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

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


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.

Arvan will readily admit to the problems of this reference frame potentially occurring in the higher frame, though he's also suggested the higher reference frame potentially operates with different natures than this one.

To give a bit of an update, he is not saying consciousness is reducible to structure but rather a kind of panpsychism where information is what allows for higher level conscious individuals...at least if I am understanding him...he has a paper coming out on this...

What I like about Arvan's thinking is his noticing of these reference frames - if there is a kind of dualism at work, the presumably free agents within the lower frame would naturally have the same questions we do. Now we can pull this out and think of reference frames as the 3rd person view from "outside" and the 1st person view from "inside".

The further-fact theory of identity [also] makes a lot of sense to me, and it parallels the idea of the Self that stands beyond even the subjective states. Reminds me of an (IIRC) Irish proverb =>  "I am not sad, rather a sadness comes upon me."

The further-fact theory of identity [also] makes a lot of sense to me, and it parallels the idea of the Self that stands beyond even the subjective states. Reminds me of an (IIRC) Irish proverb =>  "I am not sad, rather a sadness comes upon me."

I have always had a problem with this concept. This True Self may exist, but it isn't me as far as I am concerned, a human being identifying with my personality and memories and body, with personal concerns and interests and likes and dislikes and fears, all peculiar to my human personality self. If this True Self (whatever it is) is what actually survives physical death (and not the personality self), then that doesn't seem to be survival in any humanly meaningful sense. The empirical paranormal evidence of various kinds seems to support the survival of the human personal self, at least for a time.
 
Would the Self that in Arvan's metaphysical reality stands as the User in the higher reference frame be considered the Soul in other metaphysical systems? I would consider it an entirely different being and not "myself" in any meaningful sense. A good test of this: will this User suffer as I do if I pass a big kidney stone? I don't think so. Not any more than the wargame player feels the pain of the gunshot wound in his interactive virtual reality video game. Even if the designers of this game could furnish physical sensations to the user, they would of course choose not to to do it with suffering - that would be bad for business. But of course in Arvan's higher reference frame the User may choose to selectively experience the joyful episodes. Whatever it is it doesn't seem to be me in any personal human sense.

It occurs to me that there would have to be some way to reconcile Arvan's metaphysical system consisting of our simulated physical material universe reference system and the higher reference system of the P2P Virtual Reality Simulation Users, with the empirical paranormal data compiled over a century and a half of investigations. These areas of evidence would particularly be in things like esp, NDEs, reincarnation, and mediumistic communications. My guess is that Arvan probably summarily dismisses this mass of evidence as it is reflexively dismissed by virtually all of Academia. It's career-destroying to express any interest in these areas. 

There would seem to be a compatibility problem here, but I haven't pondered it for very long. 

There would also seem to be a problem in reconciling the P2P Simulation Hypothesis with any of the various spiritual reality metaphysical systems, in particular the so-called Perennial Wisdom. I would suppose that Arvan as an academic philosopher would also dismiss these belief systems out of hand and have no concerns about the compatibility of his concepts.

I have always had a problem with this concept. This True Self may exist, but it isn't me as far as I am concerned, a human being identifying with my personality and memories and body, with personal concerns and interests and likes and dislikes and fears, all peculiar to my human personality self. If this True Self (whatever it is) is what actually survives physical death (and not the personality self), then that doesn't seem to be survival in any humanly meaningful sense. The empirical paranormal evidence of various kinds seems to support the survival of the human personal self, at least for a time.
 
Would the Self that in Arvan's metaphysical reality stands as the User in the higher reference frame be considered the Soul in other metaphysical systems? I would consider it an entirely different being and not "myself" in any meaningful sense. A good test of this: will this User suffer as I do if I pass a big kidney stone? I don't think so. Not any more than the wargame player feels the pain of the gunshot wound in his interactive virtual reality video game. Even if the designers of this game could furnish physical sensations to the user, they would of course choose not to to do it with suffering - that would be bad for business. But of course in Arvan's higher reference frame the User may choose to selectively experience the joyful episodes. Whatever it is it doesn't seem to be me in any personal human sense.

