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Comment by eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7

5 years ago

Any ideas on how to detect being the subject of such a simulation without prior knowledge that the upload would happen, or that uploading even exists?

I assume "without prior knowledge" because from the perspective of the administrators of such infrastructure, it would be beneficial if the simulated subjects did not know that they're being simulated:

This would increase their compliance greatly.

Making them do the desired work would then instead be conducted by nudging their path of life towards the goal of their simulation.

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burkaman  5 years ago

There's a Star Trek episode (Ship in a Bottle) where a few of the characters are stuck in a simulated version of the Enterprise without their knowledge. They realize what's going on when they attempt a physics experiment that had never been tried in the real world, so the simulation doesn't know how to generate the results. I think this is a plausible strategy, depending on how perfectly this hypothetical simulation replicates the real world.

  • simion314  5 years ago

    But if the computer could detect the issue and slowdown or pause the simulation, ask for an administrator to intervene and then resume the simulation the issue would appear solved.

    In Trek tricking the crew fails either because the simulation is imperfect or because it is to slow and fails to do high computation but the crew tricked Moriarty because he is a computer program and they can pause or slowdown his simulation and handle exceptions.

    I recommend watching the movie Inception, it also has the idea that you might never be sure if you are in reality or stuck in some simulation.

  • whoisburbansky  5 years ago

    Huh, I was familiar with this trope from the Black Mirror episode that explores the same theme, down to Star Trek-esque uniforms and ship layout, had no idea it was based off of an actual Star Trek episode.

    • burkaman  5 years ago

      The Black Mirror episode is actually closer to a different holodeck episode (they made a lot of them) called Hollow Pursuits, where an introverted engineer creates simulated versions of his crewmates in order to act out his fantasies.

      I don't know if Star Trek invented this particular subgenre, but there are a lot of modern examples that seem directly inspired by Star Trek episodes. In addition to Black Mirror, the Rick and Morty episode M. Night Shaym-Aliens! has a lot of similarities with Future Imperfect, another simulation-within-a-simulation TNG episode.

Fellshard  5 years ago

I think that's what the story is hinting at when it mentions using 'the Objective Statement Protocols'.

The real issue would probably be that you're working with a disembodied mind, and even an emulated body seems like it would be significantly more difficult to emulate, given the level of interactivity expected and required of the emulated brain. Neal Stephenson's 'Fall' explores this extensively in the first couple sections of the book.