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[Egan_BW]

Quite a few things, actually, up to and including murder, theoretically. I'd never even consider doing such a thing, even if I did consider you to be doing anything wrong. But it's always worth pointing out that sometimes, yes, people are indeed physically capable of stopping you from doing a thing.

[KittyTac]

Quite a few things, actually, up to and including murder, theoretically. I'd never even consider doing such a thing, even if I did consider you to be doing anything wrong. But it's always worth pointing out that sometimes, yes, people are indeed physically capable of stopping you from doing a thing.

Well, I didn't mean literally. I meant that I won't give in to your arguments no matter what.

[Egan_BW]

Well that's good, because nobody is actually disagreeing with you are trying to stop you. But good on you for taking a stand! Here's a star ⭐️

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

In order to determine whether running a particular predictive model would create a sapient sub-being inside your own mind, would you not first have to run a predictive model that could in turn have the potential to create a sapient being?

You can create a model without running it. You can analyze the structure of a model without running it. If these are both true, it might be possible to avoid running minds in our models.

If we can develop a criterion for what is a mind versus what is not, and we make a program that implements this categorization scheme, which is capable of running on itself, including its own processes, then we can notice when the analysis creates minds, and avoid this somehow.

(We don't have to be sure there's no mind in the models ever, the point is to reduce the mind in the models. We don't have to Win to make a difference.)

[Rolan7]

In order to determine whether running a particular predictive model would create a sapient sub-being inside your own mind, would you not first have to run a predictive model that could in turn have the potential to create a sapient being?

You can create a model without running it. You can analyze the structure of a model without running it. If these are both true, it might be possible to avoid running minds in our models.

If we can develop a criterion for what is a mind versus what is not, and we make a program that implements this categorization scheme, which is capable of running on itself, including its own processes, then we can notice when the analysis creates minds, and avoid this somehow.

(We don't have to be sure there's no mind in the models ever, the point is to reduce the mind in the models. We don't have to Win to make a difference.)

Can you, though?
Running a model is simply... storing various states of the process, in sequence, using the code.  Each instant is revealed to us, by the processor, and that is all that happens.  To run a simulation is to observe a hypothetical, not to create it.

I think a similar argument can be made for the original programming of the simulation.  Mostly because the only difference between me spending 5 seconds imagining hell, and actually programming a detailed simulation of hell, is precision and accuracy.  Writing a book or programming a computer is like chiseling a statue from a marble block.  Every hypothetical was always there, we merely reveal some of them, to various degrees.

That said, I just saw one of the Black Mirror episodes involving simulated copies of people trapped within nightmarish simulations, and at no point did this occur to me.  I was very much hoping that the characters... succeeded.  An appropriate and healthy response to a work of art designed to provoke empathy.

But why would it be bad to simulate humans in such a situation, yet it's fine to script a story where that happens?

[Egan_BW]

Because, I guess, the suffering that happens in the story happens to the characters, who are just inside the head of the reader, who is feeling empathy and thus just a small portion of the suffering being represented. Basically you're creating a situation where people consent to in some sense "be" the characters in the story by thinking about them and empathizing with them, and thus gaining an amount of enjoyment from inflicting a lesser pain on a certain portion of their mind.

...Does any of that make sense?

[Derpy Dev]

You know, when surrounded by so many threads talking about grisha5, mad science, revolution, genocide, merperson breeding camps, necromancer use and abuse, politics, and dirty jokes that have about as much subtlety as a boot to the head, it's easy to forget that sane, intelligent and reasonable people sometimes come here to talk about philosophy.

PTW

[KittyTac]

I don't know why people find merperson breeding camps even slightly horrifying. Guess that sentence sums up my standing on DF ethics.

[Rolan7]

Because it's possible to have empathy with fictional characters
Like I tried to articulate a few pages ago, I truly don't mind what you do to your dorfs.  I rarely care what I do to my own game pieces, much less what they do to themselves...  But occasionally I might form attachment to some.  I think that attachment is an opportunity to feel some safe emotions, including sadness at losing.
tldr; Losing is fun :'D

Because, I guess, the suffering that happens in the story happens to the characters, who are just inside the head of the reader, who is feeling empathy and thus just a small portion of the suffering being represented. Basically you're creating a situation where people consent to in some sense "be" the characters in the story by thinking about them and empathizing with them, and thus gaining an amount of enjoyment from inflicting a lesser pain on a certain portion of their mind.

...Does any of that make sense?

Yeah, that's a pretty good explanation of why it's okay for characters to suffer in stories.
I was getting a little Socratic with my "questions", though.  My point was that it can't be wrong for characters to suffer in simulations, because it's clearly fine for them to suffer in stories, which are essentially the same thing but with compression.

A simulation program (+inputs) IS a story.  Just one described with rules, then read by a machine.

[KittyTac]

Yeah, I sometimes get attached to my dorfs. But merpeople are just wild animals.

[Rolan7]

Huh, alright.
Obviously we agree that it makes sense to form attachments with one's own units, and/or the most interesting units in a game.

I will point out that, technically, DF merpeople are intelligent, good, and also benign.  Not that the intelligent part is clear in-game, unless you're an adventurer maybe (supposedly they speak).  I certainly didn't know that without checking the raws.