I don't think the One-Further-Fact theory actually means there is a disassociated true self? Rather it just means "You" are not a mere summation of physical & mental facts. And I think without this Further Fact it would be hard to locate any free agent?

That said, I don't know if the True Self is divorced from the personality self via incarnation. If you forget while you're in the simulation and then remember when you're out of it - the ideal Total Recall vacation - isn't that you?

Though Arvan doesn't say the lower frame is a meaningless game, simply that the higher frame is the level of the user and the lower frame the level of the game.

It occurs to me that there would have to be some way to reconcile Arvan's metaphysical system consisting of our simulated physical material universe reference system and the higher reference system of the P2P Virtual Reality Simulation Users, with the empirical paranormal data compiled over a century and a half of investigations. These areas of evidence would particularly be in things like esp, NDEs, reincarnation, and mediumistic communications. My guess is that Arvan probably summarily dismisses this mass of evidence as it is reflexively dismissed by virtually all of Academia. It's career-destroying to express any interest in these areas. 

There would seem to be a compatibility problem here, but I haven't pondered it for very long. 

There would also seem to be a problem in reconciling the P2P Simulation Hypothesis with any of the various spiritual reality metaphysical systems, in particular the so-called Perennial Wisdom. I would suppose that Arvan as an academic philosopher would also dismiss these belief systems out of hand and have no concerns about the compatibility of his concepts.

Wouldn't paranormal data just be aspects of the "simulation"? I think its important to consider Arvan is saying reality is *functionally* like a P2P simulation, which is different than the idea of there necessarily being programmers who have stuck us in the Matrix.

I have always had a problem with this concept. This True Self may exist, but it isn't me as far as I am concerned, a human being identifying with my personality and memories and body, with personal concerns and interests and likes and dislikes and fears, all peculiar to my human personality self. If this True Self (whatever it is) is what actually survives physical death (and not the personality self), then that doesn't seem to be survival in any humanly meaningful sense. The empirical paranormal evidence of various kinds seems to support the survival of the human personal self, at least for a time.
 
Would the Self that in Arvan's metaphysical reality stands as the User in the higher reference frame be considered the Soul in other metaphysical systems? I would consider it an entirely different being and not "myself" in any meaningful sense. A good test of this: will this User suffer as I do if I pass a big kidney stone? I don't think so. Not any more than the wargame player feels the pain of the gunshot wound in his interactive virtual reality video game. Even if the designers of this game could furnish physical sensations to the user, they would of course choose not to to do it with suffering - that would be bad for business. But of course in Arvan's higher reference frame the User may choose to selectively experience the joyful episodes. Whatever it is it doesn't seem to be me in any personal human sense.

This conversation is a joy to read.  The "true self" is a subject that has concerned me since my youth.  Rather than talk about the my own feelings, let me say that Herman Hesse, a Nobel winner, wrangled the issue in a number of outstanding novels.  Steppenwolf is the epic novel where it plays out.

 “I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?” - Hesse in Demian

This conversation is a joy to read.  The "true self" is a subject that has concerned me since my youth.  Rather than talk about the my own feelings, let me say that Herman Hesse, a Nobel winner, wrangled the issue in a number of outstanding novels.  Steppenwolf is the epic novel where it plays out.

Perhaps some summaries of the works?

Also I suspect most of us would like to hear your own feelings on the matter, if you are amenable. I understand this sort of thing can be incredibly private for some - and admittedly over all these years I've said little about my own thoughts.

Perhaps some summaries of the works?

Also I suspect most of us would like to hear your own feelings on the matter, if you are amenable. I understand this sort of thing can be incredibly private for some - and admittedly over all these years I've said little about my own thoughts.

There are so many reviews of his works that are well written that should be read first, mine would only stumble.  I will say - that along with ee cummings, he was a favorite author of my youth.  Here is H. Hesse in his famous work where he links to Eastern thought, in Siddhartha.  I think it it is profound and to his theme of self-realization.

