How the Peer-to-Peer Simulation Hypothesis Explains Just About Everything

I think that the case for our reality being some form of virtual reality hyper-computer simulation is fairly compelling. Dyson and other materialists imagine that human beings are also part of this simulation software, but this is of course untenable - the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness and a large body of evidence shows that although human consciousness is usually in life tied to material brains it is not of these material neural structures and can separate from the physical body. So if there is any truth to the simulation theory (or is it merely a metaphor?) we must be the observers and participants in it, not part of it.

The case seems compelling because of the way the analogy of an iterative computer calculation/simulation makes sense of quantum mechanical phenomena. All the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual implications of such a theory are irrelevant to the likely truth of the theory. I think that Ross Rhodes makes some key points on this, summarized in his paper A Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics at http://www.mysearch.org.uk/website1/pdf/615.1.pdf.

Just one part of this analysis is examination of the way electromagnetic waves are not really waves in any sort of medium, but behave exactly as if they are waves of calculation.

The matter was further complicated in the 1920s when it was shown that objects -- everything from electrons to the chair on which you sit -- exhibit exactly
the same wave properties as light, and suffer from exactly the same lack of any medium. One way to resolve this seeming paradox of waves without medium
is to note that there remains another kind of wave altogether. A wave with which we are all familiar, yet which exists without any medium in the ordinary sense.

This is the computer-generated wave. Let us examine a computer-generated sound wave. Imagine the following set up. A musician in a recording studio plays a synthesizer, controlled by a keyboard. It is a digital synthesizer which uses an algorithm (programming) to create nothing more than a series of numbers representing what a sampling of
points along the desired sound wave would look like if it were played by a "real" instrument. The synthesizer’s output is routed to a computer and stored as a series of
numbers. The numbers are burned into a disk as a series of pits that can be read by a laser -- in other words, a CD recording. The CD is shipped to a store. You buy
the CD, bring it home, and put it in your home entertainment system, and press the play button. The"music" has traveled from the recording studio to your
living room. Through what medium did the music wave travel? To a degree, you might say that it traveled as electricity through the wires from the keyboard to the
computer. But you might just as well say it traveled by truck along the highway to the store. In fact, this"sound wave" never existed as anything more than a digital representation of a hypothetical sound wave which itself never existed. It is, first and last, a string of numbers. Therefore, although it will produce wavelike effects when placed in your stereo, this wave never needed any medium other than the computer memory to spread itself all over the music.

  nbtruthman pid='4385' dateline='1504905556']I think that the case for our reality being some form of virtual reality hyper-computer simulation is fairly compelling. 

Just one part of this analysis is examination of the way electromagnetic waves are not really waves in any sort of medium, but behave exactly as if they are waves of calculation.

 

 Eli Pasternak, MsEE BsEE, 28 patents, EM fields, comm theory, quantum mechanics, relativity
Answered Sep 19 2015

We observe light as an electromagnetic field which is a solution of Maxwell's equations yet we also observe light as photons, particles described only quantum mechanically. Are these two views conflicting? Does it mean that one of them is wrong? This would have been the concern in the early 20th century. An even further concern came up a bit later: Maxwell's equations are compatible with special relativity; actually they were the inspiration for Einstein to discover special relativity. If that's the case then also photons must be consolidated with relativity. This unification started with quantization of the electromagnetic field that is indispensable for analyzing atomic spectra and virtually all aspects of quantum photonics.  An even further study of the has resulted in quantum field theories and the concept of gauge invariance that were essential for the particle physics theories known together as The Standard Model which are still the most accurate theory in making the most accurate predictions of experimental results.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post.  Here is a response to the question of looking for correspondences between "wave function math" and Maxwell's "light math". https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-quantum...-important

My worldview would see the "probability wave" as actual structure in reality.  This structure is not physical, but is existing informational structure.  With the universe conforming to its own inner and evolving structures, there is no need to the many-worlds concepts, which "computer sim" is a variant.

Arvan's position that what we see, looks more like a peer-to-peer, than central processing is quite thoughtful. 

