Whoa, dude, are we inside a computer right now?
September 11, 2012
The Sims (credit: Electronic Arts)
Two years ago, Rich Terrile appeared on Through the Wormhole, the Science Channel’s show about the mysteries of life and the universe. He was invited onto the program to discuss the theory that the human experience can be boiled down to something like an incredibly advanced, metaphysical version of The Sims, Vice reports.
It’s an idea that every college student with a gravity bong and The Matrix on DVD has thought of before, but Rich is a well-regarded scientist, the director of the Center for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and is currently writing an as-yet-untitled book about the subject, so we’re going to go ahead and take him seriously.
The essence of Rich’s theory is that a “programmer” from the future designed our reality to simulate the course of what the programmer considers to be ancient history — for whatever reason, maybe because he’s bored.
Sooner or later, we’ll get to a place where simulating a few billion people — and making them believe they are sentient beings with the ability to control their own destinies — will be as easy as sending a stranger a picture of your genitals on your phone.
This hypothesis — versions of which have been kicked around for centuries — is becoming the trippy notion of the moment for philosophers, with people like Nick Bostrom, the director of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, seriously considering the premise.
Until recently, the simulation argument hadn’t really attracted traditional researchers. That’s not to say he is the first scientist to predict our ability to run realistic simulations (among others, Ray Kurzweil did that in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines), but he is one of the first to argue we might already be living inside one.
Rich has even gone one step further by attempting to prove his theories through physics, citing things like the observable pixelation of the tiniest matter and the eerie similarities between quantum mechanics, the mathematical rules that govern our universe, and the creation of video game environments.
VICE: When did you first surmise that our reality could be a computer simulation?
Rich Terrile: Unless you believe there’s something magical about consciousness — and I don’t, I believe it’s the product of a very sophisticated architecture within the human brain — then you have to assume that at some point it can be simulated by a computer, or in other words, replicated. There are two ways one might accomplish an artificial human brain in the future. One of them is to reverse-engineer it, but I think it would be far easier to evolve a circuit or architecture that could become conscious. Perhaps in the next ten to 30 years we’ll be able to incorporate artificial consciousness into our machines.
We’ll get there that fast?
Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain. If you make a simple calculation using Moore’s Law, you’ll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years — including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime — in the span of a month…
Comments (51)
by kphuser1
And what of the problems elaborated on in a “New Kind of Science?” How can a human brain create something with its own level of complexity, its consciousness, or even exceed this level as proposed? Computers currently work very differently, less complex ways than even simpler mammalian brains.
by MartiChoops
It’s something I’ve called elsewhere the Cybernetic Apologetic. It goes something like this: we are likely in a created simulation (see the simulation argument below) with near infinite simulations above us and below us. But all these simulations envisage a creator (knowing or unknowing there is a cause). Perhaps there is one uncreated “real” universe in a near infinite set of created universes, but Bayesian logic says it’s the safest bet to assume it is created – what you make of that is of course a different issue.
The Philosopher Nick Bostrom of Oxford build a simulation argument that we are most likely in a simulation, to claim we are in the one reality, that could not be differentiated from billions of likely constructs is to put us at the centre, to claim a special reality just for ourselves, it’s dowright anti-Copernican!
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
I wrote this in a post on a blog I made earlier today, it reminds me of the movie Inception…
Be Humble because you are made of Earth,
Be Noble because the Earth is made of Stars,
Be Awed that perhaps what we make of the Earth and Stars is the same stuff of what dreams are made on.
Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158
by egore
From what I have been able to see, there is nothing but speculation,{Same as no proof} about artificial universe. Even the pixelation they talk about is unproven, to my knowledge. If someone has any proof, I would appreciate seeing it. Until then I say {Bah Humbug.}
by Jay
@egore
The pixelation that is mentioned probably refers to Planck distance and Planck time.
by Jay
Let’s do some fact checking.
“Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain”
Which super computer is that?
I’m looking at the top 500 right now and at the top is Sequoia with theoretical peak of 20 Petaflop = 2 * 10^16.
If you take Kurzweil’s estimate of 10^16 flops for simulating a human brain, then I suppose this is indeed ‘twice the speed of a human brain’.
But Rich Terrile speaks of ‘supercomputers’… iow: multiple.
I don’t see multiple supercomputers cranking out 20 Teraflop. Number two on the list does slightly over 10.
