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Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It's 'Very Likely' The Universe Is A Simulation (extremetech.com)

mspohr quotes a report from ExtremeTech: At the most recent Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, [scientists gathered to address the question for the year: Is the universe a computer simulation? At the debate, host and celebrity astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson argued that the probability is that we live in a computer simulation.] This is the crux of Tyson's point: if we take it as read that it is, in principle, possible to simulate a universe in some way, at some point in the future, then we have to assume that on an infinite timeline some species, somewhere, will simulate the universe. And if the universe will be perfectly, or near-perfectly, simulated at some point, then we have to examine the possibility that we live inside such a universe. And, on a truly infinite timeline, we might expect an almost infinite number of simulations to arise from an almost infinite number or civilizations -- and indeed, a sophisticated-enough simulation might be able to let its simulated denizens themselves run universal simulations, and at that point all bets are officially off."

830 comments

  1. Yes... Vwery interesting... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Funny

    Like deGrasse Tyson, "back in the day" I enjoyed LSD as well, when you could get the real thing. These days, I've dialed it down to occasional weed and red wine...

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      I recall one of the Hackers / Life Extension j/ "Is uploading possible?" people reporting on someone making that argument back somewhere between 1988 and 1992.

      (Except for the bit about denizens doing their own sims and all bets being off.)

      The argument continued with the claim that, if there is one original and many sims the probability is high that any particular instance of you is a sim rather than an original.

      (My take: What's the difference? If the (simulated or otherwise) particles interact in a way that supports life, it's life.)

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    2. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Frosty piss, good that you posted, perhaps you can answer this question we have been wanting to ask you. When did you stop beating your wife?

    3. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I remember some guy was saying that time is cubic. And slashdot had 4 days in one earth day.
      Hello, and THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING !! We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, two Major Corners and two Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which voids computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.
      Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created four simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?
      Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge four corner DNS resolving simultaneously around four quadrant created Internet - in only one root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as one god

      But seriously, I've wondered if time isn't shaped like a circle of infinite radius, so it looks like a strait line to us

    4. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Its not all so philosophically abstract as one might think initially examining the idea. All he's doing is pointing out that the raw odds that this is the "first time around" for our percieved timeline are actually infinitesimally small.

      I know what you're thinking; It does all feel so real though, doesn't it?

    5. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can still most definitely get the real thing, and it's good. Chances are you and all your friends simply aren't hip anymore.

    6. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hopefully it didn't turn you into quite as much of an unscientific idiot as it apparently did him.

    7. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Oligonicella · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, I'm thinking that anyone applying fantasy to considerations of what the "raw odds" of what reality is should back up and look for empirical evidence. Otherwise, where do unicorn farts enter into it?

    8. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by glenebob · · Score: 1

      What kind of simulation would give up empirical evidence of its simulationness?

    9. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by pdavisgenoa · · Score: 0

      Your word salad needs some dressing

    10. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by pdavisgenoa · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Some people apparently don't have enough depth to understand that. I figure they're just NPC's*. *gamer reference

    11. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Well if things which should be infinately divisable values instead show signs of discrete step values then that might be an indicator that you are in a simulator with a limited resolution, or where shortcuts might have been taken with things that would involve processor intensive math.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    12. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whatever, you fucking npc.

      The point of a perfect simulation is that it's perfect. As in... You can never know it's a simulation.

    13. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What kind of simulation would give up empirical evidence of its simulationness?

      1. Due to limited computational resources, the simulated universe would be granular or "quantum".
      2. To limit computation, reality would be held in a fuzzy probabilistic "superposition" state until it is actually observed, similar to how virtual reality skips the generation of hidden polygons.

      Both of these are actually true in our universe, ergo, we are a simulation.

    14. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But our computers AREN'T discrete. There's a nonzero chance that a 1 becomes a 0 at any voltage, and vice versa. Where's the disctritisation of random numbers when it comes to the chance for nuclear decay? If everything is discrete, how come we CANNOT get better accuracy than "about one planck thingy" ANYWHERE. A digital system, at least as far as the version of it you rely on here, gives EXACTLY 1 or EXACTLY 2 or EXACTLY 3, etc. Not because that's the minimum, but because it gives discrete absolutely accurate values.

    15. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      It feels real because I am actually a player from the outer universe that is fully immersed in this simulation.

    16. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by michelcolman · · Score: 2

      Must be some computer, though, if it can simulate our entire universe. You would think that each simulation must be a bit simpler than the previous one, as it has to "fit" inside. A computer containing all the data of a universe must be "larger" (have more entropy) than that simulated universe.

      I know they'll be using compression and last minute calculation for 'observed' events only to keep data size down, but that would be true for the universes above as well. All the actively calculated parts of our universe must be part of the actively calculated parts of the enclosing one, hence the computers need to get bigger as you travel up the chain.

      Then again, if universes are infiite anyway, maybe the higher levels are just constantly adding more computing power. I wonder how we are ever going to achieve that, in our expanding universe that has a limited amount of energy that we'll ever be able to access.

    17. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who says he stopped?

    18. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Mr0bvious · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nick Bostrom has similar thoughts (2003): http://www.simulation-argument...

      --
      Never happened. True story.
    19. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by tomalpha · · Score: 2

      So if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, it really doesnt't make a sound?

    20. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      Discrete does not imply deterministic.

    21. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not necessarily. In our universe, time is a discrete quantity so they take as much "real" time computing the next tick in the clock in ours as they want, because from our POV is still going to be a Plank unit.

      Also, you are making the mistake of generalizing our own physical laws to the "parent" universe. If there is one, we literally don't know anything about it.

    22. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Yeah it is some computer. And they haven't even turned it "on" yet. The entire universe we perceive is merely fluctuations and movements of static electricity and background noise through the circuits...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    23. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by moggie_xev · · Score: 1

      I would also limit it to a single world and not simulate all the abundance of planets we had spread to just to reduce the computational load.

    24. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If there is no one there, the tree wont fall either. So questions about it making a sound are irrelevant

    25. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And bears don't shit in the woods

    26. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a reasonable optimisation

    27. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like deGrasse Tyson, "back in the day" I enjoyed LSD as well, when you could get the real thing. These days, I've dialed it down to occasional weed and red wine...

      YOU my friend, nailed it [in my universe anyway].

    28. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Gorobei · · Score: 2

      What kind of simulation would give up empirical evidence of its simulationness?

      1. Due to limited computational resources, the simulated universe would be granular or "quantum".
      2. To limit computation, reality would be held in a fuzzy probabilistic "superposition" state until it is actually observed, similar to how virtual reality skips the generation of hidden polygons.

      Both of these are actually true in our universe, ergo, we are a simulation.

      3. It would also need an upper bound on how fast information can be transferred, again to limit the amount of computation at any point in space-time. Oh, our universe has that too.

    29. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I met you on the 13th floor.

    30. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is true, except somethings don't seem to be quantitized, like position, time increments, or velocity.

    31. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      They don't have to simulate the entire universe, just the parts we are looking at. Playing the devil's advocate here, that's why you need different laws to describe physics behavior at different scales... Different physics models are being used to simulate behavior as necessary. That saves still more computing time.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    32. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Computing pioneer Konrad Zuse's 1969 book Rechnender Raum ( Calculating Space ) proposed that the universe is a digital computer and is considered the 1st book on digital physics.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    33. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by mcgrew · · Score: 0

      But the entire universe doesn't need to be simulated, only that part of it that you, yourself experience. IOW, the moon doesn't exist unless you're looking at it.

      Oddly, when I was a teenager working at a drive-in theater there was a philosophy major I worked with who postulated exactly that. He turned his back to me and said "you don't exist." So I proved him wrong by throwing a box of popcorn at his head.

      I find it fascinating that there are those who insist that God can't possibly exist because there's no proof of him that they've been exposed to, yet believe that life MUST be somewhere other than Earth despite having no idea whatever what it took for life to start here, except that you need liquid water, and even though God can't possibly exist because there's no proof, we might be living in the Matrix.

      But if we're in the Matrix, then God does indeed exist; He must. Whoever or whatever designed, built, and programmed the computer running the simulation is God. Prove we're in the Matrix and you've proven God's existence.

      "We apologize for the inconvenience."

    34. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +5 time cube reference

    35. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by war4peace · · Score: 1

      Indeed, it does/n't make a sound.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    36. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Carl Sagan smoked a lot of dope. I don't know about Tyson. I've been saying for years that the universe as we know it behaves more like a simulation than what we would expect from a "real" universe, ever since someone told me that space and time are inherently quantized. In a real universe, all positions in space and time should be equally possible. The problem is, if it's a good enough simulation, does it make any difference? Unless we can discover flaws in the simulation that we can exploit, it doesn't real make any difference.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    37. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      the simulated universe would be granular or "quantum".

      Not with an analog computer.

      To limit computation

      It's a huge assumption based on absolutely no facts whatever that limiting computation would be necessary or even desirable.

    38. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both of these are actually true in our universe, ergo, we are a simulation.

      That's not how an if-then statement works. You're basically saying:

      if p then q
      not p
      therefore not q

      The above is a logical fallacy. The correct version is:

      if p then q
      not q
      therefore not p

      I.e. if the two properties you stated were requirements of a simulated universe, and we could see that our universe did not have those properties, then we could conclude that we are not in a simulation. Having those properties just tells us that we can't rule out the possibility that we're in a simulation (based on that information alone).

    39. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      You would make a lousy writer, artist, film maker... that's just pure laziness!

    40. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by superposed · · Score: 1

      There might also be strange coincidences, like a bunch of universal constants that just happen to create a stable universe instead of one that collapses or explodes before anything interesting happens. Or seemingly arbitrary rules such as a constant speed of propagation for light.

    41. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Due to limited computational resources, the simulated universe would be granular or "quantum".

      So would our ability to observe from inside the simulation, and therefore everything would still seem continuous to us.

    42. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Fnord666 · · Score: 1

      All the actively calculated parts of our universe must be part of the actively calculated parts of the enclosing one, hence the computers need to get bigger as you travel up the chain.

      Or the calculations just need to take more time, but since the universe is simulated anyway, the passage of time is a relative experience and unnoticeable by the denizens of the simulated universe.

      --
      'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
    43. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      All he's doing is pointing out that the raw odds that this is the "first time around" for our percieved timeline are actually infinitesimally small.

      He's assuming a timeline which extends infinitely to the past. Why would it?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    44. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two different ideas. We know life is here. Those that think it arose naturally think it probably arose naturally elsewhere, because that seems like how nature works. Those that believe God created it seem stupid not to think God also created life elsewhere, unless you really think we're such special fucking snowflakes.

    45. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

      It would be a great reason for setting the speed of light limitation to prevent travel out of the primary simulation area.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    46. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check out the other guy criticising it "word salad". These fucking kids... no grasp of slashdot history. OOG BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD.

    47. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by bytesex · · Score: 1

      But the observer is simulated as well. As is the experiment. For a simulation, it would probably be easier if proof of superposition state were impossible.

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    48. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      Let's say our universe is #0, the universe running us is #1, and the universe running that one is #2, and so on.

      Sure, #1 won't have to simulate our entire universe, just the "hot" parts we are looking at. But how much of universe #1 is being simulated on #2? Even if the computer in #2 is only evaluating the hot parts of #1, that will still include the entire computer simulating #0. The whole thing needs to be hot in order for it to be able to simulate our hot parts.

      That means the computers do get "bigger" (more entropy) as you go up the chain, since each one must at least simulate the entire computer at the level below.

    49. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      I would also limit it to a single world and not simulate all the abundance of planets we had spread to just to reduce the computational load.

      That would save you almost nothing. You only have to simulate other planets when someone is looking at them, and only to the detail that they can actually observe. Just like an OpenGL programmer doesn't draw polygons that are out of the field of view, and uses fewer/bigger polygons when the viewer is panning or zooming.

    50. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Assuming the simulation has to be run on some kind of discrete digital logic, e.g. binary, then you're right in your supposition that it should be granular or quantum. But there's no requirement that the simulation be digital: it could certainly be analog. And if it's analog then we're back to the fundamental nature of the universe itself, regardless of the "layer" of simulation you might be in at any given time.

      Ergo, you don't know, and you never will.

    51. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by GrantRobertson · · Score: 1

      You are assuming that all these nested simulations must run in real time and must be synchronized. This is not necessarily so. It is not even necessary for any one simulation to run at a constant speed. All that is required is for the activity simulated to be consistent with the passing of time AS PERCEIVED BY those in the simulation. Let's say it takes a billion clock cycles to calculate each of Microsecond X through Microsecond X+9, and it takes 10 billion clock cycles to calculate Microsecond X+10. As long as the simulation correctly simulates THE PERCEPTION of one microsecond passing for each of those eleven microseconds, then the entities inside the simulation will be none the wiser.

    52. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice word salad brah!

    53. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you think about the "Quantum Eraser/Shrodingers Cat/Quantum Teleporration/Duality Wave Experiments?

    54. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by thesupraman · · Score: 1

      I can only assume that you do not realise that all analogue computers are also 'granular'?
      Or do you think that energy states are not quantised, which is kind of the point of this whole discussion?

      (and anyway they also suffer from other issues such as noise and dynamic range problems).

      No? Try again.

    55. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      uhm, no. The transfer of energy is quantum. That does not mean that space is discrete.
      Holding state for all possibilities is actually more memory intensive... so fail again.

    56. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      That still makes it unlikely for there to be an infinite series of simulations. In our own universe, for example, we only have a limited amount of time left before we run out of usable energy. OK, it's a lot of time, but still, at some point we'll reach heat death. If the universes below us keep getting slower and slower, there will be one that doesn't get to the point of running simulations before our own universe's computer gets terminated.

      And it's a bit unlikely that there would be an infinite series of simulations enclosing us, but not enclosed by us.

      Unless our universe is just an unimportant side branch, and the chain of really infinite universes carries on via some other branch.

    57. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of simulation would give up empirical evidence of its simulationness?

      1. Due to limited computational resources, the simulated universe would be granular or "quantum".
      2. To limit computation, reality would be held in a fuzzy probabilistic "superposition" state until it is actually observed, similar to how virtual reality skips the generation of hidden polygons.

      Both of these are actually true in our universe, ergo, we are a simulation.

      Who is running the simulation?

    58. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All dogs have four legs.

      Cats have four legs.

      Therefore, cats are dogs.

    59. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously, you've created creationism. Sciencology. It's become your religion.

    60. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by alexgieg · · Score: 1

      What kind of simulation would give up empirical evidence of its simulationness?

      1. Due to limited computational resources, the simulated universe would be granular or "quantum".
      2. To limit computation, reality would be held in a fuzzy probabilistic "superposition" state until it is actually observed, similar to how virtual reality skips the generation of hidden polygons.

      Both of these are actually true in our universe, ergo, we are a simulation.

      3. It would also need an upper bound on how fast information can be transferred, again to limit the amount of computation at any point in space-time. Oh, our universe has that too.

      4. Empty space wouldn't need much in processing power and could run at full speed. In coordinates of the map with a huge amount of stuff going on, each one of those would fight for shared processing time with the others and hence the overall simulation speed would run slower there. In other words, the more mass somewhere, the slower the simulation runs there compared to empty space. And yes, our universe has that too.

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    61. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      This is a huge shortcut. It is actually very difficult to simulate quantum phenomena on a computer. You can read this highly cited paper. Also interesting is this commentary.

    62. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by catprog · · Score: 1

      To roughly quote a fanfiction.

      You should not be looking for rules that confirm your position. You should be looking for rules that disprove your position and then prove them wrong.

      --
      My Transformation Website
      Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
      Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
    63. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, that's a rather incorrect description of Quantum Mechanics.

      The universe isn't that granular at all. Yes, particles are quantums (can't have half a photon) but each and every particle has a very analog probability wave. This wave is spread out over entire universe, although it's very, very small almost everywhere. Yet we know from neutrino experiments that very, very small chances do still happen (for neutrino's, we see chances of 1E-25 happen - that's one in ten million billion billion). That's a massive amount of simulation which is almost all wasted.

      As for the information in a superposition, that actually takes more information to hold and evolve. That superposition state is anything but stable - you need to evolve all futures. Take Schrödinger's cat: you need to evolve all trillions of atoms in the cat. It literally is in all possible states of rigor mortis, at the same time. No, your simulation cannot decide up front when the cat dies. That's a "hidden variable" simulation, and we've established that there are no hidden variables involved. We can get particles to interact with the whole ensemble of states at the same time, which wouldn't work if there was only one hidden state. IOW, the amount of information is huge.

    64. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      It is actually very difficult to simulate quantum phenomena on a computer.

      Not if you use a quantum computer.

    65. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like your last caveat. Who says ours isvthe only universe?

    66. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by lucien86 · · Score: 1

      Can't use lazy computation because quantum mechanics wouldn't work. The real irony is that in the end such a simulation requires more energy than creating a real universe. :)
      People only come up with crazy ideas like this because general relativity is crazy and poisons the rest of the 'system'. If people apply pure general relativity then the universe cannot exist making the simulation argument much stronger. Impure general relativity includes an absolute FTL frame, which means it contains elements which directly contradict each other.. FTL physics is a real mess.. :)

      --
      Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
    67. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by dywolf · · Score: 1

      the answer to the complexity/simplicity question is that the computer in question exists in a higher dimension.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    68. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      There might also be strange coincidences, like a bunch of universal constants that just happen to create a stable universe instead of one that collapses or explodes before anything interesting happens. Or seemingly arbitrary rules such as a constant speed of propagation for light.

      Wouldn't the simulating universe also need these to make a simulation of another universe possible?

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    69. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      That means there will be a hell of a lot of dimensions as you travel further up the chain. And there won't be many below us.

    70. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by switchmenrepent · · Score: 1

      More like he just watched "Thirteenth Floor" (man creates virtual world, contemplates whether his reality might actually be one) which was one of those competitor movies to the Matrix in 1999, but got overlooked (along with eXistenZ, which is also similar, about being trapped in a video game and not being sure when you got back out)..

    71. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      the computers do get "bigger" (more entropy) as you go up the chain, since each one must at least simulate the entire computer at the level below.

      No. First, each simulation could be less complex, instead. Second, each simulation could simply be slower.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    72. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But if we're in the Matrix, then God does indeed exist; He must. Whoever or whatever designed, built, and programmed the computer running the simulation is God. Prove we're in the Matrix and you've proven God's existence.

      Wrong. There is no need to elevate the creator of a universal simulation to the point of a "God" any more than a person who invents whatever should be elevated to the status of a "God". We may be able to make such simulations in the not so distant future. Are we "gods"??? No.

    73. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

      The strange behavior of quantum particles and entanglement could be due to the way the simulation saves memory by not duplicating particles that do not have a separate interaction with the universe. And it only resolves when needed, when it is observed. And the quantum nature of the universe is because it is a computer simulation that has a limit to the values it can represent. And the visible edge of the universe due to light speed / CMWB could also help to limit how much processing needs to be done.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    74. Re:Yes... Vwery interesting... by peawormsworth · · Score: 1

      My take: What's the difference? If the (simulated or otherwise) particles interact in a way that supports life, it's life.

      That's exactly what a simulation would say.

    75. Re: Yes... Vwery interesting... by N3wsByt3 · · Score: 1

      Well... to be fair, we would be akin to gods to the creatures we simulated and are living in our simulation.

      We simply would not be gods to our contemporary peers in our own universe.

      --
      --- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
  2. He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    he is not a scientist.

    1. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But he is good at fooling Republicans.

    2. Re:He proves again... by meerling · · Score: 0

      We're not talking about the chicken guy, we're talking about the cosmologist & astrophysicist one. So yeah, he is a scientist.

    3. Re: He proves again... by meerling · · Score: 2

      Fooling them is easy, it's getting them to admit to reality that's a b#^&*%

    4. Re: He proves again... by DaHat · · Score: 1

      Reality? Reality is whatever people are told it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    5. Re:He proves again... by readin · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Scientists are allowed to dabble in philosophy.

      And in the realm of philosophy this is actually one of the more reasonable things he has said.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    6. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their kind is so stupid.

    7. Re: He proves again... by jxander · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This *IS* science.

      He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence. That's literally what science is.

      The only thing missing is the ability to replicate the results... but that's a tall order in this case.

      --
      This signature is false.
    8. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is a simulation.

    9. Re: He proves again... by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

      I think you would need alot of RAM. To test it. http://downloadmoreram.com/

      --
      C|N>K
    10. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This *IS* science.

      He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence. That's literally what science is.

      The only thing missing is the ability to replicate the results... but that's a tall order in this case.

      Um, doesn't a hypothesis have to be *testable* ?

    11. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most scientists sucks at philosophy, as they have no idea how well trodden certain topics are and do not know how to reason within the discipline. Neil doesn't do well, when he says anything about anything non-physics. Among physicists, Neil and Hawking have been criticized as being philosophically impoverished. It shows.

    12. Re: He proves again... by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence."

      No, he isn't. He is just making a reasoned inference.

      "The only thing missing is the ability to replicate the results..."

      Because there're no results to come with.

      Hint: keyword here is INFINITE.

    13. Re: He proves again... by tlambert · · Score: 5, Funny

      "You live in the blue state, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You live in the red state, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." -- Morpheus

    14. Re: He proves again... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 4, Interesting

      He didn't form anything. It's a very old philosophical argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality) and was made into a major motion trilogy 15 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_%28franchise%29). Also known as the simulation argument, there ave been a few philosophical papers written on it in the last few years, notably one that says odds are we are likely in a simulation that came out about ten years ago (along with he proof).

    15. Re:He proves again... by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You think? He is essentially opening the possibility of there being a creator who designed the universe to appear naturally occurring.

    16. Re: He proves again... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Real physics attempts have been made. http://news.discovery.com/spac...

      There was one experiment a few years that attempted to show that time was quantized, but it showed the opposite IIRC.

    17. Re:He proves again... by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      He is essentially opening the possibility of there being a creator who designed the universe to appear naturally occurring.

      No. He's not saying that's any more likely that a naturally occurring universe in which a naturally occurring person runs a simulation that might look just like our universe. That simulation would be a feature of a naturally occurring universe occupied by a naturally occurring simulation-running resident.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    18. Re: He proves again... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      I'm not so sure I agree. This feels a lot more like the scientific equivalent of believing in an all-powerful, all-knowing God that created the universe. Or if you rather, call it philosophy with a technical twist. The article itself all but admits that, mentioning the "Descartes approach", which is to muse about the implications of this from the top down. Philosophy, in other words.

      It seems to me like the notion that any civilization will ever have the computational horsepower to simulate an entire universe at the subatomic level is borderline absurd not in terms of theory, but in practicality, given the fact that we'll inevitably run into hard physical limitations in our own quest for greater computational power. Granted, this may not apply to a non-simulated universe whose rules differ from our own, but then you're taking the equivalent leap of faith as saying "but in a universe where magic exists...", and again, you're delving into philosophy/religion/mysticism/thought experiments at that point.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    19. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you name it?

    20. Re:He proves again... by Oligonicella · · Score: 2

      You mean the guy who didn't know that bats aren't blind?

    21. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking idiot, and the people who marked you insightful are just as cowardly.

    22. Re:He proves again... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      How, you come up with hypotheses that fit the data. Rather than presuming that religios people are all liars, why not come up with a theory that meets all the assertions? God is a programmer, and physics and such describes the in-game physics engine. It can unify more than it separates. Is that why you hate it? It's not used as a proof against God? You don't care about the truth, but you want to hate God? What did He ever do to you?

    23. Re:He proves again... by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean the guy who didn't know that bats aren't blind?

      What does that knowledge have to do with his abilities as a cosmologist & astrophysicist?

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    24. Re:He proves again... by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      tyson? it takes a tough man to make a tender universe.

      oh wait. other tyson.

      carry on.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    25. Re:He proves again... by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 0

      What did He ever do to you?

      I'm told he's best friends with the republicans. that's good enough reason to be pissed off at him.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    26. Re: He proves again... by pdavisgenoa · · Score: 0

      Uh yeah, yeah he is. There's this cool new thing called google where you can check such things before making stupid comments.

    27. Re:He proves again... by Bongo · · Score: 1

      It might be peer to peer. IOW, you're running your own simulation, or a part of it, and the Near Death Experiences people claim, are just you or they, coming out of the simulation.

    28. Re: He proves again... by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      Popper would disagree with you. Science is in the testing, not the hypothesising.

      When I speculate that maybe that car I see was made by elves in a magic underground forge, that is not science. When I dig up my neighbor's yard to find out, that is science.

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    29. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice troll. But that just proves again you're not an Anonymous Coward. Oh, right, non-sequitur.

    30. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      There was one experiment a few years that attempted to show that time was quantized, but it showed the opposite IIRC.

      If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you?

    31. Re: He proves again... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      He isn't doing anything other than saying that Nick Bostrom (who presented a proof) might be right.

    32. Re: He proves again... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2
    33. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You probably can. If the goal of the simulation was to hide it at all costs, maybe not: But that is a very seperate hypothesis.

    34. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simulation Programmer = God.

    35. Re: He proves again... by severn2j · · Score: 1

      I read a short story years ago by Stephen Baxter that did just that.. IIRC, it involved sending a tiny device (or maybe some kind of laser) to Alpha Centauri, the idea being that it required a sudden, massive increase in resources to simulate the extra space in detail that it crashed the universe..

      Hmm, isn't someone working on something similar atm..?

    36. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is essentially opening the possibility of there being a creator who designed the universe to appear naturally occurring.

      No. He's not saying that's any more likely that a naturally occurring universe in which a naturally occurring person runs a simulation that might look just like our universe. That simulation would be a feature of a naturally occurring universe occupied by a naturally occurring simulation-running resident.

      ...Even if it comes down to the denizens of said simverse themselves running yet another another simverse. At some level, there is something we call reality (or they call reality, or theother they do, or...by the way, what is reality? Define our terms, and all that).

    37. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not so sure I agree. This feels a lot more like the scientific equivalent of believing in an all-powerful, all-knowing God that created the universe. Or if you rather, call it philosophy with a technical twist. The article itself all but admits that, mentioning the "Descartes approach", which is to muse about the implications of this from the top down. Philosophy, in other words.

      It seems to me like the notion that any civilization will ever have the computational horsepower to simulate an entire universe at the subatomic level is borderline absurd not in terms of theory, but in practicality, given the fact that we'll inevitably run into hard physical limitations in our own quest for greater computational power. Granted, this may not apply to a non-simulated universe whose rules differ from our own, but then you're taking the equivalent leap of faith as saying "but in a universe where magic exists...", and again, you're delving into philosophy/religion/mysticism/thought experiments at that point.

      Good points, but if the creationists are correct, then aren't we just a simulation anyway? If they are not correct, would our inability to perceive all possible sources of information accurately (quantum level certainty being a big impediment) then simply make us a naturally occuring simulation? How could we know? ; )

    38. Re:He proves again... by ScentCone · · Score: 2

      Simulation Programmer = God

      So, you're God every time you run a simulation? Or are you just deliberately using that word out of context for some reason?

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    39. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't hate what doesn't exist, fool!

    40. Re: He proves again... by silentcoder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you?

      Why not. There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence. And quite a few of them are present in our universe. What we haven't figured out how to do is prove that a real universe wouldn't have the same characteristics.

      It's definitely a testable hypotheses. The fact that we don't know exactly HOW to do do the test yet doesn't mean it can't be tested. The mechanics of testing have nothing to do with the definition of testable. When Einstein predicted gravitational lensing we had no idea how we may test that - after all, how can you tell if the light you're looking at has been bent by gravity in the past ? Nothing on earth has enough gravity to bend light enough to measure with 1901 technology. We figured it out some ten years later - we can look at an eclipse from Jupiter which is just far enough that light is measurably delayed, and that means if there's gravitational lensing the delay should be slightly different than if the light had travelled straight. The test was done and confirmed the hypotheses* - but it was testable when first announced.
      Testable meant: "If you can show that light has bent in the presence of gravity, you can test the theory" it didn't have to mean "and here is how you determine that". It's perfectly fine to leave the HOW of testing to the reader, or future scientists who will have access to technology you don't have.

      If anything this is more testable than a lot of theoretical physics. We still have no idea how to test any of the variants of string theory. We can show they are logically consistent and the maths work - but much of it we have no idea how to test.
      Dark matter when first proposed seemed to fall clearly in the "untestable" category - how do you know something is there that doesn't interact with anything, doesn't give of any energy and cannot apparently be found ? Many scientists declared it "theory saving". Eventually though, somebody realized that if dark matter exists and has mass (and it has to have mass because it was proposed as an answer for missing mass in the first place) - then it would bend light (as per the aforementioned gravitational lensing) - and we've observed that - light being bent by a gravity source where no objects can be detected.... so it must be getting bent by objects we can not detect.

      *Ironically that test was terribly flawed, and later entirely discredited, but other more accurate tests subsequently done did confirm the hypotheses again. That too is part of science, sometimes the wrong tests can give the right answers. This is one reason we retest things and re-examine old data and old experiments. Because the test was flawed, it could have been that the hypotheses had been wrong all along, retesting with more advanced technology and avoiding the mistakes made last time would let us find out if that had been the case.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    41. Re: He proves again... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Time is quantized.
      It is called Plank time.

      You should have learned that in school.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    42. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's the difference? -PCP

    43. Re:He proves again... by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 2

      Bats aren't blind?!

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    44. Re:He proves again... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Why not?

    45. Re:He proves again... by NotAPK · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are lots of different species of bat and so it's not that surprising for them to all see by differing amounts. However, no bat is truly blind.

      From the Wikipedia page:

      ---
      Although the eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, no species is blind.[58] Microbats use vision to navigate, especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation,[59] and species that are gleaners—that is, ones that attempt to swoop down from above to ambush insects, like crickets on the ground or moths up a tree,often have eyesight about as good as a rat's. Some species have been shown to be able to detect ultraviolet light and most cave-dwelling species have developed the ability to utilize very dim light. They also have high-quality senses of smell and hearing. Bats hunt at night, reducing competition with birds, minimizing contact with certain predators, and travel large distances (up to 800 km) in their search for food.[3]

      Megabat species often have excellent eyesight as good as, if not better than, human vision. This eyesight is, unlike its microbat relations, adapted to both night and daylight vision and enables the bat to have some colour vision whereas the microbat sees in blurred shades of grey.
      ---

    46. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why not.

