'Yes, We're All Trapped in the Matrix Now' (cnn.com) 185
"As you're reading this, you're more likely than not already inside 'The Matrix'," according to a headline on the front page of CNN.com this weekend.
It linked to an opinion piece by Rizwan Virk, founder of MIT's startup incubator/accelerator program. He's now a doctoral researcher at Arizona State University, where his profile identifies him as an "entrepreneur, video game pioneer, film producer, venture capitalist, computer scientist and bestselling author." Virk's 2019 book was titled "The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are in a Video Game." In the decades since [The Matrix was released], this idea, now called the simulation hypothesis, has come to be taken more seriously by technologists, scientists and philosophers. The main reason for this shift is the stunning improvements in computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) and AI. Taking into account three developments just this year from Apple, Neuralink and OpenAI, I can now confidently state that as you are reading this article, you are more likely than not already inside a computer simulation. This is because the closer our technology gets to being able to build a fully interactive simulation like the Matrix, the more likely it is that someone has already built such a world, and we are simply inside their video game world...
In 2003, Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom imagined a "technologically mature" civilization could easily create a simulated world. The logic, then, is that if any civilization ever reaches this point, it would create not just one but a very large number of simulations (perhaps billions), each with billions of AI characters, simply by firing up more servers. With simulated worlds far outnumbering the "real" world, the likelihood that we are in a simulation would be significantly higher than not. It was this logic that prompted Elon Musk to state, a few years ago, that the chances that we are not in a simulation (i.e. that we are in base reality) was "one in billions." It's a theory that is difficult to prove — but difficult to disprove as well. Remember, the simulations would be so good that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a physical and a simulated world. Either the signals are being beamed directly into your brain, or we are simply AI characters inside the simulation...
Recent developments in Silicon Valley show that we could get to the simulation point very soon. Just this year, Apple released its Vision Pro headset — a mixed-reality (including augmented and virtual reality) device that, if you believe initial reviews (ranging from mildly positive to ecstatic), heralds the beginning of a new era of spatial computing — or the merging of digital and physical worlds... we can see a direct line to being able to render a realistic fictional world around us... Just last month, OpenAI released Sora AI, which can now generate highly realistic videos that are pretty damn difficult to distinguish from real human videos. The fact that AI can so easily fool humans visually as well as through text (and according to some, has already passed the well-known Turing Test) shows that we are not far from fully immersive worlds populated with simulated AI characters that seem (and perhaps even think they are) conscious. Already, millions of humans are chatting with AI characters, and millions of dollars are pouring into making AI characters more realistic. Some of us may be players of the game, who have forgotten that we allowed the signal to be beamed into our brain, while others, like Neo or Morpheus or Trinity in "The Matrix," may have been plugged in at birth...
The fact that we are approaching the simulation point so soon in our future means that the likelihood that we are already inside someone else's advanced simulation goes up exponentially. Like Neo, we would be unable to tell the difference between a simulated and a physical world. Perhaps the most appropriate response to that is another of Reeves' most famous lines from that now-classic sci-fi film: Woah.
The author notes that the idea of being trapped inside a video game already "had been articulated by one of the Wachowskis' heroes, science fiction author Philip K. Dick, who stated, all the way back in 1977, 'We are living in a computer programmed reality.'" A few years ago, I interviewed Dick's wife Tessa and asked her what he would have thought of "The Matrix." She said his first reaction would have been that he loved it; however, his second reaction would most likely have been to call his agent to see if he could sue the filmmakers for stealing his ideas.
It linked to an opinion piece by Rizwan Virk, founder of MIT's startup incubator/accelerator program. He's now a doctoral researcher at Arizona State University, where his profile identifies him as an "entrepreneur, video game pioneer, film producer, venture capitalist, computer scientist and bestselling author." Virk's 2019 book was titled "The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are in a Video Game." In the decades since [The Matrix was released], this idea, now called the simulation hypothesis, has come to be taken more seriously by technologists, scientists and philosophers. The main reason for this shift is the stunning improvements in computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) and AI. Taking into account three developments just this year from Apple, Neuralink and OpenAI, I can now confidently state that as you are reading this article, you are more likely than not already inside a computer simulation. This is because the closer our technology gets to being able to build a fully interactive simulation like the Matrix, the more likely it is that someone has already built such a world, and we are simply inside their video game world...
