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Something I've never understood about 'simulation theory' is why? It would take an unfathomable level of technology to simulate a universe. If you had advanced

Something I've never understood about 'simulation theory' is why? It would take an unfathomable level of technology to simulate a universe. If you had advanced to that point what could you possibly learn from a simulation of primitive cultures? Why would this theoretical civilization waste such a vast amount of resources on our supposed 'simulation' when they could be using that same computing power to solve problems relevant to their advanced society? Unless they just ran out of things to do and got bored I don't see why such an advanced civilization would waste their time simulating us.

jfengel 4y ago
The gist is "in umpteen gazillion possible universes, there must exist some in which there are incredibly bored people with access to heavy-duty compute power". And since those universes can create umpteen-gazillion simulated universe, the odds are that if you pick a universe at random you're more likely to be in the latter than the former. So their motivation doesn't matter. You just have to know that some motivation could exist, no matter how stupid or pointless. Compare the number of people in this universe who spend endless hours debating a non-testable theory of simulated universes which have no consequences at all.
ncmncm 4y ago
They are way beyond learning. We are just entertainment. "Let's make an absolute clown a billionaire, give him a rocket company. The rockets actually work, and he will think it is because he is so smart. It will be hilarious!"
- baja_blast 4y ago
  But they could just observe a newly formed intelligent species on another planet. Or even genetically modify an alien species to improve it's intelligence and watch how it evolves.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    That would involve going there. And, you know, getting off their sofa. And, billionaires there might not be clowns. Or vice versa.
afiori 4y ago
My impression is that the simulation theory is essentially a "what if Matrix was true" (it is said that originally the machines were meant to use humans not as batteries, but as computational resources for the Matrix), which is essentially a Cartesian doubt about "what if an evil genie is lying to me about everything. In both of these cases you exist in the real world, but are trapped in a dream/simulation/lie. In the "modern" simulation theory we are often imagined as pixels in a huge Game of Life: the entire universe runs on some computational device where it is represented as little more than bits. This theory is a complete thought stopper: there is no concept of escaping the simulation as We does not exists in the "real" world, the same way that a Minecraft Enderman does not exists in ours. This is the why in my opinion. It allows for many wasted hours of thought bu nothing is at play, nothing is actionable, nothing can be learned, and more importantly your opinions can never be disproved.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Every society thinks the universe is what they invented. For the Victorians, the universe was clockwork. Now the universe is a video game.
  - pschuegr 4y ago
    Good start... you have more examples?
throwaway29303 4y ago
And what makes you believe it's about us at all? We might not be the end goal.
- weare138 4y ago
  Even then what is the goal? If you can simulate a universe then you've figured everything out already.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    You could simulate a universe and still not predict what crack-brained scheme Elon would think up next. That, in fact, would be the point. "I know, feed mayonnaise to tunafish!" Who in their omniscience would expect (simulated) people to pay a billionaire/clown what, for them, is real money, to have a self-crashing car?
  - throwaway29303 4y ago
    Even then what is the goal? That's hard to know. How would one even go about finding out such a thing? I can only see physicists as the only ones having the right tools to get a glimpse of an answer to that question. If you can simulate a universe then you've figured everything out already. Maybe. Maybe not. See it as an app you're developing and the code-compile-test cycle. Maybe we're a buggy version. Maybe we're not. Maybe there's a typo somewhere. It's hard to know. Maybe the Big Crunch will be able to tell them (whoever or whatever they are if they exist at all). Alternatively, our reality could be just ourselves and everyone is just a NPC (or ourselves in a different state of entropy) and once we die the simulation ends and someone will get the core dump and see what went wrong. Anyway, it's fun speculating about this stuff but it's real frustrating not knowing what exactly reality really is. Oh well, maybe the next version will tell us. :D

jfengel 4y ago

The gist is "in umpteen gazillion possible universes, there must exist some in which there are incredibly bored people with access to heavy-duty compute power". And since those universes can create umpteen-gazillion simulated universe, the odds are that if you pick a universe at random you're more likely to be in the latter than the former. So their motivation doesn't matter. You just have to know that some motivation could exist, no matter how stupid or pointless. Compare the number of people in this universe who spend endless hours debating a non-testable theory of simulated universes which have no consequences at all.

ncmncm 4y ago

They are way beyond learning. We are just entertainment. "Let's make an absolute clown a billionaire, give him a rocket company. The rockets actually work, and he will think it is because he is so smart. It will be hilarious!"

baja_blast 4y ago
But they could just observe a newly formed intelligent species on another planet. Or even genetically modify an alien species to improve it's intelligence and watch how it evolves.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  That would involve going there. And, you know, getting off their sofa. And, billionaires there might not be clowns. Or vice versa.

afiori 4y ago

My impression is that the simulation theory is essentially a "what if Matrix was true" (it is said that originally the machines were meant to use humans not as batteries, but as computational resources for the Matrix), which is essentially a Cartesian doubt about "what if an evil genie is lying to me about everything. In both of these cases you exist in the real world, but are trapped in a dream/simulation/lie. In the "modern" simulation theory we are often imagined as pixels in a huge Game of Life: the entire universe runs on some computational device where it is represented as little more than bits. This theory is a complete thought stopper: there is no concept of escaping the simulation as We does not exists in the "real" world, the same way that a Minecraft Enderman does not exists in ours. This is the why in my opinion. It allows for many wasted hours of thought bu nothing is at play, nothing is actionable, nothing can be learned, and more importantly your opinions can never be disproved.

ncmncm 4y ago
Every society thinks the universe is what they invented. For the Victorians, the universe was clockwork. Now the universe is a video game.
- pschuegr 4y ago
  Good start... you have more examples?

throwaway29303 4y ago

And what makes you believe it's about us at all? We might not be the end goal.

weare138 4y ago
Even then what is the goal? If you can simulate a universe then you've figured everything out already.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  You could simulate a universe and still not predict what crack-brained scheme Elon would think up next. That, in fact, would be the point. "I know, feed mayonnaise to tunafish!" Who in their omniscience would expect (simulated) people to pay a billionaire/clown what, for them, is real money, to have a self-crashing car?
- throwaway29303 4y ago
  Even then what is the goal? That's hard to know. How would one even go about finding out such a thing? I can only see physicists as the only ones having the right tools to get a glimpse of an answer to that question. If you can simulate a universe then you've figured everything out already. Maybe. Maybe not. See it as an app you're developing and the code-compile-test cycle. Maybe we're a buggy version. Maybe we're not. Maybe there's a typo somewhere. It's hard to know. Maybe the Big Crunch will be able to tell them (whoever or whatever they are if they exist at all). Alternatively, our reality could be just ourselves and everyone is just a NPC (or ourselves in a different state of entropy) and once we die the simulation ends and someone will get the core dump and see what went wrong. Anyway, it's fun speculating about this stuff but it's real frustrating not knowing what exactly reality really is. Oh well, maybe the next version will tell us. :D