Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - OpenAI's Scott Aaronson On The Simulation Hypothesis

Starting point is 00:00:00 What is the halting problem if you're God? In some sense, this is all a big touring machine. Why shouldn't our universe be simulated by a bigger universe that also has uncomputable physics the same as ours does? Scott Aronson is a professor of computer science and quantum computing at the University of Texas. Here Scott gives a talk providing insights on the computational aspects of reality, including the potential for quantum simulations. Scott critically analyzes the simulation hypothesis, weighing its scientific credibility against the backdrop of quantum mechanics and computational complexity theory.

Starting point is 00:00:34 This talk was given at MINDFEST, put on by the Center for the Future Mind, which is spearheaded by Professor of Philosophy Susan Schneider. It's a conference that's annually held where they merge artificial intelligence and consciousness studies and help at Florida Atlantic University. The links to all of these will be in the description. There's also a playlist here for MindFest. Again, that's that conference, Merge in AI and Consciousness. There are previous talks from people like Scott Aaronson, David Chalmers, Stuart Hammeroff, Sarah Walker, Stephen Wolfram and Ben Gortzel. My name is Kurtjmungel and today we have a special treat because usually theories of

Starting point is 00:01:07 everything is a podcast. What's ordinarily done on this channel is I use my background in mathematical physics and I analyze various theories of everything from that perspective and analytical one, but as well as a philosophical one discerning well what's consciousness' relationship to fundamental reality, what is reality, are the laws as they exist even the laws and should they be mathematical, but instead I was invited down to film these talks and bring them to you courtesy of the Center for the Future Mind.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Enjoy this talk from MindFest. Okay, so now I'm going to go ahead and introduce our speakers. So I'm really excited about this session. And well, these speakers in a way need no introduction. So, but I'll give excited about this session. And well, these speakers, in a way, need no introduction. But I'll give you a quick one. David Chalmers, extremely well-known philosopher, and really brought consciousness to the fore. He's a professor at NYU.

Starting point is 00:02:01 This is David. And Scott Erickson, who has this amazing blog that pretty much everybody in my AI lab reads. Scott is well known for being able to pretty much take down any theory. Scott is- You're on. That's what I mean. He's at OpenAI, he's been working on watermarking over there and he's also at

Starting point is 00:02:30 the University of Texas Austin, expert in quantum computing. And then, I mean just to add to the amazing minds at this session, Mark Bailey, who runs a cybersecurity center at NIU, National Intelligence University, and who's a dear member of the Center for the Future Mind and a co-author, is going to be our moderator. OK, so let's go ahead and get started. Thank you so much, Susan.

Starting point is 00:03:01 Is this work time? OK, awesome. So first, I just have to say it's such a privilege to be here with you guys. Such very well accomplished and fascinating minds. So thank you for being here. So we're here to talk about the simulation argument, which is this whole idea that the universe itself could very well be simulated. And we want to sort of think about what that might mean,

Starting point is 00:03:23 what the implications could be for theories of mind, metaphysics generally, and physics, I think, more broadly. So I guess we'll, I want both of you to be able to talk from your respective backgrounds. So you know, Scott's a physicist and- Computer scientist. Oh, sorry, computer scientist. And you know, and Dave's a philosopher. So if you could just sort of elaborate from your perspectives on how you define the simulation argument and what that means to you.

Starting point is 00:03:51 So I guess we'll start with Dave. What is the simulation hypothesis? I think simulation argument is what we were talking about. I don't think I'm saying anything about simulation argument. Well then we'll start with simulation hypothesis. I do have something about the argument. Do I start by defining it? Do you get...

Starting point is 00:04:09 He has slides. Yeah, no, I mean, look, the simulation hypothesis is just that, you know, our apparent reality is a simulation running in a computer. Now, when someone asks me, and I'm sure that David will have a far, far more careful definition than that, but with many qualifiers. But when someone asks me whether I believe that or not, which for some reason they do every month or so, I always answer with one question,

Starting point is 00:04:42 which is, is this the kind of simulation where I can hope to learn anything about it one way or the other by any observations of the empirical world or not? Now, if they answer no, you could never tell the difference even in principle, then I say, I've got a lot of things to worry about in life. Okay, maybe this discussion has reached the end of what we can make progress on. If they say, oh, but maybe you should live your life differently just from knowing that

Starting point is 00:05:15 you might be in a simulation. Then I say, well, I can't put my finger on it, but I get the vague feeling that this discussion predates the 80 years of digital computers? Why not just join the theologians in the earlier version of this discussion and not pretend that this is anything distinctive about computers? Is it really different here if you are dreamt relevantly, if you're dreamed in the mind of God or if you're executed in Python, right? Like, you know, okay, so maybe you would prefer it if, like, the world was created by some sort of loving father or mother figure rather than some, like, nerdy 13-year-old who's trying to impress

Starting point is 00:05:58 the other kids in their programming club, right? But, okay, if that's the type of worry, you know, like, why talk to a computer scientist about it? Like, go talk to David Hume or something, right? But okay, if that's the type of worry, you know, like why talk to a computer scientist about it? Like go talk to David Hume or something, right? So, okay, but then we have the people who would say, you know, the answer is yes, you know, we can learn something about are we, you know, from the empirical world about this. And then, you know, I say, okay, well then out with it. Like what is the empirical evidence that we should look at, right? I mean, short of that, okay, well then out with it. What is the empirical evidence that we should look at? Short of that, you can look at existing physical theories like J.R. or the standard model and how hard are they to simulate on a computer.

