Are we living in a simulation?

(tho pointlessly imo, because what's ever gonna work better than a dream)

you are living in a simulation

Your grandmothers were right, kids: video games have ruined everything.

bold take: we havent rly fucked everything up things are pretty good

just cuz life is pretty good for you (and for me tbh) doesn't mean things aren't fucked up

relative to what

also my life is awful fu

This reminds me of the first time I heard "Sh-Boom", particularly the opening line "Life Could Be A Dream" - I was full of the pondering that we (or maybe it's YOU) could wake up and find that none of this exists. Particularly as the version of "Sh-Boom" was by Stan Freberg.

relative to what

relative to how unfucked they could be obv

yeah idk how valid that is a comparator

And there are other reasons to think we might be virtual. For instance, the more we learn about the universe, the more it appears to be based on mathematical laws. Perhaps that is not a given, but a function of the nature of the universe we are living in. “If I were a character in a computer game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical,” said Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “That just reflects the computer code in which it was written.”
Furthermore, ideas from information theory keep showing up in physics. “In my research I found this very strange thing,” said James Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland. “I was driven to error-correcting codes—they’re what make browsers work. So why were they in the equations I was studying about quarks and electrons and supersymmetry? This brought me to the stark realization that I could no longer say people like Max are crazy.”

This sounds like deism

We might be living in a simulation
But I'm still living for that stimulation
WHEEEEDLYDEEEDLYDEEEEEEEEEE (guitar solo sound)

ah look this idea isn't a new idea, the notion that this reality isn't the ultimate reality, sooner or later some of these kids will discover gnosticism or prakrti or gorgias or what the fuck ever.

reality is broken, we don't know and will never know why, take it seriously or don't but for god's sake at least try to be kind.

It does neatly explain some things people have always intuited—like the existence of a realm of pure being that is more “real” than this one.

Or whar rushomancy just said. (Can’t see if someone has posted on safari mobile).

To me, God being a computer programming AI is the worst of all possible worlds, almost. It must be cruel to program all this suffering in but then someone could say the same of God.

suffering does predominate in all of the fictions we produce, there's no reason our own simulating overlords wouldn't also bring the pain

So this is just westworld

actually a very interesting and good q imo which occupies not-non-adjacent ethical space with "how would you live differently if you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that a divine Being existed"

the world would certainly be a healthier and happier place. the trick is to see the divine in what we can already perceive. children need to be shown nature and volcanos and stuff

that's true joan. the idea of the simulation question is interesting to me basically for that reason--this is really about metaphysics not technology

fuck washing a virtual toilet then

actually a very interesting and good q imo which occupies not-non-adjacent ethical space with "how would you live differently if you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that a divine Being existed"

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Monday, 14 January 2019 12:20 (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

do i know what they want?

Microsoft Fight or Flight Simulator

Roll the booooones
Roll the boooones

The night has a thousand saxophones?

voted no

the real nature of the Universe is kooky enough as is without having to invent this stupid backstory

If we live in a simulation, it’s less “overlord pushing buttons and changing settings to see what happens in a controlled environment”, and more me repeatedly reloading a Civ game I saved way too late to untuck my bad decisions.

unfuck ffs

children need to be shown nature and volcanos and stuff

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com%2F4%2Ff%2Fcollegehumor.0f3f88c4f70804eb819af14fe2c15cfe.jpg&f=1

I agree with Louis. There is too much in our culture that pushes against the experience of awe.

Ftr i do not agree with the simulation hypothesis, but I like that it is getting people to face the fact that we don’t really understand the nature of the universe.

is there even an r/awe?

I don’t use reddit

Nor twitter. I’m ilx all the way

of all the irrelevant hypotheticals to consider, this is one of the least interesting

There’s an option for you on the poll!

I appreciate your open-mindedness on this matter

one reason treesh is a good messageboard poster because even when people vehemently disagree with the entire concept of the thread, they still contribute something

(sorry for tangent, going to repost that in the appropriate space)

To the extent that the subjective impact of reality remains unchanged, I'm fairly blasé re: the possibility of actually being somebody's GTA avatar.

what if you are bill simmons' son's fortnite avatar though

no

i kinda think we do tbph. idk if it's a material simulation or a metaphysical simulation but in either case

but is it a collective simulation, or are we each in our own individual simulation and you are all just my sims

1 0 0 1 0 0 1
S.O.S.

I definitely do not believe in solipsism. There are other minds in the simulation, if it’s a simulation.

It's like the Truman Show except when you finally wise up and sail your boat to the edge of the world you find that there's no exit, sucks 2 b u.

We're living in something or other. It's going to be really weird no matter what. My guess is that our metaphors (dream, computer simulation) are too crude to be useful.

Or it's like the Matrix except that Morpheus is actually more like Werner Herzog grousing about the perversity of nature and you wind up wishing you could've just stayed jacked in and ignorant.

If we're living in a simulation, someone's using pirated software

dude in my sim was i was a carbon based life form on this spheroidal rock called a planet and we used these machines called computers linked in a vast network called the World Wide Web and on it I visited this message board called ILX on it was T✧✧@K✧✧.E✧✧ it was a trip!

