Proof that he’s a hostage! Blink twice if you need help, Sean! ;-)
I swear to god the last year is proof that we’re living in a simulation and the beings running it are just fucking with us now.
Did you read Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece only half-humorously arguing the same point?
It’s a cry for help
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7. Activity recorded M.Y. 2302.22467. (TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED)
The simulation theory is hilariously anthropomorphic in scope. It would take more than 10^75 atom sized computer to simulate our 10^75 atom sized observable universe.
The only way this doesn’t work is if everything outside our immediate horizon is simulated i.e., does not contain specific local information.
And even then you’re talking about a galaxy sized computer… eh.
In other words the simulation theory is the equivalent conjecture of saying that because i’ve never visited China i don’t believe it actually exists.
I don’t believe the theory, but couldn’t you save a lot of processing power by doing what game devs do: don’t compute anything until it’s observed. The vast majority (probably like 99.9%) of the universe is unobservable to us. There’s no need to simulate what a galaxy a billion light years away from us is doing until we point a telescope at it.
No, it would be pretty easy for the universe outside our solar system to be a skybox. Slow speed of light really helps with that. And it would have been pretty simple to have the universe outside LEO be a skybox up through 60 years ago; that totally saves CPU.
As far as i know though (and maybe i’m wrong) i don’t think there is a way to get more information out of a simulation than into it on an energy basis. Simulations work because they’re abstracted, but everywhere we look there is data. In other words if all the attributes of a quanta of wave-particle can be described as (x,y,z,)+N with everything N being effects of forces, fields, ect, it would take 3+N number of quanta to virtualize it - ie., it would take a computer larger than the thing you’re simulating to perfectly simulate it. Unless you’re talking about multidimensional simulations which, in that case, sure, 100 dimensional computers might be able to perfectly simulate (x,y,z)+N space in a relatively compact environment.
But there is no way terrestrial civilizations are going to have a universe simulator in a closet somewhere.
Anyway, the point being that i think the only way simulation works is an almost purely anthropogenic point of view - the reason the universe exists is because we exist. Saying that the universe is simulated and that we’re just unexpected outcomes of that - on a universe sized scale - would require almost unimaginable computing power. Skybox theories work but require humanity - it not literally yourself - to be the whole point of the simulation. And things like geology make this pretty hard pill to swallow (there’s a ton of detail in geology over millions of years).
I’ve also wondered about the question of whether a universe can simulate itself, or could only simulate something less complex than itself. As mentioned there’s the skybox thing, but also, what if it ran very slowly (like, a super slow ‘frame rate’ relative to the actual ‘speed’ of the containing universe)? Additionally could it at least be conceptually feasible that the ‘real’ universe has layers of complexity above ‘this’ one, as ours has above, say, the Sims or Half-Life?
It’s obviously anthropocentric, but I’m not sure that makes it definitely false. Hyper intelligent future beings might simulate their own evolutionary ancestors or just make up new species. At which point they are functionally no different from gods, yada yada, etc.
The funny thing about it is it does seem to be bringing back “Providence” to the order of things psychologically. It’s as if either through intuition (seeing patterns) or false association, or misplaced instinct, we can’t help but feel like there’s some ‘nudging’ going on here and there.
That is making the assumption that the universe that is running our simulation is even vaguely similar to our own in terms of how information is created, stored and manipulated. Our existence, with it’s rudimentary handful of dimensions and laughably trivial physics may be a bare-bones model… more akin to Dwarf Fortress than a faithful recreation of the “true” universe.
Our universe could be running on this “higher” universe’s equivalent of a GameBoy.
Which is fine… but undermines the idea that running a universe simulation would be trivial and inevitable for any meatspace (x,y,z) civilization in the universe as we understand it today.
In other words the “we live in a simulation” theory that’s all the rage now seems to be saying that with a billion worlds each and a billion galaxies just in the observable universe, universe simulators must be inevitable and commonplace. All i am trying to do is point out that this does not in any way follow to be true from a physical point of view. Even a solar system sized simulator will require a computer larger than a solar system to work perfectly. Unless the discovery and ability to interact with multidimensional environments is also an inevitability, meatspace civs aren’t going to be making trivial and inexpensive to run universe simulators that make simulation a logical and inevitable conclusion for our own environment.
Just as an aside it’s hilarious we’re having this argument in popular culture at the very moment we’re hitting the limits of silicon.
If we’re in a simulation, and the area outside of our observable limit is just skybox or whatever, that explains why things are going off the rails. Scientists keep finding ways to see farther into space, and at smaller objects (atoms, then quarks, then muons, then whatever comes next). At first, we were just hitting swap space, but now we’re actually bumping up against the simulation machine’s memory limits and things are starting to act all funky.
Hopefully they upgrade our VM soon when they get the server alert.
That guy needs to rot in prison
What the hell is wrong with these people? Your rules don’t apply to us because WE WON GET OVER IT?
Fuckheads.
Nothing says “We’re just regular folks like you.” more than “laws and rules don’t apply to us.”
Trump hires only the Best People [at committing felonies]