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How can we test to see if we are living in a computer simulation ?


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1 hour ago, zep73 said:

Thank you! Finally someone who bothers to think it through, and you're not even a scientist! Bravo sir!

O but I was an engineer, While scientists were flying through the clouds, I was slogging through the swamp, but sometimes I wished I was flying.

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20 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

O but I was an engineer, While scientists were flying through the clouds, I was slogging through the swamp, but sometimes I wished I was flying.

You certainly have the mind of a scientist. For what it's worth.

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9 minutes ago, zep73 said:

You certainly have the mind of a scientist. For what it's worth.

That old scientific method is pretty good for solving all kinds of problems.

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On 11/27/2022 at 3:39 PM, XenoFish said:

Unless the universe is coded to prevent that. Might just be me but I see this simulation theory as being just another watchmaker fallacy.

The watchmaker analogy does not exclude evolution. I believe firmly in evolution and the lack of a deity. This is a technological subject, albeit it has some elements of creationism. But not more creationism than making a video game where the characters are intelligent.

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3 hours ago, zep73 said:

The watchmaker analogy does not exclude evolution. I believe firmly in evolution and the lack of a deity. This is a technological subject, albeit it has some elements of creationism. But not more creationism than making a video game where the characters are intelligent.

I know. Leave your favorite theory alone. I get it. 

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I’m sorry but out of everything in the world from aliens to witchcraft this by far the least of my beliefs. If artificial intelligence was ever achieved and it just woke up one day it’s a bit crazy to imagine every single aspect of life could be replicated inside a computer to imitate life on Earth or beyond as we are now sending out probes exploring other planets. It’s just to real! Walk out side and find two bricks then put your finger between them and raise the other stone and smash your finger. Does that feel simulated? I just don’t buy it.

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52 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I know. Leave your favorite theory alone. I get it. 

No not at all. I'm just trying to eliminate the creationism part of the opposition. Of all counter arguments that is the most undeserved. It's high tech.

 

34 minutes ago, Freez1 said:

I’m sorry but out of everything in the world from aliens to witchcraft this by far the least of my beliefs. If artificial intelligence was ever achieved and it just woke up one day it’s a bit crazy to imagine every single aspect of life could be replicated inside a computer to imitate life on Earth or beyond as we are now sending out probes exploring other planets. It’s just to real! Walk out side and find two bricks then put your finger between them and raise the other stone and smash your finger. Does that feel simulated? I just don’t buy it.

At first glance, I agree. But if you dig a little deeper, you'll find that our feelings and senses are subjects of attention and being hyped.

After years of investigation, and a lifetime of experience, I have come to the conclusion that consciousness arises from the ability to understand language, and that pain is just an alert that can be ignored, if something else triumphs it.

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22 minutes ago, zep73 said:

No not at all. I'm just trying to eliminate the creationism part of the opposition. Of all counter arguments that is the most undeserved. It's high tech.

In its own way implies a creator. The great supercomputer in the sky. It's just a nerds version of creationism.

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19 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

In its own way implies a creator. The great supercomputer in the sky. It's just a nerds version of creationism.

I can live with that.

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14 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

I think we are debating the simulation game,  can a sufficiently advanced  simulation have the internal consistency to provide a consistent universe?

If we stay within the bounds of a simulation,   then a gram of heart muscle or a gram of helium are only concepts in the simulation, their underlying structure could be  values in  memory locations.

A sufficiently advanced simulation would provide exactly the results you describe, replacing a gram of heart muscle in a simulation with a gram of helium might terminate the simulated organism.  Changing a simulated atom in a simulated complex chain of molecules  would produce the data you are expecting; poison. 

How much data does the simulation need to process to be convincing?  Maybe not atomic level detail for the

entire universe. An advanced simulation may use the same trick our own game simulations use, detail up close, a suggestive blur further away.

If the simulation is complex enough to simulate our universe, then it also may be fine grained enough to prevent detecting anomalies at molecular level near the observer.

For humans, how much of the universe needs fine grain structure?  I would say for arguments sake, only what we can reach.   Distant stars and galaxies do not need to be modeled in molecular detail.  They only need to obey the rule set of the simulation provides for observable outputs.

As a bonus, a simulation provides another answer to the Drake equation, where is everybody?  Maybe humans are the only object of study  in this simulation. 

Another point to ponder, if the simulation is turned off and resumes at a later point exactly where it terminated, would we in the simulation be able detect it?

 

Again, introduce some fuzzyness into your/my body - you/me are dead. I nearly went that way, next thing you see surgeon making cracks at nurses...

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9 hours ago, bmk1245 said:

Again, introduce some fuzzyness into your/my body - you/me are dead. I nearly went that way, next thing you see surgeon making cracks at nurses...

I think you are still trying to be a spectator to the simulation rather than a part of it in this thought experiment.

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14 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

I think you are still trying to be a spectator to the simulation rather than a part of it in this thought experiment.

Ok, as a thouht experiment, you don't have two legs. Your move.

 

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11 minutes ago, bmk1245 said:

Ok, as a thouht experiment, you don't have two legs. Your move.

 

Depending on the simulation I am in, I fly, I get prosthetics, or I crawl on my belly like a reptile.

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It is true, it is a simulation. That's why I went back to school and got that CompSci degree. As soon as I find the source code, I'm going to become omnipotent and omniscient, and declare myself Supreme Overlord of the multiverse.

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