[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Any of the quantum eraser experiments, which, given an interpretation where say photons have position and state which 'in flight', demonstrate that effects now are a function not only of immediate prior local state, but distant state and events that don't take place until long into the future.

Quantum eraser experiments can be explained without discarding causality using wave mechanics with appropriately chosen assumptions. I discuss this problem in more detail in another thread.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You're proposing that our universe is a simulation that is running blackwards?

I'm not the one who proposed that our universe is a simulation. IMO, it would generate more unnecessary complexity, rather than offering solutions to our problems.
A simulation is a simplified model to represent the real system which is presumably more complex.The simulation can help us predict the result of trial and error with less resources compared to doing them in real systems.The simulation doesn't have to use computer. It just happens that computer simulation is easier to duplicate and modify as needed.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Musk argues for a virtual reality, not a simulation, despite whatever word he might choose for it.

He literally used the word simulation in interviews and tweets. He's likely influenced by Nick Bostrom's idea.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I've not read most of this thread. It's quite long, but typical of such assertions, there is never an eye given to looking for problems with the proposal. Only positive evidence is presented. This is known as the selection bias fallacy.
Address the problems. Actively seek them, else the idea will be shot down effortlessly when other do.

The background of opening this thread can be found in my opening statement.

This thread is another spinoff from my earlier thread called universal utopia. This time I try to attack the problem from another angle, which is information theory point of view.
I have started another thread related to this subject  asking about quantification of accuracy and precision. It is necessary for us to be able to make comparison among available methods to describe some aspect of objective reality, and choose the best option based on cost and benefit consideration. I thought it was already a common knowledge, but the course of discussion shows it wasn't the case. I guess I'll have to build a new theory for that. It's unfortunate that the thread has been removed, so new forum members can't explore how the discussion developed.
In my professional job, I have to deal with process control and automation, engineering and maintenance of electrical and instrumentation systems. It's important for us to explore the leading technologies and use them for our advantage to survive in the fierce industrial competition during this industrial revolution 4.0. One of the technology which is closely related to this thread is digital twin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin

Just like my other spinoff discussing about universal morality, which can be reached by expanding the groups who develop their own subjective morality to the maximum extent permitted by logic, here I also try to expand the scope of the virtualization of real world objects like digital twin in industrial sector to cover other fields as well. Hopefully it will lead us to global governance, because all conscious beings known today share the same planet. In the future the scope needs to expand even further because the exploration of other planets and solar systems is already on the way.

The problem is, without adequately accurate, precise, and relevant virtual universe, we are expected to face many surprises in the future. They would make our plans less effective and efficient, which in turn makes it harder to achieve our goals.
 

The progress to build better AI and toward AGI will eventually get closer to the realization of Laplace demon which is already predicted as technological singularity.

The better we can predict, the better we can prevent and pre-empt. As you can see, with neural networks, we’re moving towards a world of fewer surprises. Not zero surprises, just marginally fewer. We’re also moving toward a world of smarter agents that combine neural networks with other algorithms like reinforcement learning to attain goals.

https://pathmind.com/wiki/neural-network

In some circles, neural networks are thought of as “brute force” AI, because they start with a blank slate and hammer their way through to an accurate model. They are effective, but to some eyes inefficient in their approach to modeling, which can’t make assumptions about functional dependencies between output and input.

That said, gradient descent is not recombining every weight with every other to find the best match – its method of pathfinding shrinks the relevant weight space, and therefore the number of updates and required computation, by many orders of magnitude. Moreover, algorithms such as Hinton’s capsule networks require far fewer instances of data to converge on an accurate model; that is, present research has the potential to resolve the brute force nature of deep learning.

[Halc]

Musk argues for a virtual reality, not a simulation, despite whatever word he might choose for it.

He literally used the word simulation in interviews and tweets. He's likely influenced by Nick Bostrom's idea.

Yes, well both words are often used to refer to either concept, but the two concepts are quite distinct, and if the person proposing it doesn't know which is which, then they haven't really thought about it much.

The background of opening this thread can be found in my opening statement.

You seem to be proposing what I call a VR, which is an artificial sensory feed into one or more real people or other minds, each of which controls an avatar in the simulated world. You link in your OP to an article on digital twins, which is exactly this. The article even uses the word avatar.  Musk also proposes such a thing.
It's dualism. The non-VR simulation (what Bostrom proposes) is monism: Nobody external controlling and of the simulated things. They are free to do what they want instead of what some puppeteer wants. There are empirical tests for both, but not the same ones.

