Religions > Atheism > Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run?
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Uncle Buck" |
| Date: |
09 Sep 2005 09:32:10 PM |
| Object: |
Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run? |
Suppose you have a simulated reality, something like what "The Sims"
might become another 20 or 30 versions from now. Is there any known
way such a simulation could become sophisticated enough that it would
become capable of directly detecting the system upon which it is being
run? I assume some very tricky sort of inference would have to be
used based on the behavior of the simulated particles - some clue or
another which might give something away about the nature of the media
and which is not written into the simulation itself. I know right now
we have programs that can 'detect' the hard drive & RAM, but they do
so because the drive & RAM are designed to identify themselves to
certain requests from software, not because the software itself has
accomplished anything "special". I'm talking about direct detection
of the system by a sophisticated series of calculations & processes
being run within the software itself. Something it could do even if
the features of the system (i.e. the drive & RAM) were not designed to
identify themselves to any software requests.
Just... curious... :-)
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| User: "navi-gater" |
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| Title: Re: Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run? |
09 Sep 2005 07:11:17 PM |
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Uncle Buck <UncleBuck@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in
news:gkg4i1d0jl0q664brrtn3jbkqfsjbmam82@4ax.com:
Suppose you have a simulated reality, something like what "The Sims"
might become another 20 or 30 versions from now. Is there any known
way such a simulation could become sophisticated enough that it would
become capable of directly detecting the system upon which it is being
run? I assume some very tricky sort of inference would have to be
used based on the behavior of the simulated particles - some clue or
another which might give something away about the nature of the media
and which is not written into the simulation itself. I know right now
we have programs that can 'detect' the hard drive & RAM, but they do
so because the drive & RAM are designed to identify themselves to
certain requests from software, not because the software itself has
accomplished anything "special". I'm talking about direct detection
of the system by a sophisticated series of calculations & processes
being run within the software itself. Something it could do even if
the features of the system (i.e. the drive & RAM) were not designed to
identify themselves to any software requests.
Just... curious... :-)
It seems to me that as long as you give the software a suitable
interface, it would be feasible to write a program that could determine
hard-drive and RAM capacity, and to measure processor speed. Beyond
that, detecting the firmware would require the program monitor and store
the firmware for comparison in future executions.
But I think the question you meant to ask (apologies for taking
religious liberties in interpreting your words here) was whether an
Artificially Intelligent program could detect the fact that it was
running in an environment costructed by humans. The simple answer is -
it depends on how intelligent we made it.
If we made it "in our image", then yes I suspect it could easily tell,
since we endowed it with human reasoning and the ability to sense and
measure the extents of its environment.
If we give it less intelligence (not in our image) then it simply
depends on just how much we gave it.
gater.
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| User: "Uncle Buck" |
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| Title: Re: Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run? |
10 Sep 2005 12:18:05 AM |
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On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 00:11:17 GMT, "navi-gater" <gater@the-gate.net>
wrote:
Uncle Buck <UncleBuck@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in
news:gkg4i1d0jl0q664brrtn3jbkqfsjbmam82@4ax.com:
Suppose you have a simulated reality, something like what "The Sims"
might become another 20 or 30 versions from now. Is there any known
way such a simulation could become sophisticated enough that it would
become capable of directly detecting the system upon which it is being
run? I assume some very tricky sort of inference would have to be
used based on the behavior of the simulated particles - some clue or
another which might give something away about the nature of the media
and which is not written into the simulation itself. I know right now
we have programs that can 'detect' the hard drive & RAM, but they do
so because the drive & RAM are designed to identify themselves to
certain requests from software, not because the software itself has
accomplished anything "special". I'm talking about direct detection
of the system by a sophisticated series of calculations & processes
being run within the software itself. Something it could do even if
the features of the system (i.e. the drive & RAM) were not designed to
identify themselves to any software requests.
Just... curious... :-)
It seems to me that as long as you give the software a suitable
interface, it would be feasible to write a program that could determine
hard-drive and RAM capacity, and to measure processor speed. Beyond
that, detecting the firmware would require the program monitor and store
the firmware for comparison in future executions.
But I think the question you meant to ask (apologies for taking
religious liberties in interpreting your words here) was whether an
Artificially Intelligent program could detect the fact that it was
running in an environment costructed by humans. The simple answer is -
it depends on how intelligent we made it.
If we made it "in our image", then yes I suspect it could easily tell,
since we endowed it with human reasoning and the ability to sense and
measure the extents of its environment.
If we give it less intelligence (not in our image) then it simply
depends on just how much we gave it.
gater.
That's not quite what I'm asking, though it's certainly food for
thought. Sorry for the length of this, but I've got to do some
thinking out loud, and this line of thinking could really benefit from
some external input. ;-)
What you're talking about is software itself communicating with
hardware. The bits and bytes directly interacting with the machine
through which they are flowing. It's not too hard for a program to
learn a great deal about the machine it's being run on when it can and
does directly interact with it. What I'm talking about is different.
