And here I was waiting to get unplugged, or maybe finding a Nokia phone that received a call.
“Robot, parse this statement, ‘this sentence is false’.” The robot explodes because it cannot understand a logical contradiction.
I swear, that’s what this argument sounds like to me. Also, I’m genuinely confused why people don’t think that, if we can simulate randomness with computers in our world with pseudo random number generators, why a higher reality wouldn’t be able to simulate what we view as true randomness with a pseudo random number generator or some other device we cannot even begin to comprehend.
Either this paper is bullshit or they’re talking about some sort of very specific thing that all these articles are blowing out of proportion.
I don’t believe we are in a simulation but I don’t believe this paper disproves it. Just like I don’t believe in god but I don’t believe the question “can god make a rock so big he can’t pick it up?” disproves god.
When we dream we often believe it to be reality, despite that in retrospect we can identify clear contradictions with logic in those dreams.
A Matrix-like simulation doesn’t have to be perfect. We are a bunch of dumb-dumbs who will suspend disbelief quite easily and dismiss those who claim to see a different truth as crazy.
This is exactly the kind of disinformation the simulation would send out to trick us.
⬆️ ⬆️ ⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️BABA Start holy fucking shit I can see time. It’s the colour three.
This paper is shit.
https://jhap.du.ac.ir/article_488_8e072972f66d1fb748b47244c4813c86.pdf
They proved absolutely nothing.
For instance, they treat physics as a formal axiomatic system, which is fine for a human model of the physical world, but not for the physical world itself.
You can’t say something is “unprovable” and make a logical leap to saying it is “physically undecidable.” Gödel-incompleteness produces unprovable sentences inside a formal system, it doesn’t imply that physical observables correspond to those sentences.
I could go on but the paper is 12 short pages of non-sequiturs and logical leaps, with references to invoke formality, it’s a joke that an article like this is being passed around and taken as reality.
You don’t even need to reject the applicability of Gödel, because there’s no proof that our universe doesn’t include a bunch of undecidable things tucked away in the margins. Jupiter could be filled with complete nonsense for all we know.
I mean, simulation theory is kind of a joke itself. It’s a fun thought experiment, but ultimately it’s just solipsism repackaged.
In reality there’s no more evidence for it than there is for you being a butterfly dreaming it’s a man. And it seems to me that the only reason people take it at all seriously in the modern age is because Elon Musk said he believed it back when he had a good enough PR team that people thought he was worth listening to.
The DMT I took yesterday says otherwise
Simulation theory is actually an inevitability. Look up ancestor simulators for a brief on why.
Eventually when civilization reaches a certain computationally threshold it will be possible to simulate an entire planet. The inputs and outputs within the computational space will be known with some minor infinite unknowns that are trivial to compensate for given a higher infinite.
Either we are already in one or we will inevitably create one in the future.
Have you bothered looking for evidence?
What makes you so sure that there’s no evidence for it?
For example, a common trope we see in the simulated worlds we create are Easter eggs. Are you sure nothing like that exists in our own universe?
Damn
About that title…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(mathematics)
Matrix theory is the branch of mathematics that focuses on the study of matrices.
In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers or other mathematical objects with elements or entries arranged in rows and columns
So really The Matrix should have taken place in a two dimensional world.
Alternatively, I would also accept renaming the trilogy to The Array, The Matrix, and The Tensor.
Inside a turtle’s dream theory still not disproven
Oh those mathers. At least scientists are humble enough to recognize that theorums about the physical world can’t be proven.
I will prove that we’re not in a simulation:
If we’re in a simulation then whoever is operating it would not want us to know if we’re in a simulation or not.
Anyone trying to check if we’re in a simulation or not would be stopped by the operator.
I wasn’t stopped by an operator hence there is no operator and we’re not in a simulation.
Q.E.D.
