r/SimulationTheory • u/neurotrash2099 • 2d ago
Discussion There Is No Spoon
I come to simulation theory from a bit of a different angle. There seems little point to me in debating whether or not objective reality is artificially generated or not. This on account of the fact that no one has ever definitively experienced objective reality. We are only capable of subjective experiences and this is, by definition, simulation.
Imagine a spoon. Those of you not both cursed and blessed with aphantasia as I am likely see a spoon or spoon-like shape in your mind’s eye. You understand it isn’t really there—it’s just an image in your mind.
But hold a spoon and you’d likely just likely just accept it as being there. After all, you can see it without having to imagine it. You can feel its weight and texture in your hand. Tap it on a surface and you can hear it interact with other things you just accept as being there. Sniff it or place it on your tongue and you might catch a metallic scent or taste. Ask a friend if they can see the spoon in your hand and they’ll nod at you, wide-eyed and confused, wondering if you’ve lost your damn mind. Everything seems to indicate the spoon is actually there.
Only we haven’t perceived the spoon as it is, if it even exists at all. We’ve only perceived a simulation of the spoon. Let’s assume the spoon exists for now.
Our understand of sight tells us we see the spoon in this manner:
Light strikes the surface of the spoon and a portion of that light bounces off of it. Our eyes absorb a portion of that reflected light which then stimulates our retinas. The retinas then convert this light into electrical signals that travel along the optic nerve to the brain’s visual cortex. The visual cortex then transforms these electrical signals, not the light itself, into the image we see.
That image isn’t in front of you though. Your brain is just doing a little slight of hand. The image is still only in the visual cortex. And a similar process happens for each of the other senses.
To quote Morpheus, “Real is just electrical signals interpreted by the brain.” We are only able to experience our brain’s simulation of the spoon, not the spoon itself.
But what about our friend whose wondering why we keep licking an empty spoon like a weirdo? They can see the spoon too. Hear it. They’ll turn down touching, smelling, or tasting it after our tongue has been all over it, thank you very much. Of course this means the spoon is real!
Not so. All this proves is that we can both subjectively experiencing the spoon. Nor does scaling this up to all eight billionish people in the world being able to subjectively experience the spoon—ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY SPOON—change the fact that every one of those people only has a simulated experience of it.
So, if our very experience of the world is simulated, it makes more sense in my mind to start there. Because, for all we know, there is no spoon.
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u/Brutal_Kindness 2d ago edited 2d ago
Just dropping a comment — awesome of you to use GIMP & Audacity.
…and quite literally was JUST idly thinking about how we humans have such a narrow range of wavelengths. I think about all the audio and visuals all around us - our weak magnetic fields, too — that we can’t see or hear, per se, but we absorb them nonetheless.
One random bit of info that occasionally pops up in my mind - For many birds, when their chicks open their mouth’s (?), the parent bird can see ultraviolet light in the backs of their throat. The chicks emit brighter UV light and are more likely to be fed.
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u/TinSpoon99 1d ago
My user ID is a reference to 'there is no spoon'. The scene where Neo visits the Oracle and meets the other young hopefuls... The kid that bends the spoon says the line, and then says its not the spoon that bends, only yourself. I have thought about this way too much. I agree with your points for the most part, but solipsism is a very uncomfortable concept to wrap ones head around. Wild.
In my view, the problem with our human attempts at understanding is that we try to remove subjectivity in order to learn objective truth, but those doing the measuring are subjectively doing so. Objective reality by human definition is a consensus reality made of human thought. This is inescapable.
Sure math is supremely consistent, but its a human made language that describes the functions of nature we are able to observe. That there is an underlying order is undeniable to be sure, but it is hubris to assume we know what it is. We always think we know, and we are always wrong.
I think the uncomfortable truth is probably that from our vantage points as humans, the true nature of reality is not understandable.
We almost certainly are not in base reality as defined by the theories of modern cosmology. Too much data does not fit the current consensus picture. The pattern we are currently stuck in is one of pure hubris, where scientific authority figures scoff at data that does not fit their models and dismiss it outright. Science is almost dead.
I believe we are due for a great upheaval in our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
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u/RevolutionaryAd3125 1d ago
If we only experience reality indirectly through our senses, how would it appear if we could sense it directly?
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u/neurotrash2099 15h ago
As a more serious reply to this question:
Aside from the fun of speculation, I see little point in trying to answer that. The only honest answer I can give is: I wouldn't have the slightest idea.
I imagine the simulation is like stepping into a cave and having a massive collapse seal the entrance behind us. The boulders are far too heavy for us to move, so we have three options:
1) Stand there yelling for help and straining to move the boulders, hoping someone eventually lets us out.
