of reality” theory lies in its unique viewpoint and clear statements on the connection between “simulated reality” and relativity theory (principle), which are highly relevant to this wiki topic. That’s why I think people who are interested in simulated reality should have a look at this theory. --PeachKernel (talk) 10:16, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

"Yes, GSJ is not a peer-reviewed journal; it doesn’t mean the referred article is not an academic paper." Actually that's pretty much what it means, yes. "GSJ is just an outlet of that article"; if the paper were good, it would find a better outlet (i.e. anything else). That's how academic publication is set up to work. The paper itself is written in a semi-literate style (e.g. "all the worlds are the same real.") and seems about as canny as your average blog post series on the subject. At a glance it's mostly a freestyle riff on the fuzzy feeling of the word "relativity"; a common feature of crank papers. The author, even if it is the one you linked, has neither notability in general nor even academic expertise in the subject (physics and th. comp. sci. are the relevant disciplines here). The "theory" has of course not been picked up by any other academic, even informally. A lot of things would have to change before that became a half-decent source, let alone a good one. Gamall Wednesday Ida (talk) 12:05, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

If you google the author name, you can find thousands of records. (1) You will find the research gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bin-Guang_Ma, and the referred article is in the publication list. (2) You can also find this link http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/m/Ma:Bin=Guang, and it is clearly a “computer science bibliography” and the indexed two papers are also in the publication list of the author Bin-Guang Ma’s profiles at the research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bin-Guang_Ma. You cannot say that the author has no expertise in computer science. (3) If you check more on the results from google search, you will find the author (binguang ma, Huazhong Agricultural University) is in the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports (in the section of “Biological Physics”) http://www.nature.com/srep/about/editorial-board#biologicalphysics. You cannot say the author has no expertise in Physics. With these evidences, I think the referred article is from an academic person with sufficient expertise on this topic. --PeachKernel (talk) 14:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

"If you google the author name, you can find thousands of records. " ... None of which make him notable. (1) ok, so it's the same author. Good. (2) 2 biology-related interdisciplinary papers does not make one an expert in CS, let alone in the relevant fields (theory of computation etc). (3) Yes, he does protein folding and stuff. That has no relevance to what's being discussed (general relativity, so astrophysics,...). Again, if the paper were good, he could get it published someplace that establishes it as a reliable source. Then there would be something to talk about. Even better if there were good secondary sources about his "theory". As it stands, it is a blog-post-equivalent from a random, non-notable (see WP:ACADEMIC) academic whose expertise lies elsewhere. That's about all the time I'm willing to invest in this discussion. You have been told in no uncertain terms that the source is unsuitable by no fewer than 5 different editors now. I suggest you take the hint. Gamall Wednesday Ida (talk) 16:32, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

PeachKernel, please no longer restore texts which were deleted because of violation of wikipedia rules, without addressing these violations. If you don't know the rules, here they are: WP:V WP:CITE, WP:RS, WP:NOR. Please start from small and/or non-controversial additions, until you get a knack. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:48, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Why isn't the CTMU mentioned in this article?

I have a perfectly well-meaning question. If, for example, Dr. Bostrom's (rather prominent post-2003) association with the reality-simulation hypothesis is credible, then why isn't mine?

I'm a well-known person with a longstanding biography right here in Wikipedia. (If anyone is curious, I'm known for two things: my reportedly high intelligence - I'd apologize given that some people like to complain about IQ and IQ credentials, but mine are as good as any, and I did receive considerable mainstream publicity - and the Cognitive/Consciousness-Theoretic Model of the Universe, a theory of reality with a distinct and very robust logico-mathematical structure.)

In 1989, I published a paper called "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox". That would be reference number 7 in the Wikipedia article "Newcomb's Paradox", and it's been there for many years now. This seminal paper, decades ahead of its time, was published in the journal of the Mega Society, which goes back to the 1980's and also has its own page here on Wikipedia. It seems to have been the first detailed application of the Simulation Hypothesis to an outstanding philosophical problem, namely, Newcomb's Paradox. This paper features a modern version of Descartes' "evil demon" ("Newcomb's Demon"), and a reality-simulator "Gamma" through which it enjoys random access to spacetime in an otherwise paradoxical decision-theoretic context, embedding the entire scenario in a simulated reality and thereby supporting the data furnished with the paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb's_Paradox

The CTMU is very widely known, albeit perhaps not in academia - I'm not an academic, I'm usually not invited to the academic conferences at which academics trade and promote their ideas, and I was only recently (2017) invited to publish in a peer-reviewed academic journal long after the one in which I'd previously published folded under withering troll attack. In 2006, a CTMU article here was deleted on the blatantly false grounds that the CTMU was "non-notable", and additionally, that it was "Intelligent Design Creationism", about as absurd an accusation as has ever been leveled against an idea. Back in those days at least, Wikipedia had its own "cancel culture", and some of its members targeted me and my work dishonestly and with a vengeance. Hence, no CTMU article in Wikipedia.

