Simulationism

[quack35]

Sometime I wonder if I'm the only person who actually exists...

Hey, if you guys didn't exist, you'd tell me, right?

 

[Wildhound]

It's also one of those philosophical arguments that proceeds using pure reason, and is logically sound, but never investigates whether it's premises are true.

Correct, it's nice to see there are some people around here who actually read before a response. The thing is the premises can't really be investigated very thoroughly and as such I don't think the idea of the argument is to prove this philosophy. It's very deliberately worded in a way that invites you to accept the premises if you see fit, rather than trying to offer proof.

We can't really know if it's possible to make a simulation as detailed as our entire universe, without knowing anything about the universe the simulation is running in. We can't know if a civilisation would ever run these simulations, without having an example of one that could. If our universe were a simulation, theoretically it would be impossible for us to actually figure it out, which is what makes the entire discussion so pointless. It would never actually matter one way or another. For me it's a blatant case for Occam's Razor.

It still makes for an interesting bit of a mind fuck when you realise that the premises aren't that unreasonable, and if true, would actually make it overwhelmingly likely that our universe is simulated. It's just one of those topics that can be amusing to toss around in your head for a while. Turning it into some form of religion is a whole other bag of bananas...

/me goes to look for Easter Eggs in Universe v1.0

 

[GloatingSwine]

If our universe were a simulation, theoretically it would be impossible for us to actually figure it out, which is what makes the entire discussion so pointless. It would never actually matter one way or another. For me it's a blatant case for Occam's Razor.

Actually, it's quite simple to figure out that the universe is not a simulation, because it runs too quickly into combinatorial explosion. Even simulating a middle world universe for one brain would encounter this problem, because the variability inherent in the universe causes the computational power required to work out the combinations in real time to increase exponentially as the number of possible combinations existed.

When you expand the scope of that simulation to an entire universe at the quantum level (and no, clipping doesn't help, the universe still exists when you aren't looking at it [http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13226725]), the combinatorial explosion guarantees that the level of computational power required is indistinguishable from infinite in any universe.

It's always the simple principles that trip up these theories...

 

[Wildhound]

To be fair, you assume that the universe the simulation is running in even remotely resembles the simulation itself. If you do a bit more research on simulated reality, one of the ideas that crops up regularly is that there can be no way to determine whether the laws of physics outside the simulation would be anything like our own.

I'm far too tired to go into it in detail, but in short it's clear that we could never simulate our own entire universe. We would have to cut corners, but we could still potentially create a simpler simulated universe, populated with AIs that would see it as reality. If you scale that up a level, we could be in one of those simpler simulations, running within a more complex universe.

Bed time!

 

[GloatingSwine]

To be fair, you assume that the universe the simulation is running in even remotely resembles the simulation itself. If you do a bit more research on simulated reality, one of the ideas that crops up regularly is that there can be no way to determine whether the laws of physics outside the simulation would be anything like our own.

Combinatorial explosion isn't imposed by our existing physical laws, it's an extremely simple principle that the number of possible combinations increases logarithmically not linearly with the number of branch points, and thus the amount of computational logic required to handle those combinations likewise increases logarithmically.

You can't even get around it by cutting corners, because that just increases the amount of predictive work required in direct proportion to the amount of computational work reduced.

I'm far too tired to go into it in detail, but in short it's clear that we could never simulate our own entire universe.

It's not just clear we could never simulate our own universe, it's also clear that we couldn't even simulate a tiny fraction of it, because combinatorial explosion will get you every time.

There's also the other problem with simulationism in that it draws too heavily on the strong anthropic principle. It assumes that we are the point of the simulation, but really there's a fantastic level of detail in the quantum universe, string theory, etc, and we're sort of a hodgepodge of compromises and patches. If we were a simulation, we'd be the kind programmed by someone like Derek Smart. And no-one wants that.

 

[oliveira8]

Edit: The Matrix is not even that good.

Don't you dare say that around me ever again.

I think that the idea is almost as silly as people believing they are vampires. I mean, it's interesting to think about, but there are lots of flaws in your logic but I could probably argue from both sides.

Okay! The Matrix trilogy is okay.

The first one is great the other two arent.

 

[Splyth]

But here is the main question- you thinking me crazy is just a defense mechanism. So I could be speaking the truth. How do you know?

Do you know what you just said? Essentially "You can't prove it isn't true." Which is a logical fallacy. In other words your argument has no proof or validation whatsoever and your trying to justify it by saying that we can't prove it's untruthfulness.

Yet the same can be said about other beliefs as well. We have the bible but how can we prove its true? we have some historical proof of some of the events such as Hebrews working for the Egyptians but the bible says they were slaves and that when they left Egypt they were armed. Slaves leaving Egypt wouldn't be given weapons as they left, unless they weren't slaves. There is proof that they were actually public service workers for the Egyptians and not slaves. So we can prove the bible was right on a few events, but how accurate it depicts those events is iffy. There are many stories in the bible that there is no way we can prove so how can we justify it's untruthfulness?

and in case your wondering where I got the information. Check out the History channel's documentary on bible wars.

I see your point and reading over my post I agree that I assumed too much. I'm sorry.

But the line at the end still grates on me. Mostly because it feels as though we are given no room for defense. Because no matter what argument we present. It can be claimed that it's "just a defense mechanism" and therefore invalid.

 

[Sparrow]

Hmm. I thought the same, then I grew up.

To think the world is a simulation, must mean the world outside the simulation is not a simulation. Maybe your theory is just you hoping theres life outside of out shithole.

Wishful thinking. Unluckily, wishes aren't real.

Don't worry, you'll be a pessimist just like the rest of us soon enough.

 

[Nia-san]

But here is the main question- you thinking me crazy is just a defense mechanism. So I could be speaking the truth. How do you know?

Do you know what you just said? Essentially "You can't prove it isn't true." Which is a logical fallacy. In other words your argument has no proof or validation whatsoever and your trying to justify it by saying that we can't prove it's untruthfulness.

Yet the same can be said about other beliefs as well. We have the bible but how can we prove its true? we have some historical proof of some of the events such as Hebrews working for the Egyptians but the bible says they were slaves and that when they left Egypt they were armed. Slaves leaving Egypt wouldn't be given weapons as they left, unless they weren't slaves. There is proof that they were actually public service workers for the Egyptians and not slaves. So we can prove the bible was right on a few events, but how accurate it depicts those events is iffy. There are many stories in the bible that there is no way we can prove so how can we justify it's untruthfulness?

and in case your wondering where I got the information. Check out the History channel's documentary on bible wars.

I see your point and reading over my post I agree that I assumed too much. I'm sorry.

But the line at the end still grates on me. Mostly because it feels as though we are given no room for defense. Because no matter what argument we present. It can be claimed that it's "just a defense mechanism" and therefore invalid.

I agree with you on that point. The "defense mechanism" as you put it seems almost unavoidable not only in our own views but how we take others' opinions as well.