Anyone who proposes the VR idea but then references Bostrom's work (or v-v) doesn't really know what they're talking about. The latter for instance doesn't require heavy computing power. It can proceed fast or slow, be done on pencil and paper, and even be shelved for months at time when server time is more available.  A VR can't do that and must keep up with real time.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You can say that I have selection bias. But I can't help selecting my information sources from those who've made accurate predictions and use sensible models of objective reality to predict the future, and help in making better decisions.

Virtual presentation to the Council of State Governments on the occasion of the CSG East 2021 Annual Meeting.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You seem to be proposing what I call a VR,

You can even read it in the title. We can say that the virtual universe is the result of integration from many VR systems. Lately we can see/read/hear/watch the news about Metaverse, which will combine several VR systems into one integrated system, such as gaming, working/collaboration, education, entertainment, competition, advertisements, even financial systems.

IMO, objects in simulations don't represent any specific/particular instance of objects in reality. They may have some resemblances though. On the other hand, some objects in VR must be an avatar representing a particular real object. So, your thinking is in line with mine.

But the differences can be less obvious in some circumstances. In training mode, AlphaGo runs as simulation, with pieces of Go moves around without representing any particular pieces of Go in reality. But in the trournament against Lee Sedol, it becomes a VR, where some of the pieces must represent Lee's pieces in real world.

[BilboGrabbins]

If there is a monopole, then maybe in a hundred

[Halc]

You can say that I have selection bias.

And then you select another video in support instead of one identifying the issues.

Nobody has put together a VR where the guy doing it is unaware it has been done, and is unable to exit it if he wants.
What if he has to use the restroom (in reality)? Nobody's been in one longer than they can hold their bladder.
Sure, you can jam in a catheter, but how did you get in this virtual reality in the first place without knowing it?  Are all the people you meet virtually controlled avatars like yourself, or are most of them NPC's or what? What about dogs or birds or gnats? What if I want to be one of those?

In training mode, AlphaGo runs as simulation, with pieces of Go moves around without representing any particular pieces of Go in reality. But in the trournament against Lee Sedol, it becomes a VR, where some of the pieces must represent Lee's pieces in real world.

A go-playing computer (AI or not) is not a VR. I suppose it could have a VR interface to let you experience playing the game with a physical-looking character, but to play an external entity, all it needs is a USB cord.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here's another progress we made so far.

https://pub.towardsai.net/facebooks-parlai-is-a-framework-for-building-human-like-conversational-agents-99711c351fc9
Conversational interfaces powered by natural language processing(NLP) have been at the center of the artificial intelligence(AI) revolution of the last few years. When we see the advancements in digital assistants such as Siri or Alexa, we might be tempted to think that conversational applications are a solved problem. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The current generation of conversational interfaces is far from simulating human-like dialogues. Building advanced NLP systems remains an incredibly challenging task that. To address that challenge, Facebook open sourced ParlAI, a platform for advancing the evaluating of NLP systems. Recently, ParlAI got an update with new models, datasets, and a fun bot to play with which I would like to cover in this two-part article. The first part of the article will introduce the core concepts behind ParlAI while the second will focus on some of the newest capabilities targeted to advance dialogue research.
...
The ultimate goal of NLP is to enable interactions with chatbots that mimic the dynamics of human conversations. For that to happen, we need systems that can go beyond understanding a single sentence or taking discrete actions. Advanced conversational applications require understanding long-form sentences in specific contexts while balancing human-like aspects such as specificity and empathy.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

And then you select another video in support instead of one identifying the issues.

What's your issue with that?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Sure, you can jam in a catheter, but how did you get in this virtual reality in the first place without knowing it?

Perhaps kidnapped when asleep, and use some anesthesia.
The biological agent can be just organoid brain, never really have complete body in the first place.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

A go-playing computer (AI or not) is not a VR. I suppose it could have a VR interface to let you experience playing the game with a physical-looking character, but to play an external entity, all it needs is a USB cord.

The transition from simulation to VR is not a single step function. It's more gradual like greyscale.
Let's start with a system which you can confidently say as  VR. Then reduce its resolution in visualization, such as pixel number in the viewing window, or box size like in Minecraft. How low can we go until it stops being a VR?
Another route to get the minimum requirement for VR is by reducing the degree of freedom that the external agent has to change the virtual objects. In 4d theater, the external agents have no control over the virtual objects. Other systems have various levels of control. 

[Halc]

Most simulations work by remembering the state of everything and then computing some future state at some small increment of time. This means choosing a quantum interpretation that has actual state, but such interpretations only work with reverse causality, meaning that you might have simulated the last billion years of physics, but some decision made just now has changed what happened a billion years ago, invalidating everything that has happened since (and yes, they've done experiments that apparently reach at least that far back).

Simulations can usually also work backward.

But virtual realities cannot.
So such reverse-causality experiments seem to be a decent falsification of the VR hypothesis.

