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Elon Musk: 'One In Billions' Chance We're Not Living In A Computer Simulation (vox.com)
An anonymous reader writes: At Recode's annual Code Conference, Elon Musk explained how we are almost certainly living in a more advanced civilization's video game. He said: "The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following. Forty years ago we had pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it's getting better every year. Soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by a thousand from what it is now. Then you just say, okay, let's imagine it's 10,000 years in the future, which is nothing on the evolutionary scale. So given that we're clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality, and those games could be played on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions. Tell me what's wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?" You can watch Elon Musk's full interview on YouTube.
Of course there is: the infinite regression of where did the uber-advanced civilization come from which created our Universe?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
OK, people seem to be getting down on Elon here...
Personally, I don't think we are in a game. I think that the primary use of such simulations will be to have "children" (those under the age of 1,000) experience the "bad old days" back when resources were bounded. So this is school, not a game. I guess we'll know if I'm right in about 50 years, on average.
As for those that think this level of simulation is impossible, it isn't. There may be limits to hardware that prevent exponential increases from going on forever. But there are no such limitations for software. You can optimize the simulation by doing things like dropping information whenever you don't need it (quantum mechanics), and removing redundant calculations (as in, after a quadrillion people go through the same sim, it is unlikely they are actually coming up with anything original...)
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This is just repackaging Anselm's Ontological argument for the existence of God: postulating "a being of which no greater can be conceived" would necessarily mean God exists. Just like living in a computer simulation: imagine "a computer simulation where no greater simulation can be conceived".
But it doesn't make things real. Just because you'd have to imagine a real God doesn't necessarily make it exist outside your head. Same with the simulation.
Neat thought experiment, not a proof.
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Even non-Abrahamic religions believe in a grand design or something like that.
Not for most Buddhist's and Hindu's. Jains are agnostic and so are some schools of Buddhism and some now extinct schools of Hinduism. In fact a major school of Hindu Philosophy believes that the whole universe is unreal (Maya). Therefore, yes, Musk could be a religious fellow.