how do they know that the real world isn't just another simulation?

[nosos]

it's like a thread posted by a 14 year old taking their first acid

Took the words right out of my mouth!

 

[nosos]

....

 

[EarlyWorm]

Umm Cheese

 

[User 301X/5.1]

I read something by someone once (sorry i really cannot remember where): a summary of which was pretty much:

Our universe may be real but it is much more probable that our universe is an artificial universe created by higher beings.

the reason given was:
in any universe there is a small but real probability that life will evolve in such a way as to enable intelligence to reach a level where computers can be manufactured. Then if you assume that Moore's law will apply or something like it where computing power increases exponentially over small periods of time then the universe or some kind of copy/simulation will always end up being recreated inside the computing machine.

For each intelligent species that evolves there will be many many artificial universes created.

Therefore the number of artificial universes is much bigger than the real ones and it is unlikely that ours is a real one.

oh bugger.

 

[Jonti]

... By the way: why would people think I am "sheltered" in any way? ...

Dunno really, possibly because you seem sometimes ... other worldly

I'll get back to you (eventually!) on the point you made about the nature of time. It sounded to me essentially Newtonian. Perhaps you might find his Scholium of some interest.

1. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called "duration"; relative, apparent, and common time is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time, such as an hour, a day, a month, a year.

 

[Blagsta]

I read something by someone once (sorry i really cannot remember where): a summary of which was pretty much:

Our universe may be real but it is much more probable that our universe is an artificial universe created by higher beings.

the reason given was:
in any universe there is a small but real probability that life will evolve in such a way as to enable intelligence to reach a level where computers can be manufactured. Then if you assume that Moore's law will apply or something like it where computing power increases exponentially over small periods of time then the universe or some kind of copy/simulation will always end up being recreated inside the computing machine.

For each intelligent species that evolves there will be many many artificial universes created.

Therefore the number of artificial universes is much bigger than the real ones and it is unlikely that ours is a real one.

oh bugger.

Yes, I've already posted a link to that.

 

[Jonti]

So what do you think? I mean it's a fun idea, I'm not denying that, but what's your opinion of it as a serious hypothesis? How could we test it?

 

[Aldebaran]

Dunno really, possibly because you seem sometimes ... other worldly

Ha Ha.
(don't see why)

I'll get back to you (eventually!) on the point you made about the nature of time. It sounded to me essentially Newtonian

I never read Newton up to now.
Looks interesting but I must see to get a translation.

salaam.

 

[Aldebaran]

Blagsta, your quote has the -fundamental- flaw that it clearly reasons from human point of view.
Why would a non-human intelligence, by default an intellect of which we can't know its measure or boundaries, need computers?

salaam.

 

[Blagsta]

So what do you think? I mean it's a fun idea, I'm not denying that, but what's your opinion of it as a serious hypothesis? How could we test it?

I think it's a fun idea, but meaningless.

 

[Jonti]

I believe

"Theology", then?

I believe that the here and now is good, and worth working to improve; that human suffering is bad, and worth seeking to mitigate; and that life and peace, beauty and plenty, are to be sought as ends in themselves, for ourselves and for those who succeed us. I believe this world and its future matters, matters completely, matters more than anything.I believe this world is real. I know of no other.

from Matthew Parris "Belief in Paradise is a Recipe for Hell on Earth" (emphasis added)

 

[Jonti]

Alde, I forget if you read Latin; but of course the original was written in Latin, so anyway it's prolly best to hunt down a translation into Arabic straight from the Latin.

But it's really on the first few paragraphs of the Scholium that are relevant to the current discussion. Having defined absolute time (which is supposed to flow relative to what, I think we may ask ) he then serenely ignores it: the Principia is only ever concerned with the relative time of bodies in motion in space.

 

[Aldebaran]

It is easier to get the Latin

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/

Usually I don't trust "the internet(s)" but I think for quick access this could be a good site.
I need to read a bit more of Newston's texts to get an idea of his reasoning. Shall come back to this when I found time for it.

salaam.

 

[Jonti]

There's a sense in which we make progress in Natural Philosophy just by slicing the world up in the right way, by making the right definitions. Like a maths problem, the "problem" of the ways of creation is amenable to finding an appropriate approach. A large part of Newton's genius is that his definitions do that admirably well.

But the idea of the momentary present can seem quite absurd. This from Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs", (1987) ...

Lord Helmet and his General:
What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Now! You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening, now.
What happened to then?
We're past that.
When?
Just now. We're now, now.
Go back to then.
When?
Now.
Now?
Now!
I can't.
Why?
We missed it.
When?
Just now.
(after some rewinding)
When will then be now?
Soon.

 

[Aldebaran]

I'm reading on that site now. Didn't read that sublime language since years.
Heavenly. I'm silenced for the rest of the night merely by the beauty of it, I think.

salaam.

 

[mrs quoad]

Incidentally, what if the simulation was just a simulation?

That old chestnut - 'how do you know you're not just a brain in a vat' - pisses me off no end.

Brain? Vat? FFS. Massive assumptions. Twuntish statement.

 

[jonH]

or stimulatory similar situations appeared completely different, a rose became love and quartz became a binary code and joins with dna in some mathematical dance...............