3 ms·

It is likely that our universe is a simulation [1][2]. And simulation rules could be absolutely arbitrary, including buggy Java program with thousands of edge c

It is likely that our universe is a simulation [1][2]. And simulation rules could be absolutely arbitrary, including buggy Java program with thousands of edge cases. 1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-s... 2: https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-abstract/53/211/243/1610975 https://academic.oup.com/pq/article-abstract/53/211/243/1610...

tsimionescu 6y ago
By the same arguments, there's a 50-50 chance that our universe is maya, illusion, and the only truth is one-ness. Or that it was created in the exact image of God, or whatever transcendental explanation you want to give. It would go like this: let's imagine that you were an omnipotent being. Then, one of three things must hold: either we will never become omnipotent beings, or omnipotent beings are not interested in creating a universe where creatures can become omnipotent beings, or we are living in the creation of an omnipotent being.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  We don't have any proofs that omnipotent beings are possible (and probably they are not possible, because university is considered finite). But it's obvious that simulating something is possible, as there are plenty of computer projects performing different simulations, so it's only a matter of scaling it up until something interesting will emerge. Even Conway's game of life is an interesting simulation with interesting creatures forming inside.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    There is no reason to expect that you could simulate the entire universe within the universe either; and even less reason to imagine it could be done losslessly, so that this could regress indefinitely, as the proof requires. In fact, I find that the idea that the universe could be entirely simulated in a portion of itself is actually very similar to the idea of omnipotent beings existing. They are about as plausible to me (not very) and have similar implications. In fact, if a human could run a simulation of the entire universe, they would be exactly equivalent to the idea of god for that universe, and could decide to enact whatever religious story they chose for their creations, including stuff like planting fossils that look millions of years old in a 6000 year old Earth, mutilating cows and causing crop circles, answering prayers for rain and floods, pulling the sun on a chariot across the sky etc. They could even decide to run beautiful simulations almost forever for people who do good after they die, and scary torturous simulations for those who did bad. So, if you believe in a simulation, you should also seriously consider that religious texts could be real and passed down from the runner of the simulation, whose name might as well be YHWH or Brahman.
    - vbezhenar 6y ago
      Obviously every nested simulation is many orders of magnitute less "powerful". That does not mean that there could be enough nested simulations. "Outer" universe could be unimaginably bigger, with more dimensions, have different laws of existence which would allow to simulate ours. As to god, well, if our universe is simulated, probably there's a god or gods who made that simulation. But, unless this simulation is human-centric, we're just a speck of dust and I don't have any reasons to suspect that we're somehow special and those "gods" interacted with our ancestors. So no, from any kind of scientific PoV, our religions are not trustworthy for me and religious texts are just interesting historical records. And if our civilization is the point of interest for that entire simulation, those texts are still weird and not trustworthy. It's should be relatively easy for "god" to provide an unquestionable miracle every few centuries to keep our beliefs, but there were not any trustworthy ones. Also there are too many of religions and they don't exactly look similar, so that's another issue, as it's not possible to choose a correct religion.
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        > Obviously every nested simulation is many orders of magnitute less "powerful". That does not mean that there could be enough nested simulations. "Outer" universe could be unimaginably bigger, with more dimensions, have different laws of existence which would allow to simulate ours. The argument only works if you have an infinite or at least unbounded simulation tower. Otherwise you can't jump from the observation that there could be simulations to the idea that there must be simulations or a Great Filter. My point with the religious stuff was to show that you can re-state any religious idea into a 'scientistic' interpretation if you accept the simulation argument. This doesn't mean you should believe in Thor any more than you do now, but to point out that if we accept the simulation argument we must also accept that all religious texts are valod objects of scientific inquiriy, as they could be presenting events that are non-physical in our simulated universe but physical in the upper universe. Even contradictory ones could be true, as the simulation could have been unwound and replayed differently.

tsimionescu 6y ago

By the same arguments, there's a 50-50 chance that our universe is maya, illusion, and the only truth is one-ness. Or that it was created in the exact image of God, or whatever transcendental explanation you want to give. It would go like this: let's imagine that you were an omnipotent being. Then, one of three things must hold: either we will never become omnipotent beings, or omnipotent beings are not interested in creating a universe where creatures can become omnipotent beings, or we are living in the creation of an omnipotent being.

vbezhenar 6y ago
We don't have any proofs that omnipotent beings are possible (and probably they are not possible, because university is considered finite). But it's obvious that simulating something is possible, as there are plenty of computer projects performing different simulations, so it's only a matter of scaling it up until something interesting will emerge. Even Conway's game of life is an interesting simulation with interesting creatures forming inside.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  There is no reason to expect that you could simulate the entire universe within the universe either; and even less reason to imagine it could be done losslessly, so that this could regress indefinitely, as the proof requires. In fact, I find that the idea that the universe could be entirely simulated in a portion of itself is actually very similar to the idea of omnipotent beings existing. They are about as plausible to me (not very) and have similar implications. In fact, if a human could run a simulation of the entire universe, they would be exactly equivalent to the idea of god for that universe, and could decide to enact whatever religious story they chose for their creations, including stuff like planting fossils that look millions of years old in a 6000 year old Earth, mutilating cows and causing crop circles, answering prayers for rain and floods, pulling the sun on a chariot across the sky etc. They could even decide to run beautiful simulations almost forever for people who do good after they die, and scary torturous simulations for those who did bad. So, if you believe in a simulation, you should also seriously consider that religious texts could be real and passed down from the runner of the simulation, whose name might as well be YHWH or Brahman.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    Obviously every nested simulation is many orders of magnitute less "powerful". That does not mean that there could be enough nested simulations. "Outer" universe could be unimaginably bigger, with more dimensions, have different laws of existence which would allow to simulate ours. As to god, well, if our universe is simulated, probably there's a god or gods who made that simulation. But, unless this simulation is human-centric, we're just a speck of dust and I don't have any reasons to suspect that we're somehow special and those "gods" interacted with our ancestors. So no, from any kind of scientific PoV, our religions are not trustworthy for me and religious texts are just interesting historical records. And if our civilization is the point of interest for that entire simulation, those texts are still weird and not trustworthy. It's should be relatively easy for "god" to provide an unquestionable miracle every few centuries to keep our beliefs, but there were not any trustworthy ones. Also there are too many of religions and they don't exactly look similar, so that's another issue, as it's not possible to choose a correct religion.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      > Obviously every nested simulation is many orders of magnitute less "powerful". That does not mean that there could be enough nested simulations. "Outer" universe could be unimaginably bigger, with more dimensions, have different laws of existence which would allow to simulate ours. The argument only works if you have an infinite or at least unbounded simulation tower. Otherwise you can't jump from the observation that there could be simulations to the idea that there must be simulations or a Great Filter. My point with the religious stuff was to show that you can re-state any religious idea into a 'scientistic' interpretation if you accept the simulation argument. This doesn't mean you should believe in Thor any more than you do now, but to point out that if we accept the simulation argument we must also accept that all religious texts are valod objects of scientific inquiriy, as they could be presenting events that are non-physical in our simulated universe but physical in the upper universe. Even contradictory ones could be true, as the simulation could have been unwound and replayed differently.