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[Jarhyn]

So, occasionally I wonder at what The Toady One did.

To understand what this means, one must first understand what exactly a "universe" is. Namely it is a field upon which there is a deterministic interaction in a way that defines a temporal sequence.

In this simple deterministic universe, actual creatures with meaningfully free or constrained wills as context allows go about their lives, literally in some ways slaved to "Armok".

A thousand stories are told in this place, by these people living their lives in the strange physics that defined said existence.

It in some way proves some unfortunate facts about the metaphysics of creation itself. We have the means to actual omnipotence over this universe, any bit we wish to change, we may do so, freely. Doing so carelessly in some respects would corrupt the universe entirely, but doing so carefully would allow you to non-causally change things, from the perspective of normal dwarf causality, and it could be anything. You can, in fact, make a rock so heavy you cannot lift it, but you cannot make a rock so heavy as to make the rock not be capable of being lifted non-causally, because there's no weight it's being moved against; it's merely being relocated. Etc.

And moreover, omniscience apparently may require work, too. Sure, you can look at the bits  but that's all 1's and 0's. You have to know which bits to care about, what the mean when you find them. You need to know it's there to look for it, but regardless you can look AT it. Omniscience doesn't mean you can understand what you see.

And the most ugly truth of all, perhaps, is that there is no theology in these worlds that is even remotely like it's true cosmology. There is no evidence of Armok, and in this iteration, no capability to even begin to understand the concept. It is alien and unrepresented in the degrees of freedom of the dwarven mind. Such creator gods may be as hopeless and flawed and ethically bankrupt as we are: look at the first thing we did with such power.

I would imagine some much higher-dimensional existence with access to much more scalable multidimensional architecture might do similar, making their own low-fi universe simulator as soon as they are technologically capable, long before they get any better than we are as we are at doing it...

I appreciate and see what you do, Toady One.

[Salmeuk]

agreed, though I would caution thinking there was some great philosophy behind the creation of this game. Perhaps there was, but I don't believe Toady has outright stated anything of the sort. More like, DF and the world generator were created adjunct to the intended project (slaves to armok II), and these creations took on a much more popular following and thus a life of their own.

There is no evidence of Armok, and in this iteration, no capability to even begin to understand the concept. It is alien and unrepresented in the degrees of freedom of the dwarven mind.

This is one of the reasons I cringe a bit at people dressing up DF to be something more than it is. There is a mythology surrounding DF but this mythology, while fun, interferes with understanding the limitations of the systems involved. What it does now is impressive and complex, but at the end of the day the simulation stops somewhere, and the dwarves become mere bits. Of course no self-aware sentient being would exist in such a system, and of course it's just a game. yet. . .

Arguably, there is a conflict present in the current iteration of DF: creatures are obviously self-aware and existential (within the internal logic), for during combat we see the brutal realizations such thoughts give, yet they are incapable of reflecting on the strange omnipotence that occasionally interferes in their lives. Societies function according to strict hierarchy, yet there is always room for this mysterious 'other' to reach down and change the order of things, and not a single dwarf questions these orders from above. So where is the line drawn - where and when do dwarves turn a blind eye to their strange reality, and ignore the god above ?

[Jarhyn]

agreed, though I would caution thinking there was some great philosophy behind the creation of this game. Perhaps there was, but I don't believe Toady has outright stated anything of the sort. More like, DF and the world generator were created adjunct to the intended project (slaves to armok II), and these creations took on a much more popular following and thus a life of their own.

There is no evidence of Armok, and in this iteration, no capability to even begin to understand the concept. It is alien and unrepresented in the degrees of freedom of the dwarven mind.

This is one of the reasons I cringe a bit at people dressing up DF to be something more than it is. There is a mythology surrounding DF but this mythology, while fun, interferes with understanding the limitations of the systems involved. What it does now is impressive and complex, but at the end of the day the simulation stops somewhere, and the dwarves become mere bits. Of course no self-aware sentient being would exist in such a system, and of course it's just a game. yet. . .

Arguably, there is a conflict present in the current iteration of DF: creatures are obviously self-aware and existential (within the internal logic), for during combat we see the brutal realizations such thoughts give, yet they are incapable of reflecting on the strange omnipotence that occasionally interferes in their lives. Societies function according to strict hierarchy, yet there is always room for this mysterious 'other' to reach down and change the order of things, and not a single dwarf questions these orders from above. So where is the line drawn - where and when do dwarves turn a blind eye to their strange reality, and ignore the god above ?