I would like to see some clarification before I take Rich Terrile seriously.
by Aaron
I have not read all the comments so someone might have mentioned this, but…isn’t the idea that we (our universe) are an evolutionary simulation of some sort slightly (or VERY) paradoxical? It would indicate that an (higher) intelligence of some kind created our reality for whatever reason and that these “creators” are “REAL.” As in, those “creators” could in fact be a creation of yet ANOTHER (higher) intelligence, and so on and so forth, like two mirrors placed paraell of each other…
Indeed, if we simulate a universe of our own for whatever reason, it could be that we are simply continuing a “loop” of sorts…
by Peter Kinnon
Absolutely, Aaron.
But, as I pointed out in my previous post, among all these various conjectures, the only one that make any sense as a working hypothesis is WYSIWYG – What you see is what you gets! The assumption that the world is pretty much as we perceive it. Particularly when our perceptions are subjected to the scrutiny of scientific method.
by Lukesta
Check out the book “the law of attraction” by Jerry and Esther Hicks, this explains everything holistically, I am yet to find anything that can explain our universe better… Our current perceived limitations in technology, life, emotional intelligence and intelligence is limited only by our beliefs. :-)
by Gabriel
“Our Simulation Is Turned Off: Another existential risk that Bostrom and others have identified is that we’re actually living in a simulation and the simulation will be shut down. It might appear that there’s not a lot we could do to influence this. However, since we’re the subject of the simulation, we do have the opportunity to shape what happens inside of it. The best way we could avoid being shut down would be to be interesting to the observers of the simulation. Assuming that someone is actually paying attention to the simulation, it’s a fair assumption that it’s less
likely to be turned off when it’s compelling than otherwise. We could spend a lot of time considering what it means for a simulation to be interesting, but the creation of new knowledge would be a critical part of this assessment. Although it may be difficult for us to conjecture what would be interesting to our hypothesized simulation observer, it would seem that the Singularity is likely to be about as absorbing as any development we could imagine and would create new knowledge at an extraordinary rate. Indeed, achieving a Singularity of exploding knowledge may be the very purpose of the simulation. Thus, assuring a
“constructive” Singularity (one that avoids degenerate outcomes such as existential destruction by gray goo or dominance by a malicious AI) could be the best course to prevent the simulation from being terminated. Of course, we have every motivation to achieve a constructive Singularity for many other reasons. If the world we’re living in is a simulation on someone’s computer, it’s a very good one—so detailed, in fact, that
we may as well accept it as our reality. In any event, it is the only reality to which we have access. Our world appears to have a long and rich history. This means that either our world is not, in fact, a simulation or,
if it is, the simulation has been going a very long time and thus is not likely to stop anytime soon. Of course it is also possible that the simulation includes evidence of a long history without the history’s having actually occurred. As I discussed in chapter 6, there are conjectures that an advanced civilization may create a new universe to perform computation (or, to put it another way, to continue the expansion of its own computation). Our living in such a universe (created by another civilization) can be considered a simulation scenario. Perhaps this other civilization is running an evolutionary algorithm on our universe (that is, the evolution we’re witnessing) to create an explosion of knowledge from a technology Singularity. If that is true, then the civilization watching our universe might shut down the simulation if it appeared that a knowledge Singularity had gone awry and it did not look like it was going to occur.
This scenario is also not high on my worry list, particularly since the only strategy that we can follow to avoid a negative outcome is the one we need to follow anyway.”
Quoted straight from the “Singularity is Near” – felt appropriate since Kurzweil went into this, and other existential risks in the book. He basically asserts that GNR should be our real concerns, as he sees the Simulation idea, alongside others like Alien visitors to Asteroid impacts, as too unlikely.
by Gabriel
Putting my own thoughts into this….I have to say….if we really were in a Simulation, the whole thing, to a degree, is somewhat moot.
Unless we were able to make contact with our “creators”, or we somehow found irrefutable proof, we’d never be able to prove the existence of them….and I don’t think we would ever be able to find such proof — even if the Post-Singularity world…even if we surpassed the speed of light and “woke” the universe…had the ability to engineer and colonize new universes to keep our intelligence growing indefinitely….no matter how high we go depending on the scenario, it wouldn’t matter — the creators would be like Gods to us no matter how God-like we ourselves became.
