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"The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a un
by JackFr 14y ago
"The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened."
That sounds distinctly like Anselm's ontological proof for the existence of God, and thus likely suffers from the same logical fallacies.
- jerf 14y agoIf you want to take on a non-strawman version of the argument, check out benhammer's links below. That said, I do often feel that at the literal edges of our universe (in all the senses of that term), our uncertainties simply dominate everything and all of our guesses about the true nature of reality are dominated by that uncertainty. Something (or, depending, multiple somethings) must be true for some value of true, but I'm skeptical if we can discover it. If it popped up and simply flat-out told us what the truth was somehow (the Great Simulator writing the message in the stars [1]), we probably couldn't confirm it. [1]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/
- batgaijin 14y agoWell the most interesting part of the Matrix trilogy was when Neo used his powers in the 'real' world; specifically stopping the drones and being able to see despite losing his eyesight.
- specialist 14y agoTotally. I expected the simulation within a simulation, turtles all the way down, plot twist. My favorite theory was that all the humans were passengers on a generational seed ship traveling to the next star, kept in near stasis to keep them alive and mostly sane during the millennial transit. That would have played nicely with The Architect's explanation that in the perfect simulated world, humans went insane. So The Architect devised worlds with struggles. But the iteration we observed got out of hand, due to The Oracle's meddling. Such a wasted opportunity.
- batgaijin 14y agoI remember seeing the trailer for Reloaded and hoping that they would give the red pill to an AI.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- solidjelly 14y ago"The Matrix Reloaded is a film that the Matrix would have made, if the Matrix had been asked to make a film about the Matrix" - Jean Baudrillard
- crusso 14y agoSuch a wasted opportunity. Yeah, but there were a lot of explosions.
- klipt 14y ago> learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe Pretty sure under our current understanding of physics, it's impossible to simulate a universe like our own within our own.
- worldsayshi 14y agoYes, this. I take it that the amount of inverse entropy is always diminishing. In order to fully simulate a universe with the same amount of entropy^-1 we need at least as much as we had at the initial moment. But entropy^-1 will always decrease.
- learc83 14y ago>impossible to simulate a universe like our own within our own Impossible to perfectly model a universe, but not impossible to simulate something that looks like a tiny part of a universe.
- thret 14y agoI imagine it would be like a computer game, where you only had to simulate the universe from the point of view of the user. This would fit nicely with the Copenhagen interpretation.
- robryan 14y agoYeah, I am thinking about the Trueman show, around him the simulation is very detailed and polished. The further he is away though from a part of the world the less simulation effort that is being made.
- tantalor 14y agoAnselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", and then argued that this being could exist in the mind. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, a greater being is possible—one which exists in the mind and in reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument (no comment, just providing context)
- SilasX 14y agoWhat are the specific parallels you see, beyond them both sounding specious? The simulation argument says: if simulating minds is possible, and technologies eventually advance to the point that they can do it, a civilization would make lots of them. Thus, most minds are virtual, so your mind has a high base rate of being one. Anselm's argument is: the best thing in the world would have to exist, since existence is better than non-existence. I define God as the best thing, so God must exist. I don't quite see the parallel, but if you see something specific, I'd like to hear it.