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.

Comments

Senile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or does it start to seem like ol' Elon is going senile?

Re:Senile?

[Bruce Perens]

Is it just me or does it start to seem like ol' Elon is going senile?

Not senile, but self-indulgent. Any college sophomore can deal with the same ideas and get nowhere. And then there's Mars. I fervently wish he'd leave off the Mars stuff until SpaceX was on a solid footing as a profitable launch company with rapid cadence.

Re:Senile?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

We already have a billion or so people who believe that our reality is God's dream.

How is this any different?

Re:Senile?

[WhiplashII]

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...)

Re:Senile?

[Teancum]

I fervently wish he'd leave off the Mars stuff until SpaceX was on a solid footing as a profitable launch company with rapid cadence.

How can you say that SpaceX is not profitable at the moment? They have not had an investment round for several years now, except for the Google investment that seems to be aimed at something other that building rockets. SpaceX is also going to have well over a dozen launches at the current launch rate unless there is a major glitch that appears which would ground the launch fleet.

This comment would have been appropriate in 2009 or earlier when SpaceX was still flying the Falcon 1 and still struggling to simply get into orbit with only announced plans for the Falcon 9 and some test hardware in the assembly line. That is no longer the case right now.

If Elon Musk succeeds at sending a probe to Mars in 2018 like he already announced, it isn't just talking about Mars but rather actually going there. He also committed to sending at least one payload to Mars on every Hohmann Transfer Orbit opportunity between the Earth and Mars for as long as the company exists in the future (and mentioned in the above video). The question isn't just pontificating about what the future could be like, but rather holding actual hardware that will be on the surface of Mars in a definite time table.

When companies talk about spaceflight, I always look at "bent metal" to see how serious they are about getting the job done. SpaceX certainly has plenty of bent metal to prove they are serious about going into space and a growing resume of completed missions in space.

Re:Senile?

[starless]

The idea that we are living inside a simulation is far from original from Musk.
Perhaps the most prominent contemporary proponent of this idea is the philosopher Nick Bostrom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It's also peripherally related to the idea of a Boltzmann brain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Senile?

[eth1]

Is it just me or does it start to seem like ol' Elon is going senile?

Not senile, but self-indulgent. Any college sophomore can deal with the same ideas and get nowhere. And then there's Mars. I fervently wish he'd leave off the Mars stuff until SpaceX was on a solid footing as a profitable launch company with rapid cadence.

Isn't the entire purpose of SpaceX to get to Mars? The rocket launch business is just to fund things and develop the technology.

I suspect this is why there hasn't been a rush to go public - it could scupper that long-term mission when investors start demanding moar profits NOW.

Re: Senile?

[nikkipolya]

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.

Re: Senile?

[Bing Tsher E]

Musk is becoming the later life version of Nicholas Tesla.

Ultra rich people run the risk of being surrounded by people who will agree with anything they say or do.

Re: Senile?

[Bruce Perens]

SpaceX is not yet operating at the cadence that could make reuse profitable, and they have not yet reflown the returned boosters. This is more important than simple profitability of the company, because it drives down the gateway cost of space. IMO that is critical for the human race.

Re:Senile?

[LQ]

The idea that we are living inside a simulation is far from original from Musk. Perhaps the most prominent contemporary proponent of this idea is the philosopher Nick Bostrom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It's also peripherally related to the idea of a Boltzmann brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

When I first heard this hypothesis I started thinking about how you would model an infinite universe. The distances between the stars compared to the lifespan of a human could be an artificial barrier to limit the size of the simulation.

Re: Senile?

[arglebargle_xiv]

Jainism has all sorts of cool stuff that other religions don't get, so I don't think they're feeling left out. OTOH they don't get pepper steak or roast pork with crackling, which for me is a major loss in a religion.

Re:Senile?

[Cantankerous Cur]

Actually, that's not really good counterproof at all. While the world is complicated, all is cause and effect. Free-will is nothing but an illusion. You make decisions based on your physical state and the information you have at the moment. And you will always make the same decision given the same state/input. (Unless you're chaotic neutral, in which case the chance is 50%)

The better counterargument is intuition and insight. It seems far harder to me to program the irrational leaps in logic that come to a correct conclusion.

