What do you think about the idea that we're in a simulation?

I don’t think that we’re in a simulation, but I do find myself occasionally entertaining the idea of it.

I think it would be kinda funny, because I have seen so much ridiculous shit in my life, that the idea that all those ridiculous things were simulated inside a computer or that maybe an external player did those things that I witnessed, is just too weird and funny at the same time lol.

Also, I play Civilizations VI and I occasionally wonder ‘What if those settlers / soldiers / units / whatever are actually conscious. What if those lines of code actually think that they’re alive?’. In that case, they are in a simulation. The same could apply to other life simulators, such as the Sims 4.

Idk, what does Lemmy think about it?

0ops,

You know, whenever this theory is discussed, everybody seems to assume that this simulation that we’re allegedly living in is supposed to be an approximation of the parent universe, similar rules, but probably lower fidelity (basically the sims).

I think we should forget that assumption. It’s human centric. Who’s to say that the entity running the simulation even meant for it to be a simulation at all? Given our universe appears so much bigger than our pale blue dot from the inside, if our universe is a program running in a parent universe, I doubt that we - homo sapiens - are the point of it, or it’d be leaner, more focused. We’d be the center of the universe. But at every step of scientific discovery, we’ve found that that isn’t true. We’re just noise, sand on the beach, dust in the wind. If we live in a program, I doubt that the person running it is even aware of us specifically as a species, let alone as individuals. I doubt that they’re specifically aware of any particularly galaxy, in the same way a neural network developer isn’t aware of any specific weight in their model.

Granted, you could argue that that the rest observable universe is an illusion, a wilderness mural painted on the walls, designed by the simulation operator to make us think that we weren’t in a zoo. But that sounds a lot like “God put those dinosaur bones there to trick us”, so personally, I doubt that’s it.

Cwilliams,

We could make a religion out of this!

Sam_Bass,

Life is not a game.

foggy,

Nothing is real

kromem,

I think it’s extremely likely.

First off, we unequivocally aren’t in a ‘real’ world, mathematically speaking. If we were in a world where matter was infinitely divisible and continuous, it would be extremely unlikely that we were in a simulation given the difficulty in simulating a world like that. It’s possible spacetime is continuous, but that’s literally impossible to know because of the Plank limit on measurement thresholds.

Instead, we’re in a world that appears to be continuous from a big picture view (things like general relativity are based on a continuous universe), and then in the details also appears continuous - until interacted with.

We do a very similar thing in video games today, specifically ones that use a technique called “procedural generation.” A game like No Man’s Sky can have billions of planets because they are generated with a continuous seed function. But then the games have to convert these continuous functions into discrete units in order to track the interactions free agents outside of the generation might make. If you (or an AI agent) move a mountain from point A to B, it’s effectively impossible to track if the geometry is continuous, so it converts to discrete units where state changes can be recorded.

If memory efficient, if you deleted the persistent information about a change back to the initial generation state, it shouldn’t need to stay converted to discrete units and can go back to being determined by the continuous function. Guess what our reality does when the information about interactions with discrete units is deleted? That’s right, it goes back to behaving as if continuous.

On top of all of this, a very common trope in the virtual worlds we are building today is sticking stuff that acknowledges it’s a virtual world inside the world lore - things like Outer Worlds having a heretical branch of the main world religion claiming things that you as a player know are the way the game actually works.

Again, guess what? Our world has a heretical branch of the world’s most famous religion that were claiming we are in a copy of an original world brought about by an intelligence the original humans brought forth. They were even talking about how the original could be continuously divided but the copy couldn’t and that if you could find an indivisible point within things that you were in the copy (which they said was a good thing as the original humans just straight up died and if you were the copy there was an alleged guaranteed and unconditional afterlife).

I have a really hard time seeing nature as coincidentally happening to model a continuous universe at macro scales and then a memory optimized state tracking of changes to that universe at micro scales, and then a little known heretical group claiming effectively simulation theory including discussions of continuous vs discrete matter in a tradition whose main document was only rediscovered the same week we turned on the first computer capable of simulating another computer on Dec 10th, 1945. That would be quite the coincidence.

NauticalNoodle, (edited )

I think if you take a kind of birds-eye view (i.e. The proverbial forest) of the world around us without putting effort into understanding the granular nature of the individual things (i.e. the trees) around us, then one of the takeaways could be that we exist in an otherwise chaotic universe, which might give rise to this thought that we’re living in a simulation. —That said, the world isn’t chaotic, not really. It is an incredibly complex group of relations and things, and most of it has little concern for us as individuals.

Some of us sometimes struggle to see the forest from trees. Others of us sometimes struggle to see the trees from the forest.

There’s a big ol’ beautiful world out there beyond our computers and the games we play. It’s worth going out and studying a lot of it.

-What would be the implications if we were in a simulation? would it matter?

Melatonin,

I think the simulation idea is as credible as the stoner’s musing, “What if air makes you high, and pot makes you straight?”

Sam_Bass,

Your mind is gonna conjure up anything it can to make sense of the world it lives in.

ani,

No one knows. I just find this universe too imperfect. It’s nonsense. I just want it to end.

