man you all really hate this idea. why? I hope its not just because its a thought experiment you guys are afraid to think about.
I personally love this thought experiment and the consequences one can reach from it.
Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
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Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#12Throughout my youth, I always considered a similar thought experiment.
Make the assumption you were some higher power with no concept of 'time' (or lived forever in our concept of time). What would you do? Well, I believe you would get very bored quickly, and the only logical solution is to run some experiments. I would start small (lets for arguments sake say at the molecular level, but almost certainly it would be at a smaller level in our perceived world) and create every possibility. That would not take very long - so you would have to create an infinite number of expanding test areas. Each one of these you could equate to what we consider our universe. So basically you are testing every possible 'path' that could exist.
I haven't put it very well to words here due to time constraints - but basically it seems like a logical conclusion that we exist in one of these 'paths'.
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#13Before you start on this, what about the problem of consciousness? If the simulations can't give rise to consciousness, then I know this isn't the case.
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't bother me. Presuppose a fancy, futuristic computer that can handle it, and -- bam -- problem solved. What bothers me is that it's tautological. It's meaningless and banal.
Well, nowadays philosophy is often meaningless. But I think it's a good exercise only to train our mind to think about non-conventional theories. Probably it's a lite version of 'What you can't say' http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html . Evidently, it's a question whose answer is unreachable and, in my opinion, completely irrelevant (i really don't care if there is/isn't god, if we are a computer simulation, or if I'm…
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Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#15man you all really hate this idea. why? I hope its not just because its a thought experiment you guys are afraid to think about. I personally love this thought experiment and the consequences one can reach from it.
It's not that this is shockingly new, it's that it's exceptionally unoriginal.
Every 15 year old has done all these thought experiments already. Brain in vat. What happens to personalities when you clone? What happens if you copy a brain on the molecular level - do you get two different people or not? Are you the same person you were 20 years ago? Even though every cell your body has been replaced?
It's just psych 101. Not topics you can discuss over and over again.
The computer simulation model is uninteresting because you can't use the model to make predictions that can be tested. And if you can't make useful (or interesting) predictions the model stinks.
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#16It depends if the universe is capable of computation.
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#17Throughout my youth, I always considered a similar thought experiment. Make the assumption you were some higher power with no concept of 'time' (or lived forever in our concept of time). What would you do? Well, I believe you would get very bored quickly, and the only logical solution is to run some experiments. I would start small (lets for arguments sake say at the molecular level, but almost certainly it would be…
"Make the assumption ... it seems like a logical conclusion"
For me, that sums up the problem with this kind of thing. Assumptions don't lead to logical conclusions, but "meta-assumptions" which have grown out of your original one. You can't put assumptions in one end of your experiment and get facts out the other, unless you can test your ideas.
Incidentally, I'm not hostile to your idea or the others discussed here. It's fascinating, but (like anything for which we can't acquire proof) my own belief is that it's not very useful.
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#18It's just another mind trick, enveloping the whole universe in something that we now understand (discret computer simulations).
Anyway, reality is an opinion, so any model is a valid model.
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#19What argument would have been made 100 years ago? Are we living in a steam engine?
Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?
#20The Simulation Argument is not that we are living in a computer simulation. It is that you must reject at least one of the 3 propositions:
(1) we are not living in a computer simulation
(2) the human species will give rise to descendants that have the power to run lots of simulations
(3) at least a few of them will run ancestor simulations.
Which of these three do you think is untrue? Alternatively you could reject the Simulation Argument that says the three propositions are mutually incompatible - but if so, how?