Simulation theory is more or less a kind of modern creation myth, and creation myths are based around its societies current level of understanding of the world. In ancient times people explained the worlds actions and existence through gods and imaginative myths. When the scientific revolution happened people explained the universe in terms of immutable laws and cosmic logic. Now we are in the computational revolution, thus some people explain the worlds existence through computers. All untestable and unfalsifiable explanations for the nature of reality are as good as any other, so pick your poison and enjoy!
Simulation theory comes from solipsism, and it's not that modern. According to Wikipedia it originated in Greece in 483–375 BC.
Every human is solipsist until about 2 years old, when they start to realize that the world is not revolving around them. It is called "crisis of 2 year old", or "terrible twos". Some people don't get to go through this at 2, especially the children of billionaires, who have no reasons to think that they are not the center of the universe.
The danger of this approach is that you start treating other people as NPCs, dehumanizing them. When others are not real people, you don't have any problem with robbing, raping or murdering them. See the "Westworld" series for more deep analysis.
For a slightly different take, a simulation and reality are not that fundamentally different given how both are perceived by senses in a similar way. Like how a VR headset uses the same sense that you use to see real objects.
They start to diverge in a way when you start encountering edge phenomenon that are beyond the scope of the simulation, like how a game would glitch. So far, however much we zoom in or zoom out, reality works consistently. So it is less likely that we're in a simulation.
It depends how you define reality working consistently. Dark matter was first theorized by observing how galaxies and star clusters etc don't seem to have enough mass to produce the gravitational footprint that holds them together. So dark matter was theorized to account for it. Invisible, intangible matter that only interacts with "normal" matter through gravity. Kinda strange 🤔
I mean we knew that gravity as we understood in terms of GR is not a full picture. As people figured out that the expansion of the universe was accelerating, which would be impossible if gravity was simply attractive. So I don't think of dark matter as a glitch. It's more like a placeholder we don't understand yet.
Something that seems like a glitch to me is speed of light being a hard limit, but when you really dig into it you realize that certain limits determine the nature of the reality and they need to have some fixed value like the speed of light went Planck's constant.
Because everything can be expressed mathematically.
Because Elon Musk believes in it, I know it’s probably wrong.
YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF FREE PREVIEW OF "THE LIFE". To continue using this entertainment, please deposit 650 kvazons to your blardg.
Damn I spent my last kvazon at the pizzeria do yall take credit?
Yes, but you'll regret it later, in about 20 years.
Every time I need to cross a seemingly empty street, suddenly cars appear. I can't help but imagine it's a render distance issue.
Try to cross the street without turning your head. When you turn your head, they render the cars in the opposite directions.
/jk always look both ways before crossing the street.
Doesn’t sound any more ridiculous than any of the other ideas.
You cannot disprove this hypothesis and it's cool. Quite literally nothing can support it - if we live in a simulation, every part of the universe makes sense for us because we have no reference frame for "real" physics.
It's just something fun to think about but ultimately it doesn't matter, you have no way to find out.
Here’s Elon Musk’s argument (not saying I agree with it but here’s what he said about it):
Eventually we will be able to create entirely convincing simulations. Just look at video games. The graphics are getting pretty good.
So given that we will inevitably create such simulations, we have to ask whether it has perhaps already happened and this is one of them.
And since we will no doubt create many different simulations, millions of them, the odds are against this one being the prime reality. It’s just millions-to-one odds by the numbers.
Therefore this is almost certainly a simulation.
(Personally I think there are factual and logical problems at many steps in this)
I just want to point out that while Musk likes to parrot this rhetoric, it is Nick Bostrom who should be credited with the hypothesis in its current, modern incarnation. That's not to say it is entirely his idea either, as similar hypotheses have been pontificated over for centuries , notably by René Descartes.
Mm thanks. Worthy footnote.
It gives comfort for people who don't adhere to any of the major religions but still need to feel like there is a hidden meaning to existence and something bigger than the universe.
- The render distance (observable universe)
- The pixel size (Planck units)
- And the update rate ('speed of light' = speed of information being updated)
Calling Planck units "pixels" is extremely reductive. This is just naively applying video game concepts to physics with a poor understanding of both.
I took an entire graduate course in QM and a quantized Universe does, in fact, seem pixelated. That's exactly how I explain it to people. There's simply a finite level to how closely you can zoom in. Space, time, and energy are all quantized, and maybe even gravity though we haven't figured that one out yet.
According to some, assuming it's even possible to fully simulate a universe to the degree that life in it can't tell, then there should be multiple simulations running, so there would be more sim-universes than real ones, and odds would be high that any given universe you find yourself in would be a sim.
Personally I don't buy it, I think if we were in a sim the laws of physics would have to be easily computable (they aren't, see gluons) and I think it would take the computing power of an entire universe to simulate one of similar complexity at anywhere close to reasonable speed. (Note how emulators and virtual machines can only emulate a weaker system then the host system, at least at speeds comparable to native hardware)
Permanently Deleted
If you have the fundamental belief that if we know every single possible detail down to the atom, that we can predict what will happen every time, then you believe that free will does not exist. If you think of it that way, and think everything is calculated, then it could be theoretically be possible for some kind of super computer to generate everything since it knows all the information and can calculate what will happen next.
I also think that free will may not exist, but I'm not sure why. Either everything can be calculated in advance as you say, or everything is fundamentally random because quantum mechanics. But maybe there's something at the edge where neither of these explanations are correct? What happens there?
I don’t see any reason to think I’m not in a simulation, except that it’s just a silly ancient fable, created by the simulation. but none of that affects the “realities” of life and love all the rest of it.