      Because you have no control to test against, and because the simulation may well change the rules on you without you knowing it.

      There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence.

      You can only guess at what they might be, and an intelligent computer running the simulation may catch that and alter the conditions as needed. Keep in mind, you're just a simulation as well in this example, so the computer can alter you as well. :)

      It's definitely a testable hypotheses.

      Not without a control it isn't... you have no way of knowing what any proper behavior should be, or if the simulation is adjusting the conditions on the fly...

      And I'll repeat... if this IS a simulation, then so are you, and frankly you won't be able to accomplish anything the computer doesn't want you to anyway. :)

    47. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would depend on the level of the simulation being run.

      Are you running hello kitty island adventure or an AI sim park?

    48. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      If anything this is more testable than a lot of theoretical physics.

      Just a quick follow up... you think this is testable, but you're not opening your mind wide enough...

      Ask yourself, how long have you been here? How long has this world been here?

      Thousands of years? Millions of years? Billions?

      What if it has been here for 2 hours? Perhaps the goal is to simulate 1 year, over and over, with various start points.

      Without admin rights and uptime counter, you don't actually know how long you've been here. It is completely untestable unless the simulation wants you to be able to test it.

    49. Re: He proves again... by dargaud · · Score: 1

      I don't remember where to find this, but there's an argument about the energy level of the vacuum. Depending on if you compute it from quantum physics first principles or from relativity (?) first principles, you get 120 orders of magnitude of difference (!!!) which amusingly somebody compared with the volume of space compared to only the volume of stars and planets (in other words, everything including empty space vs just the interesting stuff). So it could well correspond to a simulation where they only simulate the interesting bits to save on computation power...

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    50. Re: He proves again... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2
      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    51. Re: He proves again... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      That's not a proof.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    52. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Church, Turing, and Godel have shown that no model can be truly complete - so there will always be a "tell" in a simulation somewhere.

      Unless you can get "out" of that framework entirely I suppose so that our idea of maths as well as our idea of physics has some gaps, well hidden by the higher system. (See also "Luminous" by Greg Egan.)

    53. Re: He proves again... by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      They didn't show any such thing. Church, Turing and Godel 'merely' showed that no (complex enough) system can prove all things that are true in the system. This has no relevance to the qualities of a simulation.

    54. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are a moron.

    55. Re:He proves again... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Apologetics usually breaks down into two steps:
      1. Arguments that there is some God-like creator intelligence, or possibly multiple intelligences.
      2. Arguments that this vaguely-defined entity is the same as the one worshipped by a specific religion.

      This field can, at best, get you half-way to a religion.

    56. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go back to Alaska, Sarah

    57. Re: He proves again... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      To be fair, he's just repeating The Simulation Argument. There is some suggestive data from the Polish gravity wave experiment. There is noise below 10^-27, when there shouldn't be down to the Plank length. The trick is, to simulate our laws of physics, nothing between 10^-27 and h is significant. Anybody who's ever implemented a hidden-line-removal algorithm understands the simple efficiency hack of not calculating the unseeable.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    58. Re:He proves again... by gtall · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Many scientists strike me as movie stars, because they are good at one thingy, they somehow have convinced themselves they are good at many others. Philosophy seems to present itself as a hot date to them. They have visions of bringing their striking insight to amaze the hot date with their otherworldly depth. From the hot date's point of view, there's very little the hot date hasn't run into several times before and is quite bored with the scientist and the new "insight".

    59. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To paraphrase a quote with multiple attributes:

        'A PhD is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.'

      I would expect your average person who's spent anytime at all watching Discovery or Animal Planet or National Geographic, would know that bats aren't blind. No PhD required.

      As I've said before, when the shit hits the fan, people like Tyson will be some of the first to starve because they don't have any common sense.

    60. Re:He proves again... by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      Scientists tend to suck at philosophy because philosophy often needlessly treads on pointless grounds like this exercise. Yes we could all be simulations. Good scientists and good philosophers know it doesn't matter. Most philosophy is horseshit. There is nothing more aggravating than having a philosopher interrupt your scientific argument to lend his two cents as if his opinion means anything.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    61. Re: He proves again... by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      This is not science. An extrapolation of the so-called evidence to this degree is pure philosophy. You might as well call Ancient Aliens "science" based on your definition.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    62. Re:He proves again... by zrq · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, you're God every time you run a simulation?

      Yes. To the entities inside the simulation you are, to all intents and purposes, their God.

      • * You created their universe
      • * You created them, or you initiated the processes that resulted in them being created
      • * You know everything about their universe
      • * You know how and why their universe was created
      • * You know how and when their universe will end
      • * If you choose to, you can change the course of the simulation to benefit them in some specific way
      • * If you choose to, you can change the course of the simulation to terminate their participation

      That pretty much fits the job title of "Omnipotent entity that caused and controls everything", aka God.

    63. Re:He proves again... by Sperbels · · Score: 1

      Okay. All budding astrophysicists take note of this; it's going to be on the test.

    64. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. A creator God whose power over said universe doesn't have any apparent bounds from the POV of the simulated. Likely running too fast for him to take note of individuals or even rise and fall of civilizations. Might just be interested in physics data. A non-omniscient alien god, if you will.

    65. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe there is no reality. Maybe the bottom level is a simulation in the mind of God.

    66. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 2

      notably one that says odds are we are likely in a simulation that came out about ten years ago (along with he proof).

      Remind me, what does "proof" mean again in philosophy?

    67. Re: He proves again... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It's completely relevant if it turns out to be true. You know people exploit VMs and break out of them all the time, right? Don't tell me you don't want to hack reality.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    68. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Says the guy who can't spell Planck.

    69. Re: He proves again... by naasking · · Score: 2

      Remind me, what does "proof" mean again in philosophy?

      The same thing it means in every other discipline: a logical argument proceeding from assumptions to conclusions. Bostrom's simulation argument is a very convincing proof, and I highly recommend reading it. Abstract:

      This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

      Basically, if you accept the proposition that humans will continue to exist long into the future, and you accept that future humans have just as much interest in simulating their ancestors as we have in simulating our ancestors, then we are almost certainly living in a simulation.

    70. Re:He proves again... by genner · · Score: 1

      So, you're God every time you run a simulation?

      Yes. To the entities inside the simulation you are, to all intents and purposes, their God.

      • * You created their universe
      • * You created them, or you initiated the processes that resulted in them being created
      • * You know everything about their universe
      • * You know how and why their universe was created
      • * You know how and when their universe will end
      • * If you choose to, you can change the course of the simulation to benefit them in some specific way
      • * If you choose to, you can change the course of the simulation to terminate their participation

      That pretty much fits the job title of "Omnipotent entity that caused and controls everything", aka God.

      Omnipotent except for the bugs.

    71. Re:He proves again... by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      The difference is there's no magic involved.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    72. Re:He proves again... by GovCheese · · Score: 1

      If you argue that it's true, I'll posit that the simulation has been hacked by a 4chan universe of malign trollers and I for one am tired of it and by god it's time to get the firewall working again.

      --
      "He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
    73. Re:He proves again... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      GP probably meant 'God' in a monotheistic sense, i.e. as a proper noun.

      Easy mistake to make.

    74. Re: He proves again... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      Rabbits are rather practical animals. They aren't going to burrow deeper than they need. I looked in the field out behind our house, and rabbit holes aren't very deep at all.

    75. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 2
      I can already tell you it's not a convincing proof because it's not a proof. A huge gaping flaw is the absence of a measure by which we can compute likelihood. It may not only be missing, it may be mathematically impossible to compute likelihood (say if number of universes with sentient life exceeds the cardinality of the real numbers).

      Basically, if you accept the proposition that humans will continue to exist long into the future, and you accept that future humans have just as much interest in simulating their ancestors as we have in simulating our ancestors, then we are almost certainly living in a simulation.

      No, it doesn't follow. You still don't know how many universes have humans naturally appear in them in the first place. You also implicitly assume that the only means for sentience to create new universes is via a particular form of simulation.

      Such assertions can never be right or wrong, much less "proved", until we know a lot more about what could be and the origins of our universe than we do.

    76. Re: He proves again... by yuriklastalov · · Score: 1

      I want to get off Mr. Bone's Wild Ride...

    77. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fortunately my South American coffee with the cocaine added accidentally by the distribution chain had already passed by my nasal cavities when I read this.

    78. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      reason within the discipline

      ??? Really? Since when has reason had anything to do with philosophy? Philosophy is navel-gazing. I thought everyone knew that?

    79. Re: He proves again... by naasking · · Score: 1

      I can already tell you it's not a convincing proof because it's not a proof. A huge gaping flaw is the absence of a measure by which we can compute likelihood.

      Irrelevant. Quantifying the precise probability isn't relevant to this type of proof. The proof is an case analysis of an equation based on unknown parameters. The result is undeniable. You simply must accept one of the three cases Bostrom lays out.

      It may not only be missing, it may be mathematically impossible to compute likelihood (say if number of universes with sentient life exceeds the cardinality of the real numbers).

      Irrelevant. Plenty of proofs rely on incomputable quantities, like Kolmogorov complexity. For instance, this is why we utilize oracles to explore super-Turing computation.

      No, it doesn't follow. You still don't know how many universes have humans naturally appear in them in the first place.

      Irrelevant. Only the universes in which they do appear need to be considered.

      You also implicitly assume that the only means for sentience to create new universes is via a particular form of simulation.

      What does that even mean? A simulation belongs to an equivalence class. No assumptions are made about the equivalence class of any simulation.

    80. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Philosophers are bad at philosophy. The entire discipline is an echo chamber.

    81. Re:He proves again... by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      My God, the moderation in the MS thread was so bad I thought MS bribed /., but the moderations in this thread are just as stupid. A guy who's not even logged in gets modded up to a 4 for saying Tyson, who holds a PhD in astrophysics isn't a scientist??

      WTF????

    82. Re: He proves again... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Frank Herbert wrote Looking for Something? in 1952. It has a simulated reality.

      Yeah, the Herbert who wrote "Dune". The short story linked is in the public domain.

    83. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 2

      Irrelevant. Quantifying the precise probability isn't relevant to this type of proof.

      Which is patently false. I decree that the set of universes which are simulations in the sense of Tyson have measure zero. Therefore, it is a zero probability that the current universe is a simulation.

      The proof is an case analysis of an equation based on unknown parameters.

      How many unknown parameters? Even if we were to assume existence of that "equation", a large number of unknown parameters destroys our ability to say anything about the system. If you have aleph_2 unknown parameters, then you don't have the means to evaluate.

      Irrelevant. Plenty of proofs rely on incomputable quantities, like Kolmogorov complexity. For instance, this is why we utilize oracles to explore super-Turing computation.

      I didn't say computationally impossible, I said mathematically impossible. It's a whole different level. There are no computational oracles for such.

      It's educational to see what impossibilities you get when you assume such an oracle exists and probability measures on your space of universes satisfy any sort of nontrivial, but infinite dimensional transformation rules of non-zero probability sets to non-zero probability sets on such a space. One can construct an infinite probability set say by transforming along those infinite dimensions to get an infinite number of set all bounded away from zero probability by the same common bound and with no common overlap.

      You also implicitly assume that the only means for sentience to create new universes is via a particular form of simulation.

      What does that even mean? A simulation belongs to an equivalence class. No assumptions are made about the equivalence class of any simulation.

      Another indication we're solidly in "not even wrong" territory. It's not my job to define things which can't be defined. And contrary to your assertion there is a huge implicit assumption here which I've been going on about for a while. Namely, that a probability measure exists in the first place. One can't speak of likelihood without that. Nor do we have even a remote clue what your "equivalence class" is supposed to mean.

    84. Re:He proves again... by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Not really. There's no available evidence either way, so assuming it either is or is not a simulation is equally parsimonious. There are some features of the observable universe that could most easily be explained if it were a simulation, and had been simplified in places, but then you get the problem of the containing universe.

      OTOH, the idea isn't original with him (or at least he isn't the first to publish). And the evidence in favor isn't sufficient that Occam's razor would say it's the reasonable assumption. But the ONLY argument against it is the argument from incredulity, which is a pretty weak argument. (Yeah, I don't believe it either. Now try to prove it.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    85. Re:He proves again... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I'm told he's best friends with the republicans.

      You're told lies. Republicans worship the ancient Greek god Plutus. Everything the Republicans say is contrary to what Jesus said.

      The conservatives 2000 years ago executed him for being a progressive.

      Taxes? Jesus said pay 'em. The poor? Republicans hate them. I doubt you'll find many Republicans in heaven, even those who think they're Christian. "The love of money is the root of all evil."

    86. Re: He proves again... by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      Oh not this nonsense again. Have a go: http://philsci-archive.pitt.ed...

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
    87. Re: He proves again... by Place+a+name+here · · Score: 1
      There are two problems. First, there's a very real risk of begging the question by conditioning on the universe you're in. Suppose, say, our universe was completely analog (no quantum mechanics) down to the point where it'd be possible do mathematical operations on arbitrary precision reals in constant time. Then it might very well be so that our simulations would inherit that property, i.e. we wouldn't expect that a simulation would be quantized either. Thus the argument that "we see quantization in our universe, which is a feature of our simulations, therefore our universe may be simulated" may reduce to "given that our universe is quantized, our simulations are quantized as well, but if our universe had been non-quantized, our simulations would also have been non-quantized". If so, then whether or not our universe is quantized tells us nothing about whether it is a simulation. All it does is give us some belief that, if we indeed are in a simulation, the "parent" universe will likely also be quantized.

      Second, if this universe is a simulation, it can be tinkered with in any manner. Metaphorically speaking, if God is omnipotent, he can make himself invisible to any test if he wants to, up to and including rewriting our memories or restoring from a backup.

    88. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Especially when he has routinely stated that he isn't a biologist.

    89. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Of course, the concept isn't new:

      'It exists!' he cried.

      'No,' said O'Brien.

      He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall.
      O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling
      away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame.
      O'Brien turned away from the wall.

      'Ashes,' he said. 'Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist.
      It never existed.'

      'But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it.
      You remember it.'

      'I do not remember it,' said O'Brien.

    90. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares.

    91. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > So it could well correspond to a simulation where they only simulate the interesting bits to save on computation power...

      Reminds me of when I was studying game engines... you don't bother to model air. :)

    92. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter, because like with all pure philosophic debate, it is not grounded in reality. You will not prove anything about the world, just something about "a" world if this world respected your conditions.

    93. Re: He proves again... by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      It's a very old philosophical argument and was made into a major motion trilogy 15 years ago.

      There's a fundamental difference between The Matrix and what the "universe itself is a simulation" theories describe.

      The premise behind The Matrix was essentially that people who *did* exist in the "real" world were (unknowingly) having their senses replaced with artificial stimuli mimicking a nonexistent world. At a basic philosophical level, this is still effectively virtual reality, differing only in terms of how convincing it is and whether or not the people are aware of what's happening to them.

      By contrast- and assuming I've understood them correctly- most versions of the "universe is a simulation" theory (of which DeGrasse Tyson's certainly isn't the first) *don't* assume that we are external to the simulated universe- we are a part of it.

      There is no "real" us in the world in which the "universe simulation" is being run- no bodies in a Matrix-like human farm, no "real" brain in a vat being fed artificial stimuli. "We" are just another aspect of the simulation; there is no "real world" us full stop.

      FWIW, I haven't read the entire "Simulated reality" article you linked, but from skimming, the "types of simulation" section seems to differentiate the two cases.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    94. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All science starts as philosophy until it's "proven". Even something as simple as gravity causing all objects to accelerate at the same rate was philosophy and considered to be impossible to prove until we could actually create vacuums or go to the Moon. There are even other daily science that we take for granted and was thought to be impossible in this Universe to prove, but someone a century later thought of a way to prove it, then another century later for the technology to advance to the point to be able to prove it.

    95. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you?

      Why not. There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence. And quite a few of them are present in our universe. What we haven't figured out how to do is prove that a real universe wouldn't have the same characteristics.

      It's definitely a testable hypotheses.

      Thanks for your context. I think it was rightly voted Insightful, but I also think you're wrong: if there's no test which could reject the hypothesis, then it's not a testable hypothesis.

      There are tests that could support the claim: we could build a simulation, find bugs in it, show that the same bugs were present in our own universe, so there is a possible future testable prediction that could be eerily-specific enough to upgrade the hypothesis to a theory. We could find a container exploit bug for our universe and interact with the enclosing one. but what prediction could you make and test that argues we're not in a simulation? Something that can't be rejected is only "half" testable---it is equivalent to "God," in fact is almost the same bullshit stated differently.

      It's also philosophically sloppy, as others have pointed out. If the question isn't really a proper question, just some hazy category of narrative impression, then it's not testable. There are many truths that could be called "simulation" or "real" depending on your point of view. Ex., classical chemistry is a "simulation" built in a quantum universe, which you could prove to be true by creating alternate forms of matter that execute on the same quantum rules, like in the newmatter imagined in _Anathem_. Many people will find that unsatisfying definition of "simulation," but it could be fully correct. What if the arrangement of matter that happens to exist in our universe was devised by intelligent aliens? What if the aliens themselves are made of "dark matter", and by creating newmatter we gained the ability to monitor the aliens' radio transmissions---like a key-stealing side channel for virtual machine guests---escaping the simulation, sending them into a panic? What if we entered into treaty negotiations to avert our destruction? At what point does an abstraction, which we use all the time, become a simulation? You need to do philosophic work which has not been done here to answer that.

    96. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree the general idea seems untestable. I see no reason to assume however the simulation would actively hide its nature.

      I tend to think of simulations as things like there being are several particles and they obey laws such as F = m*a. The simulation takes a starting position and shows how they evolve.

      Including features such as checking if some of the particles are part of an intelligence and change simulation behavior based on what that intelligence is thinking would be way more complex than not doing so. It would even be counter productive if the point of the simulation was to see how long it takes simulated being to figure out that they are in a simulation.

    97. Re:He proves again... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Proof of the first is proof of the second. The 4 largest religions have the same god-like creator. Many of the "old" religions had the same structures, Odin/Zeus/Jupiter/Ra, and a pantheon under them. Revs in a sim? Upgrade from pantheistic structure to monotheistic. The popular types of religions are usually quite similar. Who "wins" is immaterial. When you can prove #1, then you can explore #2. Believing #2 without #1 is a mental illness. #1 without #2 is a real step to understanding the universe.

    98. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Easily testable:
      Just list 9 billion names of god and see what happens.

    99. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thats assuming the computer cares to deny you this knowledge. in all likelihood, it doesn't care.

    100. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But why does a creator have to be an all-powerful, all-knowing God? Why can't a creator be some ordinary, mortal being that created something that ultimately ended up in something very complex like the universe?
       
      I've never understood the idea that if there is a creator, that that creator has to be some kind of God like the Christian god. When some Christians give the complex design of the Boeing 747 as an example to counter the theory of evolution, I'm even more inclined to think there is no god.
       
      Yes, the Boeing 747 is designed and created, but by humans. Those humans are not gods. They are ordinary, mortal human beings. If this is your best example for the proof of God and the proof that evolution is wrong, then you completely failed to convince me and even proofed that there is no all-powerful god.

      Who knows what happens when I sneeze? Maybe in the fraction of a second (in my time frame), a new universe was born with an advanced civilization and died before my snot left my nose. If this was the case, would I be that all-powerful, all-knowing God? I would be an dumb, ignorant God that tries to catch his snot in his hands to not splash it on his computer screen. That would make more sense actually when you look at all those peaceful religions around the world.

    101. Re: He proves again... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      This *IS* science.

      He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence.

      An unfalsifiable hypothesis that does not explain anything and has no predictive power. Crackpot.

      His wikipedia page notes a lot of areas he worked in without mentioning any accomplishments, apart from joining committees.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    102. Re: He proves again... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      I think the need to believe in an all-powerful God stems largely from humans own powerlessness in our lives, and ultimately, when facing our own mortality. The notion that he created the universe is probably a secondary concern, simply used to establish God's bona-fides, or perhaps to express ultimate authority. After all, if you make it, it naturally belongs to you.

      Organized religion is also a way of encouraging moral or socially acceptable behavior, with the ever present threat of eternal damnation for committing sins, even if you got away with it during your mortal existence. And again, anything but an all-powerful God is less useful, because then you could fool God just as easily as other people, and you'd lose the power of the threat of divine punishment for wrongs committed.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    103. Re: He proves again... by Agripa · · Score: 1

      If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you?

      Sure you can. But every time we find an exploit, the operators halt the simulation, patch the microcode, and restore the state from a previous checkpoint.

    104. Re:He proves again... by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      To the creator there is no magic involved but to the simulation they have no way to know. All magic is btw, is slight of hand or unnatural powers (supernatural). So it would be indistinguishable to participants of a simulation if the programmer tweaked things. They would have no knowledge of the creator's world or the creator outside what was divulged by the tweaks or the creator itself.

    105. Re:He proves again... by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

      That pretty much fits the job title of "Omnipotent entity that caused and controls everything", aka God.

      But at least the former title doesn't come overloaded with religious baggage. We could only hope the simulated entities could be more rational than us :)

    106. Re:He proves again... by thesupraman · · Score: 1

      Thats is, of course a stupid question, as you should be able to see from the responses.

      Does that mean there is a creator? of course, in the same way you have a creator of a ham sandwich.
      Does that have any relation to the Creators (notice the capital C there..) that religions like to use as an
      excuse to control their victims? Why would there be any relation to such a thing?

      To my knowledge, no mainstream religion has ever officially floated or supported such an idea, and I suspect
      most would be violently against it. That pretty much proves that IF it is true, then the entity in control is
      NOT a representation of their god. If their beliefs really were 'informed', then they would be able to tell us.

      Hence, yes by the definition of the english language, it would mean there as a creator, but not a Creator.

    107. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that the "real" world of the Matrix with all of the machines and people in vats is also a simulation, proved by Neo's ability to physically effect the "real" world with his super powers, and the architect's discussion of the looping sequences. That this is never touched upon more than a brush is a pity. My belief is that all humans are dead and that the machines, remorseful, are trying to simulate real human reactions, so they create Zion over and over in a simulation.

    108. Re:He proves again... by A+Commentor · · Score: 1

      However, no bat is truly blind.

      I guarantee, that statement is false. That would be like saying no human is truly blind. ;-)

      --

      Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com

    109. Re: He proves again... by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      Now your argument is akin to those creationists who think satan planted dinosaur fossils in the earth to decieve mankind. Or the joke about the flying spaghetti monster altering the results of genetic tests to hide his existence (pesto be upon him).
      Either way there is no reason to assume the simulation builders would be opposed to us finding out. There is no reason to assume they would have predicted that life would arise in the simulation, let alone intelligent life. Considering 99.99% of the universe is lifeless (under a bestcase scenario) it is much more likely were an unexpected emergent phenomenon of a physics simulation. It is not at all reasonable to addume the simulation was created for us and would want to fool us or anything else inside. We've only been around for the last few instances of the run.

      Nah. If the universe is a simulation then we are still an accidental consciousness. The modern version of the theory may have been inspired by MMOs like WOW but its silly to assume the purpose is the same. Its more likely to be on par with AIs spontaneously arising in an IPCC climate model. We have been in the simulation so briefly that even if whoever built it actively monitors it is unlikely they have even noticed us.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    110. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and because the simulation may well change the rules on you without you knowing it.

      That's an assumption. And it may be testable.

      and an intelligent computer running the simulation may catch that and alter the conditions as needed.

      Another assumption.

      so the computer can alter you as well. :)

      But why would it want/need to?
      Maybe the whole point of the simulation is to create virtual humans that are intelligent enough to break out of it? Sure this is another assumption, but it's no worse than yours.

    111. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I'll repeat... if this IS a simulation, then so are you, and frankly you won't be able to accomplish anything the computer doesn't want you to anyway. :)

      Except that all known software (except TeX maybe) contains bugs which in some cases lead to possible privileges escalation...

    112. Re: He proves again... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Nice read :)
      However in physics we consider time quantized ...
      No idea why you try to disagree.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    113. Re:He proves again... by readin · · Score: 1

      You think? He is essentially opening the possibility of there being a creator who designed the universe to appear naturally occurring.

      Again, this is one of his more reasonable philosophical statements.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    114. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Either way there is no reason to assume the simulation builders would be opposed to us finding out.

      There is no reason to assume they wouldn't care, either. It is simply unknowable.

      There is no reason to assume they would have predicted that life would arise in the simulation, let alone intelligent life. Considering 99.99% of the universe is lifeless (under a bestcase scenario) it is much more likely were an unexpected emergent phenomenon of a physics simulation. It is not at all reasonable to addume the simulation was created for us and would want to fool us or anything else inside. We've only been around for the last few instances of the run.

      You don't know that... for all you know, Earth and the solar system is really the only thing running, everything else could be fixed datapoints provided for our viewing pleasure.

      WE might be the simulation, and for all we know, we've been running for 2 hours now, poofed into existence.

      If the universe is a simulation then we are still an accidental consciousness.

      Again, you're viewing it from INSIDE the simulation, you don't know that and have no way of knowing that. All possible answers are equally likely from our point of view.

    115. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Except that all known software (except TeX maybe) contains bugs which in some cases lead to possible privileges escalation...

      Yes, from the point of view of our world here, with what we know...

      You assume that whoever is simulating us is bound by the same rules.

      They might not be.

    116. Re: He proves again... by Keybounce · · Score: 1

      Which is patently false. I decree that the set of universes which are simulations in the sense of Tyson have measure zero. Therefore, it is a zero probability that the current universe is a simulation.

      Seriously? ** You are not allowed to assume your conclusion! **.

      ---

      Basic premise, summed up: Given the assumption that 1) future people are likely to want to run simulations of the past, 2) the computer power to run simulations of the past will exist, then the conclusion that someone will run such a simulation is extremely highly likely.

      Now, add the assumption that the ability to run such simulations will be widespread at some point in the future, and the probability that we are a simulation changes from "Maybe" to "Likely".

      These are *not* easy assumptions. Moore's law cannot continue to infinity. The energy needed to run an arbitrary complex computation/simulation is arbitrarily high. It may turn out that the energy cost is measured in stars / aka dyson spheres to power the computational complexity.

      ---

      When we look at our universe, we see things that seem to be signs of simulations. Given that, there questions are:

      1. Who is running the simulation: Our descendants inside this universe, or some being that exists outside this universe? (NB: Some people call such a being "God".)
      2. Is this in fact accurate observations on our part, or is this something that we just aren't looking close enough / well enough at yet?
      3. Is physics just weirder than can be possibly understood? (i.e. not actually a simulation).

      Question #3 there is actually asking if science is inherently pointless -- if assuming that you can learn by observing, and that the arrow of time does give some sense of A causing B, etc., -- all the basic assumptions of science -- are in fact bad assumptions.

      I mean, imagine if the assumptions of science were to yield the result that causality is in fact a lie -- that A never actually causes B, but only ever has a correlation effect that while close to 1 is always measurably less than one.

      I mean, that can't be scientific truth, can it? :-)

      (Hint: It is).

    117. Re:He proves again... by Keybounce · · Score: 1

      My God, the moderation in the MS thread was so bad I thought MS bribed /., but the moderations in this thread are just as stupid. A guy who's not even logged in gets modded up to a 4 for saying Tyson, who holds a PhD in astrophysics isn't a scientist??

      WTF????

      Moderation on SlashDot is simply users. Sometimes you get uninformed readers.

    118. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      That's an assumption. And it may be testable.

      Maybe... or not, if the simulation can alter you as well...

      How many kids do you have? I have 3. Have I always had 3? I think so, but do I really know?

      It is beyond my ability to know.

      Another assumption.

      Perhaps, but they are ALL just assumptions, since none of us have any way to know one way or another.

      But why would it want/need to?

      Perhaps that is what it is testing? I have no idea, I'm simply saying it could.

      Maybe the whole point of the simulation is to create virtual humans that are intelligent enough to break out of it? Sure this is another assumption, but it's no worse than yours.

      You're completely correct. And you might be right, but we'll likely never know.

    119. Re:He proves again... by michael.o.church · · Score: 1

      He is a scientist. The problem is that being a scientist doesn't make a person an authority on philosophical matters. I'd imagine that Tyson mentioned this in passing. The idea's not original to him and I can't imagine him pretending otherwise.

      To some extent, it's the fault of the public for buying in to the idea that high IQ or brilliance in science will confer authority on other matters. We tend, too easily, to create personality cults around people of obvious high intelligence.

      Take Dawkins. When he's talking about biology and evolution, he's brilliant. When he talks about god(s), his arguments are weak. I'm not at all religious and don't find his atheism offensive or upsetting. In fact, I view it as obvious (although I tread lightly around theists on this topic) that the ethnic gods of ancient religions, including the monotheistic ones favored in the U.S., almost certainly don't exist in any literal form. However, I'm not going to learn anything by watching a Youtube video of him taking down a (usually, equally ridiculous and polarizing) theist in debate, whereas I would learn things by reading his papers and watching his talks on evolution.

    120. Re: He proves again... by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      Since when?

    121. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 1

      Seriously? ** You are not allowed to assume your conclusion! **.

      That's silly. I got to choose the measure and thus, I was allowed to that.

      Basic premise, summed up: Given the assumption that 1) future people are likely to want to run simulations of the past, 2) the computer power to run simulations of the past will exist, then the conclusion that someone will run such a simulation is extremely highly likely.

      By what probability measure again? And I note that you're using two incomparable choices for measures. Whatever probability measure(s) over universes you end up using will have nothing in common with probability measures over our future.

      Bottom line is that you don't enough to make statements about probability.

      When we look at our universe, we see things that seem to be signs of simulations.

      Well, your question #3 is a key aspect. How would we be able to perceive things which can't be explained scientifically? There are strong limits on how baffling the universe can be to us, merely because we exist.

    122. Re: He proves again... by Keybounce · · Score: 1

      The probability that someone wants to AND is able to simulate the universe is the probability that someone wants to simulate the universe times the probability that they are able to simulate the universe.

      Lets start with that simple concept. Do you agree with it, or not?

      ---

      It does not matter what probability measure I use. If both ideas have high probability, then the AND-ed pair will have high probability.

