Absolutely - the simulation hypothesis is basically identical to belief in God, you’ve got an omnipotent being that exists outside the universe (God or the creators of the simulation) and created it. Any of the supernatural elements are totally possible when something that exists outside the universe can change its rules arbitrarily. The only difference is whether the omnipotent being wants you to covet your neighbours ox.
Extend this to Roko’s Basilisk and it’s even more similar - instead of getting tortured in hell for eternity for coveting the ox you get tortured in cyberspace for eternity for not working on the AI.
Arguments about God had come to a stall, when all sides of a debate agreed that a hypothesis of God is not falsifiable. But it is still a question whether hypothesis of a simulation is falsifiable or not.
How simulated Universe would be different from a "real" one? Some give an answer like "we couldn't know" and finish at that. But this approach is a way to lose opportunity to think. Suppose we can guess some properties of a simulation, what they would be? I'd say simulated Universe would have an informational nature. We can create informational models of real phenomena. But our models tend to have limitations brought to simplify calculations.
For example, we limit precision of calculations. Probably these can be detected from inside of a model.
We tend to resort to stochastic models in some cases. And quantum mechanics sees a lot of stochastic.
Physicists tend to talk about information like it is a real thing. I do not understand what they mean by that, maybe they just talk about logarithms of probabilities? But it looks weird... simulation like.
All this leads me to two questions:
1. Can we make some falsifiable predictions from a simulation hypothesis? Information in physics could be one of such predictions, but it is not, because we retrospectively explain it with a simulation.
2. Probabilities and information look to me as artefacts of a human mind's way to function, it is very strange that they pop up in quantum mechanics. Is it possible that they are not really real but a projection of our mind to reality?
And the explanations also don't even resolve anything. "OK, then where did God come from?" or "OK, then where did the simulation come from?". I just don't see the point.
joegibbs|2 years ago
Extend this to Roko’s Basilisk and it’s even more similar - instead of getting tortured in hell for eternity for coveting the ox you get tortured in cyberspace for eternity for not working on the AI.
ordu|2 years ago
How simulated Universe would be different from a "real" one? Some give an answer like "we couldn't know" and finish at that. But this approach is a way to lose opportunity to think. Suppose we can guess some properties of a simulation, what they would be? I'd say simulated Universe would have an informational nature. We can create informational models of real phenomena. But our models tend to have limitations brought to simplify calculations.
For example, we limit precision of calculations. Probably these can be detected from inside of a model.
We tend to resort to stochastic models in some cases. And quantum mechanics sees a lot of stochastic.
Physicists tend to talk about information like it is a real thing. I do not understand what they mean by that, maybe they just talk about logarithms of probabilities? But it looks weird... simulation like.
All this leads me to two questions:
1. Can we make some falsifiable predictions from a simulation hypothesis? Information in physics could be one of such predictions, but it is not, because we retrospectively explain it with a simulation.
2. Probabilities and information look to me as artefacts of a human mind's way to function, it is very strange that they pop up in quantum mechanics. Is it possible that they are not really real but a projection of our mind to reality?
cammil|2 years ago
dbsmith83|2 years ago
kgeist|2 years ago