This is the proper response to the various flavors of nihilism. The world is a simulation, or the universe is cold and uncaring and there is no god, or what if you’re just a brain floating in space having a hallucination?
So what?
If the world doesn’t exist, but every test you can perform is consistent with the world existing anyways, then so what? Where do you go from there? You’ll still experience consequences for whatever you do, everyone else will still experience consequences for what you do (as far as you can tell), so… what has the nihilism or the simulation theory changed?
Doesn’t matter what color we paint the backdrop if nothing about the play or the props or the players have changed.
This is basically what many eastern philosophies say. In Budism they fully admitted to the inability to prove the reality of one’s existence. At the same time talking about the importance of engagement with reality.
Basically reality exists because we are here to perceive its existence.
Yep, your brain percieves stimuli and generates a virtual internal reality that runs with a tiny time delay between the objective reality and your internal subjective simulation of it. So we live in a simulation even if our universe is the objectively 'real' one, or we live in a simulation of a simulation.
Your personality may also be a simulation internaly created so that you have a way to 'justify' your bodies actions to other entities. Split brain experiments are veeeery interesting.
This is pure conjecture but I sometimes wonder if neuro-divergencies are caused by a fault in the internal simulation via brain chemistry
The free will and simulation arguments, while certainly fun to think about and possibly valuable to bear in mind, are completely pointless to a certain extent. Even if you confirmed that free will doesnt exist or that we are in a simulation of some fashion, the mere fact that it had to be discovered and was up for debate prior to that means that nothing about your life will change to the slightest.
Well, the simulation argument may not make a difference, but the free will one might. If nobody has the free will necessary for moral responsibility, then many of our punishment practices can’t be morally upheld. If nobody deserves punishment, we should only use it as a means of keeping social harmony, and that means we should do it a lot less and a lot differently.
Lmao I realized after I posted that that it was gonna open a bit of a philosophical can of worms, and that I would quickly be neck deep. This is a very good point, and I only meant my statement to a certain extent. For the average human’s daily life, finding out that free will doesnt exist (to whichever extent you’d like to take an idea like that) wouldnt suddenly change their daily experience, and they would be able to continue to operate under the assumption that they are making meaningful choices with varied outcomes just like usual. They had this impression before the revelation that free will is not real, so their life experiences would not necessarily change after the fact (obviously it COULD change, but wouldnt as a necessity). As for the more nuanced moral implications of such a discovery/revelation, I shouldnt presume to know how that would impact the world.
This is a lot of philosophy. Pointless in the day to day. But the arguments and ideas eventually lead somewhere.
I do think the discussions of free will are important because it’s a major area that people take for granted. When you ask “what does free will really mean?” you can’t just come back from that.
That only follows if you believe that free will implies moral responsibility, and that moral responsibility means punishment must occur, and that that means more punishment must occur. Why doesn’t moral responsibility mean less punishment? What about the moral responsibility of those meting out punishment?
And in either case, both concepts are intangible and immeasurable, so using them as justification for something as consequential as imprisonment means something else much more tangible and measurable is being hidden behind those concepts.
I think it’s just the exercise of power. That’s why moral responsibility is only ever used to punish and never to stay punishment, because those wielding the argument aren’t interested in those arguments being used to limit their power, only to exercise it.
The only thing that matters is effectiveness to reduce harm, and that is basically never spoken about by those in favour of incarceration.
But, why? Even if free will is proven, what value does punishment serve? And if all things are predetermined, then punishment itself is justified by predeterminism.
Literally anything that happens is “justified” or perhaps “explained” by predeterminism, but just because a system exists and is internally consistent and follows all of its rules doesn’t mean a better system can’t exist.
If everything and anything can be “justified” that “justice” isn’t useful to consider, and we should think about something like “utility” or “happiness” instead.
I agree. I just don’t think the answer to the question of free will alters (or should alter) our behaviors.
Although, internally it can help, as famously described by Einstein - there’s a helpful translation lower in the page, but it’s interesting to hear his voice whether or not you understand German. As a way of internalizing how people treat you, it’s sweet. I don’t buy it (the philosophy) for a second, but still.
I just don’t think the answer to the question of free will alters (or should alter) our behaviors.
I tend to agree, but the kind of people who believe it is just and good to punish others (as opposed to rehabilitate or something) tend to disagree with us.
