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

Interesting, the subtle nuances of Tom's theory. When I listened to him talk about it, I got the impression that he favoured a VR rather than a computer generated simulation (and I assumed a difference).

My comment earlier was really meant to address the actual computer simulation theories such as :

https://www.simulation-argument.com/

It appears that people such as Niel deGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk like Bostrom's reasoning.

However, my reservations about that go way beyond what I wrote in my previous post. I think it has the same problem that AI does: qualia.

I don't see a distinction at all between VR and computer sim. It's the same thing, different words.

Not a big Niel deGrasse Tyson fan. 

Nor am I. Far from it.

I don't see a distinction at all between VR and computer sim. It's the same thing, different words.

Virtual Reality doesn't have to be computer created - at least the way I think of it. For example, a dream is a virtual reality - I might be absolutely convinced I'm in a "real" or physical reality until the moment I wake up. So this that we call "real" might also be virtual: the space and time being illusions created by consciousness.

It is possible but it gets you precisely nowhere. If you speculate that a super-advanced alien race programmed a whole simulated universe complete with simulated sentient beings then you are still left with a presumably material universe in which these aliens evolved to that point. So, having arrived at the point where these aliens can create such a simulation it must surely occur to them that they too might be simulations created by some programmer. An so on and so on.

As I said, however, that scenario also ignores metaphysical questions and the mind/brain dichotomy but that's a different discussion.

Totally agree with all points.

Virtual Reality doesn't have to be computer created - at least the way I think of it. For example, a dream is a virtual reality - I might be absolutely convinced I'm in a "real" or physical reality until the moment I wake up. So this that we call "real" might also be virtual: the space and time being illusions created by consciousness.

OK. But I think we may be parsing words here...

First- yes VR doesn't HAVE to be based in a computer,,, but TC claims that it is. 

Tom is talking about literally a computer of some sort. Running instructions based on a "rule set".

And just for the record, although it may not seem so based on my recent posts, I think there is more than a tiny chance that he may be right.

Yep, we might be at cross purposes here. I thought you were making generalised points, not specifically about Tom's theory. I actually like his lectures but I make allowances for the fact that he is a physicist and that colours his terminology.

6. Our experience of ourselves as having free will despite our experiencing the physical world as causally closed under the laws of physics.

Well, not as much closed, as macro-PK phenomena - including poltergeist and physical mediumship (and, probably, some UFO-related physical manifestations as well) - ocassionally demonstrate us that physical laws are not so inviolable after all. And let's recall Sheldrake's thesis that they are not immutable as well...

I suspect that the collective simulation our selves produce and maintain is not as smooth as videogames - it is incredibly more complex, after all, with innumerably more active players.

And, since even our simplistic and limited attempts to create "micro-realities" of videogames inevitably lead to bugs disrupting the steady flow of the game code ("anomalous phenomena"), and some players can eagerly cheat and hack the code ("psychic ablities", "magick"), we can expect the global simulation presented by countless biased and conflicting minds to be not entirely stable and cheat-proof!

I don't know- I met with him at an event last year and no real changes. Brilliant guy. Not saying he's wrong. Just that he is formulating a theory based on how this could work IF it was a computer. And turns out that he is force fitting various aspects of reality to conform to his theory by making assumptions that are baseless.

For  example- he claims that only humans and other creatures that can "make decisions" are subject to consciousness. You need to have a "decision space" he says. The need to be able to move for example, to decide to go left or right. That's completely arbitrary. Who's to say what has consciousness? And why? He is adding capabilities to his machine to explain whatever objection comes along. Seems to me to be a theory about what is possible, and not WHAT IS.

I see your point... But frankly, I have no problem with metaphysical assumptions as long as we can steer away from unfalsifiability. Are Tom's ideas falsifiable? I don't know... But at least he is giving us a venue in which to try and do so.

We should separate Simulation Theory in a general sense from the P2P Hypothesis.

The latter is making very specific claims about the nature of reality beyond simply suggesting anything and everything can be a part of the simulation's design.

That said it seems to me you can make the same critique of Materialism/Physicalism - there's always a particle, a field, a force that can be claimed to account for anything and everything. Once you have regularities that happen without needing to be maintained/preserved and the Something-From-Nothing miracle of "emergence" you can just pile on the mythology.

Mesh World P2P Simulation Hypothesis By Eric Grange

If it was possible to run a whole world simulation, would there be observable consequences?

Not just a simulation for an elaborate illusion, but a whole universe. A huge universe without humanity at its center.

As we know neither the purpose nor the technological means, we will start from a limitedness postulate: the simulation is running with limits... and compromises. The host world, the one where the simulation is being computed is one with limits.

The world simulation hypothesis was first introduced by Nick Bostrom [1], though we asbtract here the considerations related to humanity. A decentralized P2P Simulation hypothesis was first introduced by Marcus Arvan [2]. We argue the P2P network topology would be an efficient one, closer to a mesh network, with consequences arising from computing and bandwidth limitations.

If a World Simulation was possible, considerations of efficiency and bandwidth lead us to a decentralized one, which in turn imply very strong constraints on that simulation and observables artifacts. Once hypotheses of symmetry and observer invariance are added, we argue this not only results in speed limit, space-time distortions and Quantum Mechanic-like as observables, but also as inherent technological constraints. Finally, if the simulation device is not upgraded, it leads to further cosmological consequences.