Would it be more interesting to the experimenter that the simulation itself is aware of the simulation, and what real incentive there is to terminate the simulation just because the simulated knew they're simulated? What if it's also part of the goal of the simulation.
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
21–30 of 267 posts
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#22I've never been entirely sure why this debate matters. A simulation, at least as we'd understand it, would mean some kind of set variables and set rules. It would be entirely deterministic, but you have to run it to see what happens. That kind of sounds like…physics? You have some basic elements like atoms and energy plus some set rules like conservation of mass, laws of thermodynamics, and the rest. Sure, we don't k…
Proving that the Universe is a simulation would be proving the existence of gods. Considering how much effort humans have dedicated to this question over the millennia, and the various consequences, and the continuing influence on the lives of the majority of people, I would say it matters.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#233 possibilities:
- We are not living in a simulation.
- We are living in a simulation, but it is a "perfect" simulation. There is no way to determine if we are in a simulation from within the simluation.
- We are living in a simulation, and it is not perfect. It could be exploited from within itself.
By far the most likely is 1 or 2, based on what we've observed, imho.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#24> If we were to prove that we live inside a simulation, this could cause our creators to terminate the simulation — to destroy our world. There's nothing to stop our creators from doing that anyway. Simulations are often stopped, tweaked, restarted, and eventually abandoned. Personally, I think there's value to determining if we live in a simulation. If we do live in one, we could potentially learn how to "hack" the…
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Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#25A simulation can’t have living objects
Considering what we've accomplished in the last 100 years I think it's easy to say that within a billion years we could develop the technology to simulate and create life. The question is would it take a billion years or a million or only 10k? You can't say it's impossible. It's just a matter of when.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#26Well, the current American ambassador to the UK is Woody Johnson, UKIP have just elected Dick Braine and government leaks are brought to us by Reality Winner, so if it is a simulation, the writers are busy dropping clues.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#27I've never been entirely sure why this debate matters. A simulation, at least as we'd understand it, would mean some kind of set variables and set rules. It would be entirely deterministic, but you have to run it to see what happens. That kind of sounds like…physics? You have some basic elements like atoms and energy plus some set rules like conservation of mass, laws of thermodynamics, and the rest. Sure, we don't k…
But physics as we understand it, isn't entirely deterministic.
There seem to be a number of other potentially important differences between living in a simulation and some other kind of "baseline" reality. One of those might be that a simulation sits inside of some kind of outer reality. It could therefore potentially be effected by that outer reality.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#28I would just view this as 'part of the simulation'.
If you assume with high probability that we're in a simulation, then the simulators are intelligent enough to predict that we may become aware of this eventually. If they're interested in human behavior, questioning our reality is part of it, not an exception.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#29Talking about we being in simulation will go down in history as the "era of stupid thoughts"
I can think of a few more reasons why this will be known as the era of stupid thoughts. One of them is in the White House.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#30I've never been entirely sure why this debate matters. A simulation, at least as we'd understand it, would mean some kind of set variables and set rules. It would be entirely deterministic, but you have to run it to see what happens. That kind of sounds like…physics? You have some basic elements like atoms and energy plus some set rules like conservation of mass, laws of thermodynamics, and the rest. Sure, we don't k…
Proving that the Universe is a simulation would be proving the existence of gods. Considering how much effort humans have dedicated to this question over the millennia, and the various consequences, and the continuing influence on the lives of the majority of people, I would say it matters.
In the spirit of Dan Dennett: then who simulated those gods? Super duper gods?