In 2003, Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom imagined a "technologically mature" civilization could easily create a simulated world. The logic, then, is that if any civilization ever reaches this point, it would create not just one but a very large number of simulations (perhaps billions), each with billions of AI characters, simply by firing up more servers. With simulated worlds far outnumbering the "real" world, the likelihood that we are in a simulation would be significantly higher than not. It was this logic that prompted Elon Musk to state, a few years ago, that the chances that we are not in a simulation (i.e. that we are in base reality) was "one in billions." It's a theory that is difficult to prove — but difficult to disprove as well. Remember, the simulations would be so good that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a physical and a simulated world. Either the signals are being beamed directly into your brain, or we are simply AI characters inside the simulation...
Recent developments in Silicon Valley show that we could get to the simulation point very soon. Just this year, Apple released its Vision Pro headset — a mixed-reality (including augmented and virtual reality) device that, if you believe initial reviews (ranging from mildly positive to ecstatic), heralds the beginning of a new era of spatial computing — or the merging of digital and physical worlds... we can see a direct line to being able to render a realistic fictional world around us... Just last month, OpenAI released Sora AI, which can now generate highly realistic videos that are pretty damn difficult to distinguish from real human videos. The fact that AI can so easily fool humans visually as well as through text (and according to some, has already passed the well-known Turing Test) shows that we are not far from fully immersive worlds populated with simulated AI characters that seem (and perhaps even think they are) conscious. Already, millions of humans are chatting with AI characters, and millions of dollars are pouring into making AI characters more realistic. Some of us may be players of the game, who have forgotten that we allowed the signal to be beamed into our brain, while others, like Neo or Morpheus or Trinity in "The Matrix," may have been plugged in at birth...
The fact that we are approaching the simulation point so soon in our future means that the likelihood that we are already inside someone else's advanced simulation goes up exponentially. Like Neo, we would be unable to tell the difference between a simulated and a physical world. Perhaps the most appropriate response to that is another of Reeves' most famous lines from that now-classic sci-fi film: Woah.
The author notes that the idea of being trapped inside a video game already "had been articulated by one of the Wachowskis' heroes, science fiction author Philip K. Dick, who stated, all the way back in 1977, 'We are living in a computer programmed reality.'" A few years ago, I interviewed Dick's wife Tessa and asked her what he would have thought of "The Matrix." She said his first reaction would have been that he loved it; however, his second reaction would most likely have been to call his agent to see if he could sue the filmmakers for stealing his ideas.
Delusional (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had a $1 for every time someone new discovered the "truth" about the underlying nature of reality since I was born.... I'd have about $12. That's about $12 than anyone should have.
Faith masked in science is still faith, and faith is the only sin.
Re: Delusional (Score:3, Informative)
Yea this kind of intellectual garbage needs to be called out. It's essentially new religions cut from scientific cloth and it's an affront to the supposed post enlightenment world we're supposed to be living in.
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Matrix Scmatricks.
Why in the universe would we need puny humanoids plugged into the Biogrid for energy generation when room temperature fusion is only ten years out?
Re: Delusional (Score:4, Insightful)
well it was 20yrs off 50yrs ago so i guess we're making progress :)
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Exactly. This is the dumbest thing I have ever read. I've lost 14 points of intelligence on my simulacrum's character sheet.
We can only hope this is an April Fool's joke.
Re: Delusional (Score:2)
Fuck April fools
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Unchallenged, unexamined faith is the only sin. Taking things on considered, experience-based faith, such as the skill of "object permanence," is quite important for your continued existence.
Re:Delusional (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why , with the apparent exception of Nick friggin Bostrom, most philosophers have shunned speculative metaphysics since more or less the 1800s. Once Physics split off into its own discipline, its apparent that frankly physicists are better equipped for it. Philosophers generally stick to what philosophy is good at, logic, ethics, phenomenology, and clarifying (but not necessarily solving) problems that arise in other fields that generate "bigger" questions.
Speaking as a philosophy grad, this kind of navel gazing with the simulation hypothesis irritates me. Its not science and smells awfully like religion with a more technological alibi. Instead of trying to prove it, maybe the smarter move is to try and disprove it. Concoct an experiment that would disprove the simulator hypothesis if its untrue. And if you cant do that, then its not science, its just silly speculation that wont tell us anything useful.