But if we dont have free will morals dont exist because you arent actually chosing anything, if free will doesnt exist we arent choosing those punishments either. It was all mechanically determined before the first star went supernova and created heavy elements. To quote Pigeon of Mike Tyson Mysteries "whatevers gonna happen, is gonna happen anyways"
I personally believe that free will exists because of the quantum nature of our universe. I think when quntum effects collapse into macro effects that is the universal uncaring impersonal consciousness presenting itself to discreet personalized units of consciousness in a way we can understand and work with. I think the entire universe has consciousness and that when our containers can no longer maintain the biological loci of experience we return to that eternal, ever present, always safe universal consciousness, the source of the sense of identity.
Consciousness does all this because a universe where nothing 'unpredictable' happens and there is no 'other' to share experience with would be eternal solitary confinement.
Just my thoughts on the matter of free will, obviously un-provable and un-testable in our current state of being.
It’s wise to treat any talk about The Simulation™ like talk of God and the afterlife. An interesting concept, but absolutely unverifiable, and therefore unscientific and of no relevance to your day to day life. Unless you want to believe, but then it’s a religion.
A perfect simulation is inherently unverifiable. A limited scope simulation could be.
E.g. some gravity wave detectors have detected interesting effects, just above the noise floor. They are consistent with the sensitivity approaching plank length limitations. However, it should be FAR above the plank length. Interestingly, if the universe was holographic in nature (a 3D projection of a 2D object). Then the effective plank length would be a lot higher, potentially consistent with what we see. If that were the case, our universe would be a simulation. The question then becomes if it is natural or artificial, and what we can learn about the higher state reality.
Fyi, physics was thought to be a “solved” thing. That was until a young scientist discovered a line didn’t go quite through 0,0 on a graph. It is now known as the photoelectric effect, and it was the crack that led to the discovery of quantum mechanics.
that’s partly why I care about making the distinction between science and non-science. To be scientific, a theory needs to be, first and foremost, falsifiable. That sounds counterintuitive, but you need to propose experiments that could prove you wrong. And then if they fail, you got a good indication you might be on to something.
A (good enough, as you said) simulation is per definition unfalsifiable. It’s also a wild assumption that “the real world” obeys the same laws of physics ours does, and I consider any statistical argument based on that assumption to be pretty unconvincing.
Ultimately, the simulation theory is a nice thought experiment and a great setpiece for sci-fi, but not much more. It’s kinda similar to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, actually. Cool to think about, not at all relevant for us.
Thought experiments, while useless for direct science, are an excellent tool for mental processing. It can often lead to falsifiable experiments, that helps tease out the nature of reality.
The amount of good science that comes out of stupid “what if” type games/discussions/thought experiments would unnerve many people. The catch is that it needs to be backed up by old fashioned slog work.
As for the many worlds Vs Copenhagen interpretation, in most ways they are impossible to separate, they look at the same data, and create the same conclusion. There are still cracks that can be pried at, however. Most will lead to nothing, a few can help understand QM better, and find its flaws. Ultimately, however, the maths and measurements win. Any understanding method must conform to those. The model just helps envisage future paths.
Exactly! I’m by no means against these thought experiments, I think they’re super interesting and might lead to new insights down the road. I’m just irked out by people staying these things as fact, using Elon Musk level popscience arguments.
It makes no sense for it to be a simulation like a computer simulation. It’s a simulation like a dream is a simulation. Everything in the universe you observe is you. Waking up from the dream is realising this, and realising nothing exists, just being.
Like a dream, you are just me. The floor I walk is me. The air I breathe is me. Everyone I meet, everything I feel, is just me. Nothing is real except I.
I took about 10 hits of acid once and had a conversation with something that seemed to be “God” or a close approximation to it, and it told me something similar. It told me that everything is connected, that we’re all one, that we’re all of us different aspects of each other, or something like that. This was 20+ years ago and I was zonked out of my fucking head that night.
It’s pretty good. I liked it a lot. There is this theme of fighting with and between gods (uploaded humans) and has a pretty good ending that made me want to rewatch it.
It is unfortunately only legally available in Australia and New Zealand from what I know, so you probably have to look around for another way to see it if your not from there.
This sounds really interesting! Can you post an imdb link? I’m only able to find an American show by that name, and it also has technology themes, so it’s making it hard to find anything else.
EDIT: Oh! It is this show, I just misunderstood your reply to ApathyTree, about it only being legally available in Australia and New Zealand. Thanks for the recommendation :)
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