7 ms·
We might live in a computer program but it may not matter
- FuNe 10y agohttp://www.simulation-argument.com/ http://www.simulation-argument.com/
- drjesusphd 10y agoAs far as I can tell, this is just a rehash of the Boltzmann Brain paradox. Instead of random fluctuations in the heat death, it's intentional simulations run by our descendants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
- jlebrech 10y agocould this explain meditation, maybe you're not just rewiring your brain but the universe too.
- coldtea 10y agoWhat's to explain about "meditation"? Even more, what's there to explain that would be explained by the idea that "you're not just rewiring your brain but the universe too"?
- xyzzy4 10y agoSo people who are bored on airplanes because they forgot to bring reading material are rewiring the universe?
- fallingfrog 10y agoWe don't live in a computer simulation. Here's why: No matter how efficient your computer is, the total state space of all the simulations in the universe is less than the total state space of the containing universe. In fact even if you dedicate the total energy output of the universe to running simulations, the total simulated state space is much much less than the state space of the containing universe. And that applies recursively- all simulations contained in the simulations can't possibly add up to more than a tiny portion of the volume of the containing universe. So, you're incredibly more likely to be in a real universe.
- CuriouslyC 10y agoYour argument only knocks down the idea that the universe is simulations all the way down, assuming a finite prior probability distribution on the size of the universe (which I would be inclined to agree with). Even if each simulation was three orders of magnitude less efficient than its parent universe, that would still leave a lot of room for simulation.
- fallingfrog 10y agoRight, but what I'm saying is that the total "room for simulation" is at most as large as the room in the parent universe, and probably much smaller. So if you were randomly spawned somewhere in the total space made up of all the real and simulated universes, the chances are very good you'd be in a real universe, not a simulated one.
- CuriouslyC 10y agoThat would be true, assuming a uniform prior probability of complex life in the real universe and a simulation. In actuality the simulation would almost certainly have rules that encourage the aggregation and stability of information, such that the probability of complex life would be much, much higher.
- fallingfrog 10y ago
- kushti 10y agoA great read on so-called modern society living in a simulation is Jean Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation".
- jasonkostempski 10y agoAlso a good place to store cash and MiniDisc.
- GFischer 10y agoI had to look that up :) http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
- sickbeard 10y agoAnd rain could be a giant's pee? There's no evidence we do live in a computer so why bother
- dublinben 10y ago>There's no evidence It's also an unfalsifiable claim, since there is no way to prove we are or are not. As such, it's a waste of time to think about, since it doesn't matter.
- aikah 10y ago> Similarly, Google's machine-intelligence guru Ray Kurzweil has suggested that "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high-school student in another universe". And for the other universe, who's experiment is it? I don't think the question matters. What matters is to acknowledge that we don't know and we have no way of knowing, it's the most urgent thing to do, in order for humanity to reach its "golden age". We'll get here eventually, since it's about the very survival of mankind. It's our "golden path", for those who get the reference.
- alanwatts 10y ago>To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease. -Lao Tzu
- _nalply 10y agoThis thought is similar to solipsism. René Descartes was afraid that he is truly alone because all his experiences are just imaginations. He said «Cogito ergo sum», but this was not enough to prove that others exist. The similarity to the simulation argument originates from the problem that we can't be sure that our perception is truthful. However there is a counter-argument from Ludwig Wittgenstein. In a summary we have language. Language is too complex a construct to be invented alone. Because we speak we know we are not alone. This is of special importance to me, being born profoundly Deaf. There exist poor deaf children who were isolated from language and never learned the basics. I had the misfortune to meet some of them. This drove the nail home that language cannot emerge in complete aloneness. Now this doesn't apply to the simulation argument, because language might be provided from outside by the simulators.
- nanny 10y ago>However there is a counter-argument from Ludwig Wittgenstein. In a summary we have language. Language is too complex a construct to be invented alone. Because we speak we know we are not alone. I'm not familiar with that argument, so I'm just going based off your summary, but to me that sounds eerily similar to people who claim that life cannot evolve because it is too complex.
- _nalply 10y agoGood point. However it's different. There were billions of molecules to evolve to life. But a single molecule can't evolve to life. Of course this argument is hyperbolic but you know...
- jasonkostempski 10y agoThere exist poor deaf children who were isolated from language and never learned the basics... in your imagination.
- _nalply 10y agoFirst I thought you were trolling. A good one.
- drivingmenuts 10y agoUnless we can get out of the simulation and start kicking someone in the upper-dimensionals about all the crap we're put through in their test-to-destruction, all the philosophical theory don't really matter, does it? If it turns out there is an afterlife, I seriously hope to haul management out into a back alley for some discussion about a few things.
- syphilis2 10y agoI figure that if we did live in a computer simulation it's been 13.8 billion years since the last downtime. I'm skeptical software could run for so long without any catastrophic bugs.
- jasonkostempski 10y agoIs a Minecraft world aware it's was rebooted or restored from a previous state?
- aikah 10y ago> Is a Minecraft world aware it's was rebooted or restored from a previous state? That's an excellent point, we wouldn't know or be aware of that. For all we know the system is offline everyday as our reality stops for a thousand year for maintenance.
- 300bps 10y agoI'm confident you're making a joke but there's nothing to say that a simulation couldn't spawn a 13.8 billion year old universe that has only actually existed for a second. And any downtime is likely to be invisible to anyone inside the simulation. Even a catastrophe could have the simulators restoring from tape and putting things back the way they were while we files are none the wiser.
- angstrom 10y agoCould actually go a step further if relativity is right your'e looking at time slices in your local environment and ephemeral time slices before or after your plane of existence outside your local observable universe depending on your relative motion. The very premise that there is a constant rate of change which cannot be exceeded could also indicate everything has already been simulated. Is it fate or freewill? It's a debate as old as philosophy.
- AlexeyBrin 10y agoBackup systems - save a copy of the universe at some fixed time interval. In case of failure restore from the most recent backup and eventually correct the cause of the last failure.
- joeyspn 10y agoBigBang --> GRUB v12039.0.0-beta
- majewsky 10y agoNah, the universe is definitely running on UEFI. Why else would it take hundreds of thousands of years after the big bang for the first stable atoms to form?
- majewsky 10y agoMaybe our universe is just a microverse within another universe, and energy is extracted from our microverse to charge someone's car battery.
- baccredited 10y agohttp://www.adultswim.com/videos/rick-and-morty/the-ricks-must-be-crazy/ http://www.adultswim.com/videos/rick-and-morty/the-ricks-mus...
- tumbas 10y agowhen it commes from britain it sounds like something that communist wheel chair physics retard might say. centuries ago people belived that rock is a God. centuries later africans belive that too and britain competes with this inovative twist