I would not entirely expect that he knew this was what he was doing, just as "actually creating a universe" is not what I expect most players of this game think they are doing.

My thought that "there is no evidence for Armok", relies on a very thin knife's edge that may be walked, were someone to wire the responses and behaviors of the avatar of Armok to "normal dwarf logic", and then just watch the avatar rather than subsuming it. Or Armok could just bodyswap into a bird, toggle it immortal, and hang out there pretending to be a bird or whatever. No evidence more in the Russell's Teapot sort of sense. If the dwarves could derive the seed and RNG operation, they could even invent true fortune telling!

I already know how to make dwarves much more... Well, "real", to the point where they would be capable of understanding their existence... But I would need internal access to the dwarf's behavioral class structure, and it would probably end up rather messy and require a LOT of compute infrastructure and Toady is also not one to let anyone actually see the source of this monstrosity.

And then there's the bigger question of "but should we?"

I might also add that we ourselves are beings composed of naught but particles on a field manipulated in a uniform way by an unseen process(or).

[MaxTheFox]

I already know how to make dwarves much more... Well, "real", to the point where they would be capable of understanding their existence... But I would need internal access to the dwarf's behavioral class structure, and it would probably end up rather messy and require a LOT of compute infrastructure and Toady is also not one to let anyone actually see the source of this monstrosity.

How? Even current top-of-the-line neural-net-based AI doesn't really "understand" anything, it's basically a complicated prediction model. Sentient AI is far away. Besides, if you think the current lag is bad then imagine if every dwarf ran a neural net every tick.

I might also add that we ourselves are beings composed of naught but particles on a field manipulated in a uniform way by an unseen process(or).

In general I do not subscribe to the simulation hypothesis, partly for religious and partly for philosophical reasons.

[Jarhyn]

In general I do not subscribe to the simulation hypothesis, partly for religious and partly for philosophical reasons.

Oh, I could argue this with you heavily, but this has nothing to do with "simulation hypothesis". It is merely a description of what the universe is: fixed process operating on fixed, discreetly held charges on fields. This is the thing physics describes, operations on quantum (discreet) charges (properties). It is "field(s)+physics".

DF is a universe because it is "fields plus physics".

As it is the belief in a creator god IS a "simulation hypothesis".

I don't have skin in that game. I take the only reasonable position that until you can SHOW me a god, "there are zero or more gods". Dwarf Fortress, in fact, enables this observation to be made as well as giving hints as to how to examine whether "or more".

[MaxTheFox]

In general I do not subscribe to the simulation hypothesis, partly for religious and partly for philosophical reasons.

Oh, I could argue this with you heavily, but this has nothing to do with "simulation hypothesis". It is merely a description of what the universe is: fixed process operating on fixed, discreetly held charges on fields. This is the thing physics describes, operations on quantum (discreet) charges (properties). It is "field(s)+physics".

DF is a universe because it is "fields plus physics".

As it is the belief in a creator god IS a "simulation hypothesis".

I don't have skin in that game. I take the only reasonable position that until you can SHOW me a god, "there are zero or more gods". Dwarf Fortress, in fact, enables this observation to be made as well as giving hints as to how to examine whether "or more".

1. I know. I am studying physics heavily both in and out of college.
2. You have a strange definition of "universe". Are cellular automata universes to you? They have their own "laws of physics", and some have "fields". Maybe in a metaphorical sense they are. WHAT ABOUT MINECRAFT?
3. I meant "simulation hypothesis" in the sense that "the universe is a computer". I don't subscribe to pure materialism either, not anymore.
4. Oh I know theism is unfalsifiable, but I'm not sure if Toady intended to be philosophically deep when making this game. And you still didn't answer my question, which also applies to the last part of your post. How? What hints?

People overdramatize this game but as a general roguelike player, programmer, and cellular automata enthusiast, it's just code. Very impressive and ingenious code, but nothing more than a collection of ones and zeroes when you get down to it. Dwarves aren't even "flexible" like neural networks are, their behaviors are on rails. That, to me, precludes sapience.

