Is human civilization just an elaborate forkbomb?
A friend of mine postulated today:
< itisi> The more complex the simulation gets, the slower it can be run.
< itisi> Meaning the closer the inside of the simulation got to the Singularity
< itisi> the slower time would be moving relative to the outside
< itisi> and assuming there is a constant risk of something going wrong with the machinery on the outside
< itisi> closer to the singularity would mean increased risk of the end of the world :\
< itisi> and a post singularity reality would be impossible. once the singularity hit, wed be at such a standstill to the outside that itd just appear frozen
This makes quite a bit of sense and honestly, I had thought of this problem several times in the past.
Let me explain:
The simulation argument basically states that, since we can simulate worlds (as we do in computer games, etc) and since we can foresee that the technology used to simulate these worlds will advance significantly, it is possible (or even probable) that we would simulate at least one entire world of significant complexity that it supports intelligent life. If we assume that for each emergence of intelligent life, there exists greater than one simulations of intelligent life, then it becomes probable that we - ourselves - are being simulated.
Essentially, we must accept at least one of the following:
- Human kind is very likely to become extinct before simulating another form of intelligent life.
- Human kind is very unlikely to try to simulate another form of intelligent life.
- Human kind is very likely being simulated by another form of intelligent life.
The singularity is the idea that as human life progresses, our consumption of energy will increase, the amount of computational power we are capable of per unit energy will decrease, approaching the limits of the laws of physics and available resources.
If you combine the two, you can see that if human civilization continues to rapidly become more computationally complex, that the beings simulating us might run into a problem: their simulation has suddenly started eating up resources on the simulation hardware, and must be terminated.
But wait a minute! If we accept #3 from above (that we are being simulated) and we accept that the singularity can't happen because there is a limit to our computational complexity, then #1 from above might be satisfied; it becomes possible that we go extinct before simulating another intelligent form of life. So, we can accept that it is possible, but not probable that we are being simulated.
Either way: if I were to create a simulation of life, I'd abstract the rules of my simulation to make it easier to calculate. Essentially, I wouldn't simulate every particle of the new world I build to absolute precision because it wouldn't be neccessary. If inhabitants of my world became intelligent and tried to build computers using the simplified laws of physics they were provided with, those computers could never be very complex, and never require more than the amount of calculations I had budgeted to the simulation.
I think our simulators (if they exist) would do the same. Perhaps the weirdnesses of quantum physics is an artifact of their having done so. Regardless, it's possible that every particle, every bit of energy that exists in our universe and every possible interaction between them, given the laws of physics in our universe, is well within the limitations of our simulation hardware. It could be that reality outside our own is just much more complex than the reality we aware of, allowing for much more complicated and powerful computers.
So, no reason to hesitate: bring on the Singularity!