Leg,

Perfection is stagnation. It’s the entropic nature of reality that provides the vehicle for change and will to manifest, allowing subjective experiences to exist. If anything, I’d see this as evidence of a simulated reality, as it’s suspiciously convenient that this is all here for us to experience the way we do. You wanting it all to end sounds like more of an internal battle than external to me, and yours is a scary worldview.

ani,

There’s just too much suffering in this world. Why have a simulated reality with people torturing and killing one another, making living animals suffer so we can eat them, animals brutally killing one another. It’s just nonsense. I myself am constantly haunted by a traumatic experience, unable to be happy. My view is eflilism if you haven’t heard about it.

Leg,

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that suicide of consciousness is the correct answer to resolving the problem of suffering. Suffering is but one element of our collective existence, and while I agree that it’s unpleasant (duh), extermination is far too extreme an answer to consider it just. The scope is simply too narrow and pessimistic, and if one were to act on this philosophy, I would consider them evil. Don’t kill your mates for being depressed or for hurting. Help them, however you can.

Corno,

How’s it any different from creationism?

kromem,

Order of operations.

Creationism says “there was nothing other than something that always existed (don’t ask how it existed), and then it created this universe.”

Simulation theory, particularly ancestor simulation theory, says that a chaotic universe very similar to the one we find ourselves in spontaneously came to exist with or without design, but that eventually that universe reached a point where it could simulate itself and we’re in that copy.

The first requires an intelligent being effectively pre-existing everything else. Simulation theory allows for the intelligent beings creating our particular version of things to have evolved from everything else having existed first.

That’s a pretty important difference.

Corno,

That just sounds like creationism with extra steps. Many people have the belief that a god created the universe and then life evolved spontaneously.

kromem,

Again, you’re reversing the order.

The steps in simulation theory pretty much mean that ‘God’ evolved too. Which is again, a very big difference.

There’s not a lot of religions that have beliefs even tangentially like that. I can only think of two off the top of my head, which were slightly related and both long dead.

Corno,

It would still imply that an external being had created the simulation in the first place, which would fall under creationism. Lots of religions try to claim they’re completely different from one another. The way I see it, it’s two sides of the same coin.

kromem,

There are degrees of similarity. But arguably it would be better to term it ‘recreationism’ as the original framework isn’t necessarily created by any intentioned being.

Corno,

I don’t see similarity. I see people using different words to describe the same thing while being purposefully vague about how it’s supposedly different from creationism.

kromem,

So if you draw a picture from scratch, and if an AI sees your picture and draws nearly the same thing on its own, you think those two things are effectively the same situation?

Corno, (edited )

This isn’t a thread to discuss drawing. It doesn’t matter if there’s a million simulations between us and “base reality”, the original simulation that started it all would’ve been created by someone. If the universe we are observing was the result of someone’s creation, that someone is no different from a god. What simulation theory is doing is replacing the old bearded man in the sky with the great computer nerd in the sky.

Just to clarify, I’m not dunking on creationism or religion in general. I just find it slightly amusing how a lot of the people who dunk on creationism and otherwise do not believe in a god think that simulation theory is completely different because it’s describing the same type of belief but with different wording.

kromem,

Yeah, right. What could a thread about simulation possibly have to do with things like Plato’s analogy of the form of a bed, the physical bed, and a drawing of the physical bed?

“Doesn’t look like anything to me.”

lost_faith,

Back in my early 20s I did a lot of pot and acid. One night I broke my brain on a trip. The trip was going as usual, minor visual hallucinations like seeing faces in the air and such. Then, without warning I was in a gurney covered in a sheet and I heard voices then one said “He’s awake!” and the next instant I was back in my room tripping with my friends. For years I couldn’t shake that scene. Some people have said it was all just a trip but… maybe I broke the control for a moment. (ps this was before The Matrix and Cube 2 not that simulation theory is new) Good times

Leg,

Hallucinogenics are wild, man. It feels like peaking behind the veil, and it can make you lose your grip on what you understand reality to be. I had a bad trip where I found myself face-to-face with what I’ve nicknamed as “the spectator”. Dunno if it was supposed to be my higher self, God, or some other entity. But it made me well aware it was always there, always watching, and existed outside of our perceived reality. I told my mates that, at the time, it felt like I found something real, and that our reality was the fabrication. I still don’t know what to make of it now.

Omega_Haxors,

It’s just Pascal’s Wager with silicon valley tech dude bros standing in for the role of god. Really hard to unsee once you notice it.

Psiczar,

Ludicrous. If we were in a simulation we’d be erased by now because they would’ve done a factory reset and started again.

kromem,

Why? Maybe this is just history class where you learn firsthand the shit show of the 21st century that eventually gave rise to the conditions which created a world capable of simulating its past.

0ops,

The dinosaurs 👀

CaptnNMorgan,

It’s just new religion

Corno,

Simulation theory is just creationism rebranded using terms that are more familiar for a world where computers are so highly used. Someone would’ve had to have created the simulation, and ergo the entire universe, which does sound rather familiar

CaptnNMorgan,

Exactly, it’s updating what “God” looks like from a bearded old white guy to a nerd

user224,

“We must obey the god admin!”

Digestive_Biscuit,
@Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk avatar

All hail the mighty SUDO

keepcarrot,

I feel like it’s secular metaphysics and ultimately doesn’t matter. Kinda black mirror if your RTS shotgun guys are conscious know that they will be deleted to free up memory.

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