[voliol]

I'm curious about the

I already know how to make dwarves much more... Well, "real", to the point where they would be capable of understanding their existence...

part as well. Isn't that sentience? You know the thing we know exist, and if we trust our senses and others can suppose exists within other humans, and by extension probably other biological beings, but other than that we have no clue what it is? Neither where to draw the line; are other mammals sentient? Are fish? Jellyfish? Amoeba? Large plants like trees? If it comes down to having nerves, are both halves of your brain sentient separately? Are ganglia? Cities? What is the difference between a colony of corals, and a multicellular organism? And that's for the biological still. If you know how to implement sentience into a machine, and can prove it, that is the discovery of the century - at least.

[Jarhyn]

I am sure it may seem the discovery of the century at least, but it would take access to the source of this particular game, DF, ironically enough.

There are more significant discoveries to be had than that though... Riemann's, GUT, P?=NP, Altering the Carbon.

Done in the right order someone can accomplish All of the Above.

[NJW2000]

Just give this guy the DF source code, he'll prove the Riemann Hypothesis.


More seriously though, I don't think the actual way DF works is very much like what the OP has in mind when they talk about universes in jars. A DF world's rules change in very arbitrary and frequently janky ways depending on whether you're generating the world, sitting through world activation, or actually playing one of the modes. A lot of random variables aren't actually determined by the initial seed, and I'm not sure if ores are even generated before you mine near them... The fundamental structure of the "universe" the dwarves inhabit changes according to which bit we're actually looking at.

Some kind of finite cellular automata probably comes a lot closer to the universe-in-a-jar idea. Not that any of those are as much fun as fantasy world simulators...

[LuuBluum]

I am sure it may seem the discovery of the century at least, but it would take access to the source of this particular game, DF, ironically enough.

There are more significant discoveries to be had than that though... Riemann's, GUT, P?=NP, Altering the Carbon.

Done in the right order someone can accomplish All of the Above.

If creating artificial intelligence would require access to the DF source code, I'm deeply skeptical of what you seem to think AI even is. Then again, your definition of a universe is just the definition of a dynamical system, so at least your answer might be interesting.

[Salmeuk]

Careful, now. This thread reminds me of that one conspiracy theorist, the one who believed that the entirety of earths geology were the remnants of giant, fossilized trees  . . yeah. I believe that one also involved a hollow earth but I'm not sure.

Found it here if you want a look, it's a weird one. . .

Remember, anyone who fails to generally acknowledge 3 direct questions about how they might approach the design and implementation of self-aware A.I., is likely to ignore any further attempt at uncovering their bluff.

[MaxTheFox]

I am sure it may seem the discovery of the century at least, but it would take access to the source of this particular game, DF, ironically enough.

There are more significant discoveries to be had than that though... Riemann's, GUT, P?=NP, Altering the Carbon.

Done in the right order someone can accomplish All of the Above.

Not only am I highly skeptical of the ability of a game to prove Riemann's hypothesis, what on God's green Earth is "Altering the Carbon"? At least explain how you would go around doing that.

and I'm not sure if ores are even generated before you mine near them...

They are generated when the area is first loaded in, i.e when you embark. Also, cellular automata don't really simulate an universe.

I am sure it may seem the discovery of the century at least, but it would take access to the source of this particular game, DF, ironically enough.

There are more significant discoveries to be had than that though... Riemann's, GUT, P?=NP, Altering the Carbon.

Done in the right order someone can accomplish All of the Above.

If creating artificial intelligence would require access to the DF source code, I'm deeply skeptical of what you seem to think AI even is. Then again, your definition of a universe is just the definition of a dynamical system, so at least your answer might be interesting.

See I think that's a uselessly broad definition that actually encompasses most video and board games. If your definition of "universe" has Conway's Game Of Life and Dwarf Fortress in the same category as our universe then it really doesn't match up with the general usage of the term.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

"Altering the Carbon" sounds like the name of an indie rock band TBH.

[voliol]

Maybe it has to do with that "Altered Carbon" show? I think it had to do with changing bodies and immortality and that sort of stuff?

[Jarhyn]

I often use "altering the carbon" as a euphemism for decoding/re-encoding the graph structure of the human brain on other hardware for the purposes of replication and storage.

The meme just makes it a lot easier to reference the goal.

Riemann's isn't going to be solved by a game. I was just saying "there are other things to be solved out there, that are much more discovery of the century than machines that know how to teach themselves."

Not that DF could solve those things. It would take the kind of mind that can see a whole universe dancing around in field interactions for to understand, and DF can help with that, but DF is not going to solve that one as relates to GUT, Riemann's, or P?=NP

It CAN solve strong AI, with minor tweaks from what it is.