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I think that the case for our reality being some form of virtual reality hyper-computer simulation is fairly compelling. Dyson and other materialists imagine that human beings are also part of this simulation software, but this is of course untenable - the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness and a huge body of evidence shows that human consciousness is tied to material brains but not of these material neural structures. So if there is any truth to the theory (or merely a metaphor?) we must be the observers and participants in it, not part of it.

The case seems compelling because of the way the analogy of an iterative computer calculation/simulation makes sense of quantum mechanical phenomena. All the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual implications of such a theory are irrelevant to the likely truth of the theory. I think that Ross Rhodes makes some key points on this, summarized in his paper A Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics at http://www.mysearch.org.uk/website1/pdf/615.1.pdf.

Just one part of this analysis is examination of the way electromagnetic waves are not really waves in any sort of medium, but behave exactly as if they are waves of calculation.

snip- a huge body of evidence shows that human consciousness is tied to material brains but not of these material neural structures

Huge body of evidence? Ahh. No. This is far from correct. 

I would assume this should be placed in a different thread, but you are going to get a HUGE amount of push-back on that bit of fantasy.

snip- a huge body of evidence shows that human consciousness is tied to material brains but not of these material neural structures

Huge body of evidence? Ahh. No. This is far from correct. 

I would assume this should be placed in a different thread, but you are going to get a HUGE amount of push-back on that bit of fantasy.

Presumably in the skeptic vs. proponent subforum. Perhaps an examination of just two selected sources: Irreducible Mind (comprehensive), and The Self Does Not Die (veridical NDEs). Of course this issue has already been argued to death on the Skeptiko forum. It's interesting that the details of one very good reincarnation case (that of Gnanatilleka Baddewithana) were posted in skeptic vs. proponent without even one response.                                                           

Not new material but upon checking back and realizing Arvan's New Theory of Free Will was 69 pages vs the paper I put in the OP being 7 it seemed worthwhile to include the former here:

New Theory of Free Will 

This paper shows that the conjunction of several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" that physical information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player). According to this theory, every possible physical “timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers.

Although Libertarian Compatibilism is admittedly fantastic, I show that it not only follows from several live scientific and philosophical hypotheses, I also show that it (A) is a far more explanatorily powerful model of quantum mechanics than more traditional interpretations (e.g. the Copenhagen, Everett, and Bohmian interpretations), (B) makes determinate, testable empirical predictions in quantum theory, and finally, (C) predicts and explains the very existence of a number of philosophical debates and positions in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will. First, I show that whereas traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics are all philosophically problematic and roughly as ontologically “extravagant” as Libertarian Compatibilism – in that they all posit “unseen” processes – Libertarian Compatibilism is nearly identical in structure to the only working simulation that human beings have ever constructed capable of reproducing (and so explaining) every single general feature of quantum mechanics we perceive: namely, massive-multiplayer-online-roleplaying videogames (or MMORPGs). Although I am not the first to suggest that our world is akin to a computer simulation, I show that existing MMORPGs (online simulations we have already created) actually reproduce every general feature of quantum mechanics within their simulated-world reference-frames. Second, I show that existing MMORPGs also replicate (and so explain) many philosophical problems we face in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will – all while conforming to the Libertarian Compatibilist model of reality.

I conclude, as such, that as fantastic and metaphysically extravagant as Libertarian Compatibilism may initially seem, it may well be true. It explains a number of features of our reality that no other physical or metaphysical theory does.

The crazy thing about this is that I've talked about prett much this exact same thing before in another thread, I'm on my phone right now so can't look it up, something about cosmic consciousness, and I explained some of what was in my past life memory data about how one civilization I had been with who had figured out interdimensional travel understood how that all worked and a little about how they had studied it and categorized it and such. I didn't explain it well and I regret how I went about it but still. Granted I've only read the quote you posted but even that is enough for me to chalk this up as yet another example of how my alleged past life memory seems to conform to reality here and thus is that little bit more likely to be true. It was especially how they described that it's like everythings already written and the person effectively reads the data that got my attention. I know nothing of this is formalized but still, every time things line up with the memories they become harder and harder to deny.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Meta-Problem of Everything