Starting point is 00:06:34 You can actually make progress on those questions. My most recent post on my blog is about one such question, what are called chiral field theories, including the standard model of elementary particles, where there's a known difficulty with simulating them on a computer. When you have to discretize things, put them on a lattice, then you get an additional symmetry that you don't want, between left-handed and right-handed particles.

Starting point is 00:07:00 But people are actually making progress on how do we simulate it on a computer anyway. Okay, but maybe even then that only tells us about today's physics, right? And ultimately we'd like to know, well, can the final theory of quantum gravity or whatever, can that be simulated on a computer to any desired accuracy or knowing the initial state, yada yada, right? In other words, is the physical version of the Church-Touring thesis true or false? And that, to me, is maybe at the outer limit of what you could hope to address scientifically,

Starting point is 00:07:32 right? My personal belief is that looking at what we've learned about the Planck scale and the Bekenstein bound from black hole thermodynamics and ADS-CFT, that they all kind of militate toward the view that the answer is yes. That, you know, in some sense, this is all a big Turing machine, right? Now, Penrose and Hameroff, of course, believe that that's wrong and that the uncomputability can somehow affect the microtubules in our neurons.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Okay, now, you know, I don't believe that or I get off that train at a sort of much earlier stop. But as far as the simulation hypothesis is concerned, you know, that's not even the point. Main point is suppose for the sake of argument that Penrose and Hameroff were right and physics was uncomputable. Okay, well, then why shouldn't our universe be simulated by a bigger universe that also has uncomputable physics, the same as ours does? What is the halting problem if you're God? That really only pushes the question back.

Starting point is 00:08:34 That doesn't answer it either. And then lastly, because you asked about the simulation argument, so this is the argument that says, well, look, our descendants are likely to have so much computing power that simulating 10 to the 20th humans of the year 2024 is chicken feed to them. Right? So almost all people with the experiences that we have are one of those sims, so you should expect that you're probably one of them. Now, that argument never impressed me much because it always seemed to have a strong

Starting point is 00:09:03 aspect of like sawing off the branch that it's sitting on Right like our descendants will be able to simulate something But presumably only smaller universes than this one because they'll have to run on computers that fit in this universe Right similarly if we were being simulated presumably it would be by a universe bigger than the one we see But in that case, it's not our own descendants who are simulating us. Now, granted, there are many possible escapes from that logic. Maybe we're low-res simulation and the faraway galaxies are just some sloppy approximations, right?

Starting point is 00:09:35 But those escapes are all confusing, and I think the simplicity of the original intuition for why most people who ever exist will be Sims has been undermined. So anyway, that's why I don't spend too much of my own time fretting about this, but just occasionally agree to speak in panel discussions about it. But I look forward to probably a much more rigorous and careful set of remarks from David. Firstly thank you for watching, thank you for listening. There's now a website, curtjymongle.org, and that has a mailing list. The reason being that large platforms like YouTube, like Patreon, they can disable you

Starting point is 00:10:19 for whatever reason, whenever they like. That's just part of the terms of service. Now a direct mailing list ensures that I have an untrammeled communication with you. Plus, soon I'll be releasing a one-page PDF of my top 10 toes. It's not as Quentin Tarantino as it sounds like. Secondly, if you haven't subscribed or clicked that like button, now is the time to do so. Why?

Starting point is 00:10:42 Because each subscribe, each like helps YouTube push this content to more people like yourself, plus it helps out Kurt directly, aka me. I also found out last year that external links count plenty toward the algorithm, which means that whenever you share on Twitter, say on Facebook or even on Reddit, etc., it shows YouTube, hey, people are talking about this content outside of YouTube, which in turn greatly aids the distribution on YouTube. Thirdly, there's a remarkably active Discord and subreddit for theories of everything where people explicate Toes, they disagree respectfully about theories, and build as a community our own Toe. Links to both are in the

Starting point is 00:11:22 description. Fourthly, you should know this podcast is on iTunes, it's on Spotify, it's on all of the audio platforms. All you have to do is type in theories of everything and you'll find it. Personally, I gain from rewatching lectures and podcasts. I also read in the comments that hey, T.O.E. listeners also gain from replaying. So how about instead you re-listen on those platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whichever podcast catcher you use. And finally, if you'd like to support more conversations like this, more content like

Starting point is 00:11:51 this, then do consider visiting patreon.com slash Kurt Jaimungal and donating with whatever you like. There's also PayPal, there's also crypto, there's also just joining on YouTube. Again, keep in mind, it's support from the sponsors and you that allow me to work on toe full time. You also get early access to ad-free episodes, whether it's audio or video, it's audio in the case of Patreon,

Starting point is 00:12:13 video in the case of YouTube. For instance, this episode that you're listening to right now was released a few days earlier. Every dollar helps far more than you think. Either way, your viewership is generosity enough. Thank you so much.

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - OpenAI's Scott Aaronson On The Simulation Hypothesis

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.