My question involves what might best be expressed as a simulation of
our own reality, and whether or not a "person" in a simulation that
behaves just like our world could ever design an experiment that could
directly detect the hardware upon which the simulation is being run.
Imagine that we, right here and now, are such a simulation being run
on some huge computer system somewhere. How would you or I go about
detecting the existence of this computer system? Our simulated quarks
would interact with the hard drive & the RAM because they form the
bits & bytes of the data upon which the simulation is working its
magic. However, in the context of a simulation "we" would be emergent
properties, structures and patterns forming _within_ that data itself,
and with no real "meaning" to the hardware of the system. Just like
"1+1=2" means nothing to your computer - it only knows to mix & match
bits & bytes so that you see the result of performing that calculation
in terms you can understand. The system is just squirting pulses of
electricity through circuits and they're mixing and matching in
patterned ways. The pulses of electricity are like our quarks - they
interact with the system. But in the equation "1+1=2", neither 1 nor
1 nor 2 interact with the system directly. They are instead the
results of data being manipulated _by_ that system. They are results,
expressions - not actual factors in their own making. Our recognition
of them as 1 and 1 and 2 is the result of one emergent property (our
minds) analysing another (the numbers they form as they are emergent
of the bits & bytes being squirted about).
1 and 1 and 2 are emergent properties, as are we. Can an emergent
property directly detect the presence of the foundation of its own
existence? In the scenario of "our world" as "simulation", we have
nothing that tells us about the "environment" upon which our
simulation might be occurring. We've never seen another simulation
and so can't observve how simulations interact with the systems upon
which they run, and we have no way of looking at ourselves from the
outside, and so can't even see that we are _on_ a system of any sort.
(Note that I don't necessarily believe that our reality is such a
simulation - it's possible, I guess, but I'm just using our reality as
an example only). About the only analogy I can think of is that of a
single sentient eyeball trying to determine its own nature. Without
any way of looking at itself or another eye, would that eyeball be
capable of inferring even the existence of its own iris, let alone its
color?
The scenario required to pose my question wouldn't need to be nearly
as complex as our own world. Just a single team of simulated human
scientists on a single simulated planet containing all the resources
they could ever possibly use (humans are small in the context of even
a small planet - relatively little matter would be required in order
to provide for all their needs). A single small, nearby star could
supply all the energy they require. No need for entire simulated
galaxies or planetary systems, just a single, high-power computer with
extra storage capacity, running a simulation of a small planet with a
simulated team of human scientists. Could those simulated human
scientists ever even just _detect_ the hard drive & the RAM of the
system upon which their simulation is being run, let alone interact
with it? If so, how? How would _we_ go about trying to detect such a
thing? Simply "existing" on the system doesn't count as "detecting"
it or "interacting" with it. I'm talking about becoming aware of the
system's existence through some sort of observation which is, within
the context of the simulation, "empirical", and "interacting" with it
with conscious knowledge of the fact of that interaction.
The problem with conventional simulations is that theoretically, the
calculations which form them would all work out the same whether done
on a hard drive & RAM or with paper & pencil (though of course, it
would take a LOT of paper & graphite, as well as time <G>). Even a
game like the Sims - feed the algorithmic processes the same "input"
on paper that you'd feed them with a mouse (which translates your
mouse movements into numeric inputs), and the Sim characters will
behave in precisely the same way as they would on a computer given the
same inputs. From the perspective of the "behavior" of the characters
being simulated, there is no difference. For a simulation to be truly
capable of detecting the system upon which it is running, it must have
something in common with that system. There must be a facet of the
simulation corresponding to a facet of the system, where the facet of
the simulation changes in response to changes in that facet of the
system independant of the calculations and processes forming the
programmatic aspects of the simulation, and where the system changes
in response to the output of the simulation.
One might try to say that even in this case, changes in the system
contributing to changes in the simulation are merely another form of
"input", and could also be represented numerically and would, in the
end, work out the same on paper. But if the input is being caused by
the system, and the nature of that input is determined by the
interaction between the system and the simulation. A given set of
system-produced inputs could only be produced if the simulation is
running on it, since the system responds to the output of the
simulation. The same inputs could never be produced on paper as would
be produced on the system. Even if you took the inputs produced by
the system, manually calculated them and typed the outputs of the
simulation back into the computer so it could generate the next cycle
of input for the simulation, this is direct interaction between the
simulation and the system. It doesn't matter how many intermediaries
you place between the two, as long as the system is determining the
inputs to go into the simulation, and the simulation is determining
the state of the system, they are co-interacting and one can detect
the other.
Hmmmnn... You know, "chaos" would be a good place to look for such a
"shared feature". Even with the Sims analogy, "chaos" is already a
factor. Processing errors in the system invariably occur, producing
slightly different outcomes. Likewise if you were to perform the
calculations manually, the chaos which screws us up way too often
would invariably cause you to make mistakes in your calculations that
would not have been made on the computer. Thus, while it's not
intentional, even our own primitive simulations "interact" with the
systems upon which they're being run. Imagine how much greater that
potential could be if we _designed_ them that way... Hmmnn...