Re: Senile?

[Diss Champ]

I don't really buy the "we are a simulation" thing, but taking your logic to it's reasonable conclusion the simulation could well be run by a bearded man using the cloud. In which case the the major monotheistic religions have had it basically right for quite a while.

Re: Senile?

[avgjoe62]

"...a bearded man sitting on a cloud."

But the Woz hates clouds.

At least we know that the bearded man, whoever he/she is, isn't George R. R. Martin or else we'd all be dead by now...

Re: Senile?

[Aighearach]

Jainism is a refuted doctrine with very few followers. (about 5 million worldwide) It was growing at the time of Siddhartha ("the Buddha") and indeed many Buddhist moral teachings are phrased specifically as comparisons with what Jain was teaching.

The reason I say "refuted" is that one of the most important beliefs is a sort of strict compliance non-violence; if you step on a bug, and it dies, you have murdered a living being. It is the same as premeditated murder of a human. It was an interesting idea, but it does not survive the microscope; you can't eat vegetables without also eating lots of living animals.

That is connected to the standard Buddhist concept of non-violence, which instead of being strict is based on intent. The formulation given is also a major moral debate with the Jainists during Siddhartha's life. The idea is that a monk who is sweeping the path and kills some ants that are on the path has not committed murder, because his intent is only to clean the path; he did not approach the path with the broom for the purpose of killing ants. And there is no way to sweep the path without some ants dying. A Jainist commits murder if his broom kills an ant, regardless of his intent, regardless of if he even saw the ant or had any way to avoid harming it.

The Buddhist concept of vegetarianism is also rooted in intent; it is not allowed for a monk to eat meat that was killed or purchased for him, but he is allowed to eat leftovers that would otherwise go to waste. And the test is if he believes, thinks, or suspects that the food was prepared specifically for him or for his visit. If his presence didn't cause the animal to be killed, then he has no moral involvement in the killing of the animal. But if it was prepared with the intent of feeding him, or more specifically if he thinks that might be true, then he has a share of the moral harm of killing the animal.

There are other examples; Jainism is a philosophy that was mostly superseded by Buddhism and Hinduism for real, physical reasons relating to how possible it is to follow it even if you're trying. That's why there are only 5 million followers, when there were probably more than that 2 thousand years ago.

If we had flying cars...

[Austerity Empowers]

...we'd be the Jetsons. Cars have been getting better every year for 100 years. Soon we'll have electric cars, hybrid electric cars. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then cars will fly.

CEO logic, avoid it.

Re:If we had flying cars...

[gl4ss]

thats not the jetsons flying cars. the state of flying cars has been AT THE TOTAL SAME for about 70 years now straight.

70 years.

think about that, dolt.

also I think elon musk has not actually been playing any computer games or simulations for the past 20 years since as far as being convincing on reality aspect really nothing has been happening there.

the guy is an idiot for trying to use the pong argument when there has been no advancements in a long time now already... just slightly faster graphics cards and more memory.

Re:If we had flying cars...

[TsuruchiBrian]

Cars do fly. The first flying car was made 17 years after the first car. And the first space car was made 58 years after that. For whatever reason, the stewards of the English language decided to call these things aircraft and spacecraft rather than flying cars and space cars.

Re:If we had flying cars...

[AK Marc]

I'm a licensed pilot, and I still can't fly them anywhere.

hanging on every word of a celebrity

[Darinbob]

The circles of CEOs and geniuses rarely intersect. Not even this time.

Re:hanging on every word of a celebrity

[bingoUV]

Then too just your memory of your perception.

Re:hanging on every word of a celebrity

[alexgieg]

At any rate, there is no value in the notion, unless you can derive some theory from it, that'll allow for an experimental test.

