Simulation theory is amazing to work with.
I have been working with simulation theory as a starting point for thought and ideas and I have to say it's amazing. There is so much potential here and I love everything about it.
I have been non-stop pumping out possibilities and ideas. It has also helped me realize certain aspects of life and the human species. I would really like to hear if anyone else has fun simulation theory based ideas.
I have been non-stop pumping out possibilities and ideas. It has also helped me realize certain aspects of life and the human species. I would really like to hear if anyone else has fun simulation theory based ideas.
Comments (51)
What are your own thoughts and theories?
My ideas are more of fantasy because at this point all theories can sound like sci-fi. But I really like playing with the idea currently that the entire universe could cease to exist for years on end and we would never know. If you think about it, if reality is a simulation, the simulation could crash and everything would cease to be. But if the simulation has save points and is rebooted at the time it crashed we wouldn't notice anything. It's a fun idea to think about I guess.
The entire universe cannot be a simulation, because there must be something left, say a second universe which is real, and of which our universe could then be a simulation. So the speculation makes no sense.
If the simulation crashed, wouldn't we all die? Do you think it's possible that we can die, and be rebooted at a save point? Since there would be a certain amount of loss, between the save point and the crash, wouldn't going back to the save point be like going back in time? Instead of worrying about this simulation, why not just try to find a way to go back in time, to a save point, if something happens that you don't like. Be careful though, you wouldn't want a Groundhog Day.
1. Give us power to alter reality
2. Destroy everything possibly permanently.
The issue also is if you go back to a save point you would no longer be living within this simulation. The reason I think it's not possible is if you think about a video game. If you're playing a game with multiple saves, the only way to access the other saves is if you're playing on that save or give that save to someone else. Meaning, past points of our universe could be playing out from other simulators with different results and realities. But, for someone in a current ongoing game to try and go back into time (to a different save) would make them cease to exist. They could succeed but unless that save is active than they are gone until it's activated.
It's just fun to ask this kinda stuff to myself I guess :P
Look, a simulation requires that there is something to simulate. If the entire universe would be a simulation of someone outside the universe "running the simulation", then it shouldn't be a simulation of a universe but someone outside it "running the simulation", which is obviously different from a simulation of the universe. Like I said, it makes no sense.
It brushes aside the origin of the universe by just supposing it is generated on some grand computer, and it comes with an inherent appeal to cause and effect (which on it's own is persuasive).
Really it's just determinism with window dressing and isn't cause for immediate jubilation. Elon Musk really thought he was onto something when simulation theory inspired in him the following argument:
It is possible that the only way for new universes to exist is for them to be simulated
It is possible that we are a simulation within a simulation
It is possible that the programmers of the simulation will destroy us if we do not "pay it forward" by ourselves hosting simulations of new universes from within our own
Conclusion: As an ultimate goal we need to strive to simulate a sub-universe in order to ensure the continued existence of our own
[insert slow clap]
Whence your concern for my comprehension? Post a counter argument instead, if you can.
That's not my problem but yours. What I typed lays out how your claim fails to make sense.
He's just saying that the universe we find ourselves to live in is a simulation. He's not saying that there isn't a real non-simulation universe in which our universe is simulated.
What do you think of Bostrom's trilemma?
1. The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero, or
2. The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero, or
3. The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one
What kind of evidence suggests that there's a purpose? Presumably if there is some then a simulation-universe would differ empirically from a non-simulation universe?
I think the idea is that there is one universe and it is the inhabitants of the future that are simulating the past, and they are doing it an enormous number of times. Hence we are far more likely to be simulated than real.
But, if you add in the infinite number of other universes, and the infinite number of causally disconnected regions in our own infinite universe, then the fact that we are simulations is inevitable.
He says that the entire universe is a simulation, in which it is assumed that there isn't anything outside the simulation. Or he is misusing the word 'entire' or 'simulation' or both.
Humans have the luxury of no longer needing to think about survival as much. Of course, not all humans have this luxury, but the ones that do keep evolving. If our purpose ended at trying to survive we wouldn't keep evolving. We have met the one known purpose of existence yet we continue to change. I interpret that information as another purpose. Why do we continue to change? For what purpose?
The reasons I think there is a creator based on all this is the fact that humans are so complex. I don't mean to suggest that I can't comprehend the fact that the human body and mind could be a random occurrence. But there is no reason for us to exist if life was a random occurrence. Life doesn't need to be as complex and imperfect as humans to exist. If life simply only needed to exist it would have been much more optimal to create something other than humans.
Which just means that living things have intentions, not that life qua life has a purpose.
I don't know what you mean by this being a purpose. It's just something that happens, like the water cycle.
Your reasoning leads to an infinite regress. If life is evidence that our universe is a simulation being run in some parent universe, and if this parent universe has life (which surely it must if our simulation-universe is an intentional creation), then this parent universe shows evidence of itself being a simulation being run in some grandparent universe, and so on. Where does it end? Is it simulations all the way up?