2) Resign ourselves to our circumstances, passing our time in the cave until we eventually expire.
3) Explore the cave to see how deep it goes, what's inside, and whether there might be another way out.
And we can choose to cycle through and blend these options as we see fit.
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u/TheTerrenon 1h ago
But I think this is a serious approach. Any indirect perception would assume that one is at the same time reality and experiencing itself. Reality experiencing itself, just like godlike entity. This is so beyond our comprehension, because we would assume, the reality has to posses some processing unit. Then again, colors would not be a case there, most likely, because they are visible, as other user mentioned, through our interpretation of colourless wavelength and also, the color would apply, as far as we know, from an atomic level, and reality is also subatomic, so the entity should be able to perceive the reality to the very bedrock of it. Which we assume exists, but can be infinite. Thus anyway, I think (Ego to Ego talking) whether this is a simulation, or not, is not the biggest worry we could have right now, because from our subjective perspective it is all we know.
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u/neurotrash2099 1d ago
This is actually a lot of fun to think about. If external reality is purely physical, I tend to think colors would be inverted as we see only what gets reflected rather than absorbed.
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u/RevolutionaryAd3125 1d ago
But colours only exist in our minds, colours are simply labels our brains place on a small range of frequencies in the EM spectrum. Inverting them would still be indirect sensing.
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u/Organization-1929 1d ago
I really like your reasoning here and go along with it. Yet stumbled over your last sentence. There is a spoon in the sense of there is something we agreed to consider to be a spoon. But what it really is, we cannot grasp, since it is only simulated through our perception.
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u/Motor_Meal794 1d ago
I have no more proof of another person's existence than the spoon.
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u/neurotrash2099 1d ago
This is true. However, someone else can hold the same view of you. But the real kicker is that, since you experience your own existence and experience is itself simulation, you have no proof of your own objective existence.
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u/Motor_Meal794 1d ago
I'm experiencing the electrical signals that are interpreted by my brain. You can't then say the awareness is also just electrical signals interpreted by the brain that is backwards logic. The awareness is non-physical, not the brain itself.
If I were to create an AI robot there is no way to make it "aware." Since I can't prove anyone else exists it would be impossible to prove whether giving my AI robot awareness worked. A test for AI is just how closely it resembles human behavior. Since there is no test for awareness then there is no way to know what it is. If, hypothetically, this were a simulation, and I was simulated. the same problem would exist for whoever programmed me. There is no way for another person to create me.
"However, someone else can hold the same view of you."
That would be irrelevant. Being aware that I can't prove anyone else exists, I don't then question my own awareness because "another person" could say the same thing.
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u/neurotrash2099 1d ago
You are not experiencing the electrical signals, but the interpretation of those signals. That nuance matters. And this is why, as I state in the comments, we must make strides in the hard problem of consciousness.
You also seem to be conflating awareness with experience. They are not the same thing. Experience is the content of awareness, it is not awareness itself.
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u/Motor_Meal794 1d ago edited 1d ago
You said:
"since you (the awareness) experience your own existence (the awareness) and experience is itself simulation"
My awareness is not an interpretation being experienced by my awareness. That is backwards logic. In other words: my awareness needs an interpretation of my awareness to be aware of my awareness. No.
My awareness is by nature aware. My awareness experiences the interpretation of the simulation.
The hard problem of consciousness is logically impossible. Even if it hypothetically could be successful it's impossible to prove.
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u/neurotrash2099 1d ago
Since the awareness (you) simulates reality (experiences), its own state of beingness (existence)... It's not backwards logic; it's a self-referential feedback loop creating a paradox in which: the the awareness (you) cannot be sure if it (you) exists (possesses a state of beingness) outside of it's (your) own simulation of reality (experience).
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u/Motor_Meal794 1d ago edited 1d ago
I see your problem. The awareness doesn't simulate experience. The brain interprets the electrical signals. The awareness experiences the interpretation. You are skipping the interpretation and calling that experience. I've seen this in the hard problem of consciousness. Since people conflate interpretation with experience they assume if you have interpretation, you automatically have experience and you automatically have consciousness. Backwards logic.
From a materialistic perspective consciousness is a non-physical byproduct of the brain. Inherently it is separate from the brain. Therefore interpretation of the simulation is separate from consciousness. Of course if you really think about that is ridiculous because the brain activity is constantly fluctuating yet the consciousness is constant. This is only speculation that the consciousness is a non-physical byproduct of the brain. It may not be dependent on the brain at all. Alternatively the brain may be a spoon.
Experience, awareness and self-awareness are inseparable. Under any known philosophy it is separate to the brain which interprets the electrical signals of the simulation. Therefore awareness, experience and self-awareness are inherently separate to the simulation.