"Testing the hypothesis physically

A long-shot method to test one type of simulation hypothesis was proposed in 2012 in a joint paper by physicists Silas R. Beane from the University of Bonn (now at the University of Washington, Seattle), and Zohreh Davoudi and Martin J. Savage from the University of Washington, Seattle.[10] Under the assumption of finite computational resources, the simulation of the universe would be performed by dividing the continuum space-time into a discrete set of points. In analogy with the mini-simulations that lattice-gauge theorists run today to build up nuclei from the underlying theory of strong interactions (known as Quantum chromodynamics), several observational consequences of a grid-like space-time have been studied in their work. Among proposed signatures is an anisotropy in the distribution of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, that, if observed, would be consistent with the simulation hypothesis according to these physicists (but, of course, would not prove that the universe is a simulation). A multitude of physical observables must be explored before any such scenario could be accepted or rejected as a theory of nature.[11]"

Simulation hypothesis

Major flaw in the argument

[invictusvoyd]

10000 years later there will still be linux users and they will still be playing pong and tetris and having one windows box hidden somewhere offline just , just for "gaming".

Re:Major flaw in the argument

[fahrbot-bot]

10000 years later there will still be linux users and they will still be playing pong and tetris and having one windows box hidden somewhere offline just , just for "gaming".

The descendant corporation of Microsoft will pushing out a recommended update to "upgrade" to Windows 10,000.

Re:Major flaw in the argument

[Dutch Gun]

Maybe GNU Hurd will be ready for prime time by then.

Meanwhile

[fibonacci8]

Sister Miriam Godwinson was quoted today saying, "We must Dissent."

Re:Meanwhile

[pezpunk]

We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7. Activity recorded M.Y. 2302.22467. (TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED)

(even more appropriate, from the same game)

Re:Meanwhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course somebody had to go and Godwinson the thread.

"Is there a flaw in that argument?"

[Nutria]

Of course there is: the infinite regression of where did the uber-advanced civilization come from which created our Universe?

Re:"Is there a flaw in that argument?"

[Capsaicin]

... where did the uber-advanced civilization come from which created our Universe?

You're very clever Nutria, but it's simulations all the way down.

Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[Bruce Perens]

This is just a fancy sort of solipsism.

You could also describe it as a modern form of faith-based explanation for existence couched in a scientific framework, but otherwise much as conventional religions attempted to explain existence before the scientific framework came about. It explains nothing, because if the world is a simulation, there is an outside to the simulation and one still has to explain how that world came about. Just as older explainers said the world was created by gods, leaving open the question of how the gods came about.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[Dutch Gun]

Maybe it's a bit easier to see life as a game or simulation when you're one of the clear winners, and it all seems so easy to you. It's got to be a bit surreal to have the resources of a billionaire like that.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[L. J. Beauregard]

if the world is a simulation, there is an outside to the simulation

"You're very clever, young man, very clever; but it's turtles all the way down!"

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[Solandri]

So then, what came before the Big Bang? What exists inside of a black hole?

Restricting yourself to purely scientific explanations doesn't make these sorts of questions go away. It just means you're willfully ignoring them - pretending stuff outside the reach of scientific inquiry doesn't exist, just like you're accusing others of pretending things outside the reach of scientific inquiry do exist.

Goedel proved nearly a century ago that any logical system is incomplete - there will always be things within the system which cannot be proven by the logic within that system. That is, the set of statements about the universe isn't divided into true and false things. It's divided into true, false, and cannot be determined. So any philosophy based on assuming things are false unless proven true is logically inconsistent. And believing nothing exists outside our current system is just as much a faith as believing something exists outside. The only logically sound stance is uncertainty about what if anything exists beyond our perception.

In that respect, Musk has the more logically consistent argument. He offers no proof but at least acknowledges the possibility that he may be wrong. You on the other hand offer no proof but seem certain that you are right (that he is wrong).

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[freeze128]

Occam's razor suggests that Elon Musk is just trolling us.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[pezpunk]

incorrect. the burden of proof is on the one making the assertion. it is their responsibility to justify or substantiate that claim.

i'm not aware of any scientific evidence provided for the simulation theory -- only loosely philosophical speculation: namely, that extraordinarily powerful technologies that are beyond humans' current technological capability have already been constructed on an unimaginable scale by aliens.

the machinery of the argument basically boils down to taking what's popular with one species on one little planet during this cosmological microsecond of time (computers, virtual space) and extrapolating that out to infinity.

it's pretty much the same way all previous religions started. thousands of years ago, to a subsistence farmer in Egypt or whatever, it no doubt made a lot of sense that the creation of reality began with a lush garden paradise, and that woman was created from man's missing rib, and that animals were put here specifically for our consumption, and to work for us. it'd be impossible to prove him wrong. but he only seems right from his own limited perspective.

