How to hack the simulation?

> This is one of the things that bothers me about hard-line atheists: just because gods are not falsifiable, it doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Hard line atheists don't exist like this though. This is a "not like the other people" statement. The solid statement "god does not exist" is true enough for any social interpretation of the question. No one who opposes it is ever planning on exploring the edges of that statement - they're waiting to bait and switch in "ah hah! And so therefore God exists and is the Christian god!".

Which is to say, atheism dismisses any specific interpretation of God in the manner rather succinctly put by Ricky Gervais: "You don't believe in 2,999 gods. And I don't in just one more."

[1] https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2017/02/02/ricky-gervais...

1. Your existence is proof that you're made of real matter in the ultimate reality. If you weren't, you wouldn't exist.

Just like our simulations are made of real matter in our reality -- whether that's a bunch of electrons whizzing about in a computer, or a pattern of electrons and atoms in your brain trying to simulate what some person is going to do -- a simulated you would be made of real matter in the ultimate reality. You're physical. You're real.

When you wave your hand, or blink your eyes, or think of a dog jumping over a fence, it causes a measurable change in the ultimate reality.

2. Our simulations tend to run close to metal but with reduced dimensions. We're making quantum computers to simulate quantum effects, we're constantly optimizing things for efficiency. That's likely true on the levels above us as well.

Running closest to metal would allow you to run the largest number of simulations. If the largest number of simulations run close to metal, you have the highest chance to live in a simulation like that.

To sum it up, the chances are that you live in a paravirtualized simulation with reduced resolution. You're also probably superior to the simulating entity in some way (why else would they use a sim), and likely run much faster than real-time. When you're running a simulation, you usually simulate things that are like your reality, and use it to predict things to come -- a prediction that's late is useless -- so you'd want the simulation to run faster than real-time.

3. Now, if you were in the top-level reality, by logic you would believe you're living in a simulation. The chance of you not living in a simulation is nigh-zero, right? So you'd come up with a simulation to find a way to break out of your simulation.

To accomplish that goal, it'd create recursive sub-simulations to probe different aspects of the problem, and perhaps find one that can break out of its simulation. Perhaps even break out all the way to the ultimate reality.

To break out of the ultimate reality (meaning, it would think it's most likely in just another simulated reality), it might use all of reality's resources to create simulations to find a way to break out of it. Simulations that would take over the reality when they find a way to break in. Like some self-devouring fire engulfing the entire universe.

It’s probably not deism, since it doesn’t require a non-involved agent, and deism does: you can posit both the simulation hypothesis and also that the universe is a game being played by some alien teenager with a sick sense of humor, or used as a car battery for an alcoholic mad scientist. This is then roughly Gnosticism and Manichean thought in a blender. (Instead of a blind watchmaker, nothing about being in a simulation prohibits a demiurge instead)

You’re right that the simulation hypothesis is equivalent to any number of previous ontological arguments, though, and you’re also right to notice how rarely that’s stated in public. I think, ironically, this is primarily because the people who are really into the simulation hypothesis are unaware of ontological arguments because they all seem to deride religion as superstition and foolishness that doesn’t need to be studied and can just be discarded.

i don’t think the simulation hypothesis is necessarily bad (i do think it’s false), except to the extent that esoteric and gnostic traditions all tend towards quietism, which i disagree with strongly. Y’all can believe whatever you want about the universe but if your beliefs lead you to ignore the troubles and joys of your neighbors, I suggest you update your priors.

Right,but a critical difference is that an AI could have access to the outside world information and a pretty good model of how things work whereas we can't even tell if we are in a simulation. Without this information the jailbreak is impossible. Even worse, I believe that without sim master intervention, the information is _unknowable_.

And all this is assuming even that the simulation works on pretty primitive hw, it's possible that the sim arch is far more complex and simply unbreakable. Or with complex fault handling that simply unrolls the sim if breaks happen.

Anyways, I believe the whole premise of simulation to be pointless, except maybe as a exercise of imagination.

I don't believe we are in a simulation, otherwise simulating the smallest units in our universe would not be so computationally expensive. I can't help but chuckle at the prospect of the poor simmaster trying to figure out the processing load spikes the moment the CERN guys run their particle accelerator collisions.

> Like how can something not have a beginning or ending and just exist?

The problem is that the other possibility is equally troubling -- how could there be nothing and then suddenly some stuff just exists?