  And where was Atman to be found, where did He reside, where did his eternal heart beat, where else but in one's own self, in its innermost part, in its indestructible part, which everyone had in himself? But where, where was this self, this innermost part, this ultimate part? It was not flesh and bone, it was neither thought nor consciousness, thus the wisest ones taught. So, where, where was it? To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs! They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing? - Hesse

To put his work in context - here is an article about his relationship with Jung.  Both the works of Hesse I have cited have direct connection to Jung's influence.

  In autumn of 1917, Hesse meets C.G. Jung for the very first time at a hotel in Berne, and absorbs himself in a gripping discussion on the subject of Jung’s latest psychological ideas and theories. Interestingly, Hesse at the time reacted to Jung with the characteristic ambivalence that was later to increasingly become the determining feature of his relationship both to the man and to depth psychology. After the meeting, he noted in his diary: “Yesterday, evening, Dr. Jung telephoned me from Zurich … and invited me to the hotel for dinner. I accepted, and was with him until around eleven. My opinion of him changed several times during the course of this first meeting, his confidence having appealed to me very early on but then having put me off, yet my impression on the whole was a very positive one.” 

At the same time, Hesse begins to read Jung’s writings and pronounces his early works, Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (today: Symbols of Transformation) to be “ingenious.” The strong impression Jung made on him is no doubt the reason why Hesse sought therapeutic assistance from the master himself during the next crisis in his life, his divorce from his first wife and the writer’s block he suffered from during the writing of Siddhartha. In the summer of 1921, there thus ensued a sequence of analysis extending over a period of several weeks in Jung’s apartment in Küsnacht. Hesse’s letters from this period testify to a virtually euphoric sense of enthusiasm over both the personality and the analytical abilities of his therapist. “Here with Jung, I am currently, while going through a difficult, and often almost unbearable, period of my life, experiencing the shock of analysis … It shakes you to the very core and is painful. But it helps …. All I can say is that Dr. Jung is conducting my analysis with extraordinary skill - ingenuity, even.” 

And, after completing the analysis, he summarizes: “I would have liked to continue psychoanalysis with Jung. In terms of both intellect and character, he is a magnificent, lively, brilliant man. I have a lot to thank him for, and am pleased that I was able to spend a while with him.

https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog...HrrmIhKjcs
https://www.hermann-hesse.de/files/pdfs/...skrise.pdf

Wouldn't paranormal data just be aspects of the "simulation"? I think its important to consider Arvan is saying reality is *functionally* like a P2P simulation, which is different than the idea of there necessarily being programmers who have stuck us in the Matrix.

A few further, troubling, thoughts about the P2P Simulation Hypothesis. 

It is intriguing and it may be true, but to actually believe it? Actually explaining many of the deepest mysteries of modern science may come at a cost: that way may lie madness because it reduces all conceivable or inconceivable human experiences no matter how vivid and "real", to deceptions of the simulation. 

Experimental verification/falsification is a problem area for this hypothesis. If the P2P Simulation Hypothesis is true, in the area of human experience, including the human experience of conducting experiments, absolutely everything and anything possible or not is a deception created by the simulation. So the hypothesis is impossible to falsify. It is also impossible to positively verify by somehow getting outside of the system. 

Even having an experience of momentarily assuming the consciousness or persona of "User" in the higher reality frame would be impossible to determine as anything other than yet another deception of the simulation.  

As the title of this thread notes, it explains absolutely everything - everything that happens, everything that exists and everything that could even be imagined in our reality "possible" or not. Even violations of known physical laws such as quantum mechanics would easily be explained as "glitches" or patches to the "software".
 
Unfortunately, something that explains absolutely everything may actually explain nothing.

A few further, troubling, thoughts about the P2P Simulation Hypothesis. 