Elon Musk is the same.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[Ramze]

Except the theory that we're in a simulation makes zero sense. The very quantum mechanical oddities that people who embrace this idea call upon as being inherent to a simulation are also critical to important natural processes -- like fusion in the heart of stars which depends on quantum tunneling of protons. Photosynthesis depends on quantum-tunneling as well. If the quantum nature of the universe is some sort of evidence that we're a simulation, then what exactly are we simulating if the "real world" outside of the simulation does not depend on the exact same quantum processes? Obviously the hypothetical "real world" MUST have different physics if our quantum physical laws are merely side-effects of the limitations of our simulation. So... How does fusion happen in the "real world?" What about photosynthesis? How about LEDs, solar cells, and various computer components that all rely on quantum effects?

It's absurd to think any of those things would be possible without our very specific physics. The only possible explanation if we're in a simulation would be that the "real world" has completely different physics than ours. That makes me wonder why beings living in such a universe would bother to simulate a fantasy world where physics not only doesn't work the way it does in the "real world," but would also bother to create an entire universe populated by sentient beings just to see how such fake physics would play out. Oddly, we'd be like a video game instead of a simulation.

Sooner or later, every computer program generates a flaw. Even if it's not a bug in programming, a single bit flip from a cosmic ray could cause havoc. One would think with a simulation our size running for this long would have produced more than a few noticeable bugs, and it would be a serious pain to roll back the universe from a saved state just so that the beings living on a slimy spec of rock around an average main sequence star in an uninteresting galaxy in a not especially special cluster of galaxies wouldn't remember the glitch and be self-aware that they're in a simulation. Oh, gee... I guess we all just signed Elon's death warrant now that we all let the beans spill that he's in on our simulation masters' secret.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[bingoUV]

He offers no proof but at least acknowledges the possibility that he may be wrong. You on the other hand offer no proof but seem certain that you are right (that he is wrong).

Bruce didn't claim here to be certain that Elon is wrong. Bruce said that Elon's statement explains nothing. Similar to how "God created us" doesn't explain our existence.

Elon also doesn't acknowledge that he may be wrong (except by not forcing everyone to swear by it by all that is holy) - he estimates the chances of us (at least him and one other person) not living in a simulation. So he acknowledges that we may not be living in a simulation, but doesn't acknowledge that his estimate of the probability may be wrong - which is his actual statement.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[Pfhorrest]

incorrect. the burden of proof is on the one making the assertion. it is their responsibility to justify or substantiate that claim.

Only if they want to convince you that they're right; not just to continue believing it themselves. Conversely, you need not justify or substantiate to yourself your belief to the contrary, but you must do so if you want to convince them that you're right. Or rather, in either case, the best you can do is convince the other person that they're wrong, which only establishes that you're right if your position is the broad logical negation of theirs. (Which happens to be the case here).

You can only disprove, never prove positively. And that's exactly why everyone must be free to hold their own opinions and the burden must fall on whoever wants to change someone else's mind (either direction): if no one was allowed to hold any opinion that hadn't been positively proven from the ground up, then nobody could have any opinion at all, because all attempts at positive proof lead down infinite regresses (unless interrupted by one kind of abandonment of reason or another). The only way to preserve reason and escape from complete nihilism is to give every opinion (and its negation, which is just another opinion) the benefit of the doubt until proven wrong, which means we can never really say what position is right, just which are more or less wrong.

For the record I don't give much credence or significance to the simulation question (it's comparable to Last Tuesdayism), but this epistemological point is important.

Re:Just Solipsism and Faith-Based Nonsense

[Ihlosi]

> The only possible explanation if we're in a simulation would be that the "real world" has completely different physics than ours.

Well yes. It could have more spatial or temporal dimensions. Or no laws of thermodynamics. Fun.

> One would think with a simulation our size running for this long would have produced more than a few noticeable bugs,

The accumulation of the effects of such bugs and calculation errors is called entropy. The effect of the systems limited memory is called conservation of energy.