In a new paper, David. J. Chalmers examines eleven possible solutions to the meta-problem of consciousness, ‘the problem of explaining why we think that there is a problem of consciousness.’ The present paper argues that Chalmers overlooks an explanation that he has otherwise taken seriously, and which a number of philosophers, physicists, and computer scientists have taken seriously as well: the hypothesis that we are living in a computer simulation. This paper argues that a particular version of the simulation hypothesisis at least as good of a solution to the meta-problem of consciousness as many explanations Chalmers considers, and may even be a better one—as it may be the best solution to a much broader meta-philosophical problem: the meta-problem of everything, the problem of explaining why our world has the quantum-mechanical, relativistic, and philosophical features it does.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Meta-Problem of Everything

An impressive paper. The P2P Simulation Hypothesis seems really to make sense of and explain a multitude of apparently mysterious properties of our reality. 

However, Arvan claims in his paper that:

The P2P Simulation Hypothesis replicates (or explains) the mind-body problem: 

"Because each individual’s ‘subjective point of view’ is constituted by a processor that underlies and generates their ‘physical’ reality
as a projection, each individual in a P2P simulation would have the sense that their ‘mind’ cannot be reduced to anything physical-functional in their world…and they
would be right (the processor they are is not in the simulation at all: it grounds the simulation as the projecting mechanism that represents ‘their world’ as a hologram)."

The P2P Simulation Hypothesis replicates (or explains) problems of personal identity and free will: 

"Individuals living in a P2P simulation would be inclined to believe that there is something more to their personal
identity and free will beyond their ‘physical world’…and they would be right (their identity over time would be comprised by the processor that grounds their projected
point-of-view, and their ‘choices’ in the simulation would actually be made in a higher reference frame (the level of the ‘user’ or processor’), giving rise to apparent causal closure in the simulation (and hence, the worry that they are not free)."

I may be missing something, but it seems to me that in his P2P Simulation Hypothesis Arvan perhaps deliberately obfuscates the ultimate mystery of consciousness, in that he seems to merely assume without explication that each human mind is a "user" of his particular linked simulation processor. He never attempts to answer what is the real nature of this human "user" in the higher reference frame, what is the real nature of what it is that exhibits agency, qualia, etc. He seems to just "kick the can down the road" into a higher reference frame as far as the ultimate mysteries of consciousness and free will are concerned.

He does however kind of imply that he considers the ultimate nature of the human "user" as processing, as shown in the bolded above. This seems contradictory with other statements and surely he is aware that this conjecture fails because of the Hard Problem (that he has already described).

An impressive paper. The P2P Simulation Hypothesis seems really to make sense of and explain a multitude of apparently mysterious properties of our reality. 

However, Arvan claims in his paper that:

The P2P Simulation Hypothesis replicates (or explains) the mind-body problem: 


The P2P Simulation Hypothesis replicates (or explains) problems of personal identity and free will: 


I may be missing something, but it seems to me that in his P2P Simulation Hypothesis Arvan perhaps deliberately obfuscates the ultimate mystery of consciousness, in that he merely assumes without explication that each human mind is a "user" of his particular linked simulation processor. He never attempts to answer what is the real nature of this human "user" in the higher reference frame, what is the real nature of what it is that exhibits agency, qualia, etc. He seems to just "kick the can down the road" into a higher reference frame as far as the ultimate mystery of consciousness is concerned.

He does however kind of imply that he considers the ultimate nature of the human "user" as processing, as shown in the bolded above. Surely he is aware that this conjecture fails because of the Hard Problem (that he has already described).

You're not missing anything...I am currently talking to him about it.

Arvan also points out that his P2P Simulation Hypothesis replicates (explains) the problem of causation: 

...because each individual in a P2P system would experience their reality as a connected series of events, each individual would have the sense that there must be something to causation beyond the series events itself—some ‘force’ that explains why those events are connected…and they would be right (their processor connects the events). 

This is good, but in this he also just seems to "kick the can down the road" into a higher reference frame as far as the mystery of the ultimate nature of causality is concerned. 
The solutions he offers are ingenious, but in their metaphysic they are applicable just to our local universe, not all of reality - they transfer the mysteries of the innermost natures of consciousness, free will and causation itself to the higher reference frame. 

That said, they do leave Deist and other conjectures on the table, which is all right with me.