It is intriguing and it may be true, but to actually believe it? Actually explaining many of the deepest mysteries of modern science may come at a cost: that way may lie madness because it reduces all conceivable or inconceivable human experiences no matter how vivid and "real", to deceptions of the simulation. 

Experimental verification/falsification is a problem area for this hypothesis. If the P2P Simulation Hypothesis is true, in the area of human experience, including the human experience of conducting experiments, absolutely everything and anything possible or not is a deception created by the simulation. So the hypothesis is impossible to falsify. It is also impossible to positively verify by somehow getting outside of the system. 

Even having an experience of momentarily assuming the consciousness or persona of "User" in the higher reality frame would be impossible to determine as anything other than yet another deception of the simulation.  

As the title of this thread notes, it explains absolutely everything - everything that happens in our reality "possible" or not. Even violations of known physical laws such as quantum mechanics would easily be explained as "glitches" or patches to the "software".
 
Unfortunately, something that explains absolutely everything may actually explain nothing.

Well I think the P2P Hypothesis can explain "everything" in the lower frame, I don't think it does so in such a perfect manner as might be expected of a vacuous theory. Superposition falls in nicely, entanglement as error is more questionable.

As to everything in the simulation being a deception, I don't know if that follows - if we can die within the simulation it seems real enough, just as the idea our observed world is literal iconography in Hoffman's Idealism doesn't make the icons of a speeding train less dangerous. If you mean the results of experiments reveal an arbitrary reality, a possibility of the way things could be...that seems to be true for every theory of the world?

Could there be an infinite number of simulations within simulations? Thankfully not, because this means nothing ever happens as none of the simulated processors ever gets to run a single clock cycle unless there is a ground level processor in an actually realized space. This gives at least some base level, whereas I'm not sure you could ever say anything definitive about any other mystical experience - is it a genuine revelation or gnostic deception?

All that said the theory does present a variety of ways to falsify it so differs from other simulated theories in that respect.

Well I think the P2P Hypothesis can explain "everything" in the lower frame, I don't think it does so in such a perfect manner as might be expected of a vacuous theory. Superposition falls in nicely, entanglement as error is more questionable. 

As to everything in the simulation being a deception, I don't know if that follows - if we can die within the simulation it seems real enough, 

What do you think happens when a person physically dies? Paranormal evidence indicates survival of a sort of the human personality, and a continuation in some sort of higher spiritual realm (probably made up of many different separate levels of spiritual advancement), in a cycle involving repeated incarnations. Glimpses of this have been furnished from NDE accounts. 

This tentative blurry picture of the real nature of consciousness (nonlocal and nonmaterial), and an afterlife and its conditions all derived from empirical evidence, seems rather not congruent with the P2P Simulation Hypothesis. In deep NDEs and other transcendental experiences the other realm is more real, and consciousness is much clearer than in physical life and more in contact with the Infinite. The implication of P2P is that the afterlife glimpsed in NDEs is just another aspect of the simulation, so then we have to try to imagine why the User would want to delude himself by multiple levels of simulated reality, and multiple levels of higher consciousness in these simulated realities including perception of a Deity.  

None of this fits the mindset of the P2P. The P2P Simulation Hypothesis is entirely an intellectual/scientific concept, divorced from spiritual belief systems. The two occupy entirely different classes of world views, and it seems that the P2P system probably requires the entire field of the paranormal evidence to either be dismissed, or accepted but only as a simulation of a higher reality that is really just another simulation level. 

In P2P the human person is apparently the temporarily deluded persona of one of the Users in the higher frame. If the higher Self of the human person is the User, then on physical death it (presumably the Soul) would immediately "wake up" in its higher home reality and assume its normal non-spiritual activities, not persist in another simulated but higher spiritual realm for a time followed by simulated reincarnation in a long process of self-perfection. 

All that said the theory does present a variety of ways to falsify it so differs from other simulated theories in that respect.

Could you explain a few of the ways science could falsify the P2P Simulation Hypothesis, when absolutely all of the experimental results they are getting, and especially all of their perceptions of them, are produced by the simulation?