If we're living in a computer simulation,

[jenningsthecat]

then will the owners please debug the code and/or get the hardware fixed? I'm getting sick and tired of glitches like 'Real Housewives', Kardashians, and Donald Trump.

Re:If we're living in a computer simulation,

[by (1706743)]

Well, Trump is actually a patch -- the simulation is using too much RAM, so we need to install walls to limit our worldsize. Likewise, the computer running the general EU area is running out of RAM, too, hence the whole Brexit thing.

To quote TFS, "Tell me what's wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?"

(And this general line of thinking is nothing new -- see, for instance, the Boltzmann brain.)

Re:If we're living in a computer simulation,

[roman_mir]

Really, those are the worst in your opinion? How about Marx, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, FDR, Hoover, Quadaffi (or however you spell it), Putin? Genocides, wars, murders, kidnappings, rapes, robberies, death, destruction .... How about stupidity, collectivism of all forms, types and shapes, ignorance, idleness? Governments are the epithome of the worst collectivists systems, religions, and we are mentioning Kardashiand and Trump?

But seriously, the Matrix was a great movie but it makes a bad religion and a bad belief system. What Musk is saying is akin to any other religion out there and his 'proof' is as good as a 'burning bush' or a talking snake.

Re:If we're living in a computer simulation,

[Opportunist]

So ... Microsoft is now coding the universe? Adding "features" nobody asked for and everyone was happier when they didn't exist?

Religious equivalence

[Tailhook]

When challenged to explain the lack of evidence for "god" theists will sometimes argue that the universe was deliberately designed not to reveal the evidence. Naturally one is left wondering what difference there is between a universe that contains no evidence of a creator and a universe that had no creator.

What's the difference between a simulated universe and a "real" universe if the two are indistinguishable?

Re:Religious equivalence

[OEasygoDiodoB]

Maybe the real reality isn't quantized the way our simulation is. They could have 4K super-amoled quarks, and we're stuck here with our 1080P IPS quarks, with hazy electrons tunneling through all sorts of nonsensical things.

Re:Religious equivalence

[Opportunist]

So "Jesus saves" now means he's the guy in charge of backups?

Re:Religious equivalence

[Ihlosi]

They turn it off every Planck Second for a billion years (which is the time needed to calculate the next frame), we just don't notice it.

They also restored it from backup two minutes ago. We didn't notice it, either.

Weak argument

[Maow]

I find that pretty weak.

Things plateau and don't always improve at a linear, never mind exponential, rate.

Sure Moore's Law has served us well for a generation and a bit, but on his "evolutionary scale" it'll likely be seen as a blip.

All bubbles are obvious after they burst, but when inside one, it can be hard to recognise them.

I have lots of respect for Musk, but this just seems ridiculous.

We had transoceanic ships half a millenium ago, and it improved quite a bit from those days, but today's tech would be basically recognizable to someone from the 1600s, even if unbelievably large in scale. Metal ships & propellers seem to be the biggest advances (disregarding nuclear fuel sources vs ICEs) and those aren't considered new by any means.

We've had air travel for over a century, yet in the past 30-40 years there hasn't been that much improvement; in fact just try to get a supersonic passenger flight now - can't do it.

We've had men in space for half a century, had men on the moon almost half a century ago - can't do it now - USA can't even put a man in space on certified technology.

Mr Musk must be aware of these limitations, surely.

In light of those examples, I call his arguments on us living in a simulation very weak.

Re:Weak argument

[Alioth]

The simulation may not be "let's simulate a planet with people on it".

It may be on the level of "Imagine if there was this stuff, and these rules, what would happen?" and someone codes up the rules for particles of all types and equations for the space they are in, pack all the particles in one small space (the Big Bang), perhaps a random number generator to churn things a bit, then hit start - and see what happened over the next few billions of years. We, our galaxy, fiction books, and everything else would merely be an emergent property of this relatively simple ruleset.

If the universe were simulated, it's likely to be on a machine not made of matter as we know it with energy as we know it. We're just starting to observe the simulation ruleset by discovering relativity and quantum physics.

Dear Game Designers of My Reality

[mfh]

Fuck you for all the pain and suffering, cunts.

