Are we living in a simulation?

Wait if we are a simulation does that mean we are AI?

many cosmologies require some sort of leap of faith at some point - a miracle, an unexplainable metaphysical transformation, some sort of deus ex machina just making it all work. but it's easy (for me, at least) to imagine computers getting more and more advanced and powerful, given how far they've come in our lifetimes alone. that's not to say i think that kurzweil et al are right and that moore's law is actually a law. but if an advanced civilization could keep cracking at it for say, 10,000 years, i imagine they could probably come up with a pretty fucking intensely fast computer. and i think anyone with a basic understanding of exponential growth could at least imagine how it was possible, too.

imo it is much easier to imagine that there's one or many fundamental limits that will prevent this from happening, and this reads like a leap of faith where this imaginary computer is the deus ex machina. it's been said already, but this computer is just another metaphor, and I guess that's fine, but it's a shame that it heaps more importance on a sector of our world's endeavors already full up of self-importance.

you guys sure do know everything about the origins of the universe, enough to rule out one possibility that's just as dumb as anything you believe

Maybe I missed it, but nobody said "this theory is clearly wrong, and I know one that's probably correct". Simulation theory doesn't really "explain" anything wrt how did a universe arise, as in it's another "turtles all the way down" victim. Does the entity who created the simulation also wonder if it is itself part of a simulation?
Personally, I don't "believe" anything about origins of the universe. I do have a hunch that it's part of a infinite multiverse which has no cause, no beginning, no ending.

but the idea of the universes big banging out of a vaccuum seems wrong

the universe has no obligation to make sense to you

Then it's doing a grand job.

but the idea of the universes big banging out of a vaccuum seems wrong

For a start, the vacuum only exists INSIDE the universe. The universe bangs out of an singularity from an unimaginable prior state we have no access to.

If it helps, think of it more like a Big Prolapse.

http://www.bieniosek.com/gallery/albums/goatse/nebula.jpg

in primary school one of my stock jokes was that I hoped that when I died I would get a loading screen for level 2. now of course, I see how naïve I was: my current best guess is that the universe is nothing but the dream speed-run of a dragon, and the dragon is about to rage-quit

what if rather than being the deliberate and finely tuned masterpiece of a deeply engaged creator, the universe is just god's fart? your move, atheists

So the consensus here is that metaphysical speculation of any kind is just a waste of time that should be mocked, eveb though human beings have engaged in it from the start? We’re just radical pragmatists on ilx

you think we need more protected subjects on this site?

i wld rather speculate abt whether we can waste time

I think the consensus is more that strawmen make great scapegoats in the wake of butthurt.

At any rate, I don't think many of those who've engaged in serious thinking about the nature of reality have historically worked themselves into a lather about permission or consensus. Hash it out and damn the haters.

I am a bot btw

Hm, i’m in a lather now

i want to hear caek's thoughts on the matter

Jokes are good when they’re part of the discussion. Skepticism is good as well. But you guys are just throwing peanut shells on people’s heads from the rafters.

i dunno but what karls rather untypical but def misplaced sense of persecution on behalf of his pixel theory hasnt somehow transmitted to you too treesh but it has been discussed and fairly discussed and nobody is stopping more discussion

cosmology appeals to a lot of foundationalists and they ruin everything imo

I didn’t say I was being censored. I was trying to engage Old Lunch and the rest of the traveling comedy troupe in discussion. What’s their position?

That’s a position ogmor, thank you.

ah here "it would be impossible to tell from within the simulation" is a position!

Yeah that one is fine but I think from there maybe there are more things to say.

I was talking more of the extraordinary proliferation of these kinds of posts:

he stinks therefore he aint

― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Monday, January 14, 2019 9:59 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If it helps, think of it more like a Big Prolapse.

― A Nugatory Excrescence (Old Lunch), Tuesday, January 15, 2019 7:50 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag

I offered several perspectives upthread treesh fwiw. Shit perspectives perhaps but perspectives nonetheless.

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

― A Nugatory Excrescence (Old Lunch), Monday, January 14, 2019 6:28 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah missed them then sorry

If though you would like me to reach all the way up my ass to my undergrad philosophy major days I will see what I can do for u.

only graduate level grasping at straws from here out plz

Metaphysics is great as a branch of aesthetics tbf

In Iain M Banks' The Algebraist there's a religion called The Truth which involves believing we're in a simulation, and believing that if enough people believe that we're in a simulation, the simulation will end. If it makes them happy... (it probably doesn't.)

I don't know if this is covered in any of the literature and nor can I be arsed to find out, but I think there is a bit of a paradox in the simulation argument. It says that if our experience of reality is accurate (a universe with consistent laws of physics which allow for conscious beings & computers) then our experience of reality is not accurate (i.e. simulated).

to experience a simulation as accurate wouldn't be inaccurate necessarily

It's like the Kremlin scene in Ghost Protes. The simulation self-corrects according to your perspective.

Well part of the appeal of the simulation argument for self-proclaimed rationalists all over the internet is that on the face of it it's (sort of) SCIENCE (based metaphysics) not poxy RELIGION. But once you allow that you may be simulated, that severs any necessary connection between your reality and that of the simulators. Why suppose their reality is anything like ours?

I think one of the things about metaphysics as a whole is a lack of necessary connection to epistemology. A necessary lack of necessary connection, even.

the "computer" running the simulation would have to be way more vast and complex than our own vast and complex Universe

and true randomness wouldn't exist in this Universe — only pseudo-randomness

Surely the simulators could pipe in some proper random numbers from their universe using a web service.

I think one of the things about metaphysics as a whole is a lack of necessary connection to epistemology. A necessary lack of necessary connection, even.

Aye, but the (preferred) conclusion of the simulation argument is "we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation" so they think they're on pretty firm ground.

inconsequential feels like the appropriate word. What would you do differently, if you decided that your perceptions of yourself and the universe were the result of "a simulation"? more to the point, what is this "simulation" simulating and how would that be any different than this "reality" being real?

― A is for (Aimless), Monday, January 14, 2019 5:39 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just found this, lol:

https://www.jetpress.org/volume7/simulation.htm

If you might be living in a simulation then all else equal you should care less about others, live more for today, make your world look more likely to become rich, expect to and try more to participate in pivotal events, be more entertaining and praiseworthy, and keep the famous people around you happier and more interested in you.

"We are living in a simulation" is just "Jesus, take the wheel" for techbros.

nah, it's a fun theory that as KM posited is about as conceivable as any any other explanation

Yeah I've come across the probability arguments in simulation theories, it's a pretty weak attempt to sound like science when you're doing metaphysics, a field absolutely disconnected from falsifiability or any other criteria for defining knowledge

I mean like I say, this stuff can be *fun*, it can be *beautiful*, but I'll give it a B for the former and a D minus for the latter.

and I say this as somebody not unduly hung up on falsifiability or epistemology in general.

those middling grades don't relegate it to religion for techbros

nah, it's a fun theory that as KM posited is about as conceivable as any any other explanation

― Rhine Jive Click Bait (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:17 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How about the explanation that life is just as short, weird, fucked up and without rationale as it seems to be?

on reflection I marked fun a shade high

xp that's not an alternative explanation

metaphysics isn't really an explanation, it's a story

that sounds about as conceivable, but less fun

xp

just curious:

how do you all react when someone brings up...

~FERMI'S PARADOX~