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If compute power is the only thing that matters, we do not live in a simulation. The best computer we can hope to build in the future will only have a minute fr
by ozy 10y ago
If compute power is the only thing that matters, we do not live in a simulation. The best computer we can hope to build in the future will only have a minute fraction of the compute power of reality. Simulating reality on that computer will either be a tiny reality, or a much lower fidelity reality.
If you find yourself alive, likely you live where there is the most compute power, therefor, base reality.
Especially since we have zero indicators that any part of our reality is "fake".
Think about a character in the Sims, it would never be able to understand the mechanism by which its arm moves, if it understood its world completely. Because those movements are part of the simulator, not part of the simulated world. Arm movement is not an emergent effect.
Our reality however is based on atoms. Or quantum fields if you want to go deeper. And maybe some kind of cellular automata behind that.
If evolution had a purpose, we can detect an upwards line in complexity, and we must conclude it is unlikely we humans are the end station. Probably we will create self replicating intelligent machines that can colonize space. Emotional meat bags are not very suitable ...
- hathawsh 10y agoReality in the universe one level up could be different in such a way that it is more conducive to creation of virtual universes. Our idea of reality could be a mere shadow of what others think of as reality.
- ozy 10y agoFrom our universe, and simulations we can create, and simulations in there, etc. it holds. It is interesting to think that an outside universe could be so different it does not hold going up to base reality. But that implies that logic, math, and computability, are different there. That is not very likely, though ultimately unknowable to us. Literally "a mere shadow of what others think of as reality" implies that that universe has a lot more compute. Therefor with much higher probability you would have evolved directly in their universe, on some tiny pinhead, or in a corner of their universe, not in a simulation they create, no matter how many they create.