X-Message-Number: 16924
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2001 11:28:01 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: Simulation

Yvan Bozzonetti writes

>If we ask what is the distance to the nearest civilization today, the
Fourier 
>transform answer is: It is at a distance in light years equal to the time 
>between two related civilizations on Earth. Now, we are the fist
civilization 
>here, so, if the human species was wipped out, we can't know how time it 
>would take for evolution to cook another technological species. On the other 
>hand if we had lived 65 millions years ago, we would have been wipped out by 
>the meteorite catastrophe who destroyed the dinos. So that, our best gues is 
>65 000 000 yrs between two civilizations. So the nearest E.T. technology 
>today must be something as 65 000 000 lys aways, this is beyond the limit of 
>our Galaxy, even beyond the limits of the super amas on the border of which 
>we stand.

But your calculation doesn't seem to take into account the density
of possible sites for independently developing civilizations.  If
there were only one star, on the average, every 10^18 cubic light
years, i.e., only one every (linear) million light years or so,
then that's a vastly different situation from what we have.  

Actually, though, I get the same answer as you:  namely, if the Fermi
Paradox is simply resolved by "we are alone", then that "aloneness"
need not extend more than a billion light years or so.

>I think we don't live in a simulation, not because it is not
>possible but because we can't produce it now.

But the most common conjecture is that the simulation wasn't
constructed "now", but in, say 20,000 A.D., and that we just
don't know the right date.

I think that (A) we are living in a simulation, and (B) we are
living in an original 2001 reality are both true.  When we ask
is *this* a simulation, we should perceive that "this" can 
point to both places equally.  On the other hand, if the following
is factual:

    At 20,000 A.D. the Earth civilization ran 10^90 simulations
    of 2001, each with a different cast of President/Vice-President

then EACH of the following has probability 10^90 to 1 of 
being a simulation:

  (i)   the world where Pres: Bill Gates, Vice Pres: Madonna
 (ii)   the world where Pres: Bill Clinton, Vice Pres: Sam Erwin
(iii)   the world where Pres: G. W. Bush, Vice Pres: Dick Chaney
 (iv)   the world where Pres: Pat Buchanan, Vice Pres: Ralph Nader
  (v)   the world where Pres: Margaret Thatcher, Vice Pres: The D.L.G.

  ...
and we are in simulation (iii), and so we are most likely
living in a simulation.

HOWEVER, since the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics)
is almost surely true, each of the above cases really takes place *also*
on an original Earth somewhere in the multiverse.  (One would hope that
case (i) occupies only a very thin slice in the multiverse!)

>I think nobody else has any interest to put us in a simulation.

Well, a hundred years ago people thought that no one would ever
bother calculating more digits of PI than Shank's 707, "what
possible reason would anyone have to do it?", they asked.
Likewise, there will surely be some clown in 20,000 A.D. with
nothing better to do some afternoon than watching a simulation
of 2001.

Lee

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