Thinking about it, I find it impossible to believe their would actually ever be found proof that we live in a Simulation — whether it’s because it’s regulated perfectly, or was created that way from the start…I honestly can imagine no less then utter perfection because that’s simply how advanced the creators must be to us, even in a post-Singularity world….it HAS to be that way — they cannot be mere human beings and we are avatars in a computer game they invented…their intelligence would have to be nonpareil.
And thinking about it….we’re never going to find evidence that we are in a simulation; not unless they themselves appeared to us. Perhaps they won’t bother until humanity has gotten as far as they can go (post-Singularity perhaps?), or perhaps not….perhaps the simulation will go on forever because they are like a Deistic god who has forgotten about us, monitors closely without revealing their presence, …or perhaps the billions of years our universe has been around been is only subjective — perhaps, in truth, our universe has been around for only a very short amount of time…after all, if subjective time is expanded depending on how large the intelligence….then for the creators, they would get epochal events done seemingly in the blink of an eye, no matter how much we ourselves increased our own intelligence.
We are bound by the limits they have instilled into the simulation, and unless their is a new future after the Post-Singularity world where we can continue to climb higher and perhaps reach their own intelligence (perhaps the whole point of the exercise?), we’d never be able to break free of this flawless simulation or even prove we live in one in the first place: That’s why I say, not only is the whole argument kind of moot unless they reveal themselves, but we’d never really be able to do anything about it….not unless they gave us something, like perhaps the option of leaving.
by JC
We will be able to figure out if it is a simulation, for many reasons. Here are two: Unless the simulation is generated solely by a random number generator, our qualities are a version of the qualities of our creators, even if an anti-version. With enough computer power, we will be able to extrapolate a large set of scenarios that define the creators qualities and their method of simulation. A quantum computer should be able to collapse these scenarios to a handful of solutions. Second, as we develop simulated worlds of our own we will discover the science and math of it and it is likely that there are ‘anomalies’ in that math which signal that one is in a simulation. We can then look for those in the natural world.
by Dave Pook
Perhaps when a certain level of intelligence is reached (singularity?) the simulation admins do allow the option of leaving – this might be a solution to the Fremi Paradox.
by Dave Pook
Fermi Paradox
by JC
Thanks for the lucid post. Can simple logic be applied to the issue? Maybe not if the creators transcend logic in their knowledge somehow. Some more simple logic: If they can create one simulation then they can create many. Some of the other may have been turned off. Ours is still running. We are different than the ones that were turned off. What we have been doing has kept ours turned on. So, we should keep doing what we have been doing. A massive change like the Singularity is different than what we have been doing. (That’s why it has a fancy name) So the Singularity may be what gets our simulation turned off!
by cosmowrench
Dr. Gates explains he has discovered computer code in physics equations…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx0rM1QH9qY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
by GAUSS
This entire argument is completely ridiculous. As a scientist, he should know better than to put forth crap like this.
by Lord Penguin
The main argument I see against being in a simulation is the level of complexity. I can’t speak for people in the future, but if I were to create a simulation to encompass something as large as, say, the universe, I would use simple calculations.
From what we have observed, particles interact with each other probabilistically, every single time, say, an atom collides with another one, they exchange an infinite number of virtual particles. That’s a nightmare for a computer to handle. Sure, computers the size of microbes will soon be able to solve protein folding simulations. But its very hard, and some argue impossible, for something smaller than a protein to simulate a protein. Why go to such length to make the laws of nature so complex, the universe so large, make everything so hard to handle, when simple laws could suffice? The “stacking” problem is automatically solved if the laws are too simple to allow advanced computer simulations, as are many of the problems that the supposed programmers would have to face.
by Mortran
You overestimate the size of the simulation.
It’s a First Person Shooter. And all the parts of the universe that you don’t see right now, are not rendered. This is in agreement with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Particles have only a definite state if they are observed.
So the simulation only needs to calculate what you are looking at.
by izumi3682
i STILL cant get a satisfactory outcome on my right rotator cuff repair surgery–where is that in the next 30 years?
by Peter Kinnon
At the lower echelons of philosophical thought, fantasies of this kind are, of course, just as valid as such others as, for instance, solipsism and the various religions.
Among these innumerable faiths, however, it is only empiricism, which roughly equates to science, that has significant utility. Furthermore, it is the faith to which practically all humankind subscribes by default.
At root, all of us assume the reality of the information provided by our senses of the external world. It is the only faith that goes anywhere.