It's fun to think about but I don't really like to ponder about what's past certain points. I see it as climbing a building. Climbing story by story is easier than trying to lasso the top of a skyscraper. If that makes sense.
Quoting Grey
You might find it interesting to read up on some basics of evolution. It's the thing which tends to answer those kind of questions quite comprehensively.
What part of
Quoting jkop
do you not understand?
Why do you think there would have to be a second universe?
What a dizzying idea, but an enormous number of simulations won't increase the likelihood of other things being simulations. Even in a universe replete with simulations each and every simulation must be composed of parts which are constituitive for the possibility, but insufficient separately. The number of parts is always greater than the number of simulations.
Quoting tom
How would an exercise in counting infinities be a reason to believe that reality is a simulation?
So you can't believe simulation theory because there will be more parts of a simulation that simulations themselves?
I didn't say that.
The key question is ''how can we know whether reality is "real" or just a simulation?
To answer this question we can examine dreams. When in a dream state one doesn't realize that one is dreaming - everything feels real until you wake up in the real world.
Can there be something analogous to that in reality? Has anyone ''awakened''?
According to known physics, our descendants will be able to simultaneously simulate many trillions (surely an underestimate) of universes simultaneously on a single device. They will of course be using quantum computers.
Quoting jkop
It renders the probability of us not being simulated zero, to any degree of accuracy.
Of course this is all predicated on the idea that our descendants will simulate us. They won't!
Just to be pedantic for a moment. 'Simulation' does not involve a clone, nor an identical copy. Simulated sex, for instance (to lower the tone momentarily) is nothing like the real thing. Simulation is something which imitates in an unspecified number of respects the thing or activity simulated. The 'unspecified' part makes me worry at the vagueness of the concept, which provides a get-out close if there are details uncopied in the simulator.
This of course applies both to 'simulation theory' and to the Deutsch idea of quantum computers simulating life. Simulation is limited-in-some-way imitation.
Looks like it contains fallacies of ambiguity, such as two different senses of 'world' used in one sense: worlds you could be in. Or different senses of 'to be': as in to be in a world, or to be represented in a world etc..
We can't.
There is a decisive answer to the question whether we're brains in a vat, recall. We're not brains in a vat, because if we were, then not only would our lived world be a simulation, the words 'vat' and 'brain' would not refer to real brains and vats either. Likewise, we don't live in a simulation.
Only if the causal theory of reference is correct.
The irony here is that this proof against us being brains in a vat was a disproof of realism, as realism entails that it is possible that we're brains in a vat. And given that the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is a problem for the realist, this answer isn't a satisfactory answer at all. The realist needs for it to be possible that we're brains-in-a-vat, just not the case that we are.
Not so! The Boltzmann brain, or rather a Boltzmann person, would simply have false memories, and the words "vat" and "brain" would refer to the real things.
The issue is that for many cosmologies, we are vastly more likely to be BBs than real people. There is actually a large physics literature on this problem, and a surprising level of disagreement. It's not a problem that can be just swept under the carpet. Some physicists think it is a big enough problem that our current consensus cosmological model (Lambda-CDM) must be wrong!
???
Just what evidence are you talking about?
The simulation would be part of the universe, no?
A problem with this is that we can't actually create anything two-dimensional.
The Wrong Starting Point
You are beginning with the wrong mindframe. You should have the perspective of "Data vs. Theory". If there is no data, then any theory is just as viable as the next (and the theorists shouldn't argue with one another - as they still do - not being aware of my premise). In a special case, there may be a lot of good date (verified knowledge), but YOU may be completely unaware of it, and you will be creating simulations that have already been explored and have been deemed unreal (though entertaining).
The Value in Creating Uninformed Simulations
The only value in creating uninformed (meaning lacking an adequate awareness of existing verified knowledge) simulations is in the exercise of your imagination. Why is such exercise important? Because it is a critical phase in science - the phase where you are considering possibilities (which is the phase that precedes selecting which possibilities to spend time, expense, and energy investigating further).
Programmers of a simulation can do whatever, beyond the usual cheat console in some games.
Reliability goes out the window, which undermines our efforts to understand the world.
[sub]Guard In Video Game Under Strict Orders To Repeatedly Pace Same Stretch Of Hallway (The Onion, Oct 2014) :)[/sub]
My take on this is we can't disprove that we're in a simulation. Suppose Mr. x lives in a universe u simulates a universe v and Mr. y is in v.
y would need to be able to come out of v and exist in v, like x, to realize it is in a simulation.
However, y's sense organs are designed for universe v and there's no guarantee that these senses will work in universe u.
I think that's one of the most basic problems for Mr. y (us).
That means we can never know if we're in a simulation or not.
So, all we're left to do is to play around with the idea without achieving anything substantive.