Um, why? As a general rule, the point of running a simulation is to find out what happens under some circumstances where you don’t know what happens. If you’re imposing conditions like that, then you aren’t so much running a simulation as you are running some kind of procedural generation.
procedural generation, like the matrix^^^
I’m kidding but since we’re just playing I would say:
Let’s imagine you want to know who will win the next election. You create detailed simulation of the entire population and run it until the voting day to see how they will vote. If the simulated population realized they are in a simulation the will obviously start behaving in a different way then the real population thus making your simulation useless.
So I would say unless the goal of the simulation is to see how fast will it realize it’s just a simulation you would try to avoid them finding out.
Then again, checking if people will realize they are in a simulation is a valid reason to simulate them so it’s possible we’re in a simulation that is supposed to find out it’s a simulation…
“If we assume X theorem is true, Y theorem is true, and lemma Z is true, then …”
This is actually about our models and seeing their incompleteness in a new light, right? I don’t think starting from arbitrary axioms and then trying to build reality was about proving qualities about reality. Or am I wrong? Just seems like they’re using “simulated reality” as a way to talk about our models for reality. By constructing a “silly” argument about how we can’t possibly be in a matrix, they’re revealing just how much we’re still missing.
That’s just what they fucking want you to think.
we are a speck of excrement on the buttplug of reality during a gay porno film.
Exactly what the simulation would say
Definitely was patched in the newest update
It’s possible that the universe could be simulated by an advanced people with vastly superior technology.
Hard solipsism has no answer and no bearing on our lives, so it’s best to not give it another thought.
It’s possible yes, but the nice thing is that we know we are not merely talking about “advanced people with vastly superior technology” here. The proof implies that technology within our own universe would never be able to simulate our own universe, no matter how advanced or superior.
So if our universe is a “simulation” at least it wouldn’t be an algorithmic one that fits our understanding. Indeed we still cannot rule out that our universe exists within another, but such a universe would need a higher order reality with truths that are fundamentally beyond our understanding. Sure, you could call it a “simulation” still, but if it doesn’t fit our understanding of a simulation it might as well be called “God” or “spirituality”, because the truth is, we wouldn’t understand a thing of it, and we might as well acknowledge that.
But that sounds like disproving a scenario no one claimed to be the case: that everything we perceive is as substantial as we think it is and can be simulated at full scale in real time by our own universe.
Part of the whole reason people think of simulation theory as worth bothering to contemplate is because they find quantum physics and relativity to be unsatisyingly “weird”. They like to think of how things break down at relativistic velocities and quantum scale as the sorts of ways a simulation would be limited if we tried, so they like to imagine a higher order universe that doesn’t have those pesky “weird” behaviors and we are only stuck with those due to simulation limits within this hypothetical higher order universe.
Nothing about it is practical, but a lot of these science themed “why” exercises aren’t themselves practical or sciency.
I’m not sure I agree with the “no one claimed” part, because I think the proof is specifically targeting the claim that it is more likely than not that we are living in a simulation due to the “ease of scaling” if simulated realities are a thing. Which I think is one of the core premises of simulation theory.
In any case, I don’t think the reasoning only applied to “full scale” simulations. After all, let’s follow the thought experiment indeed and presume that quantum mechanics is indeed the result of some kind of “lazy evaluation” optimisation within a simulation. Unless you want to argue solipsism in addition to simulation theory, the simulation is still generating perceptions for every single conscious actor within the simulation, and the simulation therefore still needs to implement some kind of “theory of everything” to ensure all perceptions across actors are being generated consistently.
And ultimately, we still end up with the requirement that there is some kind of “higher order” universe whose existence is fundamentally unknowable and beyond our understanding. Presuming that such a universe exists and manages our universe seems to me to be a masked belief in creationism and therefore God, while trying very hard to avoid such words.
The irony is that the thought experiment started with “pesky weird behaviours” that we can’t explain. Making the assumption that our “parent universe” is somehow easier to explain is really just wishful thinking that’s as rational as wishing a God to be responsible for it all.
