This idea has the same amount of supportive evidence as the rest of the creation myths.
Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
131–140 of 267 posts
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I develop physically-based renderers, the output of which is easily mistaken for photographs. I don't presume myself to be a god of course, but it does make me think... what if you piece together enough specialists for this that and the other aspect of a simulation, and run them on a freakishly powerful computer, with a sort of genetic algorithm simulating virtual beings... There's a great short story by Greg Egan ab…
Greg Egan - Permutation City. Very nice book.
I didn't like one aspect of the book, when he was trying to show that what simulated people feel doesn't depend on the way simulation runs, he was mainly focusing on computing later timeframes of the simulation before earlier ones, which is not possible.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#133I do relatively small simulations, yet I don't examine the contents of every variable. Maybe we're stuck in a simulation, and the gods don't even know we're here. Why should they care?
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#134Earlier 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.
So what would it mean if there are gods of simulation? Most religions and gods purely exist as a way to implement law and order: define what is good and bad, and to manipulate people to behave accordingly (otherwise you will be punished in hell). Would simulation gods really be interested in us following good and bad rules, or more interested to see what happens if people do as they want? If this is a simulation, my…
It means they would be able to pause the sim and intervene in ways that are not consistent with having "laws of physics".
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#135Earlier 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.
Gods always seems to pop up in discussions about this topic, which I find glib and annoying. We could prove the existence of the simulation runners. That does not suddenly mean theists were right. They would still be just as wrong as ever, making random assumptions without any evidence or scientific method at all. Lets say we were able to find out that the simulation runner looked and acted exactly like Zeus; that st…
Or that Zeus had sometimes turned up and spoken to them.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#136> if our universe has been created by an advanced civilization for research purposes, then it is reasonable to assume that it is crucial to the researchers that we don’t find out that we’re in a simulation. If we were to prove that we live inside a simulation, this could cause our creators to terminate the simulation — to destroy our world. Not necessarily. If we're in a simulation, then perhaps it's one that's a you…
I agree; and this is why there is not one jot of extra risk in exploring and testing; our simulation could be shut down at any time for some incomprehensible and arbitrary reason; so lets just enjoy reality while it is still there.
For all we know; the last fifty million years took place while Sally was away on a long school trip; and when she gets back she is going to be gutted that a disaster scenario killed all her nice dinosaurs; and press quit.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#137I'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…
Right. You could hypothesise that the speed of light is the speed at which the model can maintain consistency, and the Planck distance is its resolution.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#138Earlier 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.
So what would it mean if there are gods of simulation? Most religions and gods purely exist as a way to implement law and order: define what is good and bad, and to manipulate people to behave accordingly (otherwise you will be punished in hell). Would simulation gods really be interested in us following good and bad rules, or more interested to see what happens if people do as they want? If this is a simulation, my…
highly intelligent
Why would you assume that humans be considered highly intelligent? The experiment might not be as flattering as you’d like to think.
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#139Earlier 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.
If simulations imply gods exist, humans must be gods, as we are doing plenty simulations.
That is certainly true for various existing definitions of "god".
Re: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what would it mean if there are gods of simulation? Most religions and gods purely exist as a way to implement law and order: define what is good and bad, and to manipulate people to behave accordingly (otherwise you will be punished in hell). Would simulation gods really be interested in us following good and bad rules, or more interested to see what happens if people do as they want? If this is a simulation, my…
What if it's just a really detailed astrophysics simulation and any life is just coincidental and without interest to the ones running the simulation.
“What’s that?”
“What?”
“Over there, third planet out.”
“Oh, those. Yeah, some kind of bug. It usually fixes itself, often in quite the fireworks at the end! Anyway, supposed to be fixed next version.”