Why do you think this? What other simulations are the same thing as what they’re simulating?

Based on observation of lots of these discussions, I also think people who don’t have much experience writing simulations miss the nuances involved. What is it to “simulate nuclear reactions”? It’s entirely context dependent on the problem you’re trying to answer. If you’re trying to predict statistical behavior of a system, doable; if you’re trying to actually predict when a particular atom splits and which way the neutrons fly… no.

> 2… [Consciousness rests on] some kind of interconnected network like neural networks.

When is a computerized neural network aka a collection of tensors in RAM a network? When you’re not processing a tensor actively, there is no network. When the CPU suspends your hypothetically conscious neural network to move processing between cores and GPU, where does the consciousness go? Where does the network go?

2) I’m not sure matrix math is sufficient, but let’s ignore that because I feel some kind of math is sufficient, and any computer program will have the same question apply. I also feel the universe might be the most efficient computer in time and space, which means we aren’t living in a simulation, because the computer would be bigger and run time slower than the reality it simulates.

- I don’t think it matters where the network is in reality. Virtual is fine. In a mostly perfect simulation of reality (let say enough to accurately model biochemical processes), there will be some state of the program, and for something living in the simulation, they will feel alive if they are complex enough.

They will experience time differently than we do, but they will arrive at their own conclusions as part of the simulation.

If we can use Quantum Computers to hugely accelerate some calculations, then you can't use regular computers to accurately simulate nuclear reactions in a reasonable time frame.

Nuclear -> consciousness doesn't really follow, especially when any simulations of nuclear reactions are founded in an extremely more comprehensive understanding of nuclear physics than we have of consciousness.

Next, the implication of simulation -> creation, when applied consistently to you example, is that simulating a nuclear reaction sufficiently well could produce an actual nuclear reaction, but I doubt anyone is going to fat-finger the next Chernobyl by screwing up a simulation.

It may be entirely possible that the tools needed to create a consciousness are as different from those needed to simulate one as are the tools needed to simulate a nuclear reaction from those needed make one.

In this sense of things, a nuclear reaction isn't a function in the same way that consciousness is a function.

I'm not sure if there is definition of consciousness everyone agree on, but let's try something: consciousness is the ability to perceive our own thoughts. Consciousness matters a lot because it allows reflexiveness. Sometimes we use it as scientific definition of "soul" as in sentences like: "upload your consciousness" (from believers of Singularity)

Decartes' "I think therefore I am" should be rephrase as "I perceive I think therefore I am"

The perception of own thoughts is not something difficult for a computer. Just check the activity monitor or run the ps command.

We might a attribute too much importance to consciousness because without it we don't know we think.

Do we know that consciousness exists? Have we been able to scientifically prove in humans that "everyone but me" isn't an NPC? Or put another way, isn't the fact of consciousness inherently subjective? It seems like we all accept that humans have Consciousness because we're not narcissists, but no one has actually pinpointed it. This paper for example, defines Consciousness as "not a process in the brain but a kind of behavior that, of course, is controlled by the brain like any other behavior." So I understand how we could implement the ability for a computer to trick a person into thinking they have consciousness, but I don't know that we could go about proving that they actually have consciousness given that we can't identify it in humans, unless we're talking about something very different than humans which we may be given your use of the activity monitor to define perception.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5924785/#:~:tex....

> The perception of own thoughts is not something difficult for a computer. Just check the activity monitor or run the ps command.

I don't know that this is a definition of perception that we could agree upon.

Though I guess one interesting point counter to mine (and I studied psychology, not AI, so I'm thinking about this from a different direction) is what would it mean to define sentience in something so seemingly sophisticated. I perceive that they AI would have to have sort of full blown human experience to be defined as sentient, but of course I might think a hummingbird has feeling and inner experience. The difference being that I expect the standard for AI to be higher because AI sounds like a human. Interesting.

Since you seem to be treating 'thought' metaphorically, how about we say that consciousness is the ability to perceive our own feelings?