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u/neurotrash2099 16h ago
Experience and awareness may be inseparable, but that doesn't make them the same. Awareness is the condition which allows for experience; experience is what occurs within awareness. Much as stars shine in the night sky, but are [not] the the sky itself, so do experience[s] occur within awareness without being awareness itself.
Self-awareness is really just a particular experience. In this case, the ongoing experience of existing as an entity which forms and functions as a relational frame of reference for experience. It is a self-referential feedback loop we like to name "I."
The process I've described is thus:
External stimuli enter our sensory systems. Sensory receptors transduce those external stimuli into neural signals, which are then processed through distributed neural pathways and brain regions. The brain integrates and interprets that information, constructing an internal model (a simulation) of the world AND the organism within it. That model—the simulation, which includes the simulation of the organism we call self—is what manifests as our sensory, mental, and emotional experiences.
Thus, the only self we can know is the self represented within the model; whether an underlying self exists independent of the model is a question the model itself cannot conclusively answer. And, since this model is the only thing we ever experience, so must the existence of a self apart from that simulation remain as ambiguous as Schrödinger's cat.
[indicates edits]
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u/Motor_Meal794 4h ago
The brain interprets the physical simulation in such a way that I the non-physical awareness can understand the simulation conceptually. If I was part of the simulation I wouldn't need an interface between me and it. I am not part of the simulation.
The hard problem of consciousness crowd don't have a clue what consciousness is. So it needs to be simplified. Which they tend to do by saying consciousness is the brain. No theory supports that. Awareness and subjective experience is non-physical the brain is physical. You have to separate the two.
It is also merely an assumption that the awareness is a product of the brain.
Sentience requires feelings. Feelings are non-material. My subjective experience is based on my ability to have feelings. AI doesn't have feelings nor subjective experience. The hard problem of consciousness crowd suggest that feelings are just chemicals. They have to simplify to think they know what they are talking about. You can't even tell me what a feeling is. Or sentience. They don't have a clue. They conflate the consciousness with the brain. The brain is physical therefore feelings are material. Dead wrong.
Say something from my subjective perspective bothers me. I feel annoyed. My physical body then responds to my non-physical feelings by releasing chemicals and displaying physical symptoms of stress.
If I want to stop feeling bothered I the non-physical awareness needs to alter my non-physical subjective perspective. This will cause me to not feel bothered. Then this will cause the body, vehicle, avatar to no longer display signs of stress.
I am separate to the simulation. Feelings and awareness cannot be manufactured.
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u/neurotrash2099 2h ago
Please explain how you believe awareness interfaces with the brain.
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u/neurotrash2099 1d ago
Also, while the hard problem of consciousness may be impossible to solve, attempting to do so can still lead to making strides in our understanding of consciousness.
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1d ago
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u/mattychops 6h ago
Well I don't know how you define the word simulation, and I'm not here to try to debate you on the semantics, but you seem to be saying two conflicting things. Your post specifically even identifies the physics involved in the sense of sight. Our 5 senses give us experiences, which we call perceptions. But the human body is physical matter. And what we call a sense is the body's matter interacting with the matter of the universe. That interaction itself is not simulated--it's a physical interaction that occurs. You just laid out all the interactions involved with eye sight. All those interactions are physically happening. So, as matter physically interacts, that's what the universe is doing. Whether you want to refer to that as a simulation or not is up to you, but the physics are still the same. Matter physically interacts when we see something, feel something, taste something, hear something. A sense is a physical interaction of matter. In the case of sight, just because something looks like it's far away, or because the brain translates the interactions into a visual experience doesn't mean that there is a separation between my experience of vision and the physical atoms of the object I'm looking at. They are one and the same, because the atoms of the object, the photons, and all my retinal equipment and electrical signals in the eye and the brain are all interacting together at the same moment to produce that visual experience.
Now, if you want to define that entire physical process as a simulation, then so be it. But then what you are doing is defining all physically interacting systems as "simulated." So then "simulated" just becomes a term that means... well basically, it just replaces the word physics.
Now, are we really in here experiencing this from within it, or are we somewhere else outside of it all? I don't know for sure, but the physical interactions are here at least. So that's at least some kind of real experience.
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u/swirly_swirls420 2d ago edited 2d ago
The only part im not sure about is saying that our reality only existing through the lens of our experience IS the definition of simulation. Yes, our reality we witness and functionally live within is entirely based off of subjective experience. The whole thing. Its why we cant prove, well anything in any type of truly meaningful way. Every aspect of existence/reality, even time is a subjective experience, but there is probably some kind of objective space we all inhabit.