Nevertheless, a number of detailed, peer-reviewed CTMU papers have since been published. The most recent is called "The Self-Simulation Principle: Reality is a Self-Simulation". If one thinks about it for a moment, the existence of a real "reality-simulation" implies that on some level, reality is simulating itself. After all, the existence ("reality") of any given reality-simulation implies a higher level of reality which comprises or emulates its host-system. The ubiquitous demand for a "higher level of reality" naturally leads to the consideration of an "ultimate reality" - or if one prefers, the ontological intersect of all intelligible simulations - and it must therefore be asked how the structure of ultimate reality might support "reality simulation" in general. Inasmuch as every reality-simulation that is ultimately real is carried by the structure and dynamics of ultimate reality, ultimate reality is "self-simulating". Hence, the "Reality Self-Simulation Principle".

https://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/867/1476

The CTMU has developed simulation theory to a rather advanced state over the last 30 or so years. In fact, it has done the same for other disciplines. In the field of simulation theory, there's really nothing else that can touch it. So if nobody minds my asking, is there any particular reason it's not mentioned in this article despite a string of peer-reviewed publications stretching from 1989 to 2020? (That's 31 years.) Remember - I'm notable, both of the above-linked papers are associated with notable journals and/or organizations, and there's no question about relevance.

For now, I'll hold off on attaching any links to the article. To my recollection, there's some kind of proscription against "self-promotion" / "conflict of interest" here, and I certainly don't want anyone to get disgruntled or feel threatened. But to my way of thinking, the CTMU is in every way entitled to coverage in Wikipedia, particularly as refusing to mention it amounts to a conflict of interest in its own right, as it indirectly awards original credit to people who never earned it and has arguably retarded the progress of the field by decades. It's not as though I couldn't easily rebut any combination of latter-day "authorities" in the field should they criticize my work under their real names, in the full light of day.

Remember, what academics happen to know about is only part of the story. Academia is a closed system, a kind of circular enterprise in which academics cite and reward only each other for new ideas. But of course, valid ideas are not obliged to originate in academia, and no encyclopedia worthy of the name can let itself become an academic enforcer which jealously limits public knowledge to just that for which professional academics can take credit. It's simply not conducive to the intellectual advancement of humankind, in this case demonstrably.

Thanks for your attention. Chris Langan (talk) 19:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposed Application section for the main article

I'm thinking of adding an Applications section to the main article. It would go something like this:

"The first detailed application of the simulation hypothesis to an outstanding philosophical problem dates from 1989. In the paper "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox" (Langan, 1989), a paradoxical decision-theoretic scenario is evaluated within a simulated reality affording a seemingly precognitive "demon" random access to the timeline of events, thus supporting the anomalous data furnished with the paradox. In 2002, the computational paradigm used in this paper was explicitly generalized to a theory describing reality as a "self-simulation", breaking the computational mold by positing that reality is "generative" in the sense of ontological "grammar" in the context of dual aspect monism (Langan, 2002). The logico-mathematical structure of the CTMU is that of the "Metaformal System", a coupling of language and physical reality in a self-contained "metaformal identity language" (Langan, 2018). A supporting quantum ontology exists in the form of "Quantum Metamechanics" (Langan, 2019); the 2019 paper was followed by another which explicitly introduces the "Reality Self-Simulation Principle" (Langan, 2020), which is based on a correspondence between the standard simulation hypothesis and the CTMU Metaformal System."

This is an abbreviated version of the historical sequence, but at least it begins to fill in a few of the gaps attending the "cancellation" debacle described above. I respectfully invite your comments. Chris Langan (talk) 18:03, 21 May 2020 (UTC)


I would like to vote in favour of the suggested amendment. I find it most interesting and would very much like to see it on the main page of this Wikipedia article, and others related to the subject, including this one:

Simulation hypothesis

The suggested addition gives a nice summary of how the CTMU was developed and elegantly justifies its relevance to reality studies. What I also like is that it mentions the 1989 article, the inclusion of which is necessary for historical accuracy. It's also important to recognize that Mr. Langan is the originator of the term “self-simulation” in the reality-theoretic context, and has always followed this path by positing that the Universe is monic (dual-aspect monism) and exhausting logical consequences of this fact. It would be nice to see a mention of that also.