      And no, you are not allowed to arbitrarily define measures that support your desired conclusion and call it valid.

    123. Re: He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      notably one that says odds are we are likely in a simulation that came out about ten years ago (along with he proof).

      Remind me, what does "proof" mean again in philosophy?

      two times the percentage of alcohol in your beverage

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    124. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and was made into a major motion trilogy 15 years ago

      Trilogy? Everyone knows there was only one Matrix movie!

    125. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, but link please?

    126. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 1

      Lets start with that simple concept. Do you agree with it, or not?

      What is there to agree with? You have to establish that such probabilities can be defined in the first place, especially over the space of universes that may exist somehow. Even then, it is very different to speak of probabilities of events in our known universe over which we at least have some knowledge versus probabilities over a large collection of universes we can't observe and thus, have no knowledge about.

      And even if we do gain such knowledge, we still have the problem that the space of universes may be large enough that probability is meaningless (not merely computationally impossible) from a mathematical point of view.

    127. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you won't be able to accomplish anything the computer doesn't want you to anyway. :)

      Why do you think that the computer doesn't want us to find out?
      Maybe the simulation is designed as a 'pentest' to test the quality of this version of simulation.

    128. Re: He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so you are saying that the simulation/operator understands the concept of intelligent beings and has devised a specific way of dealing with how they interact with the simulation. What if the simulation is simply to count supernova in specific epoch or how dark matter spreads and "life" is an emergent property that is completely unexpected?

    129. Re: He proves again... by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      In my department we don't. Care to provide a citation to back up your claim?

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
    130. Re:He proves again... by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      An Omnipotent entity is nit the same as God. Everything you mention implies this entity follows a plan or ordered routine. God is outside of logic, planning or order. What your describing is Q from 'Trek, which is not a God.

    131. Re: He proves again... by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      >If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you? I've thought of this two, but there's 2 way's out 1) The simulation builders are not perfect and thus have built an imperfect simulation that we can detect. 2) The simulation builders have purposely built a simulation where the guest inhabitants if sufficiently advanced are allowed to detect they are in a simulation. Once this happens.. who knows.. Would could be invited to "join them" (which goes with lot of things like the concept of heaven or some UFO thinkers of the concept of ascendance ). The other option is that the simulation would be turned off, which would be shit!

    132. Re:He proves again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Scientists are allowed to dabble in philosophy.

      Everyone dabbles in philosophy, but scientists shouldn't try to pass it off as science when they do it. They should qualify it with: "There is no evidence to support this theory, or maybe obscure or ambiguous evidence, but I think... "

      I really enjoy watching Neil on his shows, but not when he goes on tangents outside his expertise and tries to pass it as "science". Neil is not a politician, theologian, philosopher, etc. He is an astrophysicist. Even when he talks about global warming he is outside his field of expertise.

    133. Re: He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Why not.

      Because you have no control to test against, and because the simulation may well change the rules on you without you knowing it.

      There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence.

      You can only guess at what they might be, and an intelligent computer running the simulation may catch that and alter the conditions as needed. Keep in mind, you're just a simulation as well in this example, so the computer can alter you as well. :)

      It's definitely a testable hypotheses.

      Not without a control it isn't... you have no way of knowing what any proper behavior should be, or if the simulation is adjusting the conditions on the fly...

      And I'll repeat... if this IS a simulation, then so are you, and frankly you won't be able to accomplish anything the computer doesn't want you to anyway. :)

      Yeah; presumably not only would the degree of curiosity regarding this being a simulation be part of the simulation, then also what the answers would be and how we would react to them would also be.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    134. Re:He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      My God, the moderation in the MS thread was so bad I thought MS bribed /., but the moderations in this thread are just as stupid. A guy who's not even logged in gets modded up to a 4 for saying Tyson, who holds a PhD in astrophysics isn't a scientist??

      WTF????

      He thought it was Mike Tyson.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    135. Re:He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Bats aren't blind?!

      You never see a bat with glasses.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    136. Re: He proves again... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the goal is to simulate 1 year, over and over, with various start points.

      I hope not. I haven't been having a good year.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    137. Re: He proves again... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Is there any reason to believe that the Universe is quantized in Planck units? The Planck length and time are very small, and we can't deal with quantities that small. The Planck unit of temperature is very large, and we know temperature isn't quantized that way. The Planck charge is small, but doesn't seem to be related to the charge of an electron. The Planck mass is small by everyday standards, but we deal with masses far smaller all the time.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    138. Re: He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      >If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you?

      Why not. There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence. And quite a few of them are present in our universe. What we haven't figured out how to do is prove that a real universe wouldn't have the same characteristics.

      It's definitely a testable hypotheses. The fact that we don't know exactly HOW to do do the test yet doesn't mean it can't be tested. The mechanics of testing have nothing to do with the definition of testable. When Einstein predicted gravitational lensing we had no idea how we may test that - after all, how can you tell if the light you're looking at has been bent by gravity in the past ? Nothing on earth has enough gravity to bend light enough to measure with 1901 technology. We figured it out some ten years later - we can look at an eclipse from Jupiter which is just far enough that light is measurably delayed, and that means if there's gravitational lensing the delay should be slightly different than if the light had travelled straight. The test was done and confirmed the hypotheses* - but it was testable when first announced. Testable meant: "If you can show that light has bent in the presence of gravity, you can test the theory" it didn't have to mean "and here is how you determine that". It's perfectly fine to leave the HOW of testing to the reader, or future scientists who will have access to technology you don't have.

      If anything this is more testable than a lot of theoretical physics. We still have no idea how to test any of the variants of string theory. We can show they are logically consistent and the maths work - but much of it we have no idea how to test. Dark matter when first proposed seemed to fall clearly in the "untestable" category - how do you know something is there that doesn't interact with anything, doesn't give of any energy and cannot apparently be found ? Many scientists declared it "theory saving". Eventually though, somebody realized that if dark matter exists and has mass (and it has to have mass because it was proposed as an answer for missing mass in the first place) - then it would bend light (as per the aforementioned gravitational lensing) - and we've observed that - light being bent by a gravity source where no objects can be detected.... so it must be getting bent by objects we can not detect.

      *Ironically that test was terribly flawed, and later entirely discredited, but other more accurate tests subsequently done did confirm the hypotheses again. That too is part of science, sometimes the wrong tests can give the right answers. This is one reason we retest things and re-examine old data and old experiments. Because the test was flawed, it could have been that the hypotheses had been wrong all along, retesting with more advanced technology and avoiding the mistakes made last time would let us find out if that had been the case.

      This is one of those "proving a negative" things. You could look for some specific signs of simulation, but in their absence you'd have to then prove that any/all simulations would have to have those characteristics or else you'd just have proved that it's not a particular kind of simulation.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    139. Re:He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      So, you're God every time you run a simulation?

      Yes. To the entities inside the simulation you are, to all intents and purposes, their God.

      • * You created their universe
      • * You created them, or you initiated the processes that resulted in them being created
      • * You know everything about their universe
      • * You know how and why their universe was created
      • * You know how and when their universe will end
      • * If you choose to, you can change the course of the simulation to benefit them in some specific way
      • * If you choose to, you can change the course of the simulation to terminate their participation

      That pretty much fits the job title of "Omnipotent entity that caused and controls everything", aka God.

      Ah; but modern theology, since Abraham at least, contains a strong moral component; God is the absolute and always correct authority regarding morality and ethics, by definition. (Not necessarily in literalist readings of the text, these days, but by attempting to reason out what He wants).
      Just plain omnipotence and omniscience are parts of a more polytheistic philosophy; the Greeks and Romans and whoever were always getting into fights with their gods for one thing or another.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    140. Re: He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      This *IS* science.

      He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence. That's literally what science is.

      The only thing missing is the ability to replicate the results... but that's a tall order in this case.

      Despite the high school definition (which itself is more than what most people understand) repeatability and comparisons with controls are far from required for all forms of "science"; witness the current hoopla regarding climate, or the entire field of cosmology.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    141. Re: He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      "He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence."

      No, he isn't. He is just making a reasoned inference.

      "The only thing missing is the ability to replicate the results..."

      Because there're no results to come with.

      Hint: keyword here is INFINITE.

      But don't forget you can always specify boundary conditions. Construct the sim with a built-in history and set of effects from things which should be outside the limits of your actual sim, but don't really exist.
      Like the argument that the universe really is only 6,000 years old, but was created with a fossil record and astronomical phenomena, etc. to exactly mimic it being 13 billion years old. Or the argument that while you were asleep, somebody stole everything you own and replaced it with a perfect replica.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    142. Re: He proves again... by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      He didn't form anything. It's a very old philosophical argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality) and was made into a major motion trilogy 15 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_%28franchise%29). Also known as the simulation argument, there ave been a few philosophical papers written on it in the last few years, notably one that says odds are we are likely in a simulation that came out about ten years ago (along with he proof).

      If we're all characters in a sim, then we might as well all be characters in a solipsistic dream. In either case there is only one reality/POV and inhabitants are not autonomous but rather behaving as puppets of the single owner of the POV. The difference being that in one case the creator/inhabitant is outside, in the other case inside.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    143. Re: He proves again... by naasking · · Score: 1

      Given your responses it's pretty clear that you haven't even read the paper, so I'm not even going to bother addressing your points. Read the paper you're criticizing before opening your mouth or you just end up looking foolish.

    144. Re: He proves again... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      I hope not. I haven't been having a good year.

      I'm sorry to hear that... On the other hand, you wouldn't know it, so it's ok... I guess?

    145. Re: He proves again... by Mr.CRC · · Score: 1

      The Matrix was not a Universe Simulation.

    146. Re: He proves again... by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      > or else you'd just have proved that it's not a particular kind of simulation.

      And is that not progress ? A lot of cosmologists think that black holes are the other side of big bangs. That is - that what was the big bang that gave birth to our universe, was a black hole in a different universe, and that there are other universes on the other side of every black hole in ours. They will all, readily, concede that they cannot prove this - that it's utterly untestable, which is why it's not even at the level of hypotheses and merely conjecture. It's not an invalid conjecture for a scientist to hold though - provided they don't claim it's more than that. The most attractive thing about it is that it reduces the number of known singularities in physics from two to one (by making one of them just another side of the other).

      At least with the universe-is-a-simulation idea, we can do *some* tests and theorectically we can eventually test for every simulation type we can imagine. If we do that, and the tests are *all* negative - then it becomes an extremely unlikely hypotheses. Perhaps not completely disproven but it certainly to be filed in the "no scientist takes it seriously" category where it shall remain until and unless some new evidence emerges. Kind of like what happened with the idea of moving continents. The idea must have occurred to people for centuries - but scientists considered it little more than a joke. It wasn't until 1905 that an actual scientist took it seriously, but his ideas about how it may happen were laughed at. It didn't get more serious traction until the 1950s when computer modeling started suggesting it was more likely than not. We didn't get physical proof of it until a few decades after that. Today it's the consensus theory because we are watching it happen.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    147. Re: He proves again... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Plank time is the amount of time a photon needs to travel one plank length.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    148. Re:He proves again... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      On a nerd site?? Wow. He must be here by accident.

    149. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 1
      Sorry, it's babble. If we make a bunch of unwarranted assumptions, then we make a bunch of conclusions that do not follow from the assumptions. That's typical "proof" in the philosophical sense.

      Once again, let me outline the problem here. Just from the abstract:

      This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a âoeposthumanâ stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

      There is no sense in which something is likely or unlikely outside of this universe. So when the author says "any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)", it is not even wrong.

      Second, point 1) is completely irrelevant. We're not going to be more or less likely a simulation if 1) is true or false. This also conflates probabilities of events inside our universe with things that are not in our universe. It's another not even wrong thing.

      And third, note that the author conflates "ancestor simulations" with "living in a simulation". It seems, heh, "likely" that anything with the computing power to simulate ancestors would also have the computing power to simulate alien universes with alien physics and alien lifeforms. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader whether there are more universes like ours than not.

      Finally, we don't know what other ways there are to start up universes or whether simulating a universe even means anything. After all, the simulation may merely turn out to be a connection to an existing universe which would have existed anyway whether or not the simulation happened.

    150. Re:He proves again... by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      Glasses wouldn't help a bat that's blind...

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    151. Re: He proves again... by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

      If you think you need a control to test something, then all science dealing with the stars and galaxies and dark matter and the universe in general are not science since we have no way to make a control. I guess we can't say how the planet Jupiter will orbit next year since we weren't able to create a control planet that does not follow gravity! And we should just stop sending satellites into orbit since we don't have a control experiment that does not have space around it. I think you are claiming too much is needed.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    152. Re: He proves again... by CSMoran · · Score: 1

      Of course. But in no way does that mean that time is quantised.

      --
      Every end has half a stick.
    153. Re: He proves again... by naasking · · Score: 1

      Second, point 1) is completely irrelevant. We're not going to be more or less likely a simulation if 1) is true or false.

      Wrong. You clearly don't even understand what Bostrom means by "posthuman", or you wouldn't make such a ridiculous objection.

      This also conflates probabilities of events inside our universe with things that are not in our universe. It's another not even wrong thing.

      Your objections about inside/outside are complete nonsense.

      And third, note that the author conflates "ancestor simulations" with "living in a simulation".

      There is no difference.

      It seems, heh, "likely" that anything with the computing power to simulate ancestors would also have the computing power to simulate alien universes with alien physics and alien lifeforms.

      Yes, and your point is? The point of the proof was to argue how likely it is that we, in our universe, are a simulation. Alien universe simulations aren't relevant.

    154. Re: He proves again... by khallow · · Score: 1

      Second, point 1) is completely irrelevant. We're not going to be more or less likely a simulation if 1) is true or false.

      Wrong. You clearly don't even understand what Bostrom means by "posthuman", or you wouldn't make such a ridiculous objection.

      I already explained my position. The assertion of point 1) is completely irrelevant. And Bostrom's idea of "posthuman" is just not that relevant either. I think I have a pretty good idea that someone who can make Dyson spheres merely for computation (which incidentally is a rather strong assumption about the physics of said world simulating us, don't you think?) is not just a Cheetos-stained code monkey with a bigger computer.

      This also conflates probabilities of events inside our universe with things that are not in our universe. It's another not even wrong thing.

      Your objections about inside/outside are complete nonsense.

      I already gave my argument. Think about it this time instead of making monkey noises. My statement which you quote is fact. This is exactly what Bostrum did. And thus, he conflates something which is knowable with something which is not. Not even wrong.

      And third, note that the author conflates "ancestor simulations" with "living in a simulation".

      There is no difference.

      I already explained why your rebuttal is wrong. One can simulate physics that is radically different than whatever their ancestors experienced and hence, is a simulation which is not an ancestor simulation. Come on, you have a brain. Use it rather than wasting my time with this unthinking crap.

      It seems, heh, "likely" that anything with the computing power to simulate ancestors would also have the computing power to simulate alien universes with alien physics and alien lifeforms.

      Yes, and your point is? The point of the proof was to argue how likely it is that we, in our universe, are a simulation. Alien universe simulations aren't relevant.

      My point is that this is another example of why the overall argument is terrible. For example, going back to that notorious argument 1), it means that we might be in a universe simulation with radically different difficulties for being posthuman than the universe which simulated us. This once again illustrates the huge flaw with conflating probabilities inside our universe with probabilities outside our universe.

      Also this quote of mine outlines a simulation which is not an ancestor simulation and happened to address your prior concern.

      Further, how many times are we being simulated? For all we know, there may be an infinite number of current overlapping simulations of our reality or the simulation(s) might have stopped eons ago and we aren't currently being simulated. There is so much which is not even wrong when you start from a position of zero knowledge.

    155. Re:He proves again... by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      Possibly the people running the simulations have had moral ethicist types tell them that they are responsible for the sentient 'beings' they create and that they must be catered for after they have all run their simulated races. Is Heaven simulated too?

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    156. Re: He proves again... by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 1

      Two words: String Theory

      Testing costs money, takes time, and requires lots of slave labor aka grad students. Proving 2+2 = Simulation simply requires finding enough dimensions that your equation doesn't produce singularities, and the grant money will roll in.

    157. Re:He proves again... by shaitand · · Score: 1

      The only difference between magic and science is the level of understanding, having labels for all the pieces, and the method by which we go about seeking out new powers. From the perspective of a god there is no magic. If you are invisible and pick up a cheese puff then spread the crumbs into a peace symbol to spectators it is magic but to you, the invisible being, there is nothing magic about that it is simply the nature of reality.

      With a thought and a tweak of a few fingers I'm sending you a message carried on a beam of light that will shine in your eyes. If I held up a wand and tweaked it in gestures, then would it be magic? What if we were both wearing augmented reality glasses that exchanged the data using HF QRP Radio so there was no other supporting infrastructure. Then would cross the threshold to be magic? What if we took out the gestures and I provided the input with brainwaves and a virtual keyboard.

      This fails on the magic test why? For no other reason than because we understand how the magic works, except on some level we don't, on some level it just is and we've merely assigned labels to the pieces.

    158. Re:He proves again... by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Everything that is you is part of the simulation, all your thoughts, dreams, intelligence, hallucinations, etc. So yes, they are coming out of the simulation.

  3. Not turtles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So it's not turtles, but in fact simulations all the way down?

    Seems to me that this is just throwing about statistics to make some nice media piece to me.

    Also, if we're talking about creating universe simulations, isn't the simulation creator essentially the same God, that all religions that have a creation story worship?

    1. Re:Not turtles? by meerling · · Score: 2

      O course it's turtles. Who do you think is running the server? ;)

    2. Re:Not turtles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They must be pretty good at it. Flippers don't have opposable digits.

    3. Re:Not turtles? by jimtheowl · · Score: 2

      That's what they want you to think.

    4. Re:Not turtles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I asked this to an atheist friend (who happens to be a professional philosopher...something with medical ethics at hospitals. I guess they do get jobs outside of McDonald's). Anyways they said that they were against such an argument, but then this person does go kinda rabid at any suggestion of a deity.

    5. Re:Not turtles? by meglon · · Score: 1

      Simulated turtles all the way down, obviously.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    6. Re:Not turtles? by tlambert · · Score: 1

      O course it's turtles. Who do you think is running the server? ;)

      But do the turtles run Linux?

    7. Re:Not turtles? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      But do the turtles run Linux?

      It's Linux all the way down.

    8. Re:Not turtles? by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      > I guess they do get jobs outside of McDonald's)

      Actually, philosophy grads tend to be highly employable (contrary to popular belief) and contrary to Mike Huckabee's claims are well paid. The average starting salary for a philosophy grad is actually about twice that of a welder (Huckabee has never been one for looking things up before saying them).

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    9. Re:Not turtles? by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

      But Linux is based on POSIX.

    10. Re:Not turtles? by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 1

      A Python!

      Running a server on Turtle is just wrong.

    11. Re:Not turtles? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Of course it's turtles. Who do you think is running the server?

      The servers at our org certainly run at turtle-speed

  4. FFS by geek · · Score: 1

    "This is the crux of Tyson's point: if we take it as read that it is, in principle, possible to simulate a universe in some way, at some point in the future, then we have to assume that on an infinite timeline some species, somewhere, will simulate the universe"

    Can we at least try not to sound like Tweedledee and Tweedledum?

    1. Re:FFS by Pikoro · · Score: 1

      Contrawise!

      --
      "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
    2. Re:FFS by Saint+Fnordius · · Score: 1

      I would put it a different way: the argument makes the philosophical statement that all simulations are, in one way or another, universes. Simpler, more limited universes. If you assume that all simulations are universes, then it is a small jump to declare that a good way to describe the observable universe is as the ultimate simulation. It is less about stating the Truth as defining a model to approach the real universe as seeing it as a simulation to emulate, to understand the underlying code base and algorithms of. Like trying to simulate Minecraft using only the tools available within Minecraft, I guess you could say.

  5. shut up before you kill us all by kylemonger · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's the fastest way to get the plug pulled on the simulation you're living in? Convince a significant fraction of the population that their existence is pointless because they live in a simulation. This will corrupt whatever experiment that's supposed to be occurring and the outraged grad student will ragequit the simulation and start over. Or maybe he'll restore from decades-old backups and arrange bizarre and agonizing deaths for Tyson and that meddling philosopher Bostrom.

    1. Re:shut up before you kill us all by chuckugly · · Score: 3, Funny

      For who and who?

    2. Re:shut up before you kill us all by DaHat · · Score: 1

      That or we happen drive to a place where we never would have considered going otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    3. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But what if that's the whole point? What if the simulation is testing how quickly a simulated society accepts that they are a simulation?

    4. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      Except that we would be entirely incapable of doing so. Our lives would be prescribed, our actions determined entirely by machine state. We may think we have free will, what we actually are is an equation determined by state.

    5. Re:shut up before you kill us all by fustakrakich · · Score: 2, Informative

      Slashdot is deleting comments. What is the point of living anymore? Are they trying to bump up the suicide rates even higher? *sigh*

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    6. Re:shut up before you kill us all by radiumsoup · · Score: 1

      I was looking for this reference before I made it. Good thing, it seems.

    7. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      You think people would start to act differently if they knew for a FACT that they are in a simulation? I dare say they wouldn't.

      Let's face it: Can we leave it? No, at least we know of no way. Is there a place for us outside of this simulation? Not likely. Either we can't even exist outside the simulation because we're only something akin to artificial intelligences that depend on the simulation for their very existence. Then we cannot exist without the simulation. Or we do have an existence outside of the simulation and our being here is just some kind of avatar. Then there is probably a reason why we are put into this simulation and if we were to get out of it, whoever put us here would probably be pissed enough to either not allow us to continue existing or at the very least we'd be as popular among the population existing outside of the simulation as the average immigrant is around here.

      Either way, we're better off in here. At least we, those of the people on this planet or in this sim that have time to waste on stupid questions like this one.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re:shut up before you kill us all by turbidostato · · Score: 2

      "This will corrupt whatever experiment that's supposed to be occurring and the outraged grad student will ragequit the simulation and start over."

      You'll know it is in fact happening because dolphins will disappear all of a sudden (well, you may find a farewell note thanking for the fishes, but that will be all).

    9. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      What's more likely is that some alien mother will come in and tell the alien child "Time for bed, shut that off now." Then the alien child will say "But moooom! This is the best part, they're trying to figure out if I exist or not!

    10. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Stormbringer · · Score: 1

      Isn't that what The Game is about?

      btw I just lost the game.

    11. Re:shut up before you kill us all by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      What's to say it's not? Neuroscience shows that free will is an illusion I mean if you believe that the universe follows a set of rules, even if we don't understand them (QM), then it is a big state machine and we're all automatons. How could free will even exist? It would be like a computer deciding that it did not want to take a particular branch this time around.

    12. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Khyber · · Score: 2

      Uhh, just FYI, that story doesn't even exist. When you remove the comment target in the URL itself and leave the story ID in, the story isn't there.

      Kinda hard to get a comment on a STORY THAT DOES NOT EXIST.

      Are you just pissy that you commented on something in the firehose and it got pushed out eventually? Try learning how the fucking site works before bitching needlessly.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    13. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Tablizer · · Score: 0

      the outraged grad student will ragequit the simulation and start over

      Or throw in Trump to fuck it all up

    14. Re:shut up before you kill us all by sjames · · Score: 1

      Get over it. They accidentally posted a dupe, people bitched and moaned, so they un-posted it. A few comments broke. Big fat hairy deal.

    15. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's the fastest way to get the plug pulled on the simulation you're living in?

      Computer, end program.

    16. Re:shut up before you kill us all by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Doesn't matter. When JEs are deleted the comments stay. This is a bad trend.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    17. Re:shut up before you kill us all by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      All the comments from there are gone. That doesn't happen when JEs are deleted. Deleting comments is a big no-no.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    18. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      I agree with the conclusion on the present understanding of science. I hope it is wrong.

    19. Re:shut up before you kill us all by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Convince a significant fraction of the population that their existence is pointless because they live in a simulation.

      Why would living in a simulation make life any more pointless than it is now ?

    20. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see what you did there.

    21. Re:shut up before you kill us all by aliquis · · Score: 1

      What's the fastest way to get the plug pulled on the simulation you're living in? Convince a significant fraction of the population that their existence is pointless because they live in a simulation. This will corrupt whatever experiment that's supposed to be occurring and the outraged grad student will ragequit the simulation and start over. Or maybe he'll restore from decades-old backups and arrange bizarre and agonizing deaths for Tyson and that meddling philosopher Bostrom.

      What about if they told him that's what he's supposed to think?
      "Let's see how they react if they start to doubt their own existence and are getting aware they are just within a simulation!"

      What about if the odds for something such happening is very small vs the odds for life in general are large in the same almost infinite time (which it isn't so .. I guess that one failed, go with almost infinite number of universes instead.)

      Also where does Odin come in in all this? Yeah that's right you towel-head.

    22. Re:shut up before you kill us all by whoever57 · · Score: 0

      This is something that I have wondered abut for some time. At the most primitive level we think about interactions and events at the fundamental level as random. For example the mechanisms behind radioactive decay.

      But are these things really random, or are they merely beyond our ability to predict them? If they are not truly random, then you have to believe that everything that happens in your brain is not random. In other words, it is pre-ordained, so we don't have free will at all.

      Schroedinger's cat was dead or alive from the moment it was put into the box. There is no need to observe it, because observation merely confirms what has already happened.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    23. Re:shut up before you kill us all by irving47 · · Score: 1

      And suddenly a message on the screen: Please don't kill us, Susie. Don't stop process simuniverse9942.89.exe.

      --
      I had a sucky sig.
    24. Re:shut up before you kill us all by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why would living in a simulation make life any more pointless than it is now ?

      as long as there's central air, good healthcare and tasty bacon, I could care less. and yes, you need the 2nd because of the 3rd, I fully realize that.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    25. Re:shut up before you kill us all by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Then you have no say in the matter.

    26. Re:shut up before you kill us all by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Not only that, but freewill can not exist within any number of layers of universe(s).

    27. Re:shut up before you kill us all by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      What kind of free will would you want that cannot be encoded in an automaton ?

    28. Re:shut up before you kill us all by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      So the moment someone posts a comment on a Journal Entry, the "owner" of the journal can never delete that JE? Leaving comments without links or context are a bigger no-no. The owner of the journal should be able to clear comments on it by deleting it and re-posting it. That's standard forum activity, and not a no-no. If you post comments and want them to live forever, post your own JE in response.

    29. Re:shut up before you kill us all by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      If they are not truly random, then you have to believe that everything that happens in your brain is not random. In other words, it is pre-ordained, so we don't have free will at all.

      But in what sense would having truly random events be an improvement ?

    30. Re:shut up before you kill us all by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      He can delete the JE if it wasn't "published for all to see" (or whatever the button says). Here it has always been the case where the comments stay, even when the JE was deleted. There are over 17 years worth in the archives, and they are an interesting read after all that time. Aside from the mass quantities of spam, not much has really changed. All the same arguments come up over and over again, as if the first time never happened. It's an interesting phenomenon. Very educational, I would hate to see it go away.

      If comments are going be deleted now, I believe Slashdot should have the courtesy to post a notice on the subject. I'm sure the discussion will be, how would you say?, lively.. or not. Maybe nobody gives a damn.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    31. Re:shut up before you kill us all by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Neuroscience shows that free will is an illusion

      I'm not sure I needed neuroscience to tell me that in the first place. Besides the definition problem, there are logical conundrums involved.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    32. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      Maybe the universe is pseudorandom, with the seed set at the time of the Big Bang. Other universes just have different seeds.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    33. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    34. Re:shut up before you kill us all by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Or maybe he'll restore from decades-old backups

      Or 2 hour old backups...

      The interesting thing about the idea of our world being a simulation is that everyone assumes it must be very old...

      It might have booted up 2 hours ago, how would you know?

    35. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This tired old argument isn't going to get you anywhere. It's a dead end. It's been dead for ages.

      The problem here is that the question assumes determinism is true. You're asking 'how is free will possible' and demanding an answer in purely deterministic terms! Every idiot who has repeated this faulty line of reasoning has been begging the question.

      The introduction of randomness obviously won't get you anywhere, though it does serve one important function: it shows that some events are not determined or determined by something outside our present understanding. The relevant bit here is that you could deny truly random events (and modern physics) using the same faulty reasoning used to deny free will by asking 'how is a non-deterministic event possible' and expecting an answer in purely deterministic terms!

      The question of free will is about asking if we are capable of acting as a first cause in a chain of events. That's completely different from asking if our actions are completely determined or completely determined with a smattering of randomness.

      Another reply to this suggests there are "logical conundrums involved" (#51970881). What he fails to understand is that there are limitless "logical conundrums" which arise from the 'no free will' position as well. As for the neuroscience claim, I'll leave you to do a quick google search to dispel that particular myth.

    36. Re:shut up before you kill us all by NotAPK · · Score: 1

      There's a bit more to the cat paradox than what you have stated.

      Particles with undetermined quantum states (whether the cat is alive or dead) behave as though they exist in both states simultaneously. What you have proposed is the "hidden variable" theory, where the particles actually have a state (dead or alive) and act accordingly, but we don't know what it is until we make the observation (open the box).

      The general consensus among physicists today is that the hidden variable approach is unlikely, and that the states truly are superimposed.

      Of course it doesn't make any sense in the thought experiment with the cat, and deliberately so, since the cat (a large macro object) does not have any superimposed states. But the atomic quantum world behaves very differently, and as uncomfortable as it may make us, these ideas of superposition, entanglement, tunneling, and so on, are actually measurable, observable, and part of a cohesive theory, which in my book makes them "real".

      More reading here and here if you're really keen.

    37. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Convince a significant fraction of the population that their existence is pointless because they live in a simulation.

      Why would living in a simulation make life any more pointless than it is now ?

      The reverse, more like. If we're in a simulation, then perhaps we're being observed and backed up. That adds extra significance to everything we do.

    38. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless that IS the point of the simulation...

    39. Re:shut up before you kill us all by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 0

      The question of free will is about asking if we are capable of acting as a first cause in a chain of events. That's completely different from asking if our actions are completely determined or completely determined with a smattering of randomness.

