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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?

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.

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.

hexthismess ,
@hexthismess@hexbear.net avatar

I don’t think it’s a simulation. If it was, I don’t think it mattered unless I had some amount of control. Which might be why the simulation idea is taking off, people lacking control over their livelihoods.

stoy ,

If we are in a simulation, I want access to my character modification screen, I have a few things to change…

Seriously though, untill we manage to manipulate the potential simulation we exist in, it makes zero difference if we are in a simulation or not.

You still gotta eat, pay bills, sleep, and other normal stuff.

Leg ,

I like to think all advents in science are simulation modifications. We managed to make rocks think and talk to us. That sounds like magic in a vacuum.

stoy ,

I don’t agree, we didn’t make rocks think, we discovered how to use special properties to make increadibly complex tools

Leg ,

Our brains are incredibly complex organic matter. The only reason we know they think is because we experience the thinking. But we’re still just mechanically complex clumps of nonthinking objects that create a thinking one.

Digestive_Biscuit ,
@Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk avatar

And at the end you get a list of statistics. Slept X days, X hours on the toilet, could have reached level 60 if only you went for job B. Spent X hours masterbating. Killed 2 people without you or anybody else even realising. Used X KG of plastic.

foggy ,

Nothing is real

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?”

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.

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 👀

doublejay1999 ,
@doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

Super fun idea which I guess came after the Civ games. And certainly after computer programming.

As plausible as any hypothesis because we are wired that way.

Brains don’t do so great trying to grasp the incomprehensible improbability of life on earth , so all these stories have fertile ground in which to grow

Apytele ,

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/fbdcceb4-89bd-473e-8a8d-c3272d40d985.jpeg

doublejay1999 ,
@doublejay1999@lemmy.world avatar

Hahaha that’s perfect !!

Apytele ,

That meme has been in my gallery waiting for its moment for a long time now!

ani ,

Bro, now this is for real tho, the whole world is meme, God just want to joke around

ultranaut ,

It’s an interesting idea but inherently impossible to prove and thus ultimately kind of a useless question for anything but entertainment. I think it’s really not much different than believing life is a very elaborate dream and you’re going to eventually wake up as a butterfly or whatever.

foggy ,

Before the AI boom I was on the fence. Like it’s not disprovable, so it doesn’t interest me.

But now we’re like… Running actual earth sims.

So yeah. Simulation confirmed. Nothing is real.

kromem , (edited )

Yeah, the speed and direction of advancement of AI definitely further shifted my perspective on the topic as well.

For me the biggest application that raises an eyebrow are the continued and expanding efforts at using AI to resurrect dead people using the data they left behind or to create digital copies of people in virtual worlds.

Is there any reason to think that trend won’t continue? As a person who is part of a generation leaving behind unprecedented amounts of data, it seems like the kind of thing we should be thinking about more.

Nothing is real.

Well, no matter if we are in a simulation or not, we already have experimental evidence confirming nothing is (mathematically) real in our universe. Spacetime itself could be but as far as we know that’s impossible to determine because of the fundamental limits on measurement below the Plank length. But all matter in it definitely isn’t ‘real.’ Which is convenient for simulation theory, as a universe filled with mathematically real matter would be effectively impossible to be a simulated one if free will also exists in it.

Cwilliams ,

We could make a religion out of this!

NoIWontPickAName ,

Mathematically, it’s the only possibility

kromem ,

It’s not the only possibility, but certainly if the universe were slightly different - such as matter being continuous and not discrete - there’d be a much stronger mathematical argument that we weren’t than there is currently.

jaykay ,
@jaykay@lemmy.zip avatar

We might as well be. I sometimes feel like I’m about to be disconnected from it. I can see, hear, smell and all but everything seems foreign like you can’t recognise it. What is a chair, what is earth, what is the universe, what is a person, how do we exist, how do we have legs, what are words. Like, you’re not trying to answer the questions it’s just bizarre to exist, and how we exist and why and all. It’s so hard to explain haha It’s a weird detachment state , an interesting experience I have a few times a year

Postmortal_Pop ,

That actually sounds a lot like disassociation which can be caused and triggered by stress and trauma. You may want to talk to someone about that.

jaykay ,
@jaykay@lemmy.zip avatar

You want to write something interesting and it turns out that you have mental problems instead. Well TIL lol

Leg ,

Go a little further, and you run into ego death. You feel like your sense of self is no longer consistent with your experience and start from scratch for a little while.

lemmylem ,

Exactly, it’s not crazy to think like that. I mean, the person who said that could be right, but still, let’s not immediately jump to conclusions by saying they have mental issues.

all-knight-party ,
@all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

It's trippy to think about. The only things we know about existence are through our own experience, so there's basically nothing about our reality that we could say proves we're not in a simulation.

By that logic it seems probable that we are in one that could be ran by any civilization only moderately further along the scale of time and technology than we are. I don't think it would change whether I thought life was worth living or not, but it would certainly be weird to imagine somebody could be watching what you're doing at any given time.

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