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are we inside a simulation ?


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Karacoreable

@AVEN #1 fan Do you think the videos give compelling proof we live in a simulation? Thought I'd check before I respond, don't want to reply all seriously if it's more tongue in cheek. ;)  Not about the parallel universes, that's an interpretation of quantum mechanics that most mainstream physicists won't dismiss out of hand. Every QM course I've taken mentions it. Then they usually go on to say that the interpretations are the realm of philosophers and we shouldn't worry too much! But the stuff about simulations in those videos... not sure I agree with what they say! :)

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AVEN #1 fan
4 hours ago, Karacoreable said:

@AVEN #1 fan Do you think the videos give compelling proof we live in a simulation? Thought I'd check before I respond, don't want to reply all seriously if it's more tongue in cheek. ;)  Not about the parallel universes, that's an interpretation of quantum mechanics that most mainstream physicists won't dismiss out of hand. Every QM course I've taken mentions it. Then they usually go on to say that the interpretations are the realm of philosophers and we shouldn't worry too much! But the stuff about simulations in those videos... not sure I agree with what they say! :)

The ones that comes from research institutes or physics and philosophy intellectuals are quite convincing . But yeah , since there's no mathematical evidence yet , I think we can only rely on philosophical theories.

 

I have 2 theories myself:

  1. "We live in a video game created by an angst alien teen who lives in their mom's basement"
  2. "We live in somebody's dream/mind"
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This is one of those metaphysical questions that in my opinion isn't really worth considering. I ask myself two questions:

 

1) Does access to knowledge to the answer of this question yield any further answerable insights or questions?

2) Without knowledge of (1), Is there any way I would perceive living in a simulated reality differently than I would a non-simulated reality.

 

My answer to both is a firm no to both questions. In my opinion questions like these are far beyond the scope of what can be answered given our limitations. I mean simply being constrained to living within the known universe is a huge blow to the prospect of answering this question.

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Karacoreable

Well, there are some pretty famous people there for sure. Michio Kaku for example, but he's talking about string theory and parallel universes. I mean, the entire video by Klee Irwin is just shocking. I'd never heard of him, but having watched that I thought I'd better find out a bit more about him! He works outside any recognised institution, which isn't in and of itself a reason to dismiss his work, but when you read his papers, you realise why none of them have ever been published in a journal. And in my view that means calling himself a 'quantum gravity researcher' is unjustified, because he hasn't done anything that's been peer reviewed and found to be worth publishing. Just utterly bizarre statements he makes, quantized energy levels do not preclude smooth translational motion. Sorry, I got quite cross when I was reading about him so of course I had to share! :lol:

 

I also have to say that the next video I chose, the podcast entitled 'The Universe is a Computer Simulation', cited a paper by reputable authors, and said these authors had found evidence we lived in a simulation. So of course I went and had a look on arXiv, and they claimed no such thing in the paper. They looked at where evidence might be found, should it exist, so of course they started from the premise that we are indeed in a simulation. But nowhere did they say this evidence had actually been found - they seemed inclined to think finding such evidence was beyond our current capabilities. The exact opposite to what the podcast said. Which is incredibly incredibly annoying, it's really blatant. Either they didn't actually read the paper or they didn't understand it at all.

 

I didn't watch the other videos, but be wary of anything on YouTube that claims to be based on 'scientific evidence' - if evidence of anything exciting had actually been found, YouTube would not be how you'd find out! You'd get uproar in the scientific community first, probably after publication on arXiv, and then the mainstream media would cotton on. I can't believe I looked into those in so much detail, it's terrible what university does to a person. Sorry, I didn't mean to write such an annoying, hyper-critical and pedantic rant, I just think it's important to note that YouTube is the source of dangerous inaccuracies sometimes. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Rich Terrile, a big cheese at NASA believes we are in a simulation - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/simulated-world-elon-musk-the-matrix

 

I actually lean towards this myself, and have done for a while.  It's probably reading David Icke books as a teenager - a lot of what Icke has said I don't put much stock in, but some of it does resonate with me, especially the holographic universe theory, because it does seem to make more sense of the world.  From a purely theoretical perspective it is interesting how everything that exists in the universe can theoretically be modeled by a computer simulation already, assuming enough computing and memory resources were available.  What I mean by that is that the fundamental laws of physics and nature can all be boiled down to mathematical equations, whether that is the motion of sub-atomic particles to celestial bodies and the effects of gravity, energy transfer, etc etc.  Whilst we might not know how gravity is generated we can actually model it very well using a computer simulation.  And the same can be said for many observable physical phenomena.  Essentially the argument is that if a simulated reality could be formed, then it probably has been formed and we are probably living in one such reality.  It could even be like the opposite mirror effect, where each simulation is spawning another simulation, and yet another simulation, all the way down to an almost infinite state...

 

I suppose ultimately it doesn't really change anything, simulation or not.  This is the life we are leading, in the time and place we are currently at.  Its a fascinating topic though...