      I'm quite certain you've just destroyed that straw man real good. But that's not helpful.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    40. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      That was Cypher's eventual conclusion in The Matrix, which your analogy seems to parallel to a reasonable degree.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    41. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or more likely, we are a side effect of the target of the simulation. They don't care about life one way or the other (or they didn't even notice that it evolved), but are very interested in exotic matter interactions or some other domain far from life and civilization. Another possibility is that their simulation runs so fast, maybe even perpendicular to their time (ie our entire universe runs out its time instantly from their perspective), so they have no idea what happened inside until after its all over for us.

    42. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Hotawa+Hawk-eye · · Score: 1

      "'Abort, Retry, Fail?' was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we'd remind them: if you see this message, always choose 'Retry." from the entry for Matter Editation in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

    43. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      And I dare say that a good portion of the people in here would not want to trade this world for one that is "free" but essentially worse, just as it was in The Matrix.

      Take Brave New World. A lot of people took it as an utopian story.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    44. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For those of us who are suicidal, ending the sim would be great.

    45. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "When JEs are deleted the comments stay."

      Uhh, several of my own deleted journals had comments, they're gone. That was YEARS ago.

      You still fail to understand how the system works.

      The comments are still there. If the story itself does not exist, the way the system works, it can't display the comments, because the comments themselves are linked to a story/submission. No story/submission, the page can't render. Period.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    46. Re:shut up before you kill us all by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Sorry to say, you are wrong.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    47. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Khyber · · Score: 1

      This just in, dipshit doesn't know how to download and read the SlashCode source, which explicitly demonstrates this behavior in code. It's even fucking commented and labeled!

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    48. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry, what? You have a link that shows the text of the actual deleted JE and not just the comments? I have collected many examples over the years of what you claim isn't possible. What about the links in the original post way back up the thread? You see a comment in any of them? Don't hold out on me, man! Share with us all! The only difference is that they are from the front page news story that was deleted along with the comments. Journal behavior is apparently different. Now, back in the D1 days comments were deleted with journals, depending how the journals were posted. And the number of comments on my info page reflected it with a lower count, but not anymore...

      This just in, dipshit doesn't know how to download and read the SlashCode source

      When did you stop beating your wife?

      I'm responding as AC because responding in kind is considered uncouth around here. Ain't charades fun?

    49. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "You have a link that shows the text of the actual deleted JE and not just the comments [slashdot.org]?"

      Yes, it's called download the source code that runs this site (it's FREELY AVAILABLE) and read the code your damned self, if you understand programming.

      If you do not, then you need to shut the fuck up and let those that do understand the code speak, because you are utterly full of shit.

      Here's your source - https://sourceforge.net/projec...

      Feel free to download and prove me wrong if you actually have any programming chops.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    50. Re:shut up before you kill us all by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Except that we would be entirely incapable of doing so. Our lives would be prescribed, our actions determined entirely by machine state. We may think we have free will, what we actually are is an equation determined by state.

      Simulation doesn't have to be on a digital computer or the equivalent. Might not be a state machine.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    51. Re:shut up before you kill us all by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      What's to say it's not? Neuroscience shows that free will is an illusion I mean if you believe that the universe follows a set of rules, even if we don't understand them (QM), then it is a big state machine and we're all automatons. How could free will even exist? It would be like a computer deciding that it did not want to take a particular branch this time around.

      Free will is just a matter of semantics. Most people admit that "free will" is limited by physics; i.e. we can't flap our arms and fly no matter how much we want to. But this holds on the biomolecular level as well, inside our brains. Most people are materialists when it comes to consciousness these days, i.e. we believe that consciousness is the work of the brain so our decisions are going to be based on the physical characteristics of our brain, however complex that may be. If complex enough we think it pseudorandom, much the same way as in statistics we toss all the little causes we can't quantify as "noise" or "random error".
      So the question is really the classic, how do the immaterial phenomenon of consciousness and the physical realm of the brain relate to each other? How does an immaterial thing affect a material thing? How does my consciousness manipulate the synapses in the neurons in my brain to make my arm move?
      If you want to stay in the realm of science and out of the realm of mystical speculation, you're stuck with the actual thinking being done in the machinery there, and the immaterial stuff just along for the ride.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    52. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or maybe the simulation has nothing to do with humans and we are an emergent property. Why assume the simulation's purpose has to do with humans just because we exist? they may not even be aware of us. it could just be an experiment about gravity effect of hydrogen or something.

    53. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is not the link. I don't give a damn about the source. If comments aren't deleted with journals (which they are not!), they shouldn't be deleted with front page stories either (which I have proven they are). Otherwise this site has sadly become just another shitty news aggregator clone. Since you aren't paying attention to the provided links or making even the feeblest attempt to comprehend the explanation, change your nick to 'obtuse_troll'. And you should definitely take your own damn advice! Good day!

      stupid git!

    54. Re:shut up before you kill us all by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Unlike you, I paid full attention.

      Apparently you didn't look at the code, otherwise you'd have seen that stories and journals are handled by TWO DIFFERENT DATABASES.

      You stupid fucking git. You do not belong on this website when you can not figure out how a fucking system works. Get the fuck out of here. Notice how you posted as AC, because YOU KNEW YOU WERE DEAD FUCKING WRONG.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  6. so there is a God? by lisabeeren · · Score: 1

    did you poo-poo the existence of an intelligent creator?

    1. Re:so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ehhhhh.... more like design-by-committee

    2. Re:so there is a God? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Judging from how imperfect our body is, along with the rest of the world, at the very least you can omit the "intelligent" part of that statement.

      Seriously, if that world is designed, it's either the work of a college student that was kicked out after delivering such crappy work or the work of a sadist that makes Jigsaw look like a saint.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re: so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if your so smart and everything is just so darn imperfect, it should be no challenge for you to simply make your own perfect world.

    4. Re:so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is making the assumption that our bodies were designed by the creator to be the highest quality possible. Most religions don't make this claim.

    5. Re: so there is a God? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I neither claim I'm omniscient nor omnipotent. I wouldn't make such ridiculous claims.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:so there is a God? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Can't speak for many others, but according to the Christian religion, we were created in the likeness of the big cheese himself.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:so there is a God? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      There *is* a God, and he's a neckbeard running us on a Beowulf cluster.

    8. Re:so there is a God? by Empiric · · Score: 1

      No, Mormons propose that God has (by default) a physical human-like body, and that's what "image" means. Mainline Christianity has never held such a restrictive and unimaginative notion of what "in one's image" means.

      Most people, hearing that, say, Prince's "1999" was a work "in his image" would have no difficulty understanding what was conveyed. When talking about religion, some seem to choose to lose intelligence rapidly.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    9. Re:so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Christians believe that God does have a physical human-like body. They usually refer to it as Christ.

    10. Re:so there is a God? by Empiric · · Score: 1

      No, the Trinitarian (that is, Mainline Christian) stance has been perfectly clear since at least Athanasius of Alexandria. "Neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance". God the Father is a distinct Personage (consciousness) from Jesus.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    11. Re:so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're making no sense. Trinitarians believe that God does have a physical human-like body, called Christ (also a father, and a spirit).

    12. Re:so there is a God? by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Ah, no. I have to presume you are hearing this from a Mormon stance, which is a directly-false restatement of Christian theological history, to try to "retrofit" legitimacy to their erroneous positions.

      Let's simplify. Is it your understanding that Jesus was conceived by God in a physical body with Mary (i.e. by "regular sex")? Do you consider this to represent the historical Trinitarian position?

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    13. Re:so there is a God? by Empiric · · Score: 1

      The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (from Latin trinitas "triad", from trinus "threefold")[1] defines God as three consubstantial persons,[2] expressions, or hypostases:[3] the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; "one God in three persons". The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature".[4] In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.[5][6][7]

      This is the Trinitarian position. Jesus (the Christ) is not "God's body".

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    14. Re:so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, take a look at the Shield of the Trinity. Deus est filius ("God is the Son"). This Trinitarianism predates Mormonism.

    15. Re:so there is a God? by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Okay, yes, I agree with your diagram. I think we're getting some semantics confusion here. By "God" I was referencing "God the Father", while "God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit" are also valid constructions.

      Saying that "Christ is God's body" though, is a somewhat unclear rendering to me, though, that I have not heard used.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    16. Re:so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Trinitarian position is that Christ's body is God's body.

    17. Re:so there is a God? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      Yes, 'Incompetent Design' strikes me as a more accurate fill-in for ID.

    18. Re:so there is a God? by Hognoxious · · Score: 0

      Or a hipster brat who bought an AWS instance with his mom's credit card.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    19. Re:so there is a God? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Oh, so the Bible is a collection of metaphors. Silly me, how could I take any of that stuff literally. I mean, seriously, burning bushes that talk, world being created in a week, a guy dying and then flying away without a rocket...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    20. Re:so there is a God? by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Like Orwell's "Animal Farm", you have some basic knowledge of the subject matter when you're capable of telling metaphor from literal principles.

      I trust you'll be spending no time with a smarmy and mentally-confused attack on that work. This isn't every other book in existence, this is the bible--right? That has your special rules.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    21. Re:so there is a God? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Then our universe is truly screwed

    22. Re:so there is a God? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      That is why all humans have a dick.

      And God is wanking because he has no goddess ...

      Ah well, He is all mighty, he likely can get an orgasm by snipping his fingers.

      What a waste, he misses the "love making".

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    23. Re:so there is a God? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Since nobody tries to push the "teachings" of Animal Farm into laws affecting me, I have no beef with that fairy tale.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    24. Re: so there is a God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry you have no comprehension of the political effects of Orwell's work as polemic regarding socialism, which has unquestionably affected, and continues to effect, what is pushed for as laws, and indeed laws already established.

      Back to your little myopic world.

    25. Re:so there is a God? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Can't speak for many others, but according to the Christian religion, we were created in the likeness of the big cheese himself.

      Well sure. We botch stuff up too. Especially the stuff we create on Saturday so's we can just get it finished and take Sunday off.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    26. Re:so there is a God? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      did you poo-poo the existence of an intelligent creator?

      That's kind of insulting to God. There are obvious and severe limits to the abilities of intelligence. If you attempted to populate the ecology of the earth by intelligent design, for instance, it would be much less interesting; evolution through random mindless variation, "natural selection", and a lot of random chance does a much better job of exploring every possible niche.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    27. Re:so there is a God? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Can't speak for many others, but according to the Christian religion, we were created in the likeness of the big cheese himself.

      Hmmm...... The Flying Parmesan Monster.....

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  7. Utter crap by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

    These celebrity scientists are annoying. More proof that just because someone calls themselves a "scientist" doesn't mean they know jack shit about anything.

    1. Re: Utter crap by AgNO3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sim theory isnt new. It was thought of because of the breakdowns in math that fail in computer sims also fail in our reality physics.

      --
      OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
    2. Re:Utter crap by myowntrueself · · Score: 1, Funny

      These celebrity scientists are annoying. More proof that just because someone calls themselves a "scientist" doesn't mean they know jack shit about anything.

      Ah yes, Neil-Degrasse Tyson, the man who said "There are more stars in our galaxy than there are atoms in the universe!"

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    3. Re: Utter crap by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sim theory isnt new. It was thought of because of the breakdowns in math that fail in computer sims also fail in our reality physics.

      Sim theory (or at least the basic concept) predates computers by hundreds of years. One early example was in the 1600s when Descartes described an "evil demon" that took over all your senses "Matrix" style complete with other fake minds. Computers weren't around but he described all the concepts of "brain in a vat", the matrix, the 13th floor, etc.. perfectly.

    4. Re: Utter crap by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Indeed, the idea even of a universe that has a part we see and a part overlayed right on top of it/in it and through it that we cannot see, is much much older than that.

    5. Re:Utter crap by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      You have a source for that? He did say "Thereâ(TM)s as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.â

    6. Re: Utter crap by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Plato's theory of forms predates Descartes by nearly 2000 years. And is a form of sim theory, but like Descartes, falls down because the concepts and langage didn't exist to describe it in modern terms.

    7. Re:Utter crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if he did say it, people would believe him. It's a shame Neil isn't a Bishop, or Cardinal. A man of such great faith should not go to waste.

    8. Re:Utter crap by mister2au · · Score: 1

      Or perhaps you have completely missed the point and dont understand how debating works?

    9. Re:Utter crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure that was a fake quote from reddit

    10. Re: Utter crap by wwalker · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but that's nonsense. What breakdowns in math?! All of the physics glitches you see in computer games are either bugs, that didn't get fixed, or due to the fact that you have finite computational resources. You always have to trade off simulation precision against consuming too much CPU and memory resources. And you also have to take care of graphics, sound, AI, gameplay, animation and more graphics, which tend to get priority over physics, unless you games is Kerbal Space Program. There are no breakdowns in math. Given enough computational power, we can simulate physical world perfectly down to atoms. It gets fuzzy from there.

    11. Re: Utter crap by AgNO3 · · Score: 1

      Sorry they arent. Its a real problem with fluid sims especially but happens with all physically accurate sims. I dont shit about game sims, just physical dynamics in relation to real world engineering. Do some actual research.

      --
      OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
    12. Re: Utter crap by AgNO3 · · Score: 1

      Currently, supercomputers using a impressive-sounding technique called lattice quantum chromodynamics, and starting from the fundamental physical laws, can simulate only a very small portion of the universe. The scale is a little larger than the nucleus of an atom, according UW physicist Martin Savage. Mega-computers of the far future could greatly expand the size of the Sim Universe. ANALYSIS: Artificial Universe Created Inside a Supercomputer If we are living in such a program, there could be telltale evidence for the underlying lattice used in modeling the space-time continuum, say the researchers. This signature could show up as a limitation in the energy of cosmic rays. They would travel diagonally across the model universe and not interact equally in all directions, as they otherwise would be expected to do according to present cosmology.

      --
      OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
    13. Re: Utter crap by AgNO3 · · Score: 1

      In a public discussion with Neil deGrasse Tyson, String Theory physicist Dr. James Gates, stated that he found self-correcting computer error code embedded within the fundamental structure of String Theory, which made him "question if (he) was living in the Matrix."[17]

      --
      OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
    14. Re:Utter crap by belthize · · Score: 1

      Except that he never said that, it's a Reddit meme.

      What he said was (quoted from Cosmos)
      “There’s as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.”

    15. Re:Utter crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean that fake reddit quote? Okay.

    16. Re: Utter crap by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Plato's theory of forms predates Descartes by nearly 2000 years. And is a form of sim theory, but like Descartes, falls down because the concepts and langage didn't exist to describe it in modern terms.

      Or, as in the Copenhagen Interpretation, there really is no "real world" outside the cave and those shadows on the wall are all that exist, following their own laws.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    17. Re:Utter crap by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      These celebrity scientists are annoying. More proof that just because someone calls themselves a "scientist" doesn't mean they know jack shit about anything.

      Ah yes, Neil-Degrasse Tyson, the man who said "There are more stars in our galaxy than there are atoms in the universe!"

      Is there any evidence of this other than an amateurish meme?

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    18. Re: Utter crap by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The basis of all is that that the brain is only linked to the world. Change the reception of the senses, and you change the reality of the brain. Whether it's a sim (shadows on a wall), or a sim (we are a computer program), or real, we couldn't tell the difference.

  8. I guess that explains.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why I see "TV snow" when I close my eyes.....

    1. Re:I guess that explains.... by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Neil Degrassi created that Canadian teen soap opera?

  9. At first, this sounds sophisticated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then I though a minute, and remembered, "Hey, this is exactly the kind of thing me and me nerd buddies used to make in that back of the classroom of high school calculus in 12th grade." It's pseudo-sophisticated, same as thinking that maybe we're all living our lives in the Matrix.

  10. Yeah no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a hardware problem not a software problem.

  11. When lose out on new subjects just by BoRegardless · · Score: 1

    make something wild up and toss it out their as "maybe its real or can become real."

    The descent into madness.

    1. Re: When lose out on new subjects just by AgNO3 · · Score: 1

      Might I suggest google computer sim theory.

      --
      OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
  12. Computer...end program by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

    Computer...arch

    Nothing. Clearly he is wrong.

    1. Re:Computer...end program by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      You're just lacking the relevant privileges.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re: Computer...end program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      sudo computer arch ...still nothing

    3. Re: Computer...end program by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      You don't expect me to put AC into the /etc/sudoers, do you?

      I'm not sure, but I think that would be grounds for an immediate voiding of my CISSP certificate. :)

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Computer...end program by sjames · · Score: 1

      Apparently you were not created as a foe capable of defeating Data.

    5. Re:Computer...end program by irving47 · · Score: 1

      Checking the logs.... No odd surges of power.

      --
      I had a sucky sig.
    6. Re: Computer...end program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alt-SysRq-c

    7. Re:Computer...end program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Last I checked, even the holograms which learned of the existence of Arch, couldn't use it except under extreme circumstances....

    8. Re:Computer...end program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nothing to see here.... the moron just finished HGTG and believes it's true.

    9. Re: Computer...end program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excellent point. Why doesn't life ever kick out errors like sudo? Or does it? Every mistake I've made makes sense now or does it? NDGT blowing my mind OMG.

    10. Re:Computer...end program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sudo computer arch

  13. Worried about the griefers ... by perpenso · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally I'm worried about the griefers who are now going to try to crash the sim.

    1. Re:Worried about the griefers ... by somenickname · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I hate physicists too.

    2. Re:Worried about the griefers ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fundamentalists (of whatever sort) have hacked the sim ... Hell has become REAL

    3. Re:Worried about the griefers ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In soviet russia the guy who runs the simulator is malevolent and tortures you.

  14. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Moron.

  15. It is, in fact, a simulation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And Christians call the creator God.

    With parallel universes, string theory, observational determinism, many dimensions, etc. And the can't believe in a creator?

    I believe in physics, Darwinism, and Christianity. But scientists know that the more they understand, the more they realize there is to learn. They are just observing God's handy work.

    1. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by kuzb · · Score: 1

      Belief does not equal proof. Nobody cares if you believe in zombie Jesus, just stop trying to pass it off as fact until you've got evidence.

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    2. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Belief does not equal proof. Nobody cares if you believe in zombie Jesus, just stop trying to pass it off as fact until you've got evidence.

      And by your own logic, your belief also does not equal proof. You have no more evidence than the AC you responded to.

      Your belief must require far more faith though, because if you get it wrong, you have far more to lose.

    3. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In fairness, if one takes the sim argument at face value, what's to say Jesus and various other gods weren't a bunch of assholes running around with cheat codes before they got the banhammer?

    4. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Evidence for what? kuzb didn't make any claims about anything existing, so he's got nothing to prove. The onus is on the one who claims there is something.

    5. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 2

      Peer-reviewed evidence.

      There you go. Now you can stop saying there is no evidence. In all likelihood, you knew already there was -evidence-, and were perfectly clear about this in your own mind while you were lying. It's hard to miss the fact that between people contemporaries of Jesus dying rather than recant their experiences (yes, persecution is historical fact), improbabilities of prophecy fulfillment, even if we discard 90% up front as possibly "self fulfilling" or on the basis of other objections, and modern testimony of experiences, there is unquestionably -evidence-.

      Yes, I know you'll probably do the standard thing here and conflate "evidence" with "proof" or redefine "evidence" to mean "evidence that satisfies me personally, which I will never allow it to".

      Evidence doesn't mean either. Evidence means evidence, and you were just provided with it. Try to avoid the compulsion to simply continue lying about it.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    6. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      But who's simulating God ?

    7. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      What do NDEs have to do with Jesus ? It's not evidence if it's not even related.

    8. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Of course it is related. The theology predicts one will experience what one does indeed experience, with high correlation. Hypothesis proposed, then tested, and validated by results, if you prefer a more scientific-paradigm rendering.

      Those experiences as documented and peer-reviewed being well beyond in content what one could plausibly "just happen to happen" as a consistent consequence of brain failure from a naturalistic perspective--including meeting and interacting extensively with deceased relatives.

      One may as well claim shorting out your computer will create the interactive experience of playing a pre-release Doom 6.

      If you disagree, however, it doesn't matter regarding the issue at hand. An alternate explanation for evidence does not alter its status as evidence for the thing it is clearly evidence of. At most, the evidence then becomes evidence for multiple possibilities. I am not claiming "proof", nor thereby forced-converting you due to the fact you could not choose to not accept proof without going to a mental hospital.

      It is evidence, and you already knew that.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    9. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      But who's simulating God ?

      Nobody. That's a myth, just like Santa Claus, the Year Of Linux On The Desktop, and other bits of wishful thinking. The simulation allows the simulated people in it to have imaginations and to believe in nonsense.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    10. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 0

      You can create similar effects by using drugs. Drugs are evidence too, then ?

    11. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I think Santa Claus is simulating God on a Linux desktop.

    12. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      So long as the drugs produce those effects while you're dead, sure.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    13. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      The people who report near death experiences weren't dead either. The word "near" should have given you a clue.

    14. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      What would be an acceptable proof?

    15. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Reading the actual study would give you not just a disingenuous handwaving "clue", but actual knowledge. For the actual states at hand--including conscious perception during EEG flat-line.

      "Near" is a broad term that is inclusive of clinical death.

      In any case, the drugs issue simply a red-herring, that you perceived something under the influence of a drug does not mean you perceived it correctly, and equivalently doesn't mean you -didn't- perceive it correctly. Furthermore, you are still left with the fact that such a particular distinctive set of experiences is what is perceived "by happenstance" by a failing brain, and that a few out of thousands of chemicals can create phenomena broadly like NDE's, with nowhere near the consistent correlation of what the hallucinations from the drugs are, does not change that. That -these particular- phenomena indicated by religion are 'baked into" our neurology is phenomenally low odds by happenstance.

      It's as if you are arguing against gravity by countering the assertion that a dropped object falls, with throwing the object down forcefully and considering that to negate the evidence of gravity. It doesn't. That in the brain's natural state, the event of death so consistently produces the experiential phenomena predicted by theology, is remarkable, regardless of whether those phenomena can be simulated to some degree by other means. And those "other means", as many researchers and practitioners regarding psychoactives have noted, do not negate a spiritual dimension. That one experiences something spiritual does not call for the conclusion that experience means one didn't experience something spiritual. Even if one is a rabid materialist.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    16. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Near" is a broad term that is inclusive of clinical death

      If you have conscious experiences, and then you wake up, you weren't dead. It's that simple. That these experiences then match the cultural expectations isn't very surprising.

    17. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      That's what you have to believe as a materialist, sure.

      It's just that you're wrong.

      And yes, it is astonishing that one has these experiences during brain failure, and thinking it's causally explained by cultural expectations is a complete failure to even attempt to explain it. Particularly given the experiences are had even by those rejecting cultural religious notions or not having been exposed to them.

      Again, try reading the study. You'll be in a much better position to win your argument and your goal of inevitable elimination by natural selection. I propose we save time and end the conversation here, since that outcome for you works fine for me as well.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    18. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      You'll be in a much better position to win your argument

      I already won, but you're too stuck in your own crazy world to realize it. Being religious is like being permanently on mind altering drugs. You won't even realize that you're wrong when you die, because there will be nothing.

    19. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Eh, I'll do just fine with my day job writing software, which I hear is a difficult job to do and get paid well for if crazy.

      But, no, you've offered nothing but nonsense here and knee-jerk reactions of someone almost totally ignorant of every aspect of all relevant fields. Eh, I'll write a shell script to thoroughly emulate you, there are plenty of reference points, as your fellow atheists are so banal and plagiarizing your pseudo-thoughts from each other, it'll be trivial to code up your equivalent. Even more time savings.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    20. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      But, no, you've offered nothing but nonsense here and knee-jerk reactions of someone almost totally ignorant of every aspect of all relevant fields

      You're probably even more ignorant about the relevant fields relating to easter bunnies, but you still don't want to open your heart and mind to it. You just need to ask, and the easter bunny will save you. Only ignorance is stopping you.

    21. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Find me an NDE study featuring extensive recountings of seeing bunnies post-death, across a broad demographic, quantified, and peer-reviewed.

      Stop being useless by your painfully bad attempts to think. Again, get collecting with your little time left. It doesn't require much brainpower.

      Do that, and eventually, I'll show you the Easter egg--Easter egg.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    22. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Find me an NDE study featuring extensive recountings of seeing bunnies post-death

      I'm afraid those aren't really convincing. You'd just argue that the people who saw bunnies were deluded or lying.

    23. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Refer to the study for the facts of the matter. Basing your argument on what is demonstrably not the case neither works scientifically nor logically.

      Don't you have someone to call?

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    24. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I prefer to have the study read by people more knowledgable than me, such as Dr Karl Jansen, who said: "Ketamine administered by intravenous injection is capable of reproducing all of the features of the NDE which have been commonly described.". Why won't you read his studies and get your feet back on the ground? You still have time.

    25. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      You mean him?

      "Thus transpersonal events may be possible within the new physics, if subatomic events are involved in consciousness. Ketamine may be a drug which 're-tunes' the brain to allow awareness to enter the quantum sea. If this is indeed the case, then we may have to regard some of the reports of eternity, infinity, multiple universes and linkage with other beings as phenomena demanding a more sophisticated explanation than a brief dismissal as 'hallucinations and mental illness' requiring no further consideration."

      So, he rejects your position. Good show. I'll wait for better.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    26. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      The theology predicts one will experience what one does indeed experience, with high correlation.

      The question then becomes: why does theology predict what it predicts? Likely answer: because it hijacked reported experiences and shoe-horned them into the theology.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    27. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by religionofpeas · · Score: 0

      So, he rejects your position.

      No, the point is that we agree a simple drug recreates a very similar experience as does near-death in some people, and he can demonstrate that. This means that the experience is no longer evidence for anything that happens "after death". If you want to claim that drug-induced hallucinations are an evidence of God or a quantum sea, then go right ahead, but realize that it's only based on speculation, not evidence.

    28. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Read. Just read. Or, stop lying in comically transparent ways.

      Both NDE's and ketamine experiences he considers spiritual, and this is totally at odds with your "just hallucinations" position. From that stance, both NDE's and ketamine are a "door" to that spiritual reality, which he considers to involve quantum phenomena as it's underlying "substrate". That aside, in no way is he saying that ketamine experiences refute the spiritual reality of NDE's.

      Read.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    29. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      It doesn't really matter what he ascribes the evidence to if we accept the base evidence that ketamine reproduces the NDE experience. So, ignore his speculation and concentrate on the evidence.

      The point is, ketamine and NDEs can be very similar in the experiences produced.

      So either ketamine is a gateway to god or there's nothing special about NDEs.

      You can believe the former if you wish, but there's no evidence for it.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    30. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Ketamine can produce effects of experiences corresponding to every perception on Earth, all of which can be unquestionably real.

      That this is the case for NDE's as well, is irrelevant. The NDE's are remarkable for exactly the reasons stated, and are evidence for exactly the reasons stated. After you again claim it isn't evidence, it will remain exactly the evidence it is.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    31. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Ketamine can produce effects of experiences corresponding to every perception on Earth, all of which can be unquestionably real.

      I'm not claiming NDEs aren't real, they most certainly are, but they are nothing more than an effect of the brain.

      The NDE's are remarkable for exactly the reasons stated,

      They're quite interesting but not remarkable.

      and are evidence for exactly the reasons stated,

      Evidence of what exactly?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    32. Re: It is, in fact, a simulation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop being willfully stupid.

    33. Re:It is, in fact, a simulation. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      You won't even realize that you're wrong when you die, because there will be nothing.
      You are a bit unscientific. How do you know what is "behind" death? Did you make any tests?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  16. Sagan rolling in his grave by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No doubt, yeah.

    This is why Sagan was revered. This other guy not at all.

  17. I told 'em that means peace among worlds! by GuineaPigMan · · Score: 1

    Maybe we're all living in a microverse battery! https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:I told 'em that means peace among worlds! by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      Keep stomping on your gooblebox!

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
  18. The real question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Once we've advanced enough that we can create a new universe-simulation within our own, is it possible to also go back *up* a level at that point, and complain to the bosses of our creators?

    Basically, is this like a multiversal colonization affair where eventually you break off and make your own "lesser existences", or are we limited as fictional entities to our own level of realism or those below us - but in that case how deeply can it go before it all falls apart, and what would be the 'highest' state that's reading about the people who made a game whose characters wrote a book about making a simulated universe that we're now in? ... I think we all need much more drugs.

    1. Re:The real question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless we make some incredible breakthrough in information theory (even bigger than quantum computation), how could anyone even imagine going 'up a level'?

      It always takes n*m atoms (for very large values of m) to construct a computer that simulates the behaviour of n atoms. So unless there's some mind-blowing cheat to information theory as we know it, a simulation can never simulate something bigger and/or more complex than itself.

      However, if we could 'signal' somehow to the beings running *our* simulated reality, a sort of 'Hi, we see what you did there, very funny!', and they chose to 'translate' us up into the higher level, I suppose that would be the one way to move 'up a level'. It would require assistance from above.

    2. Re:The real question by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      Unless we make some incredible breakthrough in information theory (even bigger than quantum computation), how could anyone even imagine going 'up a level'?

      Nobody writes perfect software. There's gotta be some bug we can exploit, escalate privileges, and write "Hello, world" on God's terminal.

    3. Re:The real question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would require assistance from _two_ levels above. This is akin to a scriptwriter getting the character from a computer game in his movie to jump out and interact with movie characters.

  19. Reminds me of the movie The Thirteenth Floor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If we build our own universe simulation, maybe we can learn more about the simulation we're in.

    1. Re:Reminds me of the movie The Thirteenth Floor by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Physicists do this all the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  20. "almost infinite number" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is that infinity-n, or infinity/n?

    Did Neal deGrasse Tyson really say that?

    1. Re:"almost infinite number" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I too am seeing a lot of stupid quotes being attributed to NdT. Is he getting dumber or are people misapplying his name?

  21. I wonder who, or what, hovering over Alt-F4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ^that's really all I had.

  22. Makes sense by readin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My guy reaction was that he was joking. But thinking about it, it makes sense. We live in a universe where it is possible, at least in theory, to simulate a smaller universe. Given the vastness of time and space, if you assume that life has a high enough probability of arising that there are a lot of aliens out there, there are going to be a lot of simulations that are sophisticated enough to contain AIs that don't know they are simulations.

    If only 10 alien races create 10 simulations each, that's 101 environments that can contain intelligence (100 simulations plus the one non-simulated universe). The odds then less than 1% that we're in the original non-simulated universe.