There's a lot of interest in the CTMU and people would like to understand it better. I’d like to give just one example, that of Quora, which surely is noticeable enough (with its active Wikipedia article) and can be used as a source of information. If I am right, in 2016 Mr. Langan set up an account on Quora in response to many questions appearing there about his work. During his two years there he answered approx. 250 questions, generated 1.2 milion content views and had 1,657 followers. I was one of them and found many of Mr. Langan's answers very interesting and original, for example this one:

What is logical theology? How does it relate to Chris Langan and the CTMU?

Since 2018, questions about the CTMU haven't stopped flowing in; the last question was asked on 15th May 2020. People want to know more about it and Mr. Langan himself; there IS popular demand. If I may present some interesting numbers to support this claim. Upon checking the following Topics on Quora and all questions asked in relation to them, the following results present themselves:

  • Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU): 905 questions;
  • Chris Langan: 807 questions; there is an overlap with the CTMU category but it's not an absolute one, so we can definitely add a few questions to those 905… .

Please compare the above with the relatively low interest in the below Quora Topics which are nevertheless present on this page:

  • Simulation Argument: 36 questions;
  • Simulation Hypothesis: 276 questions;
  • Nick Bostrom: 95 questions.

Interviews with Mr. Langan are also popular (from YouTube):

with Spike Jonze, 50,154 views;
with Steve Patterson, 15,878 views, or the same interview on another channel, 29,468 views;
People Speak Radio, 48,546 views;
Coast to Coast AM, 80 949 views.

May I also refer you to the following link?

Is the CTMU the first simulation theory?

Self-simulation is implied in the 1989 paper and the term is used explicitly in the 2002 one. If someone indeed can find an earlier work that communicates it indirectly or uses the term “self-simulation” in this context, he or she may add relevant information after the amendments suggested by Mr. Langan have been published on the Wikipedia page. As mentioned above, Mr. Langan's approach to Newcomb's Paradox is already on Wikipedia, so I believe it should appear in other relevant articles like this one.

Mr. Langan has published various articles and answered hundreds of questions about his theory on numerous websites. His position has been consistent over the years and the answers I have seen are very satisfying. He is a logician, metaphysician (in a precisely-defined sense), philosopher, and thinker whose contributions deserve to be recognized.

If there are articles on Wikipedia about Simulated reality, Simulation Hypothesis (276) with Mr. Bostrom in it (95) there definitely should be a mention of Mr. Langan, his theory (905) and how he developed it; or perhaps even a separate article about the CTMU on Wikipedia.

People want to know more about the CTMU and I believe Wikipedia should support this wish in order to be consistent with what it is presenting itself to be.

--Mich.Szczesny (talk) 20:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Video games vs Bostrom's AIs "understanding human behavior"

Bostrom talks about simulations but I prefer the term "video game" (even if that term is just used occasionally). There's also:

Virk, Rizwan. The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics, and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are In a Video Game

Apparently a possible purpose that Bostrom gives for the simulations is to "understand" human behaviour better... I think it is more likely that they will just be video games though some could be "serious" video games (which exist now as well). Some video games could have magic, etc, but ours seems quite "realistic". I think that it could be like the "Roy" game in Rick and Morty where the player forgets their real identity then remembers some or all of it after death. (that episode could also be mentioned in the article)

About Elon Musk's ideas: "I've had so many simulation discussions it's crazy"

"...the games will become indistinguishable from reality. ...there would probably be billions of such computers and set-top boxes. ...it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions"

I think Elon's argument shown here is better than Bostrom's.

Note in video games you don't need to simulate everything perfectly. You just need to fool the observers. You can use "level of detail" and the machine learning that Flight Simulator 2020 has. Legowolf3d (talk) 23:57, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Computation is reality

It is well known that any computer can be emulated by a Universal Turing Machine, a computer with an infinite printable tape and a read/write head with very few states.

The idea that such a machine could simulate reality is absurd. The premises discussed in this article are absurd. I suggest it be removed. Neutron230 (talk) 21:40, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.venkatesaya.com.
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