This is discussed at greater length in chapter three of “Unusual Perspectives”, a free e-book download from the eponymous website.
by vspyder
How come there are no catastrophic crash bugs in this simulation that is so complicated?
Also this can’t be a simulation because in Grand Theft Auto if I cause lots of trouble after a little while of good behavior the police leave me alone…..
:P
by Bri
Surely you jest.
by e.s. gravois
HAHAHAHAHAHA…right.
by Logic
At the end of the linked article is this quote: “What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us.”
…which leaves us with the same basic (age old) quandary: The ultimate truth is unknowable. What came before the start and how/why did it start? This (“it could all be a simulation”) is all an intriguing possibility, but it offers us little beyond an existential brain puzzle.
by Bill
I don’t like the term “simulation” applied to this hypothesized state of existence. If it is a simulation, then its as probably that the creator of it is a simulation as well, and you could keep going that way ad infinitum. And if so, then calling this a simulation becomes absurd and meaningless.
That’s the problem with all theories involving a creator of superior faculties instead of from a lower state. It always demands the question, “okay, where did that creator come from? You end up dealing with an infinite regression of creators.
We are all better off assuming that are in an uncreated, evolving, objective universe made of actual matter from which life and then consciousness arose. Not subjective figments in a greater mind or fragments of a greater mind.
by Khannea Suntzu
I have a special power in this sim, and it is the power to radiate lag in a 3 mile radius.
by Marcos Marin
“to simulate the course of what the programmer considers to be ancient history”
This one could also have that recent news story about the team trying to simulate history, I cant find it with the search function :-( tried the keywords “simulation; simulate; simulat; history; historic; histor; sociology; automaton;” etc… though i tried to limit the results to “AI/Robotics” and “past year”…
by ChrisF
At one point in the interview, the point is raises that “… there have been reports of scientists observing pixels in the tiniest of microscopic images”. I’m very doubtful that this is the case – I believe it’s an open question whether space is quantized, in fact there’s an instrument being built which may shed some light on this very question (the ‘holometer’). Right now, any claim that the universe is pixelated is nothing more than speculation afaik – anyone know any different ?
by Marcos Marin
You’re right, it is an open question, but the important bit is the interpretation of it. This guy, as most philosophers, is extremely confused. For one, as counter-intuitive as this may seem, being pixelated is an argument AGAINST his thesis not in favor. I can easliy create a simulation in my old 386 pc which will fractally expand detail as much as you zoom in! Millions use Flash(C) everyday to create VECTORIAL GRAPHICS which will do pretty much the same thing! Thus, reaching a “pixelated limit” — as close to the bare hardware, as it were — is in fact evidence of “raw reality” actually, or a very crappy simulation :-) in other words, as much as the universe expands “fractally” in its details, it has to start somewhere (whereas a simulation need not, even old atari games can do it, which would drive many players mad). Yet, although I think this is the most plausible explanation, I don’t think this will ever be a testable hypothesis.
by Gorden Russell
Marcos Marin, I like how you say that most philosophers are extremely confused. In my lifetime, most philosophers have left me extremely confused. Ever have a philosopher pull the old “Xeno’s Paradox” on you?
by Gorden Russell
I don’t get it. If NASA already has something twice as powerful as the human brain, why aren’t they talking to it? Why isn’t it already awake?
by Ian Clarke
Software – AFAIK.
by ChrisF
Because we can match the total estimated power of the brain (measured in calculations per second), but we have no idea how to harness this power to emulate what brains can do. Basically we have the hardware but not the software, yet.
by GAUSS
@ChrisF: Correct. Software is the holdup, plus one other small issue: arrangement of pieces. I harp on this issue almost constantly, but somebody has to.
People always say we have the ‘hardware,’ but I claim that that isn’t the case. Until you can engineer a way put 100 billion completely independent ALUs in an array, with nearly limitless connectivity between any nodes, you don’t have the hardware for brain emulation. Why not?
Simultaneity. I’m not talking about massively parallel. I’m talking about completely independent pieces. (If a GPU could have 100 billion kepler cores, that might get you closer.) The thing is that nothing happens on a computer unless one of two conditions are met: 1. it was exactly and specifically programmed to happen and 2. the state of the ‘thing’ in question is affected by the processing unit. The state of a ‘thing’ in a digital system cannot change unless it is acted upon by something, namely a processing unit of some sort.