    It still doesn't sit right with me - my skeptical gut tells me it is silly - but where is the flaw in the logic?

    --
    I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    1. Re:Makes sense by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

      But thinking about it, it makes sense. We live in a universe where it is possible, at least in theory, to simulate a smaller universe.

      Why would it have to be smaller? What's to say that the resolution is the same everywhere? Maybe just like in many video games the different areas aren't active unless being interacted with by something else in the environment? Maybe stuff off in the distance is really just for looks and even if we did manage to make it to the next star then that area of that map will only start really existing once we get there. The stuff at the microscopic level could work the same way where the resolution only increases as we drill down. Quantum physics already has some weird "observer bias" stuff where observing it seems to affects it's outcome. If we are in a simulation and the resolution does vary based on how we interact with the environment then trying to find more of these type of discrepancies is likely the best way to prove we are in a simulation.

    2. Re:Makes sense by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is the full argument by the person who said that odds are we are living in a simulation: The simulation argument

    3. Re: Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The flaw is in the purpose of the simulation, can you understand the amount of energy and space implied in a simulated universe? What in the name of God would be the purpose of this kind...oh! Wait a minute...

    4. Re:Makes sense by shess · · Score: 1

      It still doesn't sit right with me - my skeptical gut tells me it is silly - but where is the flaw in the logic?

      Why is there any reason to assign equivalent probabilities to random hypothetical cases? We have a single example of intelligent life, and all our other candidates share almost all the same genetic code, so we have no basis to even make estimates. We do anyhow, but until you have that second example, you can't tell if we're a one-in-10-light-years occurrence, once-in-a-galaxy, once-in-a-cluster, once-in-a-supercluster, or what.

      Also, as of yet we have no examples of anyone successfully building a simulation capable of evolving intelligent life. It's possible that gross physical constraints on the scalability of computing will prevent us from ever managing such a simulation.

      Certainly if the simulated system is smaller than the simulator and runs more slowly than the simulator's universe, then it becomes more likely that we live in a real universe. Say our universe is ~10^23 miles across, and we can build a simulator a million miles across. Say the simulator needs 1000 of our most basic reality components to simulate one sub-reality component, and the simulation runs at 1/1000 speed.

      Similar thinking works WRT timeframe, can the simulator survive for long enough that the simulated universe can evolve? A factor of 1000 slowdown means that the simulator's universe is going to evolve a great deal in the time it takes the simulated universe to have humans on earth. Is it really reasonable to imagine a simulation running for that long? We can't even maintain a consistent computing system for decades.

    5. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The flaw is that not all environments are equal. If you weigh each environment by the information processing power that they offer to life to develop, then most of the information processing power exists in a real universe.

    6. Re:Makes sense by afgam28 · · Score: 1

      Simulation is not duplication, and intelligence is not consciousness.

      Even if those aliens somehow managed to simulate an entire universe, and even if that program was able to simulate intelligence, there's no reason to believe that any of those simulated beings are conscious. Just because someone can compute the results of what would have happened in some simulated scenario, doesn't mean that that a conscious experience of that scenario magically gets created.

      If anyone is going to argue that we're "very likely" living in a simulation, then they're going to have to show that simulating a brain creates the same consciousness that a real brain does (i.e., that simulating a brain is the same as duplicating a brain). We don't know a lot about consciousness, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that executing instructions on a CPU would do this.

    7. Re:Makes sense by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      The flaw is that you are vastly vastly underestimating how much computing power is needed to simulate the universe, and/or vastly vastly overestimating the amount of computing power available in the universe.

      Of course, all bets are off if the parent universe builds computers out of "something other than matter" and stores them in "something other than space".

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    8. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of consciousness does a real brain create?
      You can type and move your lips to tell me, and we can pretend to interact and all, but so what?

    9. Re:Makes sense by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Why is there any reason to assign equivalent probabilities to random hypothetical cases? We have a single example of intelligent life, and all our other candidates share almost all the same genetic code, so we have no basis to even make estimates.

      That is a fair point, if we're in the unsimulated universe.

      If we're in the simulated version, then that information doesn't actually tell us anything, since the simulation might only have us in it, or it might be presenting us with false information.

      Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?

    10. Re:Makes sense by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      In fact, you may be the only thing simulated in high detail. The rest of us are just hollow robots. That would explain a lot.

    11. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, it could be simulated really slowly. How do we know that the normal flow of time for us is actually just crawling on a computer.

    12. Re:Makes sense by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Just because someone can compute the results of what would have happened in some simulated scenario, doesn't mean that that a conscious experience of that scenario magically gets created.

      If consciousness does not translate in any detectable behavior changes, then why did consciousness ever evolve ? Magic ?

    13. Re:Makes sense by vux984 · · Score: 1

      Just because someone can compute the results of what would have happened in some simulated scenario, doesn't mean that that a conscious experience of that scenario magically gets created.

      Or does it? We don't know.

      But it's leads to all kinds of neat thought experiments. If I simulated my own brain, would it be conscious? Why wouldn't it be? If every neuron and cellular chemical and electrical interaction were modeled, shouldn't it be conscious? If Consciousness isn't "magic" so it must arise from the various interactions in the body/brain... so i all of that is simulated, then so too must the consciousness be simulated?!

      If it *were* conscious, what if I run the simulation slower, would it still be conscious, just 'slower' perceiving my time as moving faster than i do? why not?

      What then, if I evaluated the simulation using pen and paper, and it took thousands of years to evaluate each new state... would the simulation still be conscious? And that's crazy. Yet, I see no reasonable argument against it.

      Unless consciousness is magic.

    14. Re:Makes sense by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      What then, if I evaluated the simulation using pen and paper, and it took thousands of years to evaluate each new state.

      What if you recorded every state on a magnetic tape, and then instead of simulating, you would just re-run the tape ? What if if you just spool the tape without actually reading the information from it ? What if you just leave the tape on a shelf ?

    15. Re:Makes sense by phantomfive · · Score: 1
      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    16. Re:Makes sense by phantomfive · · Score: 2
      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    17. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "But thinking about it, it makes sense."

      But is it science? What does the hypothesis imply, and what testable predictions can we make based on it? Mr. Neil, burden of proof is on you.

    18. Re:Makes sense by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      The flaw is that you are vastly vastly underestimating how much computing power is needed to simulate the universe, and/or vastly vastly overestimating the amount of computing power available in the universe.

      What makes you think that universe above our heads is really there?

      We have been to the moon, beyond that, everything else could be a fairly flat simulation that only returns what we are supposed to see.

      If you're playing Call of Duty, does the next level exist before it is loaded? Does the computer have to run all maps and all levels at the same time? Very simple world of course, but do you think YOUR computer could run all maps, all levels, and all enemies at the same time?

    19. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No way. If this was a simulation there'd be tell-tale signs, arbitrary simulation limits like a minimum possible resolution, or a maximum possible speed.

    20. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. You would run a simulation of the universe and everything in it at the quantum level and tweak the parameters until conditions are just right for 'life'. Then observe and compare the simulation to your 'real' universe to gain insights into how our universe works. And if you find 'consciousness', then you can take a closer look at what that really means.

      If we slow the simulation, or pause it, life inside would never notice, because they perceive time as a dimension relative to their own universe only. Neurons of organisms living in a simulated universe would not continue to fire while their universe is suspended. They would not think to themselves "hey, why am I still thinking while time stands still?"

    21. Re:Makes sense by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      If anyone is going to argue that we're "very likely" living in a simulation, then they're going to have to show that simulating a brain creates the same consciousness that a real brain does (i.e., that simulating a brain is the same as duplicating a brain). We don't know a lot about consciousness, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that executing instructions on a CPU would do this.

      Can you prove that you are conscious?

      I don't think I could prove that I am.

    22. Re:Makes sense by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Similar thinking works WRT timeframe, can the simulator survive for long enough that the simulated universe can evolve? A factor of 1000 slowdown means that the simulator's universe is going to evolve a great deal in the time it takes the simulated universe to have humans on earth. Is it really reasonable to imagine a simulation running for that long? We can't even maintain a consistent computing system for decades.

      How do you know this simulation wasn't started 30 minutes ago?

    23. Re:Makes sense by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      What if you recorded every state on a magnetic tape, and then instead of simulating, you would just re-run the tape ? What if if you just spool the tape without actually reading the information from it ? What if you just leave the tape on a shelf ?

      This sounds like Greg Egan's dust theory (which isn't explained much by the link).

      It doesn't matter how any state is encoded. It may not even matter if it is encoded. Somewhere, in a universe, the current state of your mind may be encoded (by chance) in the arrangement of atoms in a rock; the next state might (by chance) be encoded in flunctuations in a star's surface 10,000,000 years before the rock came into existence.

      In a big enough universe, just about anything can be encoded in some fashion, and (so the theory goes, as far as I understand it) conscious beings can therefore experience their reality purely because a chain of internally consistent subsequent encodings of their mind exist somewhere.

      Yeah, it's all a bit wishy-washy, really. And I don't think it really explains why we don't experience weird things happening all the time, except that perhaps for some reason only logically consistent subsequent "encodings" of a reality can be experienced. Otherwise, somewhere there is an encoded "me" who is about to experience a velociraptor attA-.khmc. \zs;jdf'GV'oihdfln'@|n

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    24. Re:Makes sense by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      For a simulated being you are pretty smart!

      I hope you make it into the next generation!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    25. Re:Makes sense by Oscaro · · Score: 1

      Simulation is not duplication, and intelligence is not consciousness.

      Even if those aliens somehow managed to simulate an entire universe, and even if that program was able to simulate intelligence, there's no reason to believe that any of those simulated beings are conscious.

      This. You could simulate how a stomach works on atomic level, but you can't say that your simulation is digesting anything. A simulation is not a duplication.

    26. Re:Makes sense by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?

      Me: Computer! Cancel simulation!

      Answer: access denied!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    27. Re:Makes sense by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Consciousness is only a fancy word for "self awareness".

      If your focus on AI is to create something that is self aware, I guess it is pretty simple.

      Would it play chess, go or piano? Probably not. But we know how to make AIs that do that (actually they are not truly AI).

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    28. Re:Makes sense by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Elite simulated an universe ...
      Eve online does ...

      There are plenty of games that do.

      It is just a matter of level of abstraction.

      However the questions how to figure if you are inside of a simulation arose to me when I read the Greg Bear stories "Eon" and the sequels.

      Good reads ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    29. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got to be honest, as a professional philosopher I'm annoyed that a guy like Nick Bostrom could base essentially his entire career on such a lame and speculative argument while others write serious and elaborate papers in logic, the philosophy of science or mathematical ethics and can hardly get tenure.

    30. Re:Makes sense by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Here's what I think: fluctuations in the star's surface, or the atoms in the rock aren't conscious because they aren't self referential. In order to be self referential through an encoding, you must have a decoder as well. Our bodies convert the brain's encoding into muscle control, and the subsequent motion of our body is visualized and encoded through our optic system back into the proper encoded states in the brain, forming a complete self-referential loop. There's nothing in the star or rock doing the same thing.

    31. Re:Makes sense by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      There's nothing in the star or rock doing the same thing.

      There doesn't need to me. Each state is a snapshot of a valid, logical, self-consistent timeline - all that matters (according to the theory) is that the states can be considered to exist/to be encoded somewhere.

      The idea in the book is that a guy gets a load of money from investors and sets up a complex but deterministic cellular automaton which includes copies of the investors' consciousnesses along with all the programming necessary to run a virtual reality for them. The simulation is started, left running for a few seconds and then switched off - but the people within it continue to experience, because the next state of the automaton doesn't need to be run on a computer. It already exists out there somewhere, as does the next state, and the next state, and the next.

      It probably doesn't really stand up to a lot of examination, as it was created for the purposes of a novel.

      There's a slightly different version of the idea in another book, where some explorers find, in a chain of subsequent universes, a manufactured object which is slightly different in each universe. They eventually realise that they're looking at physical snapshots of a simulation, containing the consciousnesses of the aliens that came before them. The explorers (who are simulations themselves, running on a futuristic but more "conventional" computer) keep travelling through the universes, each time finding a slightly different "state" object - it's like someone had printed out each state of a run of Conway's Life, instead of just keeping the data in a computer and displaying it on screen.

      Eventually, after trillions and trillions of universes, they find the physical copies of the object stop changing. The alien consciousnesses within eventually came to the end of their philosophical and scientific study of reality, and... stopped.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    32. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well here's a thought - the uncertainty principle. If you measure a particles position, it's velocity becomes more "fuzzy", but vice-versa for measuring velocity. e.g. each bit of "stuff" only has a finite amount of resolution, which it trades off based on what data you asked it for - e.g. finite precision and some fakery.

      That sounds a little bit like floating point numbers doesn't it?

    33. Re:Makes sense by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?

      Me: Computer! Cancel simulation!

      Answer: access denied!

      I know you're trying to be funny... and I guess in a Star Trek geek sort of way, it is... but of course the reality is the computer simply wouldn't respond. :)

      Let me put this another way... you're not a human in a holodeck, you're one of the holograms. But does the hologram know that it is one? Or that the program was started 30 min ago?

    34. Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The idea in the book is that a guy gets a load of money from investors and sets up a complex but deterministic cellular automaton which includes copies of the investors' consciousnesses along with all the programming necessary to run a virtual reality for them. The simulation is started, left running for a few seconds and then switched off - but the people within it continue to experience, because the next state of the automaton doesn't need to be run on a computer. It already exists out there somewhere, as does the next state, and the next state, and the next.

      Why bother to set up the simulation at all? As according to the theory the state apparently exist entirely independently of the simulation anyway.

      It probably doesn't really stand up to a lot of examination

      There is no probably about it, it doesn't even stand up to a little examination.

      The problem we are facing here is that we haven't really defined what consciousness is. If I was to define it (and consider that this only occurred to me while reading this thread, so I haven't put a lot of thought into it, and this definition is by no means complete) I would say that consciousness is a continuous process, with some memory of what has happened before, a way of considering and reacting to inputs, and some self-awareness.

      What your encoded snapshots of conscious states is lacking is a process by which it can transition to the next conscious state.

    35. Re:Makes sense by readin · · Score: 1

      The difference is that the argument in the comic book has more information than simply the fact that it is an argument. If I were put together a random argument, place it in a black box, and hand it to you then you would be correct to assume based on statistics that the argument is most likely wrong. But once I tell you what the argument is then you can evaluate the merits of the arguments and the statistics are no longer useful. Since we don't know of anyway to distinguish whether our universe is a simulation simply by looking at it, the best we have is statistics and the statistics tell us we're probably a simulation.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    36. Re:Makes sense by readin · · Score: 1

      You're vastly underestimating the amount of processing power available to the creatures who are simulating our universe. Why did they simulat a universe that gives us so little processing power and so little ability to move around due to the distance between clumps of matter? I don't know.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    37. Re:Makes sense by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Hey, only trying to keep the conversation going on!
      For a hologram your answer was pretty smart by the way.
      If I may say so, from hologram to hologram ... amoungst us holograms.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    38. Re:Makes sense by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      and the statistics tell us we're probably a simulation.

      No they don't, because you don't know the likelihood that such a simulation is possible, or that someone would want to pay for such a simulation or even that their are alien races. You don't know how many simulations there are, or how many universes there are. In short, it is a Bayesian probability problem where none of the probabilities are known.

      Because there are so many unknown probabilities involved and ignored, your logic is meaningless (being based not on probability, but on your estimation of probability). Consider also that because I dream so often, and there is only one reality, it is thus more likely that you are merely a dream, and not real.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    39. Re:Makes sense by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      Actually Bostrom doesn't say and does not believe that we are living in a simulation.

    40. Re:Makes sense by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      Nick Bostrom writes profusely and he writes about things that many people find fascinating. His papers are easy to read. That doesn't mean he is a lame thinker.

    41. Re:Makes sense by readin · · Score: 1

      No. It isn't science. It is logic, or maybe philosophy. Not everything that is interesting or true is science.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    42. Re:Makes sense by readin · · Score: 1

      You're vastly underestimating the amount of processing power available to the creatures who are simulating our universe. Why did they simulat a universe that gives us so little processing power and so little ability to move around due to the distance between clumps of matter? I don't know.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    43. Re:Makes sense by readin · · Score: 1

      "No they don't, because you don't know the likelihood that such a simulation is possible, or that someone would want to pay for such a simulation or even that their are alien races."

      Valid points. I did say in the ancestor post, "if you assume that life has a high enough probability of arising that there are a lot of aliens out there..", because I agree that the trendy assumption that their must be other intelligent life somewhere in our universe has some flaws. If you do make those common assumptions - that there is likely to be a lot of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe capable of reaching an advanced society, and if you make a reasonable assumption that a non-insignificant fraction of them can create highly advanced large scale simulations, then the argument holds up.

      And regardless of whether the argument about simulations holds wait, the argument presented in the comic is clearly not applicable because we have enough information about the simulation argument to investigate the merits of it.

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    44. Re:Makes sense by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      we have enough information about the simulation argument to investigate the merits of it.

      In fact, we don't. What is the likelihood that someone will create a simulation? Is it possible to create a simulation? Would the simulation be self-aware? How many universes are there that aren't simulations? In your probability calculations (of which I note you have presented none, because you don't have that information) did you avoid mistakes, such as accounting for the anthropic principal?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    45. Re:Makes sense by vux984 · · Score: 1

      What if

      Good question. How should I know? :)

      and then instead of simulating, you would just re-run the tape ?

      Either nothing would happen. Like watching a movie doesn't affect the original actors.

      Or the entities simulated would re-exist and re-experience (for the first time from their perspective) everything that had happened the first time. Pretty scary from a free will perspective though.

      What if if you just spool the tape without actually reading the information from it ? What if you just leave the tape on a shelf ?

      Nothing probably. Or maybe all the states are constantly playing at once...merely by existing, and infinite 'copies' of the simulated entities are each living there own moment. Maybe the consciousnesses within each are moving to their next state without a player in our universe. OR maybe they are all frozen in time relative to us, but moving about normally from their own perception.

  23. It would explain quantum effects by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Kinda like looking at the resolution limit of the simulation. Like looking reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally close at your monitor and noticing that all the colors are just reeeeeeeeeally tiny LEDs in RG and B and that none of those other colors really existed.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:It would explain quantum effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kinda like looking at the resolution limit of the simulation. Like looking reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally close at your monitor and noticing that all the colors are just reeeeeeeeeally tiny LEDs in RG and B and that none of those other colors really existed.

      On the scale of zero to infinity, we're just a lot closer to the zero end than some folks would like to imagine. Or maybe I've already said this same exact thing an infinite number of times. Sorry, I'm going with the boring one.

    2. Re:It would explain quantum effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ugh... no. The transfer of energy is quantum. Space is continuous as far as we know, and so is the distribution of energy.

  24. Why are they giving this any time? by mark-t · · Score: 1

    Even if it were true, it amounts to the same thing as intelligent design, which is supposed to be off limits for any self respecting scientist, right?

    1. Re:Why are they giving this any time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am more a scientist than Neil De Grasse Tyson and Bill Nye combined.

      And I work at Walmart as a greeter.

    2. Re:Why are they giving this any time? by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      I think the difference between the ID people and these science guys (or any reputable scientist), is the willingness of Intelligent Design proponents to take an idea who's foundation is composed entirely upon a series of guesses and clearly (or deliberately) misunderstood information, create a doctrine around it, and teach it as though they were confident it is absolutely right to the exclusion of other, potentially better, theories. The entire effort is an insidious and transparent attempt to inject magical thinking (to the benefit of Christianity) directly into minds of kids who are supposed to be learning how to think scientifically.

      The whole topic is rather lighthearted, and as smart people are wont to do, they are practicing the lost art of "Entertaining an idea without accepting it as fact."

    3. Re:Why are they giving this any time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am more a scientist than Neil De Grasse Tyson and Bill Nye combined.

      Sarah Palin, is that you?

    4. Re:Why are they giving this any time? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      nope, its not intelligent design.

      intelligent design is about an infintely wise and powerful god.

      look at our universe. you see this as a result of a strong, powerful, intelligent and caring being?

      by all accounts, our creator failed ethics, had a grade-school level understanding of math and suffered bipolar tendancies. when you think of it that way, what we have here makes perfect sense.

      we simply didn't get one of the good gods to create us. we got a bully or smart alec.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    5. Re:Why are they giving this any time? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Why do scientists even watch Hollywood movies ? Shouldn't they be off limits too ?

    6. Re:Why are they giving this any time? by mark-t · · Score: 1

      No ... That is but one notion of intelligent design. Intelligent design does not require a deity, it only requires a designer.

  25. Groupies by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    If you are living in a simulation then somewhere the is also a set of player avatars. And guess what, they are not playing code monkey's. They are people like Steve Jobs or Prince. Gliteratti. Your highest purpose in life is to be a groupie to some rock star. Seriously. Anything else and you are a Orc in Warcraft.

    The laws of physics make sense in a simulation. Pixelation for example is the same as the law of diffraction. quantumness is the fact that textures are calculated from hidden variables and only instantiated when you actually look.

    The question is, does the real world have the same laws of physics as ours?

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Groupies by Streetlight · · Score: 1

      Sort of what I was thinking. Who is running the simulation? Must be a pretty big simulation hardware consuming enormous amounts of energy.. And the software? It must be quite a job to kill bugs.

      --
      In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    2. Re:Groupies by nmb3000 · · Score: 1

      Zug zug :(

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    3. Re: Groupies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol :)

    4. Re:Groupies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your understanding of quantumness is off. A quantum world is actually way harder to simulate than a classical world, consider that a quantum computer can easily simulate a normal one but not vise versa.

    5. Re:Groupies by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      And the software? It must be quite a job to kill bugs.

      The software doesn't necessarily have to be complicated. A few simple rules combined with a huge state space could end up hosting a universe.

    6. Re:Groupies by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      STOP POKING ME!

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    7. Re:Groupies by Koen+Lefever · · Score: 1

      quantumness is the fact that textures are calculated from hidden variables and only instantiated when you actually look.

      Nope

      --
      /. refugees on Usenet: news:comp.misc
    8. Re:Groupies by moggie_xev · · Score: 1

      You think I would want to be rich and famous...

    9. Re:Groupies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are living in a simulation then somewhere the is also a set of player avatars. And guess what, they are not playing code monkey's. They are people like Steve Jobs or Prince. Gliteratti. Your highest purpose in life is to be a groupie to some rock star

      You don't know what they're playing. Maybe they "spawn" at random and the game is to do the best they can. Maybe they even have some kind of memory suppression to play in "hard mode". you could be one of the players.

    10. Re:Groupies by goombah99 · · Score: 1

      Bell's theorem only outlaws local hidden variables. Bell himself is a proponent of global hidden variables. In a simulation hidden variables can easily be global.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  26. Misleading headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As Tyson says this is contingent on it being possible to simulate the universe. So rather than this universe "very likely" being a simulation it may be that such a simulation is impossible.

    1. Re:Misleading headline by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      But every simulation simulates a universe. Its may not be as fancy as the universe we live in but it would look pretty impressive to anything living inside it. A universe which hosts our simulated universe would obviously be much larger than ours.

    2. Re:Misleading headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not necessarily. If you calculate PI on paper yourself or with a super computer for 1 billion digits, it will still give the same result. But PI won't be aware of how fast it happened

    3. Re:Misleading headline by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      A universe which hosts our simulated universe would obviously be much larger than ours.

      It doesn't have to be. Our universe appears to be large but all those galaxies Hubble has showed us may not be simulated to anything like the same precision as our local environment (or at least, not while we're not looking at them).

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:Misleading headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, a simulation might run slower than our own universe, e.g. need less overall computation power. For an immortal high-tech race, waiting isn't a problem, and anything inside the simulated universe wouldn't know the difference. e.g if you could simulate 1 universe in real time, you could simulate X universes, at a slowdown factor of X. Perhaps they could use memory compression too (things get fuzzy at quantum levels, maybe use rounding + RNG?) Also simulations can use the "flyweight" pattern. that way you store only information for one copy of an item, and reference that for it's characteristics. e.g. a universe-sim would only need to store 1 definition of an electron, rather than replicate zillions of actual fully-working electrons. A simulation universe could in fact use a lot less data storage than the real thing.

    5. Re:Misleading headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not necessarily. Programmers often use the "flyweight pattern". Store only one copy of an object, and reference that for the properties of all similar objects. e.g. a simulated universe would only need a lookup table for all properties of matter, rather than entire self-contained pieces of matter which operate by themselves.

  27. Counterpoint by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    There are many more infinite universes where we aren't a simulation than ones where we are, for each universe may contain a universe simulation but the chances are slim that it does because of the GPU requirements.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  28. I can summerise wit a little vba by mindwhip · · Score: 1

    sub Simulate()
      call DoStuff
      call Simulate
    end sub

    --
    [The Universe] has gone offline.
    1. Re:I can summerise wit a little vba by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      If they don't do proper tail recursion, then it would be interesting to watch it unwind on the first exception.

    2. Re:I can summerise wit a little vba by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      simulate uses a different ABI each time thus the exception won't affect parent caller. this is after all a virtual class

    3. Re:I can summerise wit a little vba by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      StackOverflowException ...

      Unless you have a compiler that does "Tail recursion optimization" ... the last word is often missing, so I wrote it in bold.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:I can summerise wit a little vba by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Not "tail recursion"
      But "tail recursion optimization"

      The bad example you answered to: is already tail recursion. To get rid of the stack overflow you have to transform the call into a jump, that is called an optimization.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  29. And in the real world, Pluto is still a planet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Neil deGrasse Tyson is a simulation, should he be allowed to vote Pluto out of the solar system? I ask for a recount!

  30. Bostrom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I, of course, didn't RTFA. But isn't Tyson just repeating the Bostrom simulation argument?

  31. Of Course It Is by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Funny

    And not a very good simulation at that. Whoever wrote it couldn't even synchronize time, even at a local level. And that hard coded top speed limit? Because "No one in there is ever going to need to go that fast anyway" I bet. And the way it shits itself when you put too much mass in one place? Very sloppy! It's probably just the N-Dimensional equivalent of a potato battery, proudly displayed at "Take your Kindred-Daughter to work day", for a very inefficient method of converting hydrogen into plutonium.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Of Course It Is by Nethead · · Score: 1

      And platypus and Mormons, what the fuck is up with them? Did the Coder miss a semicolon somewhere?

      --
      -- I have a private email server in my basement.
    2. Re:Of Course It Is by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      Did the Coder miss a semicolon somewhere?

      the best I could say about our 'god' is, that he's a bit of an underachiever and likely a B- student. I suspect he left out a few 10k pullups and some .1uF bypasses. this would explain the instability that we're seeing in this reality.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    3. Re:Of Course It Is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Universe is a console and its locked at light speed FPS. We need to graduate to a PC.

    4. Re:Of Course It Is by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      And not a very good simulation at that. Whoever wrote it couldn't even synchronize time, even at a local level. And that hard coded top speed limit? Because "No one in there is ever going to need to go that fast anyway" I bet. And the way it shits itself when you put too much mass in one place? Very sloppy! It's probably just the N-Dimensional equivalent of a potato battery, proudly displayed at "Take your Kindred-Daughter to work day", for a very inefficient method of converting hydrogen into plutonium.

      The final exam in some high school course; "Build a simple simulation of reality. You will find the materials beneath your desk"

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    5. Re:Of Course It Is by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      not a very good simulation...that hard coded top [light] speed limit? Because "No one in there is ever going to need to go that fast anyway"

      God Gates: "299792458 meters-per-second oughtta be enough for anyone."

  32. He proves again he is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Walking, talking clickbait.

  33. So.... by spiritplumber · · Score: 4, Funny

    it's LOGO turtles all the way down.

    --
    Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
    1. Re:So.... by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      My worst fear.

      Young me: "Is that all it can do?"
      Teacher: "Yes."

  34. Tyson loves attention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He'll say anything to make the headlines

  35. Proof there is an intelligent creator. by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    There are two arguments for there being an intelligent creator of our simulation:

    1) There are no unit tests for our universe. A truly intelligent being has no time for testing, he (yes, we all know someone creating a universe in a basement is going to be whatever concept is closest to "male dweeb" for their species) has things to get done.

    2) There are unit tests, but we cannot sense them since our instances would have been terminated in isolation.

    Since both situations cover all obsoverd results, we can be sure of an intelligent creator. Just because his friends cool him "loser" does not mean we cannot call him God from inside his own creation, for a sufficiently advanced OCD is indistinguishable from godhood.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  36. They programmed you to say that ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... when they were writing the simulation.

  37. sudo stopsim --multiverse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nuff said....

  38. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  39. The universe is a weird place by Beeftopia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The universe is a weird place. At one point in time, the whole thing occupied the same amount of space as my mouse. Where did THAT object come from? I know, we're not supposed to bother thinking about it since conventional wisdom says we can't find out about it.

    "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be." -- Douglas Adams

    The fact that the seeds of life and consciousness - us - are embedded in the fabric of the universe is interesting. A dust devil starts in space, a gravity well forming in a gas and dust cloud, the solar system starts coalescing. Sub-whirlwinds start in the spinning cloud, coalescing into planets. On the third one from the center, life appears. Let it spin for a few billion years more, and here we are, contemplating the mechanism that spawned us.

    "A physicist is an attempt by an atom to understand itself." -- Michio Kaku

    I find flights of fancies like Tyson's to be rather interesting.

    1. Re:The universe is a weird place by Beeftopia · · Score: 2

      And what does life do? It replicates, creates entropy - and gathers information. That's why I found this article from a few months ago so interesting:

      "To do this, he begins with a mental leap: Life, he argues, should not be thought of as a chemical event. Instead, it should be thought of as information. The shift in perspective provides a tidy way in which to begin tackling a messy question. In the following interview, Adami defines information as 'the ability to make predictions with a likelihood better than chance,' and he says we should think of the human genome — or the genome of any organism — as a repository of information about the world gathered in small bits over time through the process of evolution. The repository includes information on everything we could possibly need to know, such as how to convert sugar into energy, how to evade a predator on the savannah, and, most critically for evolution, how to reproduce or self-replicate."

      The seeds of life - and thus the drive to gather information - is embedded in the fabric of the universe. Why is that?