Are there beings that are conscious that do not have any feelings at all?

Btw: what is a feeling? A particular kind of thought? A emotion maybe? It seems to me that it's a thought which origin is mysterious, unknown, unconscious, ie not conscious.

> The perception of own thoughts is not something difficult for a computer. Just check the activity monitor or run the ps command.

It's not hard for a computer to reference itself, sure, but it perceiving its own thoughts is something else.

> Btw: what is a feeling? A particular kind of thought? A emotion maybe? It seems to me that it's a thought which origin is mysterious, unknown, unconscious, ie not conscious.

I probably should've said emotions. Emotions are more low-level than thoughts. I think that infants can be conscious without thinking at all, so I don't think that thinking is necessary at all for consciousness, yet it probably does color our understanding of what consciousness is.

While quantum effects may or may not be directly involved in human cognition, the fundemental difficulties getting an accurate measure of brain state may prevent us from doing any more that making a rough copy.

I think it’s just a useful starting point to make the argument it is possible given infinite time and perfect data. Then, we can ask how much can be optimized and how to get the structure needed digitized.

It does not. The rules are very complex. Schrodinger's equation is incredibly hard to solve. And we don't even know all the rules or if our current model of the rules is correct.

No matter how simple or complex, is it possible to implement the rules of simulated universe on a computer? Can biology be simulated (however slowly) on a computer?

The answer to your question is that it takes a super computer to simulate 5 atoms interacting with each other. And the simulation won't be real time either.

So reality is not "simple" enough to be simulated accurately.

The simulations that do exist are gross simplifications called models and in no way accurate to what's really going on. Those models are usually application specific and are only relatively accurate within that scope.

You can make an argument that human intelligence can be simulated by a application specific model, however your statement of the universe being axiomatically premised in simple rules is categorically wrong.

I linked to a simulation of an artificial cell [1] in a different comment, I’ll toss the link here too. As I said there, this is not the way the universe works, but I think this approach to simulation may support real thought (ignoring time and memory requirements). It supports cell division.

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/most-complete-simulation-of-a...

I am saying THAT specific claim is incorrect.

Whether it's possible to simulate human intelligence on a computer, it is certainly a viable possibility. I never made a statement agreeing or disagreeing with this. I basically agree so I didn't address THAT part of your claim.

There's actually more compelling evidence for your statement. The IBM blue brain project already did this with part of the rat brain. All this stuff is nothing new though, so it was uninteresting to me. I only addressed the part of your statement that is CATEGORICALLY WRONG.

If a simulation takes resources that are exponential in the number of particles then it fails that test. All the stars will die before you manage to calculate anything meaningful in your non-microscopic simulated world.

There's a line between things that take massive resources and things that take nearly-infinite resources. Let's say the line is somewhere around the 'Dyson sphere' range.

The former can be computed on hardware. The latter cannot be computed on hardware.

But this is different from if we can simulate some amount reality at all, which I think is possible, and I use that to demonstrate why I think computers can contain human like intelligence in theory. Of course you will see instructions and be unable to tell why it feels alive if you just look at op codes.

Then I do ask, without answering, how much can you omit and still get sentience. You can likely simulate bio chemistry alone and get consciousness. And you may be able to simulate even less than that. Though each reduction would make it easier for a simulated scientist to discover they are simulated.

In what kind of theory, though?

In mathematical theory you can use a googol watts. In "things you can do in this universe" theory you can't use a googol watts.

I understand the argument of taking a small accurate simulation as a basis point and extrapolating to a larger simulation. But if you're stuck with exponential complexity, then that extrapolation doesn't work. The demonstration of simulating 5 particles becomes useless. Even if you can massively simplify it, if you can't eliminate the exponential cost you're screwed.

But I'm more of a software guy, so it feels fair to ask if Turing completeness enough to simulate reality, and therefore human-like intelligence?

If so, what shortcuts can we take to avoid simulating "everything"?