That’s not how it works in the brain. Every single one of your 100 billion neurons are acting independently at all times. They are firing, ‘cooling down,’ receiving chemical signals from other parts of the brain (whether nearby or far away), and so on. Every single element can change its state autonomously without being acted upon by some external system, let alone a central processor of some kind.
It’s a difficult thing to explain, but it is fundamental to this problem. Smashing a bottle on a table doesn’t require trillions upon trillions of individual physics simulations governing the interaction between every atom at every time step. It simply happens. It simply is. Even a mediocre simulation of the same thing on a computer is extremely difficult to do – ask any graphics programmer!
The point is this: people talk all the time about us having the hardware to take on the task of emulating the human brain, but this is not the case. Mathematically these entities do not behave the same way, because in a real physical system, the state of everything is autonomous. On a computer, you have to specify it exactly. Capturing a convincing emulation without all of the underlying continuous mechanisms that govern each part and its subparts is, well, not likely to happen on classical computers.
by GAUSS
*both of two conditions, not just one!
by chrisf
That’s an interesting point Gauss. So you believe that certain mental functions cannot (even in principle) be simulated on digital computers ? ie, there is something special about “reality” that is necessary for brains to function ? It’s a possibility, although not one I agree with. A digital computer is of course capable of simulating reality at an arbitrarily fine level of granularity. Yes, the simulation will always be discrete, but is that a problem if the timesteps are sufficiently small ? So far, we seem to have had great success at simulating physical systems at many different levels of detail (eg colliding galaxies, weather systems, nuclear explosions, aerodynamics, molecular interactions). I don’t see any sign that brains are any different, but I guess we won’t know until we try !
by MrFriendly
I think he’s basing it on the old, “100 billion neurons x 10 thousand connections per neuron * 10 pulses per second = 10 petaflops” calculation.
That’s leaving out an awful lot of biology, to say the least. Still, a machine of that size that’s simulating even a simple artificial neural network could still evolve some interesting behaviors in a well-constructed VR environment.
by Gorden Russell
Thank you, MrFriendly, going to save that over to a Word doc.
by GAUSS
Please see my above comment.
I agree with you 100%.
by Marcos Marin
It says “double speed”, whether this means “twice as powerful” is ambiguous indeed, to say the least. But yep, very misleading.
by MrFriendly
There are 20 petaflop supercomputers online right now, afaik.
by Bri
It’s the old garbage in garbage out. We don’t know how intelligence works.
by GAUSS
Thank you for the very straightforward observation. You’re right: we just don’t know yet!
by Mr.X
Maybe because that’s not the problem.The problem is: How to construct a personality (software).Afaik they are not even sure what a personality is.
Hm, simulating history.Make sure it is politically correct!
by aus
Matter arises from consciousness. As Buddha said “we are what we think”, tihs is well known via the long forgotten study of Sacred Geometry.
Is it possible that we are just in a simulation? Yeah. But it seems strange that a programmer would create a program that is aware of the process by which it was created. I’m beginning to believe reality is fractal, and as we were created so too we have the ability to create. As above, so below.
by Bill
I see nothing strange about the idea of a programmer creating a program that could become aware of the process of its creation.
by Erik
“Unless you believe there’s something magical about consciousness — and I don’t, I believe it’s the product of a very sophisticated architecture within the human brain — then you have to assume that at some point it can be simulated by a computer, or in other words, replicated”
Hmm, it’s hard to understand how consciousness could work in our (physical) world, but it’s very easy to imagine how it could work if we live in a simulation. It would work similar to 3D game today, only better.
The consciousness lives in a world outside ours.
by Bri
Let’s just be clear about one thing. I may say it’s an illusion that we create but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.When I say we I mean it all even empty space. It’s not somebody else’s simulation. It’s not a computer program.
by Leonardo De Luca
Please check http://www.simulation-argument.com/
by Gorden Russell
I checked it out, Leonardo. Thanks for the link. It seems that this question has been argued for a long time by a lot of people.
by MrFriendly
“There are two ways one might accomplish an artificial human brain in the future. One of them is to reverse-engineer it, but I think it would be far easier to evolve a circuit or architecture that could become conscious. Perhaps in the next ten to 30 years we’ll be able to incorporate artificial consciousness into our machines.”
That makes a lot of sense. I’ve wondered if the coming neuromorphic technologies could be used to rapidly evolve virtual creates in a VR environment.