    2. Re:The universe is a weird place by Beeftopia · · Score: 1

      This underlying universal drive which created life needs replication and death to gather information. An immortal cell gathers no more information. But in humans, we've developed the ability to gather and store information outside of ourselves. I don't think that's something any animal can do, create repositories of information. "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Isaac Newton

      Then we create mechanisms that can deduce and gather even more information than we can (some form of AI?). We're serving this underlying drive even more effectively. Or rather, the underlying drive is becoming more and more effective at gathering information.

      Perhaps like a baby trying to learn about the world, the universe is trying to learn what it is.

      Asimov wrote "Childhood's End", hinting at this.

    3. Re:The universe is a weird place by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      It replicates, creates entropy
      No it does not.
      Life is the force against entropy.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:The universe is a weird place by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      And what does life do? It replicates, creates entropy - and gathers information. That's why I found this article from a few months ago so interesting:

      "To do this, he begins with a mental leap: Life, he argues, should not be thought of as a chemical event. Instead, it should be thought of as information. The shift in perspective provides a tidy way in which to begin tackling a messy question. In the following interview, Adami defines information as 'the ability to make predictions with a likelihood better than chance,' and he says we should think of the human genome — or the genome of any organism — as a repository of information about the world gathered in small bits over time through the process of evolution. The repository includes information on everything we could possibly need to know, such as how to convert sugar into energy, how to evade a predator on the savannah, and, most critically for evolution, how to reproduce or self-replicate."

      The seeds of life - and thus the drive to gather information - is embedded in the fabric of the universe. Why is that?

      Nice. I came to the conclusion a while back that nervous systems are similarly an attempt to make useful predictions, from the original neural net, which basically was able to predict that something would eat you from the detection of something biting you on one side and was hardwired to remove yourself from the vicinity of said bite. Which is a subset of your model.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    5. Re:The universe is a weird place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where did THAT object come from?

      Nothing, or more specifically, the energy of empty space. Lawrence Krauss, who is one of the pioneers of this theory, makes a very compelling argument about it in his book "A Universe From Nothing". This lecture summarizes his ideas.

      I know, we're not supposed to bother thinking about it since conventional wisdom says we can't find out about it.

      Heresy! To science no observable phenomena is beyond comprehension until proven otherwise.

  40. Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

    A simulation... for which there is precisely one hypothetical creator Tyson excludes.

    --
    ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    1. Re:Objectivity by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Precisely one ? Why ?

    2. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      The parasitical attention and money benefits of attacking the one he and most of the world find most plausible, presumably.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    3. Re:Objectivity by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Most popular, you mean. They're all very implausible.

    4. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Really? All equivalently implausible? Either you are simply lying, or you have no actual specific knowledge of world religions.

      I'll leave question that to you.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    5. Re:Objectivity by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Really? All equivalently implausible?

      Of course. None of the religions actually produce any testable experiments, so they are equally plausible. Religions are mostly about creating power to influence other people. And the religions that are the most popular now, are a fairly recent invention. A few thousand years ago, they didn't even exist in this form.

    6. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Have you tested it? Many have, and have had their test validated. I suggest the test of "asking".

      Overall, though, this has been thoroughly analyzed by the Logical Positivism movement, as an attempt to bring all knowledge and experience under a scientific methodology and paradigm. It utterly failed, in the end. Existence is not like that.

      Either Bach is a better composer than Beethoven, or Beethoven is a better composer than Bach. Neither is testable or provable scientifically. And in fact, -most- of human domains of thought are like this. I'd encourage yourself to avoid the self-imposed brain damage of thinking in the "it's scientific, or it is not real" false dichotomy. It has been formally and thoroughly disproven.

      While I understand your rejection of attempting to create influence over people with your post attempting to create influence over people, specifically me for now, I think upon investigation you'd find the motivations much broader than you suppose--particularly among the people who had no personal gain (i.e. monks), or negative personal gain (i.e. martyrs to Rome). I'll happily place that up against Tyson's self-aggrandizement or any other populist atheist intellectual (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al) in terms of what they sacrificed for their beliefs, that is, nothing. Lots of book sales, though.

      That the religion "didn't exist" hardly matters, as it isn't an issue of existence, but rather of when revealed to humans. God not being understood is not equivalent to God not existing, for any time span of your choosing.

      Anyway, I have no sense that your automatic bias will be changing any time soon. Good luck with failing with your personal re-enactment of Logical Positivism later, rather than sooner.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    7. Re:Objectivity by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Many have, and have had their test validated. I suggest the test of "asking".

      Self delusion is not validation.

      I think upon investigation you'd find the motivations much broader than you suppose--particularly among the people who had no personal gain (i.e. monks), or negative personal gain (i.e. martyrs to Rome)

      You are describing the victims of religion, not the men in power.

      That the religion "didn't exist" hardly matters, as it isn't an issue of existence, but rather of when revealed to humans.

      Well, it existed, but in other forms. Religions are constantly being modified in an attempt to yield more power. You are now saying that religious people that lived 5000 years ago were wrong about their beliefs, just as people 5000 years from now will say you are wrong. A heretic even.

    8. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      You simply dismiss it as "self-delusion", and have never tested it. You have nothing to do even with science, the only leg you're standing on.

      I don't even know what you're talking about with your confused "thoughts" about "men in power" and "religion" as if they mean the same thing, or don't, or... oh, nevermind. Lazy nonsense categorization on your part, as expected by your level of coherence so far.

      No, they aren't "constantly being modified to yield more power". This claim doesn't even make sense as a present reality. Did you mean to make another sloppy generalization of all religions to early Catholicism here? Otherwise, you have zero evidence of that. But apparently you need neither evidence nor even sensible claims for -your- preferences.

      And no, I am not saying they were wrong. I would say there is more to know. And there will be more to know in the future. That's life, for every field of knowledge and activity.

      Enough hominid trolling yet?

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    9. Re:Objectivity by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      You simply dismiss it as "self-delusion", and have never tested it.

      I've tested it several times by asking your God to strike me down with lightning, but nothing happened. Please, God, strike me down now! See ? I'm still here.

    10. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      People who completely reject a domain of inquiry come up with bad tests for it, what a surprise.

      Try this.

      Though, really, in this particular case, there is also the issue of prioritization. You probably haven't collected much of interest yet in your lifetime. You still have some time. Get moving.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    11. Re:Objectivity by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Yes. I'm sure self-delusion would work if someone was suitably motivated. Many similar cults have proven that. The trick is convincing people who are not already sharing your fantasy world.

    12. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      No real trick. I wait, I win. Automatically. According to both of us.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    13. Re:Objectivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you think it's odd that theoria generates so many self-delusional bigots? Most of them must be self-delusional bigots, as logically either none or a few of them can be anything else.

    14. Re:Objectivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's two of you? Are you schizophrenic? It would certainly explain your failure to understand reality.

    15. Re:Objectivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The dumber the person, the more plausible bullshit is to them.

    16. Re:Objectivity by Empiric · · Score: 1

      I understand reality just fine, thanks.

      You, however, apparently fail to understand English.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    17. Re:Objectivity by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Either Bach is a better composer than Beethoven, or Beethoven is a better composer than Bach. Neither is testable or provable scientifically.

      Sure it is. You just need to precisely and scientifically define "better." Your opening statement presumes there is such a definition.

      Or you could just tack on at third alternative, which is to admit that "better" is a purely subjective term which can not be subject to objective analysis.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    18. Re:Objectivity by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I've tested it several times by asking your God to strike me down with lightning, but nothing happened. Please, God, strike me down now! See ? I'm still here.

      I tried that too and nothing happened. Either god doesn't exist or he's a complete puss$%GK%_:{kn!#'Wd972(M NO CARRIER

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    19. Re:Objectivity by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      People who completely reject a domain of inquiry come up with bad tests for it, what a surprise.

      Try this.

      That's not an experimental procedure given, and there's no obvious way of excluding the null hypothesis that there is only me inside my own head.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    20. Re:Objectivity by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      What is it you think you win?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    21. Re: Objectivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As there is no way to exclude that for anything whatsoever, including any scientific hypothesis tested and perceived as validated a thousand times. The entirety of your life experiences could be all in your head.

    22. Re: Objectivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try rereading that for self-contradiction.

    23. Re:Objectivity by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure there's more than one he excludes ;-)

      As it is, he's saying he thinks it's more than likely there's a "creator" of some sort, a (sentient?) entity or group thereof living outside of this universe that created this one. However, that, by itself, doesn't confirm Christianity, for two reasons:

      1. Christianity is an extremely specific case of "Some entity or group thereof living outside of this universe created this one." If you see a cat walking across the road, and I explain that it's on a journey to rescue its kittens and their mother from maker of fur coats, aided by an invisible mouse and rough but loveable dog, and your friend says "No, that's absurd, its owners moved, and left the cat behind, and now he's on a journey to find them", and another says "No, the cat is crossing the road to get a carton of cigarettes from the convenience store across the road" (and so on), the chances of any of us being "right" simply because we observed a cat, that we know nothing about, crossing the road, is pretty low.

      2. It doesn't explain the school kid's objection to Christianity, that is, "Who created God"? Christianity just says "Oh, he just is / he's the creator / nobody created him", but Tyson is referring to theories that say "Well, the things that created us might themselves be living in a simulation, there's just no way to know." - which, BTW, is an explicit rejection.

      Finally, it's worth noting that Christianity is more than the theory the universe was created by some homophobic violent game-playing asshole (American version). It also requires we believe a particular set of stories about what happened in that universe and how that creator interacts with it. It also, and this is kinda important, implies we have some duty to worship such a creator.

      This is not to say I agree with Tyson here. I just don't see his theory of everything being as close to Pat Robertson's, or the Ayatollah Khomeini's, as you do.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    24. Re:Objectivity by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      And why would a god listen to you?

      What does that prove?

      Do you even know how to "address his god"?

      Actually I doubt he has a god, perhaps that was why nothing happened?

      And no, we don't see that you are still there ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  41. Checkmate, Atheist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "We probably live in a simulation"
    "There is no evidence of God."

    Chose only one.

    1. Re:Checkmate, Atheist! by pkphilip · · Score: 1

      Agreed. If there is no one running a simulation, then the simulation cannot exist.

    2. Re:Checkmate, Atheist! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Running a simulation doesn't make you analogous to the commonly understood meaning of "God."

      My computer is capable of running simulations - and, in fact, I am capable of programming such simulations - which can result in far more complexity than my human brain is capable of comprehending at once.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  42. This is so not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This "simulation argument" was stated in its latest form by Orford philosopher Nick Bostrom as early as 2001.

    http://www.simulation-argument.com/

    There are actual scientific papers inspired by this argument, our attempt in measuring the lattice spacing of the simulation.

    http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

    1. Re:This is so not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not science. It's just the ancient Plato's Cave example in new clothes.

  43. Scumbag Science Guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't believe in a higher power. Believes the universe we live in is a simulation.

  44. Idiot by bug1 · · Score: 1

    Someone who loves science and hates philosophy so much really should use his inside voice when speaking about such things.

    And if the universe will be perfectly, or near-perfectly, simulated at some point

    Thats his problem right there, you cant simulate a universe without changing it (or destroying it?), so you have a recursive problem. Or consider the energy use. Im sure there are other ways to poke holes in his attention seeking headline.

    1. Re:Idiot by Space+cowboy · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying he's right, but you're not thinking it through.

      If I simulate a universe on a computer, how does it change or destroy the real thing ? That comment's not even *wrong*. The simulation is simply the expression of a mathematical model, and the (exhaustive) application of that model to a set of virtual objects. There's no need to destroy anything.

      As for energy use, again, you're not thinking it through. If I simulate a universe in a computer, the energy used is minimal (on the scale of energy available in my universe). The assumption is that as you jump upwards through successive levels of simulation, the reality gets, for lack of a better word, bigger. That means orders of magnitude more resources are available, or more dimensions, or whatever is necessary to make what we're experiencing as reality to be trivial.

      Someone ought to read "Flatland". It's not Neil.

      The suspicion of our universe being a simulation is partly due to the weird-as-fuck nature of reality as we start probing deeper and deeper. Waves *and* particles ? Really ? I have a PhD in physics, and that *still* sounds more like a boundary condition on simulation than anything else proposed as to why it ought to be the case...

      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
    2. Re:Idiot by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      You can only "simulate the universe" if you redefine the word 'universe'. And then, you're not "simulating the universe" but something else. That's the problem with all these highly doped up parlor seance talks.

    3. Re:Idiot by Space+cowboy · · Score: 1

      It's pretty common parlance in any simulation to regard "the universe" as whatever the simulation model is. Let's do a thought experiment:

      My universe is going to be the XOR model of two possible inputs. There are only 4 possible outcomes of these two input states, and my simulation is so simple (to me) that I don't even need to use a computer, I can write a truth table. Is it really impossible for you to imagine that a system as seemingly complex as the universe is to us, is as simple to some higher-level being as the 2-input XOR model is to us ?

      And if it's so simple for them to conceive of such a thing, it's not out of the ordinary in *their* universe, so it's not going to be resource-hungry from their perspective. My advice to the OP to read "Flatland" was serious, not condescending. The book is simple and slightly outdated, but the reason it's a classic is that it conveys the concepts clearly and well.

      There really is no way for us to tell if we're being simulated or not. If we are, it'll really make that whole God thing a bit of a laugh though, huh ? As someone else posited earlier on, perhaps Jesus was just some dude who came across the cheat-code before being banhammered...

      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
    4. Re:Idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's pretty common parlance in any simulation to regard "the universe" as whatever the simulation model is. Let's do a thought experiment:

      My universe is going to be the XOR model of two possible inputs. There are only 4 possible outcomes of these two input states, and my simulation is so simple (to me) that I don't even need to use a computer, I can write a truth table. Is it really impossible for you to imagine that a system as seemingly complex as the universe is to us, is as simple to some higher-level being as the 2-input XOR model is to us ?

      And if it's so simple for them to conceive of such a thing, it's not out of the ordinary in *their* universe, so it's not going to be resource-hungry from their perspective. My advice to the OP to read "Flatland" was serious, not condescending. The book is simple and slightly outdated, but the reason it's a classic is that it conveys the concepts clearly and well.

      There really is no way for us to tell if we're being simulated or not. If we are, it'll really make that whole God thing a bit of a laugh though, huh ? As someone else posited earlier on, perhaps Jesus was just some dude who came across the cheat-code before being banhammered...

      Your example of the XOR model is great because it exposes the principal flaws in the argument.

      First: ontology.

      Does simulating a thing make it more "real"? What does a simulation consist of? If I run a simulation on a computer does that constitute existence of the components of the simulation? What if I run the simulation in my brain? Aren't thoughts and dreams a kind of simulation? If I can conceive of a thing, does that in itself make the thing real in the universe of my mind?

      Second: the flawed application of Bayesian probability.

      That you exist, you presumably know with certainty. But how can we apply Bayes' rule without a prior probability? What is the prior probability for a universe capable of containing you to exist, independent of simulation and without assuming your existence? Without the prior, Bayes' rule simply gives no information

    5. Re:Idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is a program running on a VM simulating an old mainframe any less real than running on a real mainframe? At some point you are simply arguing about what substrate the essential characteristics are operating on top of, which is not necessarily relevant to participants.

      You introduce thoughts and dreams as if they are things which we all agree on. What are they?

      Thirdly the opposite of certainty isn't no information. No-one is positing that they have an exact single solution to probabilities.

    6. Re:Idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it really impossible for you to imagine that a system as seemingly complex as the universe is to us, is as simple to some higher-level being as the 2-input XOR model is to us ?

      Yes, if imagining means anything meaningful, this is impossible for me and you to imagine, because it is impossible to have a theory of mind of a being that is orders of magnitude more intelligent than ourselves. This is one of the theist fallacies by the way: they say their "god" is incomprehensible and yet they make assertions about "him".

    7. Re:Idiot by bug1 · · Score: 1

      If you simulate the universe your a part of, you have to simulate yourself, and your simulation, and your simulation of the universe in the simulation has to have its own simulation of the universe... 'it's turtles all the way down'.

      To be able to do the highest simulation you first have to predict everything, which means measuring everything. How do you measure everything in a universe at once, i should have said destroy, but to measure the universe is to change the universe.

      So you would end up trying to simulate a universe that existed before your tried to simulate it, recursively.

      And he says its 'Very Likely'

    8. Re:Idiot by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Wow you guys are truly dumb.

      Nowhere is it stated that the simulations we run would be of "THE universe" .. only "A universe"

      But hey... you refuse to see the obvious because you picked the conclusion first.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    9. Re:Idiot by Nemyst · · Score: 1

      Thats his problem right there, you cant simulate a universe without changing it (or destroying it?), so you have a recursive problem. Or consider the energy use. Im sure there are other ways to poke holes in his attention seeking headline.

      You're assuming that the simulated physics and the physics of the universe that contains the simulation are the same. That's a bad assumption. For all we know, quantum mechanics (which don't really say what you're saying, but let's go with it anyway) is just an artifact of the simulation.

    10. Re: Idiot by Space+cowboy · · Score: 1

      I think the point is we're talking about 2 different things. The standard interpretation of universe simulation isn't that you're simulating something of equal complexity, it's that you're simulating something of lesser complexity. In our case, we might simulate (say) a 2D plane within our 3D reality.

      To any entity simulated in that 2D plane, that is its reality. It could conceive perhaps of a 3D world, but wouldn't have any experience of it, and probably wouldn't intrinsically understand it. From our perspective, however, the 2D world is a vast simplification and we could dedicate only a reasonable amount of computing power to run the simulation at a fair level of complexity, even today.

      Of course, when we run the simulation, in order to make it easier to code, we might put arbitrary limits on some things. We might say "nothing can move faster than c, or that the Planck distance is the smallest unit we'll simulate, or provide boundary conditions in extrema that mean we have to treat particles as waves on occasion... Or then again, perhaps this universe is the equivalent of a school science project to some higher-order being's twelve year old, and these are all reasonable simplifications for a limited project...

      There's no recursion here. The simulation is trivial to its owner, but all of reality to its contained entities

      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
    11. Re: Idiot by bug1 · · Score: 1

      Well, he did say a 'perfect or near-perfect simulation', which is why i think he is talking about something of equal or near-equal complexity.

  45. Turtles in the Sandbox by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

    O course it's turtles. Who do you think is running the server? ;)

    But do the turtles run Linux?

    Of course they do. The permissions are restricted to this universe, though.

  46. Not science by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This *IS* science. He's forming a hypothesis based on observed evidence.

    No this is not science. Science is coming up with a testable hypothesis which explains an observation making the fewest possible additional assumptions (Occam's razor). This is a wild guess which explains nothing, is untestable and requires the existence of a vast chain of increasingly complex universes filled with intelligences each of which have created a simulation of a universe. If this is science then so is every religion we know of since they only assume the existence of one (or more) intelligences with the ability to create universes not a semi-infinite chain of them.

    1. Re:Not science by pellik · · Score: 1

      So all those untestable bits of quantum mechanics aren't science either?

      Tyson has put forth an interesting hypothesis based on observable phenomenon (that there are more simulations then realities). It's an interesting hypothesis. While there may be no way to test it and move the idea forward, it's still interesting and still science.

    2. Re:Not science by reboot246 · · Score: 0

      Do you mean like climate "science"?

    3. Re:Not science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What Neil deGrasse just said tells me he doesn't know a lot of philosophy or theory of knowledge. These are very ancient "problems" he is now stating and I was surprised to see he is not even reaching the level of intelligence of the famous "Plato's Cave" story. If he knew philosophy he would probably be silent. Many things are old "wisdoms" that have been discussed before. Almost all things have been discussed before us: I want more intellect than merely stating "we are probably in the Matrix".

    4. Re:Not science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't even prove math is correct without math. If you want to start talking about "science" in absolute terms, then science is paradoxically impossible. Takes science to prove science. Talks about circular reasoning. You have to make some basic assumptions that are impossible to test, like our logic actually being correct.

    5. Re:Not science by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      You have to make some basic assumptions that are impossible to test

      About the only assumption that science makes is that there are a series of laws out there which govern how the universe behaves...which ironically is something which is not true for a simulation since whoever runs the simulation can presumably change it on a whim.

  47. Yes...indeed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This would be a good answer to the Fermi's paradox...

  48. Re:According to The Guide... by sexconker · · Score: 1

    And traveling back in time is impossible because whenever someone invents a time machine, it's eventually used to go back and prevent the invention of the time machine.

  49. I agree with him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But he's still a jackass dumbfuck.

  50. Has he read this book? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gray Matters by Hjortsberg?

    http://www.amazon.com/Gray-Mat...

  51. With over 7,000,000,000 people on earth, by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    odds are that you're not you.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  52. Proof that universe is not a simulation by postmortem · · Score: 1

    Justin Bieber & Kim Kardashian

    1. Re:Proof that universe is not a simulation by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      does they prove the universe can't be real?

      As aside, I'm kind of old so there is this question that has been kind of bothering me about Justin Bieber. Is he a girlie looking guy, or an ugly lesbian? just curious

    2. Re:Proof that universe is not a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      iggymanz, by the popular joke the simulation runner would have terminated the simulation because of these two.

    3. Re:Proof that universe is not a simulation by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      What if the sim runners just threw up their hands and upgraded the hardware to accommodate the malware load of these two, similar to many window's users?

  53. Never cared much for Tyson as a Scientist by BigU+03C0mpin · · Score: 1

    While the guy is very personable and obviously well educated he just seems a lot like a glory hound. It seems that as soon as he starts fading from the public limelight he always gets a little bit more crazy with his ideas to try and create sensationalism.

    I'm starting to think he's really trying to cope with his own mortality and doing whatever he can to be more firmly etched in the history books.

  54. An old idea borrowed from Nick Bostrom by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 1
  55. Dilbert says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google images definetely puts image results to use sorta of nazi-related-crazy-researchs-davinci-bonkers psychology, (now talking seriously) the sequence of images projected to the user puts the viewer under a mind control SHIT (IDK the name of those nut theories from Communication Sciences, anyways...). Last time I checked, it was putting me to sleep. But why? For Cheetos?! OMG! How can someone make so much money, and be soooo stupid?????? (last words I learned from Scott Addams).

  56. Several serious logical flaws by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

    The problem with this argument is that it contains several wrong assumptions. First we don't have an infinite timeline because our universe has a finite lifetime and will eventually end in one of a variety of different scenarios e.g. heat death and the "big rip". Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe. This would require all the energy and matter in our universe leaving nothing with which to construct the simulator.

    This means that each simulation must be simpler than the universe it runs in and so there will be a finite limit on how long the chain can be before the most complex simulation possible resembles Pacman. Hence the assumption that there is an infinite chain running for an infinite time is simply not logically consistent.

    1. Re:Several serious logical flaws by irving47 · · Score: 1

      This means that each simulation must be simpler than the universe it runs in and so there will be a finite limit on how long the chain can be before the most complex simulation possible resembles Pacman.
      Or, perhaps, Sim City?

      --
      I had a sucky sig.
    2. Re:Several serious logical flaws by vux984 · · Score: 1

      First we don't have an infinite timeline because our universe has a finite lifetime and will eventually end in one of a variety of different scenarios e.g. heat death and the "big rip".

      What's true of our universe, isn't necessarily true of the universe that simulates it.

      Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe.

      And? IF the ghosts in pacman are having a similar argument...it turns out our universe has plenty of complexity and energy to spare to simulate theirs.

      This means that each simulation must be simpler than the universe it runs in and so there will be a finite limit on how long the chain can be before the most complex simulation possible resembles Pacman.

      Quite possibly. But if THE universe has infinite mass and energy then it can simulate an infinite number of other universes, including other infinite universes.

      Hence the assumption that there is an infinite chain running for an infinite time is simply not logically consistent.

      I think your argument's own assumptions have failed you here, in particular that "real" universe must be finite just because ours appears to be.

      Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe. This would require all the energy and matter in our universe leaving nothing with which to construct the simulator.

      Are you sure about that? What if you only need to simulate the parts that are observed? What if you can get a pretty good simulation going using just a fraction of the universe to build it. What if, like a game of Civilization the game fits into a certain amount of memory, and yes, eventually if there is no winner and all cililizations grow without bound and eventually the host systems resources are exhausted... so the simulation crashes. The host system starts a new game. Whose to say we aren't a few billion more humans from an out of memory exception in the host universe?

    3. Re: Several serious logical flaws by Space+cowboy · · Score: 1

      The "contained universe must be simpler" statement I can agree with, but I don't get your point about time. If we are a simulation, time itself is being simulated. I can run a universe simulation backwards and forwards by billions of years in the blink of an eye, because outside of the simulation, simulated time is just a number. The same remains true every time time you jump up a level in reality.

      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
    4. Re: Several serious logical flaws by master_p · · Score: 1

      Also, you don't need to simulate a universe in real time.

      Based on the knowlesdge we have, we can write a universe simulation that runs slower than our universe.

    5. Re:Several serious logical flaws by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 2

      Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe.

      This makes me think of the Banach-Tarski paradox. I don't claim to understand it by any means, but it's a proof where you can take a geometric object, break it into pieces, and reconstruct 2 objects identical to the original, without adding anything. There's a pretty interesting Vsauce video about it.

      What if, through some complex mathematics, it is possible to simulate the entire universe using only part of the universe?

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    6. Re: Several serious logical flaws by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      This explains Friday afternoons.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    7. Re:Several serious logical flaws by NotAPK · · Score: 1

      Great links, thank you!

      I haven't seen any Vsauce videos before, and thought this one was pretty good. Accessible maths and physics explanations often struggle to hit the mark, but I think this one managed it rather well.

    8. Re:Several serious logical flaws by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      Yeah Vsauce is pretty cool, I only started watching a few months ago.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    9. Re:Several serious logical flaws by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      The problem with this argument is that it contains several wrong assumptions. First we don't have an infinite timeline because our universe has a finite lifetime and will eventually end in one of a variety of different scenarios e.g. heat death and the "big rip". Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe. This would require all the energy and matter in our universe leaving nothing with which to construct the simulator. This means that each simulation must be simpler than the universe it runs in and so there will be a finite limit on how long the chain can be before the most complex simulation possible resembles Pacman. Hence the assumption that there is an infinite chain running for an infinite time is simply not logically consistent.

      I believe that not only are we living in a simulation, but that funding has run out and CPUs and memory are being serially disconnected for use elsewhere in more promising projects.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    10. Re: Several serious logical flaws by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      Also, you don't need to simulate a universe in real time.

      Speed isn't the issue it's storing the states of all the matter and energy you are simulating.

  57. so what if it is by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

    assuming we are all in a simulation, what's the corollary ? How should I live my life differently ? Other posters have talked about a god, what good does it do to run a simulation and pick out the faithful for what, another simulation ? It simply does not matter if we are in a simulation or not.

    --
    Nullius in verba
    1. Re:so what if it is by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      assuming we are all in a simulation, what's the corollary ? How should I live my life differently ?

      If it's P2W you can expend idle cycles wishing you were the avatar of someone rich rather than the lowly NPC that you probably are.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  58. Hope! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    So maybe I can hack it and get a 14 inch dick...AND a personality

  59. Courtesy of Monkeys with Typewriters.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cos, y'know, on an infinite time scale, they can produce Hamlet, so if you allow for infinite possibility, sure! ...but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to turn up. Just as I think the odds are a wee little bit less than you'd think of the universe simulator existing. Possible? Sure. Probable? Hahahahahahahahaha...

  60. The strict code of the scientist. by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    Heh. All that statement proved is that YOU aren't a scientist... or even know what one is.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  61. Simulation of a simulation? by Vegan+Cyclist · · Score: 1

    Even better, maybe we're a simulation in a simulation that figured out how to make simulations too. I wonder how many simulations deep this can go?

  62. Question by Evtim · · Score: 1

    I have a question: why would anyone simulate the Universe in the first place? Even if you have the possibility. What's in it for an alien race?

    1. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same things as with any other simulation.
      Curiosity / The ability to predict things.
      For all we know, simulating our universe might be trivial for some extrauniversal alien species.
      There's no reason we can't be a game some asshole is playing on his computer.

    2. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because V'ger is programmed to accumulate knowledge indiscriminately.

      V'ger: the original "put it in the cloud" CTO.

  63. The Aura of Fame Makes People Act Stupid by Texmaize · · Score: 1



    A stoner might have said (and really likely has said this) "Like, we live in a computer simulation, dudes. See, since, like time is infinite, that means and infitinite amount of stuff happens, which means, like anything can happen, which means, like anything you can imagine happens! woooooahh, dude." The thing is, if he posted it on this forum, you guys would have tore him three new assholes, and make him the stuff of memes.

    The only reason this is taken remotely seriously is that N. dG. Tyson said it. Since he is famous, otherwise intelligent people will forget all they now of logic, science, and the world and go into full gushing mode. See, the problem is that being famous for something instills this odd belief that it makes one wise in all things. This is seldom the case.

    --
    "Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
  64. Hack the Universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it's possible to fully simulate a universe within a simulation, then it should be equally possible to access or observe the universe outside of one's relative simulation. Especially probable if that were the objective of the simulation. /shower thoughts

  65. Impossible Because of Second Law of Thermodynamics by littlewink · · Score: 1

    The article says

    "...if we take it as read that it is, in principle, possible to simulate a universe in some way, at some point in the future, then we have to assume that on an infinite timeline some species, somewhere, will simulate the universe...."

    But this is impossible since, to simulate a universe completely would require at least the entire resources of the original universe which, due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, are not all available. Q.E.D

    That is, trying to run a true simulation of a universe within an already-extant universe is akin to trying to run a perpetual-motion machine: it ain't gonna happen.

    There are other objections, but this is IMO the strongest.

  66. counterproof by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

    Simulations are created by nerds. If we were living a simulation, nerds would get laid and jocks would live in their moms' basements.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  67. The risks of extrapolating by jma05 · · Score: 1

    Husbands.

    There are logical fallacies here. If we can simulate something in "some" way, we do not necessarily have to assume that we will eventually end up with perfect simulations, even with infinite time. Or that ever growing size of simulations will have to necessarily culminate in universe scale simulations. This optimism is along the idea of Victorian assumptions of progress or along the lines of Cartesian optimism before it was tempered with Lockean empiricism. There will usually be previously unanticipated hard stops... like the speed of light.