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In this case the reasoning is somewhat circular. *If* there are many simulated worlds just like ours and there is only one real world, then it's more probable that our world is simulated than it is real. That's necessarily true, because it's a tautology. The truth of the statement as a whole tells you nothing about the world we actually live in.
As usual, tech bro hype has taken some impressive (to laymen) demos and spun them into a scenario that is far beyond was is demonstrably possible. Sure we can have
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>media outlets are run by idiots
Point of clarification: they are not idiots. They are very effective at accomplishing their goals of engagement, money, and influence.
What's sad is that not first on that list of goals are items like "telling the truth" or "community health."
Stealing his ideas? How old is he anyway? (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago, I interviewed Dick's wife Tessa and asked her what he would have thought of "The Matrix." She said his first reaction would have been that he loved it; however, his second reaction would most likely have been to call his agent to see if he could sue the filmmakers for stealing his ideas.
Stealing his ideas? What a Dick, how old was he anyway?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou.
Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.
The Zhuangzi (Chinese: èZSå, historically romanized Chuang TzÅ) is an ancient Chinese text that is one of the two foundational texts of Taoism, alongside the Tao Te Ching. It was written during the late Warring States period (476-221 BC) and is named for its traditional author, Zhuang Zhou.
Re: Stealing his ideas? How old is he anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not exactly a secret that Philip K. Dick was psychotically paranoid and addicted to stimulants. He reported a lot of people to the authorities for various things, occasionally even true, though this didn't accomplish much but adding to his own file lol.
For another case, a great Polish science fiction writer named Stanislaw Lem was a great admirer of his work and even published an article titled "Philip K. Dick: Visionary among the Charlatans." Philip Dick reported him to the FBI as a communist spy trying to infiltrate American science fiction.
Plato was ahead of him (Score:2)
Contrary to popular belief, the chinese didn't invent everying:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can now confidently state that as you are reading this article, you are more likely than not already inside a computer simulation.
And I can now confidently state that as you are read this you are more likely than not already inside an entire clickbait thread devoted to a pseudo-scholarly, entirely clickbait article.
Re: Cool! (Score:2)
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter or however that quote goes.
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And I can now confidently state that as you are read this you are more likely than not already inside an entire clickbait thread devoted to a pseudo-scholarly, entirely clickbait article.
Ha. Joke's on you, I escaped the clickbait thread last week when we ran the same story claiming we're all in the Matrix.
wait...
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists: There is no god.
Also scientists: There is likely a god, and he lives in his mom's basement.
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*book plug
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Definitely cool. Hopefully Molotov Girl will show up on my next walk around the block.
Reality vs model (Score:3)
Why is it the occasionally highly bright individuals start believing the model (whatever model in whatever domain) is the reality? Is it their past success tells them that whatever they think must be correct?
Re:Reality vs model (Score:5, Insightful)
Bias expresses itself in educated people more than the uneducated ones because the educated ones can find more rational ways to justify their belief.
There was that one paper where they gave people a bunch of stats about nutrition, and everyone pretty much interpreted them correctly. But then they switched the labels for the same numbers and presented them as political ones, gun control and such, and suddenly the more educated the person was, the more "out there" their interpretations of the numbers became.
For some random schmuck, it's just god making it happen. But if you're very smart, rational and highly interested in seeing patterns, you will see patterns everywhere. And at that moment, if you want the model to be right, your brain WILL find ways to make it right.
Re:Reality vs model (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. You can literally rationalize anything. I learned how cheap it was in college.
Rationalization should only be used as a tool to interpret your non-rational intelligence. It's the thing really running the show. If there is unease in your guts, don't act on it, exercise a rational examination of it.
But x happened because y? That's why there's experimentation. That's why there's the untested hypotheses. You NEED reality to put a check on rational speculation, or you start believing that a witch weighs as much as a duck.
The people in this article, especially Musk, just want to define their own reality. It always catches up with you in the end though, if you are delusional about anything of consequence.
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"The people in this article, especially Musk, just want to define their own reality"
Musk probably visits a number of realities already in his head depending on what he's smoking/injecting that day.
Lem wrote aboute it in 1957 (Score:4, Informative)
Lem wrote about it in Star Diaries - though I do not remember if it was in 1957 or later...
Boxes of professor Corcoran...
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René Descartes wrote about this concept in 1641 [wikipedia.org]. He theorized that all that he sees, hears, and feels could really be controlled by a great deceiver. It is what leads him to the conclusion "I think, therefore I am."
yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a theory that is difficult to prove — but difficult to disprove as well.