Perhaps kidnapped when asleep, and use some anesthesia.

If I was suddenly drugged and wake up in a game, I think I'd notice. To the people already in the game, a new person suddenly appears out of nowhere. So to avoid that, you'd have to do them all at once.
Billions of people exit a world with a capability of initiating such a VR (and kidnapping billions of people at once) and involuntarily enter a world where that capability isn't there at all. So it's not a reality in any way similar to the one they were in a moment ago. Yea, you'd notice that. Think it through before suggesting something like that.

The biological agent can be just organoid brain, never really have complete body in the first place.

All these articles that your reference (digital twin, Musk's assertions, etc) are claims that it is a world like ours, humans doing it to other humans, not disembodied minds put into non-native virtual bodies.
If you deny those proposals, then it becomes a straight up BIV scenario, subject to a god-of-the-gaps fallacy. Invent a higher realm beyond empirical investigation, and then hand-wave all the inconsistencies to that layer saying they're dealt with there. It's a cop out for actual analysis. The arguments against it are same as the BIV counterarguments. Most of the models collapse to solipsism.

How is any of this any different from basic Chalmers dualism then? Anything with an experiencer is conscious. Anything not is a philosophical zombie, or P-zombie, which is the equivalent to an NPC* in a virtual reality. Chalmers doesn't go so far as to claim that God is so weak that he needs a big computer to provide his virtual experience to all the minds he puts into it.

* I notice that you didn't respond to my NPC questions in my prior post. NPC is a standard video game term.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

But virtual realities cannot.
So such reverse-causality experiments seem to be a decent falsification of the VR hypothesis.

What's the VR hypothesis?
Simulation can run backward, slowed down, or fast forward because every object in it is under its control. VR can't access all parameters of outside world. Even if a VR is advanced enough to manipulate a brainoid using electrochemical signals, someone outside can simply crash it which destroy the VR's plan.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If I was suddenly drugged and wake up in a game, I think I'd notice. To the people already in the game, a new person suddenly appears out of nowhere. So to avoid that, you'd have to do them all at once.

Do you always realize when you're dreaming?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Are all the people you meet virtually controlled avatars like yourself, or are most of them NPC's or what? What about dogs or birds or gnats? What if I want to be one of those?

It looks like you forget that I'm not suggesting that we are currently living in a simulation nor VR.
If the VR is good enough, we can't distinguish between NPCs and avatars unless we can go outside of VR and meet them in person.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

All these articles that your reference (digital twin, Musk's assertions, etc) are claims that it is a world like ours, humans doing it to other humans, not disembodied minds put into non-native virtual bodies.

The digital twin is currently a real world commercial product. Many chemical companies are already using it.
It's totally different from Musk's assertion that we're living in a simulation. He may not be serious about it, considering his efforts to make humans multiplanetary. What's the point if we're merely a simulation?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The transition from simulation to VR is not a single step function. It's more gradual like greyscale.
Let's start with a system which you can confidently say as  VR. Then reduce its resolution in visualization, such as pixel number in the viewing window, or box size like in Minecraft. How low can we go until it stops being a VR?
Another route to get the minimum requirement for VR is by reducing the degree of freedom that the external agent has to change the virtual objects. In 4d theater, the external agents have no control over the virtual objects. Other systems have various levels of control. 

Can it still be called VR if it lacks the sensation of touch, heat,  taste,  and smell? What if it exclude the effects of ultraviolet and infrared light?

[Halc]

It seems I’m missing a lot of these posts.  Not sure why.

It looks like you forget that I'm not suggesting that we are currently living in a simulation nor VR.

Oh OK. Many of the people you reference are suggesting exactly that. My counterarguments need to be addressed by them, but the articles I see only seem to seek attention for the idea instead of identify a plausible model that holds up to scrutiny.

If the VR is good enough, we can't distinguish between NPCs and avatars unless we can go outside of VR and meet them in person.

There’s a test. Decisions made in my character’s brain are suppressed so my will can override it. So detect that: There is a total disconnect between brain and voluntary action, whereas the NPC has a functional connection between the two.

Concerning how one enters the VR:

If I was suddenly drugged and wake up in a game, I think I'd notice. To the people already in the game, a new person suddenly appears out of nowhere. So to avoid that, you'd have to do them all at once.

Do you always realize when you're dreaming?

Pretty irrelevant. Reality never feels like a dream. Dreams don’t rewrite all my memories. If the machine could do that, no experience feed would be necessary. All it would need to do put you in a state of having remembered them. Solves the bladder issue too. It boils down to last-Tuesdayism then. There’s no proof that the universe wasn’t created last Tuesday, or 3 seconds ago for that matter.