deskthority

In one word, we are just sims or NPCs living in a computer game run by gods...

I've certainly pondered on the idea that the universe is a virtual machine. What if the changes that occur at speed of light are actually changes in virtual machine variables?

Agnostics, you gotta hate them.

Admitting that you don't have an answer can require courage, and I can't find any shame in admitting that you simply don't have the answer. As for science, it's been wrong many times before, and it will be wrong again many times in the future. (Soft agnosticism; hard agnoticism doesn't make sense.)

During the past 12 months I've been reading comprehensively about the quantum physics mathematics and philosophy. In fact this simulation theory explains everything,for instance,why the speed of light is the speed of limit? It probably is due to we are living in a computer simulation, and the speed of electricity is the ultimost speed for any computer. Also as we know more about the universe we found everything seems to follow the law of mathematics precisely,why? Because this world is a program which is written following the law of mathematics...of course everything in it is mathematical...Living in a Matrix, so it's just a game...

webwit wrote: ↑Agnostics, you gotta hate them.

Good to know that I'm hated for simply admitting that I don't have an answer.

I'll leave it here http://www.simulation-argument.com/

webwit wrote: ↑Agnostics, you gotta hate them.

Gnostics, death to the heathens!

Ratfink wrote: ↑Good to know that I'm hated for simply admitting that I don't have an answer.

Spoiler:

Especially good because I always feel like everyone hates me unconditionally.

that is exactly how 99% of the world feel, man.

Yawn.
380 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

kbdfr wrote: ↑Cogito ergo sum

Who is 'I' and does 'I' really 'think'? Invalid assumptions are being made here.

'I' is the entity thinking, so yes, it is really thinking.
What the process of thinking is, is a rather irrelevant question - if your fear is you can't observe the true answer.
It doesn't answer who you are or why you are, only that you are. I think it is a sufficiant answer for this threat, and everything past kbdfr's post is spam

Descartes' out-dated philosophy has nothing to do with the simulation theory, but Descartes was unquestionably one of the greatest philosophers ever lived. He believed human beings were entities but more spiritual ones than physical ones.But are we entities? 1 in 1 millionth chance according to Elon Musk.

This guy may believe he were a real person living in a real world...

Humorous. I watched it hoping that it would get better, but it only got worse.

My favorite? Near the end: "Does Australia exist if you're not there?"

And, at the very end, when the narrator referred to the program as a "mind-felch"

There is a germ of an idea there that is interesting, I will admit. And the whole foundation of the God-based Western religions, and others, is that there is a "real" spiritual world that we can just barely perceive, if at all, while the "physical world" that we think that we live in is illusory.

it's a theory, as valid as any other that involves a soul or a god or nothing at all.

A theory can be more valid than some other theories if it has specific predictions and if it stands tests that potentially falsify its possibility. If a theory predicts well, and everyone can replicate its predictions, its a solid theory. If someone doesn't know the theory but when following your instructions can still find results that are predicted by the theory, it is an objectively valid theory.
There are otherwise many pseudoscience theories and many philosophical metaphysical theories that cannot be falsified or do not present a chance to be falsified.

Elon Musk... Hm....
Oh but..! Poor Johnny Depp.
Better read the papers from the link.

We are talking about a very abstract, philosophical and also religious concept here. I hardly believe there's one theory better than another in this regard. Actually I believe that the simulation theory has a higher % of being valid than a human soul.

matt3o wrote: ↑
Actually I believe that the simulation theory has a higher % of being valid than a human soul.

The Hebrew God is absurd and Western religions are a colossal "fail" but perhaps the biggest stumbling block with the god-concept is the conundrum of "non-god" existence.

If the underlying concept is that "everything is just one thing" then the notion of "sub-assemblies" starts to make some sense.

Agnostics are just people who seek to upgrade an outdated but apparently needed god and replace it with another ridiculous theory.

It is not an open view to science and what hasn't been discovered yet. In science you can prove a theory, and then someone else can break it and upgrade it, and you're nearer to the truth, one step back, two steps forward. In religion, you believe in something which cannot be proven nor unproven. The moon is made of cheese. Have you been there?

Of course, there's also a side of science where you can come up with crazy ideas, throw them at a wall, and see if they stick. No problem. Concerning this theory, the stickiness is pretty low because to run a toy universe the god needs the entire energy content of the universe in the granularity as we observe it. Some premise. I think then you need to bring a little bit more to the table.