Replace "difficult" with "impossible", and stuff this theory into the same bucket as those about invisible pink unicorns living on the far sides of stars in adjacent galaxies.
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Exactly - if its a simulation there can be no free will; if there is free will; than it isn't a simulation but merely our reality/universe. The questions of if there was an intelligent designer, or what his/her/its motivations were/are might be interesting but the answers don't determine if we are in a simulator or not.
If there is no free will; you can't discover if this is a simulator unless the designer wants you to discover that.
* Also this is 4/1 on slashdot, even though the tradition has mostly faded,
Re:yawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether there's free will or not is entirely independent on whether this is a simulation. At least for any definition of free will that isn't logically impossible.
Re:yawn (Score:4, Funny)
Kidding there are probably a billion of these books/movies.
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13th Floor was I think based on an old book called something like Simulacron 3, and there's a 70s German filming of it (which is pretty decent).
Because of course the best era to simulate is now? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the 'we are in a simulation' is that, of all the eras to mimic, why the 2020s? Is this really the best the VR writers could come up with? There are so many more interesting decades to loop us over.
Bonus points if the simulation was as we imagined things, not as they were. Why not put us into Bridgerton? Or the SCA's version of medieval? If we have to stick to history, why not loop over the dot-com era?
If you go with the matrix idea of utopias made the captives unsatisfied and such, there's still a much wider choice than the current rise of fascism etc. Unless the current negatitivity is the intentional backplot for a really interesting culminating storyline. Still, if this is a simulation, they need to fire the writers and start over.
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Maybe the result of a simulation" only takes a few minutes for whatever runs them (or they have very long life spans/time of consciousness)?
The Matrix was an on-Earth simulation run locally by robots/AI.
Non-local simulations would exist outside of our reality.
Maybe we are evolutionary studies... I don't believe this is the case, but it's an interesting thought experiment and lead to good science fiction...
Simulation or not, you get one spin on the wheel, use it well.
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If we are in a simulation, this simulation would most likely have to be completely dynamic, meaning we shape the environment through our actions. So whoever set this up, didn't pick the parameters that define the 2020s, but we got here on our own and continue to shape the simulated environment. The Sims on a realistic, global (or galactic) scale.
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But you're assuming free will . . .
I see why trolls would want to push this simulation thing.
Re:Because of course the best era to simulate is n (Score:4, Insightful)
If you were in Bridgerton you would say "why not put us in the early 21st century?"
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"Now" would be the best era to simulate if that is somehow integral to the reason the simulation is being run in the first place. To use one contemporary example of a problem, perhaps the developers are facing a climate disaster and are running billions of AI simulations to figure out a strategy to both get the population onboard with the eventual plan and figure viable out technical solutions. Or maybe they're trying to solve multiple problems in the same world and we're all just AI bots in a glorified ChatGPT. A less specific example might be that they are just trying to solve the Fermi Paradox through simulating how countless civilization models develop and deal with - or fail to deal with - various existential threats. Alternatively, what's to say this is the only era being simulated? Maybe "reality" is just one option in an MMORPG version of "Westworld", where players get to pick different eras with their own challenges and quests to undertake, and nearly everyone is just an NPC bots spun up in to populate "Early 21st Century" world? That would certainly explain why some people seem to be as dumb as rocks and/or stuck on repeat... :-)
Keep in mind that if you are in such a simulation, then you'd have no way of knowing when in your history (or "backstory") those behind the model hit "Run", or how many iterations of the model you've already been through before they hit "Reset".
It's entirely possible that we're in one of billions of simulations of an entire universe, starting pre big bang, running on hardware we can't fathom, trying to figure out if there's some method that can be utilized by the intelligence that develops inside a naturally occurring universe to stop the universe from expansion unto heat-death. This era being our present moment would mean even less than nothing in the end-run, but would still occur because it occurred "out there in reality."
Was it Greg Bear that
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Of course it's now! How could it even be "not now" right now?
The only relevance for a simulation is that our year 2024 takes more resources to simulate than year 4000 BC, and less than 4000 AD, at least if it's a simulation focused on humans with cheap algorithms for the rest of the planet.
