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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."
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.
he is not a scientist.
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.
O course it's turtles. Who do you think is running the server? ;)
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
Computer...arch
Nothing. Clearly he is wrong.
Personally I'm worried about the griefers who are now going to try to crash the sim.
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.
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.
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.
That's what they want you to think.
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?
it's LOGO turtles all the way down.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
odds are that you're not you.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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)
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.
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.