Re:simulation

[Capsaicin]

Cognito ergo sum

Don't you mean incongnito.:p

Seriously though, the Cogito does go to the heart of the matter, and in fact Descartes derives it by considering whether he is in a simulation (that conducted by the infinitely deceitful demon).

This all comes down to the Big Question in AI. Personally I tend towards that side which would answer Musk's question --"Tell me what's wrong with that argument" --by observing that there is no good reason to believe the dot in Pong was a self-aware reflective consciousness.

Re:Energy Use

[JustNiz]

>> One should assume energy use will scale with computing power

No one really shouldn't. You're presuming that in the next 10,000 years we won't develop any relatively revolutionary method of computing that is vastly more energy efficient, which seems a ridiculous assumption given that to achieve the computing power and storage just your smart phone has just 40 years ago would have taken a large warehouse full of computing equipment sucking down hundreds of kilowatts of electricity.

Re:Step 1: get a gun

[whoever57]

You are positing a "Matrix" style simulation. What if it is more like a "Sims" game and you are no more than part of the simulation?

Not senile, just falling for old philosophy

[Wrexs0ul]

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.

Re:Not senile, just falling for old philosophy

[Gamer_2k4]

The interesting thing to me is that this is just religion given techy words so it sounds more "rational" or "thought-provoking." Both a simulation and a creation would require a creator - some greater being outside of what we consider reality. In fact, when it comes down to it, do you really lose anything by calling the Christian (or Muslim or Jewish or whatever you like) theology a description of a computer simulation?

I guess he's never worked on hardware or software?

[shess]

Let's say you have a computer program with 10,000 lines of code in it. How many bugs are there? OK, 100,000 lines, are there 10x as many bugs or 12x? 1M lines? Let's say you have a 10M-line computer program, there are going to be tens or hundreds of thousands of bugs in that thing.

How many bugs have we seen in reality? I don't mean "Oh, _that's_ interesting" and later we figure out general relativity - I mean bugs, the shit bluescreens, or if you look in a certain direction, things are different. How many have we found?

AFAICT, we've found _zero_. Every time we find a discrepency in the universe, later we figure out that it wasn't a discrepency, it's how the entire universe works, and our previous understanding was simply wrong. EVERY TIME. So either the bugs self-heal and become consistent universal features, or they weren't bugs in the first place.

If the universe is a self-organizing emergent property on some very fundamental operator, then I don't see how "simulated" differs from "real". We don't write software that way. We don't build hardware that way. I don't mean a little bit, I mean AT ALL, that's entirely alien to everything in software and hardware, to the point where you might as well be talking about something else entirely.

Re:Step 1: get a gun

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the typical interpretation of the idea, that we are all unknowingly and bodily strapped into some device (even if your professor did happen to mention the Matrix when going over it). Blowing your brains out wouldn't "wake you up" anymore than that pong dot "escapes back into the real world" once it slides off the edge. The simulation IS the world and represents the extent of what form and how your life exists. Killing yourself would still be ending your life because the simulation generated the life you lead.

Anyway, the people in the Matrix who killed themselves died in the "real world" (without suddenly becoming aware of it) as well, so there's that too.

Maybe, maybe not

[shameless]

Well, consider f'rinstance the uncertainty principle. Certain phenomena (e.g. the state of a particle) do not fully manifest until someone/something is observing it. That strongly resembles a rendering optimization to me...

Re:Energy Use

[PIBM]

At that point, the best way to simulate it might be to simply build a planet and boot it with the startup condition required to find the answer that you seek...

Obligatory comic

[Raenex]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

flaw in the argument:

[Black Parrot]

if this is a simulation, all he offered was a simulated argument.

Re:Slashdot itself

[ChunderDownunder]

Has anyone ever noticed that Elon is an anagram of "Neo L" ?

Surely that's a clue that we're living in a matrix.

Here is a better title:

[bistromath007]

Elon Musk Gets Totally Baked, Flouts Thermodynamics in Attempt to Philosophically Construct Secular Afterlife

I mean, I don't even think he's completely wrong, but holy shit the way he's saying this makes it clear he was toasted.