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It's even worse. In the future, if a state-of-the-art computer can simulate perhaps a city, then a teenagers cell phone could probably run a limited simulation on his cell phone. For example, you could limit interactions with others by choosing only scenarios where you typically don't engage with others much. Since there are lots of teens with cell phones and few supercomputers, you are more likely to live alone in a teens cell phone than in a full simulation.
Think about that the next time you go to the toi
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Loop? This simulation has been running for 6000 of our years, I've been assured.
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The problem with the 'we are in a simulation' is that, of all the eras to mimic, why the 2020s?
There's another, larger problem. Every particle in the universe has numerous characteristics, like spin and charge. In order to simulate each particle, the simulation must store and evaluate those characteristics. The most efficient encoding of the characteristics of each particle requires at least one particle. So any simulation requires at least as much mass as the mass being simulated. That makes it extremely unlikely, probably infeasible, to simulate a even a portion of reality.
However, if the simu
You are assuming same rules apply in host universe (Score:3)
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The problem with the 'we are in a simulation' is that, of all the eras to mimic, why the 2020s?
There's another, larger problem. Every particle in the universe has numerous characteristics, like spin and charge. In order to simulate each particle, the simulation must store and evaluate those characteristics. The most efficient encoding of the characteristics of each particle requires at least one particle. So any simulation requires at least as much mass as the mass being simulated. That makes it extremely unlikely, probably infeasible, to simulate a even a portion of reality.
However, if the simulation isn't of reality, but merely the subjective experience of an individual in reality, that's probably feasible.
And that means that the question is not just, "why simulate the 2020s," but "why would an advanced civilization need to simulate *you*, at this place, in this time?"
Perhaps you have it backward.
Perhaps the narrative is defined, and then the simulation backfills and retcons scientific concepts on an as-needed basis during the simulation's development.
This explains and resolves paradoxes like wave/particle duality and Schroedinger's Cat. Our doing things does, in fact, create the reality because any observations at the edge of the probability-space prompt the AI to generate and map into the Range of the Real something that can be retconned into What It Always Must Have B
Would it matter? (Score:2)
How is a simulation any different than reality to the simulated? Effectively what you can see and feel is real so why would it matter if this was a simulation?
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If it's a simulation, laws will have to be approximate. You simply can't model every particle in the universe individually with a precision on the order of Planck units.
And that means, to quote a book doing the rounds at the moment, that physics does not exist and never will exist. Not at a fundamental level.
It also means that the gap between GR and QM might be hard-coded. The simplifications used might be such that a unified theory could never exist.
It wouldn't matter to the average person, sure, but it'd
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Exactly. "Reality" is simply the sum of the physical laws that allow you to exist. Whether those laws are created inside a computer or something else is irrelevant from your POV.
He is a pseudoscience peddler (Score:3, Informative)
"Cannot disprove" argument (Score:5, Interesting)
By that line of thought, you can accept any absurdity, such as the existence of god. Unless we find some "glitches" in the Matrix (like déja vu was in the movie) that cannot be explained by our current understanding of physical laws, and that somehow can be best explained by the simulation hypothesis, this is just cheap sci-fi. Extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence.
Besides, as Feynman (IIRC) observed, the most amazing thing about the universe is how few laws actually govern it. We can reduce pretty much our entire lives to gravity and electromagnetism, and together with the nuclear forces this has run the universe for billions of years, with no exception ever registered, and we've been looking. If this is a simulation, it must be really well programmed...
Re: "Cannot disprove" argument (Score:4, Interesting)
you might not have been paying attention for a while, but there's things called dark matter and dark energy, which pretty much by definition are registered exceptions, and kind of a big deal...
Plank length (Score:2)
The universe seems to have a limit to its fine detail resolution. I don't believe in the simulation theory but for someone who does this could indicate a hard limit of the simulator.
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By that line of thought, you can accept any absurdity, such as the existence of god. Unless we find some "glitches" in the Matrix (like déja vu was in the movie) that cannot be explained by our current understanding of physical laws, and that somehow can be best explained by the simulation hypothesis, this is just cheap sci-fi. Extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence.
Besides, as Feynman (IIRC) observed, the most amazing thing about the universe is how few laws actually govern it. We can reduce pretty much our entire lives to gravity and electromagnetism, and together with the nuclear forces this has run the universe for billions of years, with no exception ever registered, and we've been looking. If this is a simulation, it must be really well programmed...
Or the error correction and memory updates are next-level great. I mean, if we're going to spin fantastic yarns, let's spin fantastic yarns.
