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Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

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Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#31

Post by mlb_hn »

brianberns wrote: post #4

> 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…

Or the flip side, if the goal of the simulation is to see how simulations react when they figure out they're in a simulation and if we decide to never try to figure out whether we're in a simulation they'll reset the simulation, that means we need to prove that we live in a simulation.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#32

Post by paulsutter »

rland wrote: post #23

3 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.

While 3 is unlikely, thanks for posting it. It’s the first reason I’ve ever heard that the simulation question could matter at all.

As a person who prefers high-variance outcomes, that could be cool

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#34

Post by incompatible »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #30
incompatible wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's simulations all the way up?

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#36

Post by nathancahill »

mbil wrote: post #12

I 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 artifac…

That's the theory used in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#37

Post by ako »

incompatible wrote: post #22
tyre wrote: post #10

I'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.

If simulations imply gods exist, humans must be gods, as we are doing plenty simulations.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#38

Post by Iv »

mbil wrote: post #12

I 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 artifac…

We are just NPCs in a Philosophical Zombie FPS.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#39

Post by wskinner »

This argument resembles Pascal’s Wager in the contradictory assumptions it makes about the beings running the simulation. Perhaps the forthcoming paper will resolve the issue. For those interested in exploring what it would mean to live a simulated life in a simulated world, the novel Permutation City by Greg Egan is wonderful.

Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out

#40

Post by mpoteat »

Animats wrote: post #14
incompatible wrote: post #3

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? 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…

Floating point has a finite resolution, and so does the position of subatomic entities, it turns out. I'm sure it's just a coincidence. :)
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