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The first step is to realise that it makes no difference to the people living inside a universe whether that universe is "real" or simulated. The second step i
by bloak 5y ago
The first step is to realise that it makes no difference to the people living inside a universe whether that universe is "real" or simulated.
The second step is to realise that it makes no difference to the people living inside a simulated universe whether you actually run the simulator, or even bother building it.
For example, the set of prime numbers less than 10^12 exists whether or not you build and program a computer to print them out. If you write a program that simulates a universe, then the mathematical object defined by that program exists whether or not you build a computer and run the program, and to any conscious beings that happen to exist inside that hypothetical universe it can't possibly make any difference.
That's my opinion, anyway.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago> then the mathematical object defined by that program exists whether or not you build a computer and run the program This is how physics poses to "see behind the veil", so to speak. The implications seem a lot more interesting than a computer simulation, at least to a [this] human's perspective.
- andyjohnson0 5y agoWhat if mathematics is only valid within the simulation? If seems natural to us that a simulation must be grounded in mathematics, and that maths must therefore be a thing within the reality/universe that is running the simulation, but I don't think this is a given. The infrastructure might utilise something else that we can't conceive of.
- tsegratis 5y agoMathematics can describe concepts abstractly, like a type checker checking a program, even if we can't decide whether the program halts or not In that sense, we might be able to use mathematics to describe systems that are beyond the reality of the universe For 'us' to be meaningful to 'them', hopefully we can conclude that in some sense, 'they' are meaningful to 'us', tho agreed, as you said, it is no given I like the aleph sequence, because it shows that allowing paradoxes and impossibilities doesn't mean all bets are off -- that the universe can make perfect sense, even containing paradoxes that are beyond our conception