The only thing agnostics prove is that people still look into the night sky, and want something to explain the yet unexplained to their glorified ape brains. Nothing much has changed. Long ago, there probably was an agnostic who had the idea that thunder was created by a god with a hammer. In a thousand years, SimUniverse will look similarly contemporary.

Here's how to spot an agnostic theory, and how any of those are not different from old religions: Is it about some god being and is about how it created something where us humans play a central role? Pretty egocentric. SimUniverse fail.

webwit wrote: ↑Agnostics are just people who seek to upgrade an outdated but apparently needed god and replace it with another ridiculous theory.

Mind your over-generalizations. I don't seek to upgrade or replace anything, I just don't have a clue what's going on and don't claim to have an answer. Do you call that a ridiculous theory? I don't even see how it's a theory, let alone ridiculous.

EDIT: corrected a typo

Ratfink, if you are talking about the video in the OP, the video even states it can't be disproven. As long as the boundries of the simulation look like some sort of limitation in physics and not like a bug, you can't take it as a prove for a simulation either.
So there is no proof and no disprove for it, that makes it a ridiculous theory.

The one interesting thought I took from the video is, if mankind can make such a high-quality simulation with AIs and descend scope, will we do it? I say it has a good chance. The first few thousands of those simulations will be much more basic, though. (you need ridiculous amount of memory and ridiculous amount of parallel processing for our little planet alone. And from our perspective of software engineering, it is unbelievably well built.)

God, deity, supreme being, higher form of existence, whatever you call it doesn't matter, to ants we are gods, we are virtually almighty and unthinkable, I think there is a higher form of existence makes us look like ants.

Religion usually can't be proved by science, in fact it's usually disproved by science, some times some religious folks become hateful towards those...scientific hectics. I don't think it's proper that simulation theory should be categorized into one of the religious theories,because it somewhat backs quantum physics up and vice versa.

I simply don't care. If there is a higher power it's an asshole anyways.

The asshole who invented child brain cancer.

Mr.Nobody wrote: ↑I think there is a higher form of existence makes us look like ants.

How nice for you. I think the moon is made of cheese.

A higher form of existence is not equal to a god of creation, and is a different discussion. We did not create ants.

@ohaimark
Becareful @ Ray
The cellphone you are using now is more powerful than the mainframes in early 80s, if you could bring it back to 80s, people would be appalled by this ridiculously powerful gadget, who knows what a computer will be like in another 30 years...I don 't there is any technical barrier to simulate a universe eventually, and the supreme beings(for the sake of convenience,we just call them gods hereafter) may already procure the technologies powerful and cheap enough to run a simulation like this.

webwit wrote: ↑The asshole who invented child brain cancer.

Mr.Nobody wrote: ↑I think there is a higher form of existence makes us look like ants.

How nice for you. I think the moon is made of cheese.

A higher form of existence is not equal to a god of creation, and is a different discussion. We did not create ants.

But we are unimaginably powerful than ants and to ants we seem omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, and if you run an ant colony simulation in your computer or cellphone then you become the creator of them and you become their God.

webwit wrote: ↑The asshole who invented child brain cancer.

Funny, I thought that nuclear testing and power production, plasticisers, pesticides and such like had more to do with it.

webwit wrote: ↑Concerning this theory, the stickiness is pretty low because to run a toy universe the god needs the entire energy content of the universe in the granularity as we observe it. Some premise. I think then you need to bring a little bit more to the table.

it is called a "simulation". We don't know what gravity is, we hypothesize the existence of gravitons but we can safely run a 100% reliable simulation without having a clue of what they are.

That notion is generally dismissed, due to the granularity we observe, and it is faultless. If it is a simulation, that granularity is deemed to be the "simulation", not an even "smarter" program that saves a lot of energy by smart algorithms to "trick" us. That would introduce the proverbial glitches in the matrix. It is an even wilder theory, and not the one in the OP.

I won't be careful, but thanks.

I didn't ask to exist. I do, so I enjoy my existence. That doesn't make the hypothetical simulation originator any less of a dickwad. The use of sentient beings as involuntary guinea pigs for some unknown research thesis would unequivocally make that originator unappealing to me.

I do like this part of throw-something-at-a-wall science though. Sometimes truly interesting, sometimes just sci-fi good for an entertaining Rick&Morty episode.

I like the holographic universe theory, which is well known. If I'm correct it is getting less relevant because of our growing understanding of light, quantum physics and measuring, and because it follows the collapsing universe theory while the ever expanding universe is on the rise. I also like the walking tree and the bubble universes theories.

Just make your life easier, pick a religion and follow it. Peacefully, please.