Maybe the simulation is set up in such a way that if a law of physics as simulated seems to be reported as broken by the intelligence within the simulation, error correction seeks those reports, investigates, and corrects the error before the error can be systematically studied by the other intelligences within the simulation. It'd be a great way to avoid throwing unnec
Someone has never studied philosophy... (Score:3)
I'm a bit bemused by the idea that philosophers are starting to take the idea we are trapped in a simulation seriously. The "trapped in a simulation" is just a contemporary gloss on philosophical discussions that are covered in almost every philosophy 101. Descartes famous "I think therefore I am" (written in the early 17th century) arose from a discussion of essentially whether he was trapped in a simulation (although lacking the language of computers, he just supposed a "daemon" had created a false consciousness). That was undoubtedly inspired by the allegory of Plato's cave (circa 375), which also supposes someone trapped in a false reality (in the form of shadow projections). I'm sure you find more contemporary philosophers using the "trapped in a simulation" language these days because the "hot new thing" is what gets the attention of publishers and tenure committees, but it's not like it's anything new or unique in philosophy.
As for scientists, I'm skeptical this theory is capable of scientific study (except to the extent we want to study simulation design). A core principle of scientific inquiry is that the idea must be falsifiable. That the world as we know it is a simulation is not falsifiable unless someone could fist escape the simulation (either physically or by communicating with the world outside). Unless and until that happens, it's not really a subject of scientific inquiry so much as hype and speculation.
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It does, however, explain why we never hear from the dead. I mean, who would return to this shitshow?
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I am personally dismayed that he even fail to acknowledge. "I think therefore I am" has to be the most famous philosophical quote in history.
But as I searched a bit, I stopped to worry -- it's not bad faith, just lack of education: Rizwan Virk is not a learned scholar, he's a successful entrepreneur who is now writing books. In the introductory chapter of his book https://www.amazon.com/Simulat... [amazon.com] , he tells his story as a child, he would go to a pizza place, watch older kids play Donkey Kong, and later cre
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It would indeed be falsifiable. Remember, QM predicts that the universe is filled with quantum foam on the order of Planck scale, and also predicts that interactions can operate over any distance (although information itself cannot move faster than light).
This is, essentially, not computable on any architecture whatsoever. You'd have to have simplifications. And that means GR and QM cannot be unified if we live in a simulation. GR would be a deliberate simplification to avoid having to do an impossible numb
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Still not falsifiable because if we cannot participate in the "real" universe we have no idea what rules do or do not exist in it. You are assuming a universe much like our own running on computing devices as we know them. But the "simulation" could exist in a universe where none of the rules that are observable in this universe exist.
I'd like a word with the manager (Score:2)
Re:I'd like a word with the manager (Score:4, Funny)
I know. Who TF programmed in explosive diarrhea? Is this some undergrad's psychology project?
Not the only answer (Score:2)
For example, the whole of reality might be a complex fractal, with people and consciousness being fractals as well. No simulation, everything is maths. This theory could be as truthful of untruthful as a simulation theory.
Need for sleep disproves the theory (Score:2)
Because as everyone knows, the purpose of sleep is to do GC, and when that is needed you must of course shut down all input, all output except fan noise, and terminate all running applications. Obviously.
It's a theory that is difficult to prove (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a theory that is difficult to prove — but difficult to disprove as well.
Yes it's called a religion.
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The thing about the hypothesis is that you have to decide which of these is most likely:
a. it is not possible to simulate a reality
b. it is, but those who could would decide not to
c. it is and they would, but "they" is in fact us and we're not there yet
d. the simulations are up and running and we live in one of them
It *is* April 1st. (Score:3)
All my thoughts and prayers are with humanity as I hopefully expect this to be an April Fool's joke.
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All my thoughts and prayers are with humanity as I hopefully expect this to be an April Fool's joke.
Thoughts and prayers are for gunshot wounds. They're not used to treat stupid.
That's ONE possibility (Score:2)
AFAIK, there's no way to test the hypothesis. There are lots of ideas that are (or can be) consistent with everything we know, and are impossible to test. E.g., my favorite interpretation of quantum theory is the EWG multi-world interpretation, but one of the other interpretations could be more accurate...in ways we can't test.
(OTOH, and speaking of ideas that can't be tested, I prefer an extension of the multi-world interpretation where we also have multiple pasts, and where some of the futures from one
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If Professor Penrose is correct about the nature of consciousness, then Many Worlds cannot be correct.