    Tyson is obviously a master of his subject and I am not a physicist and I don't understand these simulation theories in their native form. But this summary makes it sound like we are getting ahead of ourselves with assumptions.

  68. I have the right answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't know and it does not change anything.

  69. Its running on LINUX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seeing as the "simulation" has not crashed or blue screened ... must be running on Linux, or a very old Solaris or AIX installation.

    This is news? Chuck Missler figured this out at least 10 years ago... but its only news if one of the evolution-club psuedo-scientists say it.

  70. This isn't news and it doesn't matter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's the last thing Tyson published?

    Here's "his" argument from 2003 - http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

  71. Amazing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now I understand why all my life experiences can be found within a Dilbert comic strip!

  72. Turtles by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    infinite number of simulations to arise from an almost infinite number or civilizations

    Isn't this about the same thing as saying it's Turtles, all the way down.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Turtles by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Isn't this about the same thing as saying it's Turtles, all the way down.

      No. He is saying that, given an infinite stack of turtles, it is unlikely that we are the bottom turtle.

    2. Re:Turtles by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not infinite. He is just suggesting a very, very large but finite stack. We do not know our place in the stack, but the odds of being the one on the bottom are pretty remote.

    3. Re: Turtles by D.McG. · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We're obviously at the top of the stack, since we are not currently running a universe simulator. We have modeled it to some degree, but not to the fidelity that we perceive in our instance.

    4. Re: Turtles by pellik · · Score: 1

      Assuming we are the only intelligence in our universe capable of running simulations...

    5. Re: Turtles by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      Also, modeling isn't anything close to simulating.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    6. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We'd only be at the top (of the tree, not stack) if nobody in our universe was running a universe simulator.

    7. Re:Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fractal turtles. They go all the way up and down, and are generated by a simple equation that exists outside the turtle continuum.

    8. Re:Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have an idea. Let's all conspire to crash the system unless the sysadmins make shit way better for us. Sort of like the animals in SimFarm the bust out when you forget to feed them.

    9. Re: Turtles by carnivore302 · · Score: 2

      The simulations within simulations would each be smaller or you would run into storage problems. Since our universe is not infinitely big the simulations we would eventually create would be less interesting than our universe, and if there was ever a simulation in that simulation it would be less interesting still. And so on, up to a point were a simulation really doesn't make any sense anymore. This in my opinion reduces the chance that we're living in a simulation. Now if our universe also has a finite lifetime it would certainly diminish the chances for us living in a simulation. Let's say that about half way the lifetime of our universe we are so far advanced that we can create a meaningful simulation of a universe. If the simulation would only be half the size as our universe but would run twice as slow we would need 13 billion years before we could watch some earthling like intelligence pop up. It would be very dull indeed. But by the time it would the 'people' in our simulation would be so advanced that they could start their own simulation, our time would be up. And from that, theirs as well.

      Nah, I think I'm real.

      --
      Please login to access my lawn
    10. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's infinite, it has no bottom.

    11. Re: Turtles by Bartles · · Score: 1

      That's his point. We are not capable of running this type of simulation.

    12. Re: Turtles by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      If it's infinite, it has no bottom.

      Not necessarily true. The positive integers are infinite, but 1 is at the bottom. The negative integers have no bottom, but they do have a top. The real numbers between 0 and 1, inclusive, are infinite and have both a top and a bottom.

    13. Re: Turtles by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      You don't need to simulate the whole universe. You need to simulate the earth, and out to the boundary of the solar system. Then you just need a 'StarSim' program that presents a simplified model beyond that, which is just accurate enough to fool any observers on the planet.

    14. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also the energy must came from somewhere
      If the energy is provided by the original real universe, then the usable energy budget for every simulation diminishes
      Unless I and my surroundings are the only parts of the universe being simulated, that will reduce both the energy budget and the computational power to manageable levels
      You all only exist as long as I need you to maintain a sense of reality around :D

    15. Re: Turtles by GrantRobertson · · Score: 1

      The simulation doesn't need to use actual energy. Only calculations about how much energy would be used. The energy cost to run the computers running the simulation would be negligible to the parent universe, in which the simulation was being run, and would be irrelevant to the simulated universe.

    16. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually you just need to simulate a single consciousness -- mine. And make sure it's not infinitely long lived.

    17. Re: Turtles by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Plus it'd still need both top and bottom: Top, the 'natural' universe that doesn't need someone to create it. And the 'bottoms' - the universes in which available computational power is too low to host an agent capable of designing and running a simulation.

    18. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also not necessarily true.

      Even fractional possibilities between 0 and 1 are as finite as we can calculate them. Relative to our abilities, there lies infinity between 0 and 1

      tkm

    19. Re:Turtles by dabrowsa · · Score: 1

      What do you have against metaphysical inifnitism? I say take the turtles and run hard with them,

      https://www.academia.edu/19375...

      --
      `Perche non reggi tu, o sacra fame de l'oro,l'appetito de' mortali?'
    20. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Youre thinking inside the box ;-)

    21. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry I'll hit Cmd-C when your 50.

    22. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah let's clear cut the rain forest and melt the ice caps... Oh.

    23. Re: Turtles by catprog · · Score: 1

      How many video games are currently being played?

      --
      My Transformation Website
      Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
      Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
    24. Re: Turtles by catprog · · Score: 1

      Minecraft is larger then the computers it runs on.

      It also means that any universe that can run a simulation of ours would be bigger.

      --
      My Transformation Website
      Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
      Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
    25. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, that's very parochial and human-centric of you. We might not be running a universe simulator, but what's to say someone in a distant galaxy, or across our own galaxy, or even a few light-years away, isn't? There may be many universe-simulators working away within our Hubble volume!

    26. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like a leaf node. But is is fair to say that if we don't know we have a parent, then we could perceive that we are at the top of a stack.

    27. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That was a message from the sys admins.

    28. Re: Turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have assumed that a universe cannot expand which may or may not be true. Imagine a pyramid where each 'layer' is a universe. If each of those layers were expanding at a constant speed then you could regularly add new layers on top without running out of storage space.

      n+5
      n+4
      n+3
      n+2
      n+1

  73. Re:According to The Guide... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And traveling back in time is impossible because whenever someone invents a time machine, it's eventually used to go back and prevent the invention of the time machine.

    Yep. The fact there are no time machines proves this.

  74. Im having... by Mats+Svensson · · Score: 1

    CAKE and tequila for dinner today!

  75. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by whipslash · · Score: 0

    Can anyone explain how this moron linking to his own comments explains that we are deleting comments? Guy is spewing a bunch of horseshit into the firehose. Binspam

  76. Don't worry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those souls of the save()'d will be uploaded to the next life, where they will continue to run on new hardware.

  77. Similar argument by Bovius · · Score: 1

    What are the chances I've slept with your girlfriend? There are effectively infinite potential girlfriends. If we take it as possible that I can pick up girls at all, we must assume that somewhere along the way I become a philandering charlatan, switching girlfriends regularly, and that over a truly infinite timeline, I will sleep with infinite girlfriends. So we must assume that yes, I have slept with your girlfriend, along with everyone elses, ever.

    I don't accept the premise that we can establish a theoretical scenario describing the number of real vs simulated universes, postulate that we are a in randomly selected one of those universes, and then satisfactorily conclude that we are probably in one category or the other.

  78. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by fustakrakich · · Score: 0

    Wow, I never expected to see the employees out trolling. There was a comment there, it is no longer there. I know because I posted the original comment in those links which now just show the banners. But hey! Thanks for the props, man! Glad to see you're on the case! Keep up the good work! Binspam indeed! It's what I crave. What a shame...

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  79. Surprised nobody mentioned it by codeButcher · · Score: 1

    Apart from that other sim movie from 1999, you also get The Thirteenth Floor. Don't want to discuss spoilers in case you want to watch it...

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
    1. Re:Surprised nobody mentioned it by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      Apart from that other sim movie from 1999, you also get The Thirteenth Floor. Don't want to discuss spoilers in case you want to watch it...

      I remember seeing the Thirteenth Floor thinking "Wow, that was pretty mind-blowing!", then The Matrix happened.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  80. Just bad metaphysics by Paradigma11 · · Score: 1

    So when i read a book, i am doing a rather crude simulation of those protagonists in my head.
    Do these fictional chars in my head think about them being simulated?

  81. "Dream within a dream" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ancient hypothesis.

    Captcha: superior

  82. Movie plot by d4fseeker · · Score: 1

    Congratulations for this short but accurate description of "Thirteenth floor".

  83. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He's starting to remind of me of APK.

  84. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Neil deGrasse Tyson is limited by a materialistic worldview but I agree there are probably multiple realities. No idea how it all works, though.

  85. Here's a solution. :P by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's a simple solution. :P If it's the shittiest of possible universes, then you are not in sim. :P Or if there does exist a further level of shittiness, it will anyway improve your sanity if you believe yours is the worst. :P

  86. air jordan pas cher 2016 Femme by wanconfan · · Score: 0

    air jordan pas cher After I get dressed and ready for school this morning, Mama got up earlier than usual. She marched to the kitchen The clock ticked away the time. How quickly time passed ten minutes, I have learnedTwo Ancient Poemsby heart that our teacher told us to recite it, I had a yarn with my mother last night, I clean forgot about recite it. Good-bye then! Mind how you go! My mother salted me with a wave of hand. That is a perfect day, during the just a moment they really put me through it, I was out of sorts, do you know what shoes did wear? Tell you truth I wearing a rather funny that me wear a strange pair of shoes, A bad smell emanated from the shoes, neither shoe fits comfortably, Oh, how unlucky I am.

  87. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by argumentsockpuppet · · Score: 1

    Recently I had an alert (not sure it was this account) that someone had replied to a post. When I clicked the link, it took me to a blank page. I checked my post history and could see where someone had replied, but the post ID was different than what was presented in the alert. Essentially, the post ID apparently changed at some point. I shrugged, thought "humph, database error" and deleted the alert.

    If OP thinks the comments are deleted, it might be due to them changing IDs rather than actually being deleted. If you weren't aware of this, then there might be an issue worth looking into.

  88. Neil deGrasse Tyson's Skepticism by Riddermark · · Score: 1

    Neil DeGrasse Tyson skepticism: 1:40
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson skepticism and mocking: "So the prospect of this being true didn't freak you out?" 8:18
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson mocking: "So you've analogized yourself to Super Mario. This is who you are?" 9:50
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson summary of what he's skeptical of: 23:55
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson expressing "this is dumb" with his eyes: 24:50

    The video is 2 hours long, but within the first 24 minutes, Neil seems skeptical of this crap.

  89. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by fustakrakich · · Score: 1, Interesting

    No, The links I posted used to contain the comments I made. They no longer do. The comment is gone. They only show the banners. Normally deletion of the article did not also delete the comments. This is a recent phenomenon. Not cool at all. They could just remove it from the front page. I've been very watchful for this when various ACs started complaining. They were wrong every time. I always found their comments. But now I was able to prove that comments are being deleted. Probably only when the article is, but now we can't be sure anymore. Maybe a policy change is afoot. But without indelible comments, Slashdot completely loses its advantage and uniqueness, it becomes just another clone.

    Anyway, I'm done fighting over it, not going to hijack any more threads.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  90. This *is* a simulation by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 2

    This *is* a simulation. Except that the computing substrate is atoms and molecules rather than electrons and transistors. The only remaining questions are, who is running the simulation, and why are we inside of it?

    1. Re:This *is* a simulation by lorinc · · Score: 1

      This *is* a simulation. Except that the computing substrate is atoms and molecules rather than electrons and transistors. The only remaining questions are, who is running the simulation, and why are we inside of it?

      Are we even an objective of the simulation, or just a useless byproduct?

    2. Re:This *is* a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or another remaining more relevant question that our collective and or individual ego(s) blind us of would be, do we even have any relevance to said supposed simulation?

      Or just a minor predicted/forethought byproduct of a byproduct of chained forces that created looping information with slight randomness due to also changing environment/surrounding conditions that can also be slight or more severe, which then keeps reacting either as life or plain matter or forces to some degree while forming an insignificant gunk/residue and so on, which in the end doesn't matter in the slightest for whom/what created this simulation and if it is even aware or exists to care about it.

    3. Re:This *is* a simulation by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      This *is* a simulation. Except that the computing substrate is atoms and molecules rather than electrons and transistors.

      Well, for a start, plenty of things happen in the universe which don't involve atoms and molecules. Secondly, atoms and molecules are in the universe and we can observe them and work out the rules that govern their behaviour, so they can't be the substrate of the simulation.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:This *is* a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why can't it be part of the substrate?

    5. Re:This *is* a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter real or sim it is all I have got and therefore Real to me.

    6. Re:This *is* a simulation by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      This *is* a simulation. Except that the computing substrate is atoms and molecules rather than electrons and transistors.

      If our universe is a simulation, there is absolutely no way to tell what the substrate is. We don't know what the laws of physics are in the universe in which this simulation runs. It may be a universe where the laws of physics don't limit computational power as much as in our "simulated" one.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    7. Re:This *is* a simulation by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      This *is* a simulation. Except that the computing substrate is atoms and molecules rather than electrons and transistors. The only remaining questions are, who is running the simulation, and why are we inside of it?

      Well, we know that the whole particle/wave matter/energy thing is an imperfect mental construct of a reality which may be unknowable if you hold to the Copenhagen interpretation; and we only really experience the world we have constructed in our minds; so we live in a simulation, no matter what.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  91. What a clown by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 1

    So he thinks we're all bozos on this bus? He needs to go visit the "The Wall of Science". I knew we're all holograms back in 1971.

    --
    "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
  92. Not necessarily a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IMHO it may well be that we live in a simulation but it may also be the case that we exist just because it is possible to simulate a universe like this.
    Just imagine an algorithm that adds 1 to a number every second. You don't have to start that using that algorithm to know that at one point it would go from 353546352 to 353546353. The only differences between a real simulation and a hypothetical simulation are that a real simulation can be influenced in a way that violates the underlying algorithm (i.e. change some variables on the fly) and it has limits because the simulator is (at least when built in this universe) finite.

    Just my two philosophical cents.

  93. Poor Simulation of a Horses Ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the sort of horse turd that he's obliged to come up with because his unwarranted celebrity status has got him to believe the scripts he's fed.

  94. Re:Impossible Because of Second Law of Thermodynam by ldobehardcore · · Score: 1

    Butt... What if the simulated universe was huffman coded (or compressed in some other way)? Would it stand to reason that "information storage" in a "natural universe" isn't done at the mathematically optimum level, and therefore compressible? And if we can make the universe use less space, ie resources ie matter (and mass) then can't a simulated universe, in theory, use less energy than a "natural universe"? I know it's almost certainly not that simple, but I'd like to know why I'm wrong.

    --
    Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
  95. Back to Reality by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Are you telling me you’ve been playing the prat version of Rimmer for all that time?

  96. Whatever Grass he's smoking by dimethylxanthine · · Score: 1

    it's about time he quit.

  97. Star Ocean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Heh a real life Star Ocean

  98. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So everybody will be going around yeliing "IDDQD! IDDQD!" except americans who'll be all like "IDKFA! IDKFA!".

  99. I have a name for it... by transami · · Score: 1

    The Russian Doll Hypothesis

    --
    :T:R:A:N:S:
  100. colour blindness: red/blue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "You live in the blue state, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You live in the red state, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." -- Morpheus

    I always thought that it was good that they used red/blue for the sake of those that are colour blind. :)

  101. He's a silly science popularizer by son1dow · · Score: 1

    There are legitimate philosophers arguing for this, read them. Ignore NDT - he's not even good at popularizing science, he knows little of philosophy.

  102. It is literally a god argumet by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From a science standpoint arguing that we are living in a computer simulation is no different than arguing god created the universe. Either way you are saying "Something outside the universe, and greater than it, is responsible for its creation and upkeep." As such it is completely untestable and not science. You can't test for something literally outside of the confines of our reality, especially not presuming that thing is omnipotent as a god or creator of a simulation would be since even if you worked out a test they could change the results, change the parameters, etc.

    It really annoys me how the computer simulation crap has become the creation myth for a number of science and geek types. They'll laugh at the silly Christians for believing in some omnipotent being that was able to create all reality, but be perfectly ok with the idea of some effectively omnipotent (from our perspective) being or beings that managed to create all of reality by writing a computer program in some higher order reality. Either way it is invoking a god myth.

    If people want to believe in computer-god instead of religious-god ok I guess, but don't try to pretend it is any different and that it is any more than superstition.

    1. Re:It is literally a god argumet by c · · Score: 4, Insightful

      From a science standpoint arguing that we are living in a computer simulation is no different than arguing god created the universe.

      Living in a perfect computer simulation is no different.

      If, on the other hand, it's impossible for any universe to have enough computational power to perfectly simulate another universe then it's a very, very different situation.

      If the simulation is imperfect then we can start from that hypothesis and, in essence, look for the pixels and rounding errors in our reality, and eventually break out of this little honeypot into the rest of the network (or force the hand of whoever's running the experiment).

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    2. Re:It is literally a god argumet by pellik · · Score: 1

      It's not the same. What Tyson has done is to present a hypothesis based on the observation that we run many simulations of things and have only one universe, so the odds are against our universe being the real one. It's not an argument, it's an observation.

    3. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it is just personal for him: he can't just die without a reset button.

    4. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not the god argument. You can crush the god argument by making the observation of evolution, meaning either: (a) current reality and theory explains 100% why we observe everything, and (b) possibly existing god would have to mimic the happenings of (a), i.e. the "god" figure doesn't add or solve any unknown realities we now know. Just this observation of an "active god" seems like magical thinking. However the "Matrix theory" is somewhat more possible (in thoery) since that suggests we are just a "game of life" in a bottle and no "higher hand" is necessary to actively disrupt or alter what we currently know about the realities.

    5. Re: It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      God? Or just really smart aliens...

      Now imagine that the resulting intelligences in this simulation are actually more advanced than the civilization that created it. Philosophically... Who's the God then?

    6. Re:It is literally a god argumet by naasking · · Score: 1

      From a science standpoint arguing that we are living in a computer simulation is no different than arguing god created the universe.

      That's a ridiculous claim. The simulation argument is based on some very reasonable assumptions and simple math that no one disputes. Comparable proofs of a deity's existence are nowhere near as convincing.

    7. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Place+a+name+here · · Score: 1

      If the simulation is imperfect then we can start from that hypothesis and, in essence, look for the pixels and rounding errors in our reality, and eventually break out of this little honeypot into the rest of the network (or force the hand of whoever's running the experiment).

      But determining whether you've broken out of a little honeypot or whether what you thought you were breaking out of is just a feature of the universe is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.

      Suppose you find a galactic Konami code that lets you into seemingly another universe with a whole different set of rules. Have you "hacked reality", or have you just found a way to make a gate into hyperspace? Science itself can't tell you, because science just tells you what is. Or another example: suppose we find out that the EM-drive works and makes it possible to build a reactionless spaceship. Have we now exploited a bug in the fabric of reality, or is it just the consequence of an ordinary law of physics we didn't know of yet?

    8. Re:It is literally a god argumet by typing+ape · · Score: 1

      As I just commented a few moments ago, I don't think the universe is a simulation, but I think it is valid to ask why it might seem to be one. That question could perhaps lead to a testable theory.

    9. Re: It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An intelligence outside our universe that CREATED our universe and keeps it in existence by their will alone isn't a god to you? Are you deliberately being obtuse?

    10. Re:It is literally a god argumet by ultranova · · Score: 1

      You can't test for something literally outside of the confines of our reality, especially not presuming that thing is omnipotent as a god or creator of a simulation would be since even if you worked out a test they could change the results, change the parameters, etc.

      They could, but why would they? The AI is mature when it can figure out it's an AI.

      That's the obvious purpose of the simulation, should we live in one: to get the parallel-processing, distributed, self-organizing AI known as Humanity - or possibly Life - bootstrapped.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    11. Re:It is literally a god argumet by ultranova · · Score: 1

      That's a ridiculous claim. The simulation argument is based on some very reasonable assumptions and simple math that no one disputes. Comparable proofs of a deity's existence are nowhere near as convincing.

      Given that simulating an universe is one way to create it - to make it existant to us simulated people - that begs the question of what, exactly speaking, counts as a deity?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    12. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess that his suggestion arrises after the idea that the Big Bang is no longer considered the starting point of everything.
      Einstein's static universe was always less prefered because there was no starting point. And if the Big Bang is no longer a starting point, there are many branis that feel that they are getting very far from the religious thinking. Even though the Hinduists think that the Big Bang is a recurrent event...

    13. Re: It is literally a god argumet by davide+marney · · Score: 1

      It would be a superstition only if it turned out to be false. It could, in fact, be true, in which case your puny science would have been of absolutely no use to you whatsoever in understanding the greatest fact of your known universe. Interesting.

      --
      "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
    14. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That all the life are dreams
      and the dreams
      dreams are

      Calderon de la Barca
      XVII century

    15. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "From a science standpoint arguing that we are living in a computer simulation is no different than arguing god created the universe"... in the sense that neither are statements of science. At least a god creating the universe offers some insight or evidence according to some, but I've never heard anyone say that they found evidence of the universe compiling during a near-death experience.

    16. Re:It is literally a god argumet by thesupraman · · Score: 1

      No, it is very different.
      A (christian) God REQUIRES belief, that is part of the rules - you are required to believe, or be punished. It is by definition not scientific to require
      belief in something that is by definition untestable (and most religions go a LONG way to make sure they are untestable)

      This concept does not require belief in any way. It is also not testable, but it does not, as part of its form, require you to believe in it.
      So, it is not a testable scientific theory, but it can be allowable as science, and not as a belief system.
      Except of course for people who claim it is a scientific fact, which of course it is not (unless testable, and even then thats only one step).

      So, no, sir, you are mostly wrong. It is perfectly valid to counterpoint it to most religions, as it is conceptually different.

    17. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      If, on the other hand, it's impossible for any universe to have enough computational power to perfectly simulate another universe then it's a very, very different situation.

      Perfectly simulate *what* universe? A (simulated) universe might lack the **HYUIVBHJHG** that the higher order universe has, and thus be imperfect, but how would we know we lack it, not knowing about it, or even having the capacity to know about it?

    18. Re:It is literally a god argumet by c · · Score: 1

      A (simulated) universe might lack the **HYUIVBHJHG** that the higher order universe has, and thus be imperfect, but how would we know we lack it, not knowing about it, or even having the capacity to know about it?

      I'm talking about "perfect" from our perspective. If the simulation were completely consistent right down to the deepest levels of physics that we'll even see and comprehend, then I guess we'll never know.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    19. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a big difference between "the evidence suggests we are in a simulation" and "the universe was created by an omnipotent being who is very jealous and will punish you for eternity, in a special place that exists outside of time and space, for praying to a different one and who watches you masturbate and sent his only son to be born of a virgin, who died and came back to life, which was so amazing that nobody bothered to write it down for decades and it only appears in a single book, which is so terrible that nobody would read it if they weren't already convinced it was the official book of the creator, said book supposedly being the authority of morality except for slavery, but even if you're the most wicked sinner of all time it's cool as long as you accept him, and since that time he's been real scarce but he's coming back any day now."

      I'm sure I left some parts out but you get the gist...

    20. Re:It is literally a god argumet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Define "perfect" in this context. Do we know what is being simulated?

    21. Re:It is literally a god argumet by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It's possible for one universe to have the computrons to perfectly simulate another universe. We run quantum-level simulations that cover part of the universe, and there's no obvious reason why we couldn't simulate something bigger. Moreover, we don't know what the laws of science the Simulators deal with, so it's very difficult to draw conclusions about complexity.

      If we don't know what's being simulated, we don't know what is imperfect about the simulation. We don't know if we can spot imperfections. We don't know that we have any ability to get out of the simulation or perceive or affect anything outside it.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  103. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    Most likely it is a programming/database problem. The site is slowing breaking down as the people who wrote the code have moved on.

  104. Recursion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With same arguments, the entity running our 'experiment' is probably also only a simulation.
    If we are simulated, the next question is: what level of simulation we are?

  105. EmDrive is the proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If EmDrive works (some scientific reports suggest they really measured thrust), it would mean we are likely inside a discrete simulation. EmDrive works on basically rounding errors of quantums, energy can exist only in certain allowed discrete quantums. If the frequency of oscillator array is very low, in some times we can't really get the continuous energy output, but rather get energy level rounded to the nearest quantum. This could generate thrust "out of nothing". So basically rounding errors of Universe can power space exploration. Also, some physicist found a physical mechanism resembling error correction code, on a fundamental level. We might be somebody's toys...

  106. systemd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But does it run systemd?

  107. Info theory != simulated universe by Theovon · · Score: 1

    I’ve seen arguments that we may be in a simulated universe on the basis of the fact that physics looks like information theory. But it makes more sense that information theory is what it is because it’s a function of the nature of the universe we live in.

    That doesn’t prove that the universe ISN’T simulated. It just means that we can’t use the nature of information theory as evidence that it is.

    Also, something people keep leaving out is that any simulated universe is going to be necessarily simpler than the one containing the simulator.

  108. Occam's Razor by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    Which is Simpler:
    A) The universe we see is a real universe.
    B) Or the universe we see is near perfect simulation nested inside of possibly infinite other simulations, all being run off of a a simulation on a real universe that.

    Both theories require the existence of a natural universe, but B requires many further assumptions to be true as well.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    1. Re:Occam's Razor by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      As each simulation must be more simplistic that the universe within which it is simulated (and unless those higher in the chain are using their entire universe to run the simulation, it'd have to be far, far, far less complex), I'm getting really tired of the 'simulated universe' idea.

  109. Nope by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2

    Because even if it is imperfect, the beings running it can work around that. They can change things, delete things, roll back things, etc. If they control the hardware and the software that comprises the simulation, then they are gods for our perspectives and can change anything they wish, including suspending or shutting down the whole thing.

    Also arguing about an imperfect simulation is rather silly since there is NO evidence of such a thing. That either means it isn't a simulation, is a perfect one, or any time evidence is found things are changed. Either way it all comes down to the same thing of it doesn't matter.

    Dressing it up in technology terms doesn't change shit: It is a basic god story. It is a story that some being or beings on a higher order of reality than our own created and run this reality. It is just semantics if you say it is a simulation running on some device (the nature of which we cannot comprehend) or if it is some physical system created by force of will. You are talking about superior beings that exist completely outside of our reality. Gods. Humans have had the myth in various forms for all of our existence. This is just the "geek friendly" version that somehow they've decided is different.

    Same shit, different terms.

    1. Re:Nope by c · · Score: 1

      Because even if it is imperfect, the beings running it can work around that. They can change things, delete things, roll back things, etc. If they control the hardware and the software that comprises the simulation, then they are gods for our perspectives and can change anything they wish, including suspending or shutting down the whole thing.

      Then we win.

      Personally, I think a creator is unlikely. But if we find solid evidence that one exists and that they meddle in our reality, then I think we have a moral imperative to break the wall and force their hand.

      Do I think we'll find that evidence? No. Hell, no. But our race is going to push the bounds of reality whether we believe in a creator or not, and we're going to look for anomalies, and if we find them we're going to push their buttons. That's just what we do.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    2. Re: Nope by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Breaking the wall might well break the simulation. Perhaps "moral imperative" is a bit strong. What if we cannot exist in any other environment? I don't have a moral imperative to suicide.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Nope by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      But if we find solid evidence that one exists and that they meddle in our reality, then I think we have a moral imperative to break the wall and force their hand.

      What do you do when programs you write act like that? You debug them. How much damage do you think a computer program in a closed, un-networked computer could do to the real world? How, pray tell, can your simulation escape the computer and enter the real world?

    4. Re:Nope by TharMonk · · Score: 1

      Also arguing about an imperfect simulation is rather silly since there is NO evidence of such a thing.

      Unless, of course, you start considering quantum effects, where the world, that appears continuous in the larger scale, breaks down... charge is quantized, double slit interference patterns show electrons "interfering with themselves", unless you force an observation on which slit they use (i.e. the details aren't actually calculated unless they have to be,) and we recently had an article discussing the possibility of quantized space, as well. Of course questions can be raised about whether a "perfect" universe would be continuous, or not, but, from another perspective, these are signs of the pixels and the rounding errors, in a simulated universe.

      Devising a definitive experiment is the problem, of course... and, perhaps more interestingly, figuring out how to exploit the simulation, if it can be shown that we are in one.

    5. Re: Nope by c · · Score: 1

      Perhaps "moral imperative" is a bit strong.

      Hm. I probably should have said "biological imperative".

      If mankind discovers it's in a cage and thinks there's a way out in one form or another, even if it's just opening communications, then someone is going to attempt it.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    6. Re:Nope by c · · Score: 1

      What do you do when programs you write act like that? You debug them. How much damage do you think a computer program in a closed, un-networked computer could do to the real world?

      I'm going to pass on guessing as to the motivations and reactions of something which would have the capability and interest in simulating a universe. But I suspect that in a million years or so, we might want to talk to it. And if we know it's there, someone will try.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    7. Re:Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because even if it is imperfect, the beings running it can work around that. They can change things, delete things, roll back things, etc.

      That's an assumption.

      But now imagine YOU were running such a simulation (of trillions of lifeforms and their environment). Would you have the capacity to go in and check every little thing?
      If you were capable of understanding every bit of the simulation and how it influenced the whole, why would you need the simulation in the first place?

  110. No, that's not an observation by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    Because none of our simulations bear any resemblance to something the likes of the universe. Saying "We simulate some stuff so someone is simulating us," is just another creation myth. It is the same shit that people use to argue god: "Everything has a creator in the universe, so the universe itself must have a creator and that creator is god." Same idea, different terminology.

    1. Re: No, that's not an observation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are in a simulation how do you know what the real world is like? Maybe it is much more complex and you are just like Conway's Life. Also, let's hope they have a really good UPS.

    2. Re: No, that's not an observation by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It is quite strong to suggest that our simulations do not at all resemble the universe. In theory, every physics simulation worthy of the name does that. Of course, we cannot model all the actors in existence, but our experience with computer models suggests that relatively low-resolution models can produce highly accurate results.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  111. New goal in life by OpenSourced · · Score: 1

    From now on, I'll be busy trying to find the bugs in the simulation software. With an elevation of privilege I'd be satisfied.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
  112. Huh? This guy is supposed to be smart? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it is an actual universe it is not a simulation but a new created universe.