Re:Slashdot itself

[Black Parrot]

Has anyone ever noticed that Elon is an anagram of "Neo L" ?

Surely that's a clue that we're living in a matrix.

Has anyone ever noticed that Elon is an anagram of "Neo L" ?

Surely that's a clue that we're living in a matrix.

No, it's a clue that we're living in a trim ax.

He's just saying what Neil DeGrasse Tyson said...

[ayesnymous]

... a few weeks ago.

Re:Flaw in the argument ...

[Space cowboy]

I'm assuming he's saying we're not *in* the simulation. We *are* part of the simulation. It's not that there's no other more advanced society out there, it's that this entire universe is being simulated and we're part of that simulation. In the same way as we, relatively pitifully, can simulate star motion as universes collide by specifying the base rules and then letting matter interact.

When you think about it, there's a lot that's pretty fishy about our reality

• The whole speed-of-light being a constant thing. That's just weird. Special relativity. Really ?
• Wave/Particle duality. Yeah...
• Quantum entanglement. Uh-huh ?
• ...

I'm a physicist, and I find these weird. To take Musk's argument for a second, they do seem to smack of approximation code in and around the boundary conditions of a simulation... "Nothing will ever go that fast apart from light, so let's just simplify those parameters a bit"...

Perhaps we're not in some grand experiment. Perhaps we're in a 7-years-old's school science-fair project...

Plus, if you were simulating a universe, and you intended to seed life, that's probably pretty hard. Doing it multiple times could be a lot harder. Perhaps the very scarcity of life (as far as we know) in the universe is an indication of it *being* a simulation...

Food for thought.

Scientology not Science

[Roger W Moore]

As for those that think this level of simulation is impossible, it isn't.

Without ANY bugs? Really? The only way this idea works is if you have a divine programmer who cannot make any mistakes who created the universe. This is more like scientology than science.

Re:Scientology not Science

[Dashiva Dan]

Without ANY bugs? Really? The only way this idea works is if you have a divine programmer who cannot make any mistakes who created the universe. This is more like scientology than science.

If my life has been a software simulation let me assure you, there's a LOT of bugs.

Re:Scientology not Science

[TsuruchiBrian]

Even if there are bugs, you can just stop the simulation, fix the bugs and start it over. Furthermore, even if there were bugs, that's for the creator of the simulation to notice and fix, not the simulated apes per-occupied with voting for Hillary or Trump.

Re:Scientology not Science

[lgw]

If the universe were being run right now in debug mode with frequent pauses and on-the-fly bugfix-and-continue changes ... would you know? There'd be no evidence in-universe after all.

Re:Scientology not Science

[Antique Geekmeister]

> Even if there are bugs, you can just stop the simulation, fix the bugs and start it over.

As a developer and administrator for decades, dealing with increasingly complex systems, I must say "no". Many complex systems have bugs that are "emergent". They emerge from subtle interactions among smaller components, and can be devastatingly destructive to your existing system to repair. Examples include exceeding the size of expected storage through conditions that were never in the original specification, but which were assumed by other developers.

Re:Scientology not Science

[religionofpeas]

Without ANY bugs? Really?

You've never lost your keys and then found them later in a place you were certain you've looked ?

Re:Scientology not Science

[religionofpeas]

The simulation wouldn't necessarily have to be complex. You could simulate the entire universe in a giant Game of Life board, with a handful of very simple rules combined with a huge state space.

Re:Scientology not Science

[ranton]

As for those that think this level of simulation is impossible, it isn't.

Without ANY bugs? Really? The only way this idea works is if you have a divine programmer who cannot make any mistakes who created the universe. This is more like scientology than science.

Whose to say there aren't bugs? As a physics major in college I could certainly be convinced many aspects of general relativity and quantum mechanics could be considered bugs. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light? Oops. Quantum entanglement and superposition? We'll fix those in version 2.5. Hopefully by version 4 we can finally get the world to run by what you call Newtonian physics with no exceptions.

Re:Scientology not Science

[Coisiche]

Without ANY bugs? Really?

Two articles ago there was something that looks a lot like a bug to me.

