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Why are you unable to distinguish it? It is not, a priori, impossible. It is entirely possible that there may be ways to determine if we are in a simulation,

Why are you unable to distinguish it? It is not, a priori, impossible. It is entirely possible that there may be ways to determine if we are in a simulation, depending on how the simulation is done. No simulation is perfect, and it is theoretical feasible to find the imperfections.

danbruc 9y ago
To look for imperfections in a simulation requires knowing what the real thing actually looks like. If our universe is a simulation, where do you get the knowledge from what a real universe looks like?
- chr1 9y ago
  You can look for contradictions, inconsistencies or for macro scale phenomena not explainable by micro scale laws.
  - danbruc 9y ago
    That doesn't work. The rules used by the simulator could just be the rules of the real universe, you can not tell the difference. Or to put in programming terms, you are given an object x to inspect, our universe, and you have to decide whether it is an instance of class RealUniverse or an instance of class SimulatedUniverse but you have no knowledge of what any of those classes looks or behaves like.
    - gilbetron 9y ago
      You seem to be arguing that it isn't always possible to detect you are in a simulation, whereas the rest of us are arguing that it could be possible in some simulations.
      - jamesrcole 9y ago
        I think they're arguing that whatever evidence you think you've found for it being a simulation could always just be how the universe is.
- gilbetron 9y ago
  As a very crude example, imagine if there were "invisible walls" in our universe like many video games have. Were we to bump into one, or somehow find it, we would then try to figure out a scientific explanation, but if we ended up with a bizarre, labyrinthine theory after trying our hardest, well just maybe we are in a simulation. You could then try to come up with how our simulation works, and then come up with tests to prove those theories. Now, in the end, if we are in a simulation, that simulation (or one of its "parents") is reality, and so effectively we are all bound by the physics of the base reality, so one could argue that there is no harsh line between our simulations' physics and reality's physics, but that's another thread ;)

danbruc 9y ago

To look for imperfections in a simulation requires knowing what the real thing actually looks like. If our universe is a simulation, where do you get the knowledge from what a real universe looks like?

chr1 9y ago
You can look for contradictions, inconsistencies or for macro scale phenomena not explainable by micro scale laws.
- danbruc 9y ago
  That doesn't work. The rules used by the simulator could just be the rules of the real universe, you can not tell the difference. Or to put in programming terms, you are given an object x to inspect, our universe, and you have to decide whether it is an instance of class RealUniverse or an instance of class SimulatedUniverse but you have no knowledge of what any of those classes looks or behaves like.
  - gilbetron 9y ago
    You seem to be arguing that it isn't always possible to detect you are in a simulation, whereas the rest of us are arguing that it could be possible in some simulations.
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      I think they're arguing that whatever evidence you think you've found for it being a simulation could always just be how the universe is.
gilbetron 9y ago
As a very crude example, imagine if there were "invisible walls" in our universe like many video games have. Were we to bump into one, or somehow find it, we would then try to figure out a scientific explanation, but if we ended up with a bizarre, labyrinthine theory after trying our hardest, well just maybe we are in a simulation. You could then try to come up with how our simulation works, and then come up with tests to prove those theories. Now, in the end, if we are in a simulation, that simulation (or one of its "parents") is reality, and so effectively we are all bound by the physics of the base reality, so one could argue that there is no harsh line between our simulations' physics and reality's physics, but that's another thread ;)