And in a typical game, they aren't interesting enough to merit such close analysis.  Most of the humor/horror is probably from people assuming they're like Disney mermaids (which isn't that far off).  I'm kinda disappointed that they aren't more like sirens, like the actual old tales...  That'd be a nice irony.

[KittyTac]

Meh. It won't make you any worse of a person.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

A rather concerning thought experiment. Suppose that sentience does have a mathematical model, i.e. can be programmed. Suppose, then, that the steps required to express sentience are expressed onto a piece of paper, and an individual proceeds to follow the instructions of each step. Fundamentally, this is no different than a computer program performing a series of steps in place of this individual. If we agree that the computer following these steps results in sentience, does the piece of paper, when coupled with someone willing to write out each step, produce sentience of its own? If not, what is the difference between an individual performing each step on a piece of paper and a computer processing each step on transistors and memory storage devices?

Ah, that's a good way of putting it. A more abstract and vague thought experiment along these lines was what pushed me toward omnirealism - either all computible minds are real, or no minds are real, or [some weird thing that says that you realize a mind by writing down symbols but not by thinking about the model] (but the model is only present in some interconnected neurons; paper is part of my extended brain, and this possibility is invalid), or [some weird thing that says that you realize a mind when you understand how it works], or [some weird thing that says that you realize a mind not by understanding it, but by predicting how it works]. I prefer the first, because I don't see an important difference between the mathematical structure being known and the structure being ran. (There are ways to get the output without directly running things. If I use abstractions to determine what a model-mind does, rather than going variable-by-variable, I don't think that the mind-ness has disappeared. And if you can make a mind real just by knowing the mathematical model that describes how it works... then we have to define "knowledge," because otherwise I could just make a massive random file and say "statistically, at least one portion of this file would produce a mind if ran with one of the nearly infinitely-many possible interpretation systems." Or if I make it even larger, the same can be said for any given language. Heck, a rock has information. Maybe the rock's atoms, when analyzed and put into an interpretation system, make a mind. That's just ridiculous. We've effectively said that all minds are real, anyway, but in a weird and roundabout way.)

(This assumes that the substrate is not inherently important to the mind - I am ran on a lump of sparky flesh, you are run on a lump of sparky silicon, but that doesn't make one of us necessarily not a person. This seems obvious to me, but is probably a controversial statement.)

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

In order to determine whether running a particular predictive model would create a sapient sub-being inside your own mind, would you not first have to run a predictive model that could in turn have the potential to create a sapient being?

You can create a model without running it. You can analyze the structure of a model without running it. If these are both true, it might be possible to avoid running minds in our models.

If we can develop a criterion for what is a mind versus what is not, and we make a program that implements this categorization scheme, which is capable of running on itself, including its own processes, then we can notice when the analysis creates minds, and avoid this somehow.

(We don't have to be sure there's no mind in the models ever, the point is to reduce the mind in the models. We don't have to Win to make a difference.)

Can you, though?
Running a model is simply... storing various states of the process, in sequence, using the code.  Each instant is revealed to us, by the processor, and that is all that happens.  To run a simulation is to observe a hypothetical, not to create it.

I think a similar argument can be made for the original programming of the simulation.  Mostly because the only difference between me spending 5 seconds imagining hell, and actually programming a detailed simulation of hell, is precision and accuracy.  Writing a book or programming a computer is like chiseling a statue from a marble block.  Every hypothetical was always there, we merely reveal some of them, to various degrees.

That said, I just saw one of the Black Mirror episodes involving simulated copies of people trapped within nightmarish simulations, and at no point did this occur to me.  I was very much hoping that the characters... succeeded.  An appropriate and healthy response to a work of art designed to provoke empathy.

But why would it be bad to simulate humans in such a situation, yet it's fine to script a story where that happens?

The main question is whether hypotheticals are morally real, then. And keep in mind that (as far as I know) we can never rule out that we are living in a simulation ourselves.

[Rolan7]

But why would it be bad to simulate humans in such a situation, yet it's fine to script a story where that happens?

The main question is whether hypotheticals are morally real, then. And keep in mind that (as far as I know) we can never rule out that we are living in a simulation ourselves.

We're certainly living in a hypothetical universe that is being simulated by an infinite number of hypothetical computers.  But ours is special, as I'll demonstrate.

I'm now imagining a universe like XKCD's man-with-rocks, except the person is a woman.  Both these universes are now simulating our universe.  There are infinite permutations available, all simulating our universes.

In fact there are universes simulating every universe, including permutations of our universe.  Like in the comic, the man misplaces a rock - permutations like that, including the moon disappearing or the strong nuclear force ceasing.

If our universe is merely one of these infinite simulations, then the odds of physics continuing to work are statistically near zero.
If all conceivable, hypothetical universes had consciousness like you or I, then statistically speaking we should be experiencing total chaos.  But we aren't.
Therefore, it's morally safe to imagine hypothetical universes, since the beings within are astronomically unlikely to have consciousness. 

Even if they are otherwise copies, or near-copies, of us.  Even if they react as we would, and it's natural to feel empathy for them.

We could definitely be brains in jars, but I reject the idea that simulation can create consciousness.
(This "proof" from my butt sounds familiar, I'm probably remembering something I read...  Probably from some sci-fi growing up.  I'd like to know what it's called, if anyone recognizes it.  I really should study actual philosophy more.)