Are we living in a simulation?

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]
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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)