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On 7/28/2017 at 7:17 AM, Karacoreable said:

You think quantum mechanics is essentially a consequence of being in a simulation? That's an interesting idea.

 

Elon Musk certainly thinks we're all in a simulation. He's made that abundantly clear.

we're either in a simulation or not, if we are then our laws of physics are simply computer codes that allow the simulation to function, if we're not in a simulation then the laws of physics are still what allow the universe to function, it's just less clear where they came from. 

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Karacoreable
17 hours ago, Arte said:

we're either in a simulation or not, if we are then our laws of physics are simply computer codes that allow the simulation to function, if we're not in a simulation then the laws of physics are still what allow the universe to function, it's just less clear where they came from. 

Of course. What I meant was that I'm specifically intrigued by the idea that quantization even of energy levels, and possibly the indetermnism that comes with QM, are the results of being in a simulation. If that's what you were saying. :) 

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No, because the combination of DT, TM, and Hoo Flung Dung (or whatever the NK President is called) would be beyond the mindset of the most trollish VR creators 

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1 hour ago, Skycaptain said:

No, because the combination of DT, TM, and Hoo Flung Dung (or whatever the NK President is called) would be beyond the mindset of the most trollish VR creators 

 

Agent-based modelling is fairly mature by now. DT shouldn't be too difficult to emulate.

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DT could be simulated before the creation of artificial intelligence 

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I have no idea, although I think it would be cool. But I'm not sure what practical difference it would make, so from a pragmatic standpoint, perhaps it's an irrelevant question.

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If you had all ways lived in a sim it would be impossible to know without creative thought

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Somebodysomeone

This is deep man xd would be an enourmess shock if we realized were living in the matrix or something 

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  • 3 months later...

This is one of my favourite topics!

I believe we are in a simulation. you can find many basic computer functions in the everyday world. I/O is my go-to example. Someone punches a wall. They feel pain. The wall is (slightly) dented. Cause and effect. I tell the computer to print something to the screen, and it does. Cause and effect.

My favourite video on the subject:

https://youtu.be/tlTKTTt47WE

I also think that everything is mathematically defined by a fractal algorithm, but that's just me.

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  • 2 weeks later...
paperbackreader
On 10/12/2017 at 8:59 PM, Human 327 said:

This is one of my favourite topics!

I believe we are in a simulation. you can find many basic computer functions in the everyday world. I/O is my go-to example. Someone punches a wall. They feel pain. The wall is (slightly) dented. Cause and effect. I tell the computer to print something to the screen, and it does. Cause and effect.

My favourite video on the subject:


https://youtu.be/tlTKTTt47WE

I also think that everything is mathematically defined by a fractal algorithm, but that's just me.

The next time I fall over (either by tripping over myself or walking on sludge) I will try to take some comfort in knowing that the pain I experience is a mathematical fractal algorithm to you...

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1 hour ago, paperbackreader said:

The next time I fall over (either by tripping over myself or walking on sludge) I will try to take some comfort in knowing that the pain I experience is a mathematical fractal algorithm to you...

have you fallen again (since last Wednesday)?

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paperbackreader

@Midland Tyke Thankfully no, but life for the vertically challenged is such that it's bound to happen sooner or later...

Have a huge blue black spot on one of my elbows now from Weds though :-(

 

Sometimes I wonder whether stuff we're experiencing is real. Converse to @Sleighcaptain, I feel that the existence of DT / TM / KJU could demonstrate that they are the work of some unrealistic, sadistic author, or the max settings of a random character generator from a simulator, because dealing with 1 sadistic author / randomly assigned max values is infinitesimally  more acceptable than thinking of them as genuine by products of progress and social development, and generally 3 > 1, so 1 is better... 

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6 hours ago, paperbackreader said:

@Midland Tyke Thankfully no, but life for the vertically challenged is such that it's bound to happen sooner or later...

Have a huge blue black spot on one of my elbows now from Weds though :-(

 

Sometimes I wonder whether stuff we're experiencing is real. Converse to @Sleighcaptain, I feel that the existence of DT / TM / KJU could demonstrate that they are the work of some unrealistic, sadistic author, or the max settings of a random character generator from a simulator, because dealing with 1 sadistic author / randomly assigned max values is infinitesimally  more acceptable than thinking of them as genuine by products of progress and social development, and generally 3 > 1, so 1 is better... 

It's a bit harsh on TM to group her with that lot. BoJo might fit in though. And don't get me started on TB - the one man who did take us to war in the last 30 years

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@Midland Tyke

 

TB is a fatal illness that people are inoculated against :P:P

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2 hours ago, Sleighcaptain said:

@Midland Tyke

 

TB is a fatal illness that people are inoculated against :P:P

It didn't work. He got elected...

As a child (and later, if I'm honest), I was always a little surprised that Tuberculosis got abbreviated to TB

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  • 3 weeks later...

What if when we die, we respawn at the last checkpoint but our minds can't comprehend this timeframe? :P

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  • 1 month later...

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