When we get quantum computing up & running, then we can truly
integrate randomness into our simulations (randomness as much as it
actually exists, anyway).
Man, there is _so_ much farther one could go with the quantum
computing bit (no pun intended <G>). But for now, I think I'm going
to just have to let this all gestate for awhile and see what comes
out. Later! :-)
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| User: "pluther" |
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| Title: Re: Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run? |
09 Sep 2005 07:19:54 PM |
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Uncle Buck wrote:
Suppose you have a simulated reality, something like what "The Sims"
might become another 20 or 30 versions from now. Is there any known
way such a simulation could become sophisticated enough that it would
become capable of directly detecting the system upon which it is being
run? I assume some very tricky sort of inference would have to be
used based on the behavior of the simulated particles - some clue or
another which might give something away about the nature of the media
and which is not written into the simulation itself. I know right now
we have programs that can 'detect' the hard drive & RAM, but they do
so because the drive & RAM are designed to identify themselves to
certain requests from software, not because the software itself has
accomplished anything "special". I'm talking about direct detection
of the system by a sophisticated series of calculations & processes
being run within the software itself. Something it could do even if
the features of the system (i.e. the drive & RAM) were not designed to
identify themselves to any software requests.
Just... curious... :-)
Sure - isn't that what we're doing now, detecting our hardware through
physics, and biochemistry, and the software with cognitive studies?
-Pat
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| User: "Uncle Buck" |
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| Title: Re: Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run? |
10 Sep 2005 12:22:25 AM |
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On 9 Sep 2005 17:19:54 -0700, "pluther" <pluther@usa.net> wrote:
Uncle Buck wrote:
Suppose you have a simulated reality, something like what "The Sims"
might become another 20 or 30 versions from now. Is there any known
way such a simulation could become sophisticated enough that it would
become capable of directly detecting the system upon which it is being
run? I assume some very tricky sort of inference would have to be
used based on the behavior of the simulated particles - some clue or
another which might give something away about the nature of the media
and which is not written into the simulation itself. I know right now
we have programs that can 'detect' the hard drive & RAM, but they do
so because the drive & RAM are designed to identify themselves to
certain requests from software, not because the software itself has
accomplished anything "special". I'm talking about direct detection
of the system by a sophisticated series of calculations & processes
being run within the software itself. Something it could do even if
the features of the system (i.e. the drive & RAM) were not designed to
identify themselves to any software requests.
Just... curious... :-)
Sure - isn't that what we're doing now, detecting our hardware through
physics, and biochemistry, and the software with cognitive studies?
If our reality were a simulation, that means the matter of which we
are composed is not hardware at all, but data being manipulated by a
program. We're learning how to manipulate and understand the data
from which we are formed, but I don't see where we've done anything
that would enable us to glimpse that. We would have perhaps gone far
enough to be able to begin understanding some of the programs that
organize our data into coherent structures (ie "laws of physics"), but
even those would not be the system itself. The only way we would be
learning anything about the 'hardware' in that case is if our
particles, themselves, were the system, and not just a simulation
being run on one.
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Could a simulation ever detect the system upon which it is being run? |
10 Sep 2005 12:56:06 AM |
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"Uncle Buck" <UncleBuck@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:85r4i1l4cncun0tggbop4qh9gi6gdufqf2@4ax.com...
On 9 Sep 2005 17:19:54 -0700, "pluther" <pluther@usa.net> wrote:
Uncle Buck wrote:
Suppose you have a simulated reality, something like what "The Sims"
might become another 20 or 30 versions from now. Is there any known
way such a simulation could become sophisticated enough that it would
become capable of directly detecting the system upon which it is being
run? I assume some very tricky sort of inference would have to be
used based on the behavior of the simulated particles - some clue or
another which might give something away about the nature of the media
and which is not written into the simulation itself. I know right now
we have programs that can 'detect' the hard drive & RAM, but they do
so because the drive & RAM are designed to identify themselves to
certain requests from software, not because the software itself has
accomplished anything "special". I'm talking about direct detection
of the system by a sophisticated series of calculations & processes
being run within the software itself. Something it could do even if
the features of the system (i.e. the drive & RAM) were not designed to
identify themselves to any software requests.
Just... curious... :-)
Sure - isn't that what we're doing now, detecting our hardware through
physics, and biochemistry, and the software with cognitive studies?
If our reality were a simulation, that means the matter of which we
are composed is not hardware at all, but data being manipulated by a
program. We're learning how to manipulate and understand the data
from which we are formed, but I don't see where we've done anything
that would enable us to glimpse that. We would have perhaps gone far
enough to be able to begin understanding some of the programs that
organize our data into coherent structures (ie "laws of physics"), but
even those would not be the system itself. The only way we would be
learning anything about the 'hardware' in that case is if our
particles, themselves, were the system, and not just a simulation
being run on one.
Well, if the simulation is accurate down to the planck length, we'll never
know.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
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