I’ll be straight here: I’m a deist, I do think that given sufficient thought on these matters, we must ultimately admit there is a deity, a higher power that we cannot understand. We may as well call it God, because even though it’s not a religious idea of God, it is fundamentally beyond our capacity to understand. I just think simulation theory is a bit of a roundabout way to get there as there are easier ways to reach the same conclusion :)
Broadly speaking, I’d say simulation theory is pretty much more akin to religion than science, since it’s not really testable. We can draw analogies based on what we see in our own works, but ultimately it’s not really evidence based, just ‘hey, it’s funny that things look like simulation artifacts…’
There’s a couple of ways one may consider it distinct from a typical theology:
- Generally theology fixates on a “divine” being or beings as superior entities that we may appeal to or somehow guess what they want of us and be rewarded for guessing correctly. Simulation theory would have the higher order beings likely being less elevated in status.
- One could consider the possibility as shaping our behavior to the extent we come anywhere close to making a lower order universe. Theology doesn’t generally present the possibility that we could serve that role relative to another.
Just blaming god again for all the unexplainable stuff. Only instead if god it’s a simulation.
Does it feel very solipsistic around here or am I the only one?
I can’t explain how much I hate simulation theory. As a thought experiment? Fine. It’s interesting to think of the universe in the context of code and logic. But as a driving philosophy of reality? Pointless.
Most proponents of simulation theory will say it’s impossible to prove the universe is a simulation, because we exist inside it. Then who cares? There obviously must exist a non-simulated universe for the mega computer we’re all running on to inhabit, so it’s a pointless step along finding the true nature if reality. It’s stoner solipsism for guys that buy nfts. It’s the “it was all a dream” ending of philosophy.
I’m a proponent and I definitely don’t think it’s impossible to make a probable case beyond a reasonable doubt.
And there are implications around it being the case which do change up how we might approach truth seeking.
Also, if you exist in a dream but don’t exist outside of it, there’s pretty significant philosophical stakes in the nature and scope of the dream. We’ve been too brainwashed by Plato’s influence and the idea that “original = good” and “copy = bad.”
There’s a lot of things that can only exist by way of copies that can’t exist for the original (i.e. closure recursion), so it’s a weird remnant philosophical obsession.
All that said, I do get that it’s a fairly uncomfortable notion for a lot of people.
I think if we’re ever going to find an answer to “Why does the universe exist?” I think one of the steps along the way will be providing a concrete answer to the simulation hypothesis. Obviously if the answer is “yes, it’s a simulation and we can demonstrate as much” then the next question becomes “OK so who or what is running the simulation and why does that exist?” which, great, now we know a little bit more about the multiverse and can keep on learning new stuff about it.
Alternatively, if the answer is “no, this universe and the rules that govern it are the foundational elements of reality” then… well, why this? why did the big bang happen? why does it keep expanding like that? Maybe we will find explanations for all of that that preclude a higher-level simulation, and if we do, great, now we know a little bit more about the universe and can keep on learning new stuff about it.
Yes but, also, no.
You already seem familiar but, for the uninitiated playing along at home, Wikipedia’s entry for Simulation Theory is a pretty easy read. Quoting their synopsis of Bostrom’s conjecture:
- either such simulations are not created because of technological limitations or self-destruction;
- advanced civilizations choose not to create them;
- if advanced civilizations do create them, the number of simulations would far exceed base reality and we would therefore almost certainly be living in one.
it’s certainly an interesting thought. I agree it shouldn’t inform our ethics or disposition toward our lived experiences. That doesn’t mean there’s zero value in trying to find out though. Even if the only positive yield is that we develop better testing methods which still come up empty: that’s still progress worth having. If it nets some additional benefit then so much the better.
I’d argue that satisfying curiosity is, in itself, and worthy pursuit so long as no harm is done.
That all still sets aside the more interesting question though. If such simulations are possible then are they something we’re comfortable creating? If not, and we find one has been built, what should we do? Turn it off? Leave it alone? “Save” those created inside of it?