If I can't even tell that I'm in a simulation, the fuck do I care if robots use me as AAs in their Walkman?

why do physicists always think they’re uniquely equipped to solve reality once and for all

haven’t read the paper so the article may be selling it short but it makes it sound like a mashup of ideas (some I like more than others) that have been buzzing around for a while in whatever you call that weird interdisciplinary zone where they talk about emergence a lot. the simulation angle seems tacked on like a hashtag to get it trending

worth revisiting:

Looked up Klee Irwin and apparently quantum physicist is his second career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OppvPEM0wEQ

that weird interdisciplinary zone where they talk about emergence a lot.

Ding ding ding

https://quantumgravityresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/logo-ret-4-13-17.gif

Dr. Franklin Pangborn, Physicist

The concept of a simulation requires that some reality exists apart from the simulation for it to be similar to, otherwise there is nothing to simulate.

Was just about to say. 'Everything is a simulation' is virtually indistinguishable from 'everything is real'.

this is *not* a simulation theory

it's the new generation of Oldsmobile

The concept of a simulation requires that some reality exists apart from the simulation for it to be similar to, otherwise there is nothing to simulate.

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Tuesday, December 15, 2020 12:22 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree with this part “ The concept of a simulation requires that some reality exists apart from the simulation“ but not what follows. simulation does not mean “make something similar to” and a simulation doesn’t require a similar counterpart in reality

i cut my finger while peeling carrots yesterday. if this is a simulation, it's quite a painful and gross one and i want a word with the mods.

Wikipedia has settled on this definition: "A simulation is an approximate imitation of the operation of a process or system that represents its operation over time."

As I'd define a simulation, it is an extension in time of the concept of a simulacrum. While it is possible to create a simulacrum of something that does not exist directly in reality, such as a pink elephant, or a Death Star, I'd be surprised to discover any simulation whose components are not wholly modeled upon or derived from some aspect of reality, if you include mathematics as an aspect of reality. I won't rule out being surprised, though. It has happened often enough before.

there are multiple definitions of simulation, but that one is not the one that people have in mind when they say ‘we are living in a simulation’. all it means is “fake data generated in a computer.” no similarity to any existing part of reality is necessary. an artist or mathematician could simulate completely abstract systems with no representation in mind. for example it’s obvious that we could simulate the game The Sims with a crazy species of aliens from our imagination instead of humans. in analogy, our experiences might be simulated by some other super smart species who have better computers than us. they don’t even have to have imagined us too vividly, they just need a good model and then they feed it some initial conditions and let it rip. it happens that most existing simulations do have a real counterpart, but thats just historical circumstance. engineers simulate air planes flying because it’s cheaper and safer than testing real planes and crashing a bunch of them in the process

I have no idea

i agree it’s an unfortunate development in the etymology of the word though

I thought the timing of the Good Place being right at a point when a number of things were obviously going in completely the wrong direction was oddly fitting.

Might just be an indication that life was following a similar pattern.

That was an interesting take on a simulation of a different set up.
I thought the usual take was about brains in vats which normally tied in with a famous thought experiment we studied in Philosophy but I'm going blank on who the philosopher writing it was.
Like would you know if things were real or if you were being fed false information passing itself off as a form of reality.
So if everything was false and you still did stupid things like stubbing your toes and knocking fragile objects flying and forgetting things how would you tell? & if you were a Buddhist and everything is false anyway would you mind.

i feel that if this were a simulation then that guy that plays maverick in those movies, you know about whom i'm talking, given that his unnamed and therefore unactionable affiliated religious organization's super-duper powers center is trying way hard to prove a point, that guy would have developed the ability to fly like neo and bend the artificial construct that we think of as time and space, and he'd already be telling us all about it. that ain't happened. also i believe keanu reeves of all of us would actually innately have this predisposition to superpowers if such actually existed, but keanu being keanu, he'd think it immodest to show off thusly and so we'll never know. keanu can probably fly irl, but he's just as happy taking a bus, because someone on that bus might need his help like in that one movie where he takes that bus.

idk where i'm going with this but it's more that likely about how we're blessed to live in the era of keanu than about simulation theory.

cyberpunk2077 players are blessed and cursed to live in both

who the fuck runs the simulation then?

What is their purpose of existence?

It's run by turtles. Who learned to program. Their purpose is to move fast (fast for turtles, that is) and break things.

why they making me work this shit job, fucking turtle shit heads

Did you miss the "break things" part?

oh yeah, sorry

It's run by turtles. Who learned to program. Their purpose is to move fast (fast for turtles, that is) and break things.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

TO SQUARE
REPEAT 4 [FORWARD 50 RIGHT 90]
END

i feel that if this were a simulation then that guy that plays maverick in those movies, you know about whom i'm talking, given that his unnamed and therefore unactionable affiliated religious organization's super-duper powers center is trying way hard to prove a point, that guy would have developed the ability to fly like neo and bend the artificial construct that we think of as time and space, and he'd already be telling us all about it. that ain't happened. also i believe keanu reeves of all of us would actually innately have this predisposition to superpowers if such actually existed, but keanu being keanu, he'd think it immodest to show off thusly and so we'll never know. keanu can probably fly irl, but he's just as happy taking a bus, because someone on that bus might need his help like in that one movie where he takes that bus.

idk where i'm going with this but it's more that likely about how we're blessed to live in the era of keanu than about simulation theory.

― slugbuggy

i have good news slugbuggy there is a way to develop the ability to fly like neo

it's called estrogen

(if people are going to call me a social contagion i'm going to fucking _earn_ the title)