Talking about we being in simulation will go down in history as the "era of stupid thoughts"
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
11–20 of 267 posts
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#12I like the ancestor simulation theory and it's really fun to think about. But I don't understand why humans specifically would be the thing to get simulated. Couldn't we just be a bi-product of a universe created to simulate something else? I mean imagine you wanted to simulate a universe -- given enough computing resources you could simulate a universe's worth of atoms, and humans might just be an accidental artifact of the atoms globbing together in really fascinating ways.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#13The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe? Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient. The night sky could just as well be blank. Perhaps the stars have been included for aesthetic reasons? I suppose it's possible that in some simulations "they" do leave the sky blank, in others they include randomly distribute…
The universe we happen to inhabit is just the chosen world of the simulation. It may not bear much resemblance to base-level reality. In the same way that Skyrim's universe is different from ours.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#14The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe? Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient. The night sky could just as well be blank. Perhaps the stars have been included for aesthetic reasons? I suppose it's possible that in some simulations "they" do leave the sky blank, in others they include randomly distribute…
The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe?
Right. And why so much unnecessary detail down to the quark level?
(Of course, if you really like the simulation idea, maybe we're in an unimportant corner of the simulation and the real action being observed is elsewhere. Much simulation-hypothesis blithering has the same human-centered problem as theology.)
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#15The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe? Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient. The night sky could just as well be blank. Perhaps the stars have been included for aesthetic reasons? I suppose it's possible that in some simulations "they" do leave the sky blank, in others they include randomly distribute…
> Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient.
But that's exactly how it is with our Universe! There's clear evidence that the important and relevant stuff happens only in the Solar System, and the rest of the Universe is just empty procedurally-generated useless filler.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#16I'm a hard determinist and so I view everything very much as a simulation.
Responsibility for everything follows the chain of events back to whatever started everything.
You can't even blame the creator of this "simulation" if such a creator exists because you would have to continuously follow the chain of events again with the creator.
I do like to theorize there are many chains of simulations that resemble a tree of branches (each being a simulation) but maybe with no starting point. Example we may make our own universe one day with computers and another will be created inside that simulation for infinity.
In any case, I like to add the understanding of infinity to these ideas of philosophy. Knowing we're all just the result of external forces exerted upon us. One can realize that we likely have lived our same life countless times. Who knows if something in the universe can interfere like hidden local variables that resemble quantum mechanics for us and make our lives slightly different in the next go. Worsening or improving our fate as the forces continuously repeat for infinity.
I find the idea "the chain of forces that made our life, will never repeat ever again in our universe" tremendously naive.
Whoever disagrees with what I wrote, please reply with your thoughts. I very much stay sane when it comes to death with this ideology. Everything else seems illogical.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#17A simulation can’t have living objects
It depends on how you define life.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#18'To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#19The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe? Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient. The night sky could just as well be blank. Perhaps the stars have been included for aesthetic reasons? I suppose it's possible that in some simulations "they" do leave the sky blank, in others they include randomly distribute…
They only have to simulate the signals we get about the Universe, not the Universe itself.
There is also the possibility that it is simulated only to one person's sensory input, which reduces the computing power needed quite a lot. I mean, how are you supposed to prove that author of this comment is not just crappy AI homework from a lazy student participating in the simulation study? Frankly, that would explain a lot...
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#20The assumption seems to be that the purpose of the simulation is to investigate humans. In that case, why bother to simulate the entire Universe? Simulating the Solar System would be sufficient. The night sky could just as well be blank. Perhaps the stars have been included for aesthetic reasons? I suppose it's possible that in some simulations "they" do leave the sky blank, in others they include randomly distribute…
Maybe the rest of the universe is being cheaply simulated, the simulator only computing what we observe. And it isn’t like it has to do anything for what is outside of our observable universe.