If quantum uncertainty in position applies to spacetime and not just space, then Many Worlds would require that particles can experience interactions that don't actually occur in the timeline of the observer.
Many Worlds is mandatory if (a) information must be conserved, (b) superposition is information and not just potential information, and (c) the universe along any given path is an open system. But if it
Worse than reddit (Score:2)
Oh boy! Some BS pseudo science with an Elon quote. The double whammy of bro-science dumbfuckery.
This was pushed on this site by an editor? Well, he should quit wasting our time with this trash.
Not a logical argument (Score:2, Interesting)
> This is because the closer our technology gets to being able to build a fully interactive simulation like the Matrix, the more likely it is that someone has already built such a world
If we're in a simulation, then "the closer our technology gets" does not make us more likely to be in a simulation. If we assume we're in a simulation, then we're just building technology in a simulation, to make a simulation. But we've already assumed we're in a simulation, so the technological advancement within that sim
Re: (Score:2)
Specifically in this case, a highly intelligent being *could* create an extremely-realistic simulation of life. But the amount of energy, cost, time, complexity, etc. limit the number of simulations that reasonably could be created. So assuming that billions and billions of simulations would be created (just because they could) is a fallacy, and hence the idea that therefore our '
Simulation Theory (Score:2)
There's a few constraints.
Simulation theory REQUIRES a quantised spacetime, as no computer can record numbers with infinite precision, regardless of how it is made or the type of technology used.
Simulation theory ALSO REQUIRES that solutions be approximate, since the computational complexity of systems rises exponentially. At the finest levels, then, practice should not agree with any consistent theory.
Finally, Simulation theory ALSO REQUIRES that Professor Penrose is wrong about the origins of consciousnes
Acid back on the academic menu? (Score:2)
Sure sounds like it. ... It does fit the current wokeness fad too.
Re: (Score:2)
"Woke" simply means you're not ignoring reality. And nothing more. If you're a geek who is ignoring reality, then I want your geek card.
Conway's life simulating conway's life (Score:3)
It sure has been a long way from glider to this, behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Beliefs belong in the church (Score:2)
This is nothing but religion, but modern.
Difficult to prove - how convenient?
It's science's job to prove things, if it's theoretical it might as well be theological.
Having theories is fine and well, sometimes it will work out on paper or in a simulation, that doesn't make it real.
It would be easy (Score:4, Informative)
We don't have to simulate an massive universe with resolution down to the Plank scale that is filled with billions of AI characters. All we have to do is simulate what YOU experience. This is considerably more finite and doesn't really require a gigantic amount of compute power. There's a name for this, it is called "Solipsism" and there are several variants.
Epistemological Solipsism states that "one cannot also be certain as to what extent the external world exists independently of one's mind. For instance, it may be that a God-like being controls the sensations received by mind, making it appear as if there is an external world when most of it (excluding the God-like being and oneself) is false."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
From the: too many drugs in SV dept. (Score:2)
Religion For The Unreligious (Score:2)
Re: Religion For The Unreligious (Score:2)
What is the chance that we are inside (Score:2)
The change over date (Score:2)
Most scholars agree that the Harambe incident was when humanity changed to a simulation.
Bunch of useless bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
Absolute jerkoffs.
Re: (Score:2)
Space, time, matter, and possibly energy as well are thought to be emergent phenomena ultimately resulting from field interactions (with space and time emerging from particle interactions and particles resulting from field interactions).
If Prof Tegmark is correct, fields themselves emerge from maths. If string theorists are correct, fields emerge from brane interactions.
No matter who us right (if anyone), concepts like "physical" take a beating. If space and time are the result of interactions between inter
Re: (Score:2)
Maths are just languages we create as tools. The universe is under no obligation to care what frameworks we invent to understand it.
And questioning the reality of empirical nature (i.e., the reality of reality) is simply gibberish. The Scientific Method works, ergo the universe is physical. Pretending that information systems are the "really real" is just doing it wrong, and leads exactly nowhere.
This is a simulation? (Score:2)
On the one hand, I can see the entire Trump Crime Family as the output of a chatbot.
On the other, if this is the best those *running* the simulation can come up with, they get an "F".
Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 (Score:3)
Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED
It explains everything, this means: nothing (Score:3)
Seriously, as soon as you assume that we're living in a simulation you just as well may believe just in God or whatever you want. It's just another name for it. You then assume that there's an entity that knows what it is doing while you absolutely don't and never will.
Because as soon as you think that our universe is just a simulation and even our laws of nature are just made up you have to accept that whoever is running this simulation lives in a very different universe that is so different from ours that we will never be able to understand anything of it. You'll have just to bow down and accept the world you're living in because you're just a particle in it... and you can do that just as well without entertaining the thought that the world is a "simulation". It's futile and won't get you anywhere.
This is like arguing about Pluto being a planet or not. Wasting your time with this means just that you won't use that time to do anything more worthwhile. It's much more useful to try and understand the world we're living in instead of arguing over what we call it.
Maybe we really live in a simulation and the simulation is just about finding out how to better not waste your time... lol.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. And while this has only limited "money" and "power" aspects at this time, should it ever become a full-blown cult, or, worse, religion, these will soon follow.
Obviously, the whole thing is bullshit and does not matter. Explanations only matter if they provide actual insights and are based on facts and sound reasoning. Other than that, they can be entertainment, but that is it. Too bad that most people to not get that fairy-tales are not real.
That's a real flattening of PKD's Valis concept (Score:3)
..to just call it "computer programmed reality", PKD's concept was of a divine invader from the pure world breaking into our corrupted world, and being able to wrap around so that it's everything one experiences
But I'm overall distrustful of people who make comma-separated lists of titles celebrating themselves. At least he didn't put "philanthropist" on there, but maybe that wouldn't be a good look after Epstein's cozy relationship with MIT.
Occam's razor (Score:3)
This has the same problem as with belief in God. If to explain reality you need to define another reality that's at least equally as complex and then you have to explain why and how that other reality created your current reality, then it makes a lot more sense to just believe in the current reality as is.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed.
Bonus points for knowing that Occam was a monk of the "God cannot be rationally explained" wave. (Essentially, they scammed the Church into letting them actually think about things and got away with it.)
And more bonus points for seeing the connection to sound engineering. Sound engineering is _always_ of the KISS variant. Any moron can throw more and more tech at a problem. Eventually that least to catastrophic failure though.
Required energy... (Score:3)
To fully simulate a universe would require more energy and resources than it would take to just create a universe with a set of initial conditions and let it do its thing. So, we're probably not a simulation, but more like a pet universe.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah, but this is an all-powerful, all-knowing simulator that is not bound by merely human limits! (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
Quasi-religious BS is still BS.... (Score:3)
Sure, may not possible to falsify (which makes it not-Science), implausible and bullshit nonetheless. Essentially just a modified version of all the crap the theists push and that so many morons believe.
Recipe: Take some current important aspect of the world, pour some baseless mysticism and some empty promises on top and then present and praise that as the answer to the big questions. Works every time because most people cannot fact-check and do not understand plausibility.
tl;dr: There is no "insight" here to be had except that scams "explaining the world" are a business model that often works.
This again? (Score:3)
Simulation within simulation (Score:3)
If we are in a simulation and our tech is advancing so fast that we can create our own similar simulations what proof is there that we are not in a simulation in a simulation in a simulation .....
It's turtles all the way down!
Re: (Score:2)
If you were really inside a computer, you couldn't reason about that fact, at all.
Because we all know that game AI is a bunch of cheats, nothing like AGI.
How would you know that there are even such things as computers in the first place?
The knowledge would be cheated into existence, probably hard-coded.
If we are in a simulation, the fact that I know so much trivia about un-fun, non-shooty things suggests to me that we're in a buggy business suite and not a game.
Re: (Score:2)
If you were really inside a computer, you couldn't reason about that fact, at all. How would you know that there are even such things as computers in the first place? Only via the simulated input you get from yours, supposedly, so therefore anything and everything you know about the world would be 'simulated' and thus cannot be used as a basis for reasoning about it. Even the rules of logic are only revelatory to you, so there is no way for you to use them objectively.
You assume it would be impossible for a simulation to contain a version of itself. If you're going to delve into simulation theory, you have to first assume that someone "up the chain" so to speak, figured out how to simulate their own environment, or at least enough of it, to bring a universe from nothing to the moment we currently occupy inside their own machine. Perhaps in order to study the universe itself, or perhaps only to study the development of the simulation. Maybe they themselves believe they ar