These aren’t vapid questions. They strike at the heart of many important unresolved quandries. Are the simulated minds somehow less real than unsimulated ones? Does that question’s answer necessarily impact those mind’s right to agency, dignity, or self-determination?
The closer we get to being able to play god on a whim the more pressing I find such questions. That’s not because I wring my hands and labor anxiously at truth or certainty for lack of better idols. It’s because, whatever this is, we’re all in it together and our choices today have an outsized impact on the choices others will have tomorrow. Developing a clearer view of what this is, and what we’re capable of doing in it, affords future minds better opportunity to arrive at reasonable conclusions and decide how to live well.
It kind of sounds like you’re talking about it purely as a thought experiment or as something to inspire other philosophical thinking. But I think the issue most people have with the simulation theory is when people think that it’s actually the way that the world is or think that it’s worth investigating the way that the world is just because it theoretically could be the way the world is. But theoretically the world could have been created by the god of the Bible or any of the other million explanations proposed by the million other religions that have existed. Almost every religion proposes a hypothesis that could indeed explain reality, but just because it could explain reality doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to investigate it.
I agree with you that all the questions you raised are interesting and worth thinking about, but none of that really relates to thinking that we actually live in a simulation. You’re just using the idea that we live in a simulation as inspiration to start thinking about these other ideas. But actually thinking that we live in a simulation is much less reasonable.
Simulation theory is the long way around to creationism for atheists.
Yes, kind of, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a point against it. “Why are we here? / Why is the universe here?” is one of the big interesting questions that still doesn’t have a good answer, and I think thinking about possible answers to the big questions is one of the ways we push the envelope of what we do know. This particular paper seems like a not-that-interesting result using our current known-to-be-incomplete understanding of quantum gravity, and the claim that it somehow “disproves” the simulation hypothesis is some rank unscientific nonsense that IMO really shouldn’t have been accepted by a scientific journal, but I think the question it poorly attempts to answer is an interesting one.
Creationism usually implies the creator put a lot of thought, care, and love into the creation. Knowing what I do of software development, fucking lol.
The universe can’t be a simulation, the framerate is way too good.
In a simulation, you could take a thousand years to render a single frame, and the occupants of the simulation wouldn’t know any better.
The max tick rate for our simulation seems to be tied to the speed of light, that’s our upper bound.
Of course, the lower bound is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or Planck length.
In other words, it is a confined system. That means it is computationally finite in principle if you exist outside the bounds of it.
I keep seeing supersampling artifacts when I squirt my eyes
Eyes don’t normally do that. I think you should
squirtsee a doctor.I think typing charlie squirt so many times fucked up my autocorrect
An surprise, I’m sure, but a welcome one.
Lol, because these guys imagine the outer universe in which ours is built has the same rules and limitations. Also because they can’t wrap their minds around our universe’s rules doesn’t mean they make no sense to higher beings. Life in conway’s game would equally produce the same wrong statement
They also identity the particular junction that seems the most likely to be an artifact of simulation if we’re in one.
A game like No Man’s Sky generates billions of planets using procedural generation with a continuous seed function that gets converted into discrete voxels for tracking stateful interactions.
The researchers are claiming that the complexity of where our universe’s seemingly continuous gravitational behaviors meet up with the behaviors of continuous probabilities converting to discrete values when being interacted with in stateful ways is incompatible with being simulated.
But completely overlook that said complexity itself may be the byproduct of simulation, in line with independent emerging approaches in how we are simulating worlds.
We are reasonably confident that mathematical limitations apply to both the inner and outer universe. However they don’t understand the mathematical limitations enough to understand how little they matter. Pi is pi everywhere - that doesn’t change anything.
There are truths we can’t prove true - again it doesn’t say anything about all the other trues we can prove.
Funny that your example is wrong. Pi isn’t always 3.14, it’s only 3.14 in euclidian worlds. We are not even sure ours is one