"We can do one complicated thing, therefore we can do anything" is a shaky basis for beliefs. It's possible that multiplying matrices can replicate a couple of billion years worth of dice rolls. but I doubt it

Thoughts are an emergent property of the network, there is no rule in the universe to treat the brain different. So if we think we can simulate matter, with sufficiently close behavior to reality, than that is already sufficient to produce AGI, and none of the code will look like it provides thinking… it will just look like math/physics.

It would probably be difficult to simulate a rock sufficiently well to fool someone with the combined skills of a geologist & 3D graphic designer.

There is also the question about how much simulation would be necessary to get approximately real life results that includes consciousness -There was a very detailed simulation of a cell[1], I think that used a library of known chemical interactions. This is not the way the universe works, but such an approach might still simulate life, including people, with enough running time.

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/most-complete-simulation-of-a...

That's an unsubstantiated belief, though.

If we simulate a rock right down to the quantum level - not even remotely possible with foreseeable technology, but let's assume it is - you don't end up with an actual rock in the physical universe. You end up with a model of a rock. There are important properties that it's missing due to not having a direct physical embodiment beyond its model. You can't bash someone in the head with it in the physical world, for example.

In the consciousness case, you're assuming you can "get around this" by using communication between the model and the host universe - communication could allow a model a way to have an effect beyond its host environment, unlike the simulated rock.

But this involves a lot of assumptions about the nature of consciousness, its physical basis, how a model of consciousness would behave, etc. Given the number of unknowns here, the claim that "it's theoretically possible" is supported just as well as the claim that it's theoretically impossible - which is to say, not at all.

You can bash someone in the head with it in the simulated world though, and if you simulate that person's head well enough it will be just as painful for them as it would be for a real world person.

How do you know you're not simulated yourself? Whether we live in a simulation or not does not really have any influence on us and our consciousnesses.

But keep in mind that a simulation is, well, a simulation. Artificial consciousness may be possible. It may also be possible to simulate something with a surface appearance indistinguishable from consciousness but not actually be consciousness, while actual consciousness would require very different methods.

When thinking about these things we have to draw a line between something that can fool gross human perception and something that is actually conscious. Right now we don't even know enough to know what the tools required to make such a determination would look like. It may very well be that, from an ethical standpoint, we'll need to ascribe consciousness to systems for year or decades before we're able to determine if it's real or the equivalent of a very convincing optical illusion.

Another (unsubstantiated) way of looking at it is that the universe is a kind of computer already, which we seek to emulate. We are already running on a computer if the universe can be considered one.

I think I agree with what you’re arguing though. Basically the scaling hypothesis.

Edit: spelling grammar

Counterexample: quantum mechanics

Counterexample: quantum effects are rare in non-atomic scale, no data whatsoever that indicates they are involved in high level brain functions, rather a lot of data pointing towards the opposite, given rapid progress in modeling said functions.

If it takes us 100 years to simulate 1 second of consciousness with quantum effects, the consciousness will just experience time differently than we do.

Personally, I think we don’t need to take quantum effects into account to achieve consciousness.

Even if you think quantum mechanics are a necessary part of consciousness, we could use quantum mechanics to simulate quantum mechanics.

If there is no connection between wave function collapse and macroscopic biological systems, then that would mean that it doesn't matter. The macroscopic/biochemical world is still deterministic

As I understand it, the wave collapse is wholly probabilistic and there's no "hidden data" (hidden variable[0]) that we could now to predict the outcome. At least not if we want keep expecting locality.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element

Quantum theory is only around 100 years old. Maybe we’ve got everything right, but I suspect we’re not the first people to have that thought and therefore we’re probably due for significant learning about the universe in the next 100 years.

I don’t know if this actually impacts this broader discussion, and of course we can always discover new science, but there is a reason quantum indeterminacy is so widely accepted despite the near universal distaste for its existence.

Wave collapse is only one possible interpretation of qm. And the Copenhagen interpretation - that proposes wave collapse - is not a complete theory. So yes; we just don't understand it.