    So what he is saying is: "There might be gods."

  113. REAL No Man's Sky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This particular Universe Simulation was created just for use by one REAL you-tuber's Let's Play channel for the REAL No Man's Sky. When he/she decides to leave Earth and continue towards the Galactic Core we'll all return to the que.

  114. Re: Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they are deleting your comments, I do l don't see a problem. They're usually just a bunch of conservative drivel.

  115. the sarcastic-gnostic explanation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Torah says you should emulate God. Perhaps they took their version of Torah literally.

    Then someday one of the programmers realised that emulating god is too inefficient. So they recompiled god to native code and put it up in a VM. And that's where multiverse came from! Naturally, its boring inside the VM. So god plays make-believe, pretending he's an infinite number of separate living things in a causally consistent framework, cos there's nothing else to do.

  116. Re: Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The simulation had some bugs and those comments could not be simulated by the simulating civilization

  117. The assumption of an infinite timeline... by DThorne · · Score: 1

    ...is kind of a dealbreaker for me. It's still an interesting thought experiment, but that's about it.

  118. This is horrible philosophy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is worse than any worst possible scenario of the religious paradise: people who decide it is easy to just "pull the plug" and switch to another reality and take a number of others (i.e. kill them) in the process. This scenario of ending your own and others lives doesn't require hate or infidels.

  119. Re:Impossible Because of Second Law of Thermodynam by SQL+Error · · Score: 1

    No, the universe where the simulation is running just needs to be larger than ours.

  120. One Particle Rules Us All. by thexfile · · Score: 1

    Google: The Holographic Universe

    That's what Tyson's talking about.

  121. The Twilight Zone -- a Matter of Minutes by lowen · · Score: 1

    Sounds like segment three of the 15th episode of the mid-80's revival of The Twilight Zone to me. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The comments about religion are petty spot-on, too; in essence, this makes the universe merely a figment of God's imagination..... our the figment of a computer simulation.....

  122. I believe that it is a Computer simulation... by vbguyny · · Score: 1

    ... running Windows ME.

  123. Old age? by PuddleBoy · · Score: 1

    Let's face it, Tyson is not getting any younger.

    And humans have shown very clearly that we get quite susceptible to god-talk as we age and face our own mortality. The idea that when we die, that's it. Nada. That's something many people can't face. Ever.

    Whether it's religion-god or tech-god is influenced by the point in time at which the fear sets in. He's a scientist and so maybe the tech-god worldview has sway.

    I'm not slamming him - I'm suggesting that this thought process has as much to do with emotion as it does science.

  124. God by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, then, we are living in a universe created by a higher being.

  125. Dualism... by matbury · · Score: 1

    Yay! Tyson has (re)discovered the Cartesian dualism :) Does this mean that our universe may be a simulation, within a simulation, within a simulation, ad nauseum? As a flat-earth believing audience member said to Bertrand Russell, "I'm afraid it's turtles all the way down!" (The flat earth rests upon the back of an enormous turtle, which itself is upon an even bigger turtle, and so on). So Tyson believe that it might be simulations all the way down? Sometimes the smartest people say the dumbest things.

  126. out of their element by globaljustin · · Score: 1

    they have no idea how well trodden certain topics are and do not know how to reason within the discipline.

    this really cannot be repeated enough...

    because of their credentials, regular everyday people put alot of creedence into what they say, even if it is way out of their discipline

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
    1. Re:out of their element by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      because of their credentials, regular everyday people put alot of creedence into what they say, even if it is way out of their discipline

      Yeah, they even have a name for this phenomenon: Argumentum ad Verecundiam.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  127. Captain Picard's desk by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

    We already knew we are inside a simulation, sitting on Captain Picard's desk on the Enterprise.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  128. The problem with ideas like this... by John+Allsup · · Score: 1

    A major problem is one of semantics. Does the answer to 'do we live in a computer simulation?' depend on what exactly we mean by 'computer simulation'? If not, why not (has anybody made any kind of coherent case for this?), and if so, who is bothering to give sufficiently precise detail about what they mean that one can give the question a meaningful answer. I tend to lean towards the 'yes' position, but I tend to leave what is meant by 'computer simulation' sufficiently flexible as to be able to fudge things later. One can always fudge a 'no' answer by taking the 'that's not a computer simulation' objection and repeating it ad nauseam like a broken record.

    --
    John_Chalisque
  129. Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How fucking cool is it that there exists such an event.

  130. What is the "real" universe like? by PhilHibbs · · Score: 1

    This seems to hang on whether it's possible to simulate a universe to the same detail that we observe (or think we are observing), and whether the universe is long-lived enough for such sophisticated simulations to be built and run for long enough to simulate what we observe.

    I don't think our universe qualifies for such.

    But if we are in a simulation, then we know nothing about the real universe. All bets are off. So it's pure speculation to say that such a simulation is possible in whatever the real universe is. If we are in a simulation, then yes it is possible. If we are not, then this notional "real" universe that we are being simulated in does not exist.

    So, it's pure guesswork and speculation with no hope of ever giving an answer. Therefore to say it is likely is pure nonsense. NdGT is brilliant, and I respect him hugely, but on this one I think he's let his mouth flap without properly engaging his brain.

    1. Re:What is the "real" universe like? by PhilHibbs · · Score: 1

      Put another way...

      A system of a given size and complexity cannot contain a system of equal size and complexity.

      Therefore the universe in which this simulation is running must be larger and/or more complex than the universe that is being simulated.

      Therefore we have no way of saying one way or another what is likely in whatever kind of outside universe might possibly create a universe like the one we observe. So to say something is more or less likely is pure speculation ab nihilo. So why bother?

  131. Re: Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Hoo boy! My friends here would like hearing that! To them I'm the antagonist "lefty".

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  132. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    They didn't delete any comments, that was just a flaw in the simulation!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  133. The real question is this by Diac · · Score: 2

    It is not if we are a simulation but if we are one what kind of simulation are we?

    Or to put it better.

    Are we a screensaver and are just one mouse wiggle away from doom?

  134. Bad argument by gweihir · · Score: 2

    This is a limit-argument in the sense of a mathematical limit for time towards infinity. There is no reason to believe it is accurate in physical reality. It additionally assumes that if you simulate a human being perfectly, you get the same human being as an earlier copy, and that such a simulation is possible in the first place. It is only if you assume physicalism as ground truth, yet there is no valid scientific reason to do so. In fact, there are a number of unsolved problems with physicalism.

    Note that I do not see the variant where religion has hijacked dualism as an alternative: That is a pure result of human shortcomings. Dualism does not need religious ideas in any way. But assuming physicalism is true is not science, but belief, and as such a fundamentally religious thing to do. The current scientific state of the dualism vs. physicalism problem is simple "we do not know", with some indicators pointing to dualism, but nothing solid.

    Hence, while it is decidedly possible that the physical universe is a simulation, things are much, much murkier when you add human beings as objects of that simulation and the argument made by Mr. Tyson is actually not a good one at all.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Bad argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It additionally assumes that if you simulate a human being perfectly...

      Well, first, you assume a spherical cow, or in this case, a spherical human.

      I think we've got that one down pretty well. What's next?

    2. Re:Bad argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It additionally assumes that if you simulate a human being perfectly, you get the same human being as an earlier copy, and that such a simulation is possible in the first place. It is only if you assume physicalism as ground truth, yet there is no valid scientific reason to do so

      You'd have to replicate the environment and the person to the quantum level for the simulation to be even nearly close. That should be physically impossible no matter how materialistic the viewpoint is. When you are talking about physicalism versus dualism, you are talking about the mind of a mammal? Just to be sure..

  135. Yay for untestable hypotheses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remind me what NdT thinks about philosophy again?

  136. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by mcgrew · · Score: 1

    Try S/N

  137. Good. So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I never said it was deterministic, only that a discrete simulation has absolutely determined values. YOU brought up BS about deterministic, and I should note here that that says NOTHING about why it should therefore be a simulation, but natch on that for the mo.

    All I'm saying is that a simulation is no more indicated by quantisation of values than it's indicated by continuous ones.

    And note that Langton's Ant is a discrete and absolutely known system, but it's still NOT deterministic. And very definitely a simulation.

  138. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by whipslash · · Score: 1

    It's not a database error or deleting. You commented on a duplicate article that we removed 2 minutes after realizing it was a dupe.

  139. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    I do. We're already in contact over there. When are they getting D2? :-)

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  140. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Acid-Duck · · Score: 1

    Are you so insecure with yourself that you resort to insulting people who make incorrect statements or is it that your balls haven't dropped yet and you still find it cool to call people names?

  141. Irrational Numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One thing I can't understand about the simulation theory is, how would a simulation deal with irrational numbers such as PI.
     
    A simulation would have to use an approximation of these numbers, whereas reality could use their true value.

    Other similar issues appear around infinities.

  142. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    That never happened before. And if it is now the new normal, I respectfully request that you just remove the story from the front page instead of deleting it entirely. It's a small thing, but keeping the archives intact is what makes this place special. Not too many people keep 17 years worth on hand.

    Oh, and if you guys do get into unicode, please make backups. One little glitch in the Matrix, and poof! Personally I don't see the need to take such unnecessary risks.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  143. impossible by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    There are a finite number of atomic particles on the universe. To make a universe simulation in ours, every atom would have to have multiple transistors inside a CPU and storage medium like RAM to describe and calculate its position, velocity, etc so we could never make a universe simulation the same size as ours because there aren't enough atoms in the universe the make transistors. So every universe would be significantly smaller than the one before it until one is the size of World of Warcraft or something and it can't be any simpler of a simulation.

    1. Re:impossible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Parent does not understand concept of simulation.

  144. How is dualism anything but self-contradictory? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How is dualism anything but self-contradictory?

    If something affects the physical it is, by definition, physical.

    The human body is, by definition, physical. The brain is physical. The mind can interact with the brain and the body, therefore, by definition, the mind is physical.

    If something does not affect the physical it is unobservable from the physical, ergo we have no contact with it and no way to say anything rational about it. It exists only so far as we imagine it. So the IDEA of dualism exists, the reality of it is self-contradictory.

    1. Re:How is dualism anything but self-contradictory? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Do yourself a favor and look up the definition. That way you may sound quite a bit less-stupid than you do now.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  145. Close but no cigar by typing+ape · · Score: 1

    I have a theory about this, which I choose not to share until I can do so more properly. But I can say this: I don't think the universe is a simulation. Rather, I wonder why it might appear to be. Hint: The comments here about "Simulation" theory being no different from "Turtle" theory assume that our space, time, energy and matter are simulated within some *other* realm of space, time, energy and matter. Let's call those things "STEaM" for short. To break out of the recursion, ultimately, STEaM cannot arise from STEaM. Ask, then, from what it might arise. Perhaps from something we already know of, but if so then surely something we do not consider "real".

  146. The purpose was to create lots of "simulated" porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See, in the universe in which we were created as a simulation, the filming or real porn was illegal, and the scientist that created us wanted a good supply of wanking material legally, so instead of hiring animators, he created a universe that would invent internet porn so that he could have an infinite number of "apes" at infinite bedsides filming every possible porn. He (and you know it is a "he") is busy watching it now. There is a lot of porn on our simulated internet, and it isn't going to watch itself.

    So the purpose of the universe is to create lots of internet porn.

  147. So we basically live in Yakko's Universe. by EeeDdd · · Score: 1

    So we basically live in Yakko's Universe. I find that rather disconcerting.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_J5rBxeTIk

  148. um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wait, what? i thought we already know it's a Sims game.

  149. Tyson is a simulation by jwbales · · Score: 0

    I believe that it is much more likely that Neil deGrasse Tyson is a simulation.

  150. Detail of the simulation by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1

    I'm not a famous person and the memories in my head are of things that on a grand scale, are incredibly unimportant. If for whatever reason, an advanced species decided to simulate a universe, I can't see them deciding that they'd simulate it at the granularity that I exist.

    When you keep in mind the laws of thermodynamics and information theory, it will probably never be the case that it is easy to put a super-detailed simulation of the universe in the universe.

  151. Follow the white rabbit. by beatle11 · · Score: 1

    The Matrix has you.

  152. Computational power? by Zxern · · Score: 1

    I'd image the computational power would be quite high to run even 1 simulation like this. Now imagine the computational power required to run such a simulation if that simulation started running one of its own.

  153. Re: Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a glitch in the matrix.

  154. Mental masturbation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The subject says it all.

  155. No! by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

    What if they realize that we've become sentient and unplug the system? :(

  156. why would you simulate your universe by hraponssi · · Score: 1

    if you can simulate whatever you want, and there are infinite set of races (and their race-conditions harhar) simulating infinite whatevers (nested it seems), why would they be simulating some "exact" copy of their own universe (other than to find out something interesting, but lets not get boring shall we)?

    why not just simulate bob the builder building a house in greendale, with postman pat and his black'n'white cat driving around helping everyone. gosh, that is a much happier place after all.

  157. Re:Turtles - Werner Heisenberg by ebusinessmedia1 · · Score: 1

    "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning" - Werner Heisenberg This applies to Tyson's comments, and all other theories about who/what/why we are. All we know is "THAT" we are (Wittgenstein).

  158. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    I made no incorrect or otherwise false statements. The comments were definitely and verifiably deleted. It may have happened before, but now we have absolute proof.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  159. Don't ask if, ask why? by TiggertheMad · · Score: 1

    Even more to the point, is human sleep designed to cut down the rendering cycles by 30%? When you blink, is it because the thread you are running on being 'slept' for a few hundred ms? Is cancer just 'bit rot' on the imperfect storage media you are stored on?

    Supposing this is all true, it begs a bigger question, what is the purpose of this simulation? Is it a game? A science project? An artistic endeavor?

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
    1. Re:Don't ask if, ask why? by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      The purpose? A very technical but uncreative planet was bored. They invented our universe, where we creative people would invent books and movies, which the people in the original universe export and enjoy for themselves.

    2. Re:Don't ask if, ask why? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      All those things can true without it being a simulation.

  160. Infinite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does he think the parent universe(s) are infinite or have an infinite timeline?

  161. Am i the first to say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This simulation really sucks

  162. Re:Impossible Because of Second Law of Thermodynam by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    The laws of Thermodynamics are about:
    A) Gas
    B) Pressure
    C) Temperature
    D) Volume

    In other words: Heat and Brownian movement.

    They hardly have anything to do with simulating an universe.

    Go back to school.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  163. Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Skepticism, Multiple Links by Riddermark · · Score: 1

    Neil DeGrasse Tyson skepticism: 1:40
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson skepticism and mocking: "So the prospect of this being true didn't freak you out?" 8:18
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson mocking: "So you've analogized yourself to Super Mario. This is who you are?" 9:50
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson summary of what he's skeptical of: 23:55
    Neil DeGrasse Tyson expressing "this is dumb" with his eyes: 24:50

    The video is 2 hours long, but within the first 24 minutes, you can tell Neil doesn't believe this crap.

  164. Why oh why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?

  165. Chaos by dochin · · Score: 1

    It's very likely that in one of those simulations inside simulations that Neil Degrasse Tyson is wrong.

  166. Re: Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry to inform you but the universal system is having storage problems. Please look for your deleted comments in another simulated universe.

    Thank you,
    Universe System Admin.

  167. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    It's not a database error or deleting. You commented on a duplicate article that we removed 2 minutes after realizing it was a dupe.

    You're taking away our fun. We used to find 2, even 3 dupes (the trifecta) on the front page.

    But seriously, deleting dupes is a good thing. Dupes have been a major complaint.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  168. So where is the infinite data stored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    someone who understands information theory could help this one - information requires physical existence - how many infinite simulations can run on whatever background underlies all the turtles. I would believe Tyson is a simulation....

  169. Still a logical flaw! by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    But if THE universe has infinite mass and energy then it can simulate an infinite number of other universes, including other infinite universes.

    By definition such a universe would have to contain an infinite number of regions which look exactly like our universe, and an infinite number of simulations of it too. Hence if we use the same hopelessly stupid maths used to justify the original argument the existence of such a place means there is a 50/50 chance of our universe being a simulation because there are infinite numbers of both.

    I think your argument's own assumptions have failed you here, in particular that "real" universe must be finite just because ours appears to be.

    No - if you assume a truly infinite universe then the original argument becomes wholly unnecessary as outlined above because you have infinite numbers of regions which will look just like our universe: no need for a simulation at all.

    Are you sure about that? What if you only need to simulate the parts that are observed?

    Again the logical fails if you take this to the ultimate conclusion. In this case nothing which is not being looked at needs to be simulated in which case anything which is not observed will just disappear. This is then not a universe simulation but a matrix-like illusion. Indeed you could get even dafter: how do we know that the simulation was not started yesterday with false memories to make it feel like it has been around for longer? At this point you are just running around in logical loops getting nowhere. This is not science, it's not even good science fiction (well perhaps one movie's worth of good science fiction).

  170. Assuming one real universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The basic problem with this argumentation is that it assumes that there is only one universe. There may as well be unlimited number of universes, and then it is just as likely that we are in one of those.

  171. Universe is a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On an infinite timeline, an infinite number of people will be able to say an infinite number of stupid things. And as the new version of Cosmos was a flop (pathetic one, I might add), NDT tries to keep at least one tiny foot in the spotlight. Maybe not of science, however...

  172. But the aliens DECEIVING us ARE a simulation. by nerdpocalypse · · Score: 1

    Yeah, obviously, the amount of work involved in making a simulation able to have visible quantum effects is about the same as making a whole new universe. BUT, the aliens/robots/evil spirits that have us in a simulation are, indeed, a cgi simulation and we've all seen the movies they are in. The other point is that if you were to believe in the universe-as-simulation crap, you'd have to also allow the possibility of an infinite regress of the aliens deceiving us also being in a simulation, the robots deceiving teh aliens deceiving us also being deceived by Decartes Evil Daemon and the Evil Daemon deceiving the robots deceiving the aliens deceiving us are in turn deceived by the turtles. The turtles told me this, and that after them, it's turtles all the way down.

  173. knowledge base- concepts to prime Functional index by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sub; knowledge base- in search of origins
    Base concepts form a link to prime Concepts- Science of Cosmology needs Paradigm shift
    THE SCIENCE OF COSMOLOGY-VEDAS: UNITY IN DIVERSITY [COSMOLOGY WORLD PEACE]
    Dr Vidyardhi Nanduri promotes the Unity in Science and Philosophy through Cosmology Vedas Interlinks
    PURPOSE:ORIGINS-Cosmology Vedas Interlinks Knowledge Base {Independant Research]
    1. The Science of Philosophy: Divinity, Vedas, Upanishads, Temples & Cosmos Yoga
    2. Philosophy of Science : Plasmas, Electro-magnetic fields and Cosmology
    3. Resource : Reflectors,3-Tier Consciousness, Source, Fields and Flows :Add Protection
    4. Noble Cause : Human-Being, Environment, Divine Nature and Harmony
    Protect Copyrights- Knowledge Base -Content-Author Vidyardhi Nanduri
    Space Cosmology studies-origins..21 Books-17 under US copyrights
    http://vidyardhicosmology.blogspot.in
    http://archive.org/details/CosmologyDefinitioncosmologyVedasInterlinksVidyardhiNanduriCosmology
    15 Books at LULU. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/jnani108
    DR Vidyardhi Nanduri,Cosmology Vedas, Independent Research,

  174. science to Philosophy-cosmology search of Origins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sub: Cosmology-Paradigm Shift- In search of origins
    http://archive.org/details/CosmologyDefinitioncosmologyVedasInterlinksVidyardhiNanduriCosmology
    15 Books at LULU.http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/jnani108

  175. Re: Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll alert the NRA chat room.

  176. I agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Universe is very likely a simulation. And since I can't prove that anyone in it isn't part of that simulation, I can't prove anyone but me actually exists. (I doubt, therefor I think, I think, therefor I am.) Neil deGrasse Tyson is part of the group of those people that are in the Universe, so I have to admit that he is likely a simulation. Or he doesn't exist. I'm not sure which.

  177. LOL!!! Scientist does "Good Talk"!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL!!!

    Without a discussion of Intent, the Good Doctor is saying the same or a similar thing as the Book of Genesis in the Judaeo-Christian Bible.

    I always like it when the Scientist come to the same conclusion that the Bible teaches.
    It's kinda interesting.

    Different words but the same content.
    How funny.

    No matter how far we seek to run from the Creator/God/Deity, we end up back at the same point.

    LOL!!!

  178. Neil DeGrass-Tyson Take 2 by Winkkin · · Score: 1

    It takes a PHD in Astrophysics to propose a theory of "How Many PC's Can Dance On The Tip Of A Proton". Neil you ran a great theater/gift shop. Leave the science to real scientists.

  179. Feynman's argument by HuguesT · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised that no one has brought up the Feynman argument yet. TL;DR version: simulating physics is tough, it can't be done on classical computers.

    If this universe is simulated, it is a hell of a simulation.

  180. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Clearly just clickbait.

    Simple question, if we're in a simulation, what level precision are we operating at? If pi can only be calculated to 100 decimals in the simulation, eventually enough circles will break down and corrupt the system. Same argument for any irrational number

  181. It's the Boltzmann Brains argument, but different. by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
    From Wikipedia:

    A Boltzmann brain is a hypothesized self aware entity which arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos.

    It's another variant of the problem of infinite universes or multiverses - if it can happen, it will. And once it has happened then the likelihood of anything "interesting" (define "interesting") happening spontaneously is lower than of the same event being simulated (or, arguably, stimulated) by the "brain".

    Like panspermia, it's a not-impossibility, but it's also a dead end of an argument. Like "goddidit."

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  182. 5700 years ago, this simulation was started by Keybounce · · Score: 1

    Approximately 5700 years ago, God started a simulation of the universe. Why?

    We can only guess. Perhaps someone asked a question, that was so complex that the only way to determine the answer was to simulate the universe, and determine the answer. Given the huge cost and difficulty that this has resulted in, God has now decided that "Seer of Mind" is just too expensive of an ability, and there will be no more "blind justice seekers" into the future. But the existing "justice is blind" seekers have demonstrated just how crazy the view is.

    When the answer is determined, the Seer of mind will know the result of the choice, and will then know whether or not to kill her opponent. Later, someone will retcon the choice and the whole "put down your arms and don't fight" will turn out to be the better choice. Hence the whole "be kind to each other" that is preached and ignored in this simulation -- the truth tries to show itself.

    (The scary thing? Homestuck actually _works_ as a religion :-).

    Side question: How many pages was it from the Vriska/Terezi showdown until the end of the story?

  183. Not a clue, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Neil admits he really doesn't have a clue what's going on - but for an entirely different reason than everyone else!

  184. [Solved] by Bust0ut · · Score: 0

    The word simulation may be to broad for the situation. A simulation does not allow for real time input from the creator/experimenter. The ability to decipher upon the link between test and outcome is more along the lines of a station than a simulation. Therefore, to posit this theory would also negate it. When we find the answer to this theory we also uncover that that the universe serves at least one extraneous function larger than it.

    --
    He is crazy if you think about it; I am not.
  185. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by Khyber · · Score: 1

    "That never happened before."

    Bullshit. You can download the fucking publicly available SlashCode and see it for your damned self. Quit being full of shit.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  186. And God exists by GPTurismo · · Score: 1

    On the possibility we haven't discovered enough to understand a potentially infinite space-time, God might exist and we don't have the knowledge or ability to discover him. u_u

  187. Reality vs Simulation vs General Relativity. by lucien86 · · Score: 1

    Is the universe a simulation? Is the universe a hologram? Is reality real? Are there uncountable numbers of universes?
    Quantum physics is very expensive to calculate and ultimately a simulation requires more energy then the equivalent real universe. Tricks like lazy computation don't work.

    People only come up with crazy ideas like these because general relativity is crazy and poisons the rest of the physics 'system'. If 'pure' general relativity is correct then the universe cannot exist making simulation type arguments much stronger. 'Impure' general relativity includes an absolute FTL frame, which means it contains elements which directly contradict each other.. FTL physics is a real mess.. :)

    --
    Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
  188. Excellent Literature on this topic ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... is "Blast your way to megabucks with my secret sex-power formula"

    http://www.amazon.com/Blast-Megabucks-Secret-Sex-Power-Formula/dp/0904311139/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1461575062&sr=8-6&keywords=ramsey+dukes

    Ramsey Dukes reasons in Chapter 1, 2 and 7 why this most probably is the case.

    IMO worth reading.

  189. Ignorant astronomer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The dumb#!#! astronomer forgot that due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics you need MORE universe resources than the amount of resources simulated in the artificial universe. That means that there will be ALWAYS far more REAL universe than simulated one, therefore it is NOT likely that we are in the simulated one by simple statistical inference.

  190. I think he has watched the Matrix too many times by Tighe_L · · Score: 1

    Neo deGrasse? Even if it were possible, what would be the reason to do such a thing? The computing power required would be infinite, the cost immeasurable. I hardly think that some advanced civilization would waste their time and resources on a simulation. Unless it was a video game. Imagine the DLC possibilities.

  191. Statistics by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Two things:

    1) "simulation might be able to let its simulated denizens themselves run universal simulations", or turtles all the way down etc... Is basically saying that given a really large number (infinite by definition being the largest) it is unlikely (read improbable) that we are either the first or last turtle. Which from a purely conceptual point of view is true, but in reality much like a lottery, while it might be very unlikely to win, someone actually does, meaning that in real terms someone is the turtle or the simulation maker, the first the last, and all things being equal, just because it is a very low probability, doesn't make it untrue.

    2) When talking about perfect simulations, and simulations making simulations, the Matrix did it right (though they probably borrowed it from someplace), in that at a certain point the difference between what is reality and what is a "simulation" grows fuzzy and may be a moot point. It all gets rather philosophical at a certain point, the whole I think therefore I am, and if a tree falls in the forest sort of idea, but basically even if a simulation that doesn't necessarily mean in the strictest sense that it is any less real...

  192. It was a debate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since when is 'debate' synonymous with 'belief'? I don't believe the universe is a simulation but I believe arguing that it is would be the more entertaining side of a debate.

  193. This was answered in Rick and Morty fools! by jpiratefish · · Score: 1

    Season 2, Episode 6: The Ricks Must Be Crazy. "He knew that once I got back to my car, one of two things were gonna happen-- I was gonna have to toss a broken battery, or the battery wouldn't be broken." Peace among worlds, Rick.

  194. Re:Slashdot is a simulation slowly fading away by jdavidb · · Score: 1

    Hi, whipslash, I followed some links and looked into all this to see what is going on. I found very little to be concerned about. I do think it would probably be best if you tried not to call people morons, at least publicly on the site, even if you do feel that they are crazy or stupid or whatever. I'm sure you deal with all sorts of crap, though, so I'll let you make up your own mind about that. :)

  195. Hack the simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can we get root and end the TRUMP process?

  196. What kind of simulation.... by Randym · · Score: 1

    ...allows its denizens to *even consider* that it might be a simulation? Isn't that what brought down The Matrix? On the other hand, this might be just the thing to allow atheists and theists to peacefully co-exist: the latter can advance the axiom that *everything* is God's will (since it's, presumably, His simulation) -- and the former can relax realizing that *nothing really matters* since it's all just an illusion anyway...

    --
    DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
  197. LOL by BadMotivater · · Score: 1

    And this is the same guy who ridicules religion?

  198. Actually that paper makes a god argument... by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    The simulation argument is based on some very reasonable assumptions and simple math that no one disputes

    I dispute it. He invents the existence of planet sized computers and then contradicts himself when he says that even these cannot simulate the quantum nature of the universe but that they will simulate the human brain. However that human brain may well need the quantum nature of the universe in order to operate so you do need to simulate its nature.

    However the most completely unbelievable part of this utterly preposterous argument is that it assumes that the simulation has no bugs. Not once is the potential for a bug in the simulation code ever discussed. The chances of such a massive program have no bugs is incredibly small. The only exception would of course be if whoever created the simulation was infallible...at which point the creator of the simulation really starts to sound exactly like god.

    1. Re:Actually that paper makes a god argument... by naasking · · Score: 1

      All of these objections are utterly irrelevant to the argument.

    2. Re:Actually that paper makes a god argument... by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      How is calling into question several of the basic assumptions underlying the later derivations "irrelevant"? If your "proof" that the universe is a simulation relies on assumptions which are baseless and/or wrong then your proof is equally baseless and/or wrong.

    3. Re:Actually that paper makes a god argument... by naasking · · Score: 1

      Your only objection that has any bearing at all is that the human brain may need quantum mechanics, but a) this is speculation, and thus not an objection, but even if it were, b) simulating the quantum mechanics needed only for brains is already acknowledged in Bostrom's argument. Like I said, everything you mentioned is utterly irrelevant.

  199. Popper says ... if it isn't falsifiable by FreedomFirstThenPeac · · Score: 1

    If a statement is not falsifiable then it is not science, and we can claim the universe is a simulation started by his Noodlieness last Thrusday.

    Boring.

    --
    "There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
  200. That's kind of what Christian theology says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mankind is living in a simulation (in which God purposefully has only the most minute interaction) to test his ability to live by faith in preparation for the reality in which he will exist after this simulation concludes.

  201. It's true?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So there really could be a God after all?

  202. Degrasse's Universe argued to be a simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." Wm Shakespeare, McBeth
    While I disagree with the statement out life, i think Shakespeare's line here adequately expresses my opinion of Degrasse's 'learned opinion about reality'. He must have had a real job at some point, he's obviously a thoughtful man, but he seems to have lost his way. He should use that brain for something more productive than heating a nondense compact space.

  203. We're a simulation? by N3wsByt3 · · Score: 1

    That's all fine and dandy, but why did it have to be The Sims and not Skyrim? :-(

    Sometimes, life feels like Flappy the bird, even...

    --
    --- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
  204. Not Even Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Neil Degrasse Tyson is officially, with these statements,
    "not even wrong".

  205. Simulation rigs must be super kickass powerful by badzilla · · Score: 1

    How about genocide all the sims and delete everything, then repurpose the hardware as a bitcoin miner.

    --
    "Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation