Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? (2003)

Post by curiously » Wed, Feb 18, 2015, 12:46 AM UTC

Udo wrote: post #47

curiously wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think a logical, academic review of what I think the reality is of much use when in fact the very subject of what we are discussing is so strange and hard to fathom in our heads but I'll play. to me, if we were to believe that our our idea of ourselves is actually not unique, that we are just a very large variation of the basic properties of consciousness (something we can't really quite put a finger o…

> I really don't think a logical, academic review of what I think the reality is of much use [...] If the line of reasoning precludes itself from factual considerations, there might be very little point in discussing it other than perhaps for entertainment. Because if we're consigning ourselves to exchanging arbitrary stuff we simply made up, this becomes a collaborative fiction thread. Not that this is necessarily a…

okay so what do you suggest or want out of this discussion? I'm afraid I don't have answer to all your questions.

Post by tjradcliffe » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 12:25 AM UTC

shawnhermans wrote: post #27

tjradcliffe wrote: post #9

No: http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1220 Or if we are, the universe simulating us has completely different physics from the one we live in, which have to be fully specified before the "argument" becomes remotely plausible.

That doesn't prove or disprove anything. The author assumes the simulation would have to simulate the entire known universe at the level of detail we observe. That is absurd. A simulation wouldn't need to simulate the entire universe, just what I am observing at that exact moment. Think of it is lazy evaluation. The rules are all known, but they are not evaluated until needed. If we have one single person, how hard w…

> A simulation wouldn't need to simulate the entire universe, just what I am observing at that exact moment.

How do you know this? I've run a lot of simulations, and to get things exactly right anywhere you need to compute everything everywhere. That at least is my experience.

You've simply asserted that that is not the case, doing precisely what I'm critiquing the original argument for: imagining a case where there's no problem, and then asserting that case as a matter of fact.

As to Cartesian skepticism, it isn't even a self-consistent position: you want me to take your argument seriously while simultaneously asserting that I don't even know you exist.

Re: Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? (2003)

Re: Are You Living In a Computer Simulation? (2003)