Re:Scientology not Science

[war4peace]

Examples include famine, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, wars, Trump, accidents, murders, insanity, ecological disasters, North Korea, Chernobyl, volcano eruptions, landslides, avalanches... do I need to continue?

Could be that the intent was to create a perfect world and all the above are the bugs.

Re:Scientology not Science

[KozmoStevnNaut]

That could explain why some people claim to be able to know the future, and why you sometimes think you've seen something before in a dream. The memory wipe wasn't 100% perfect, and some spurious data was left over. That could also be why you seem to forget your dreams really quickly after you wake up.

Re:Scientology not Science

[sosume]

What if the programmer is an AI program itself? I'd wager that a self-aware computer won't make silly logic mistakes. What if that AI is residing in another layer of simulation?

Re:Scientology not Science

[Roger W Moore]

In that case you still need the perfect programmer to program the bug-free AI.

Re:Scientology not Science

[JoeMerchant]

As for those that think this level of simulation is impossible, it isn't.

Without ANY bugs? Really? The only way this idea works is if you have a divine programmer who cannot make any mistakes who created the universe. This is more like scientology than science.

If we are in a simulation, I would anticipate it to have about 3 lines of code:

1. initialize multidimensional structure full of 0s with one huge number in one location

2. Apply unified theory of everything to structure

3. goto 2.

Re:Scientology not Science

[Gilgaron]

How would we know the simulation was resumed from a backup after a system crash? If our consciousnesses were preserved in a state at time X before the crash and then the program resumed we wouldn't know.

Re:Scientology not Science

[arth1]

These are all completely consistent with the physical laws of the universe we live in. The simulation must be simulating all the matter and fields we can observe and so bug would be an inconsistency in the laws of physics. For example gravity not working at a certain time or for a certain object etc.

This is incorrect. You only have to simulate one person[*].
And any inconsistency can be corrected, and the emulation replayed from the fix point. No one in the surviving time line would notice.

[*]: Me, obviously.

Re:Scientology not Science

[NickFortune]

Without ANY bugs? Really? The only way this idea works is if you have a divine programmer who cannot make any mistakes who created the universe

Reminds me of one of my favourites from /usr/games/fortune

        "Yo, Mike!"
        "Yeah, Gabe?"
        "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah."
        "I thought you fixed that last century!"
        "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere."
        "Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?"
                -- Cold Fusion, 1989

Re:Scientology not Science

[rhazz]

Maybe all the schizophrenics are a processing thread like the rest of us, but with the DEBUG=true. They see the simulation for what it really is. And without realizing it we set their DEBUG=false by pumping them full of drugs.

Re:Scientology not Science

[whoever57]

Without ANY bugs? Really?

Surely the whole of quantum mechanics is a bug? Spooky action at a distance?

Re:Scientology not Science

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Look at the world around you. I think it's pretty obviously the case.

Re:Scientology not Science

[Marqis]

It's not a bug it's a feature.

I'm not sure how not getting laid in high school was a feature but here we are.

Re:Scientology not Science

[igny]

Considering the rate at which hallucinogenic or other psychotic drugs are being developed/ discovered, it is much more likely that we all live in a hallucination of some megalomaniac.

Re:If the NPCs had self awareness...

[Space cowboy]

Mmm. I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning. You and I can run conway's game of Life on a computer, fast enough to update an entire screen in real time and see things evolve. GPU's are awesome.

But if you and I are the analogues for the nodes in that Life simulation, we have no concept of how much time passes between each simulation step. For all we know, it could take aeons of what we would perceive to be our timebase for the simulation of every Tp (Planck Time). We would never know any different.

The argument of resource is equally unconvincing - to the (strangely, intelligent :-) nodes in our hypothetical game of Life, the very idea of simulating a complex environment is outlandish, but to us it's a simple situation, taking up next to no resources. The expectation is that the next "level up" that would be running our reality as a simulation would be just as much of a difference (or more) to us, as we are to the game of Life. Ad infinitum, of course.

Re:Philosophy != Science

[EzInKy]

Philosophy begets science.

Plenty of problems with argument

[sjbe]

s there a flaw in that argument?"

There are lots of flaws in that argument. It's basically a version of the brain-in-a-jar argument. It is an argument possibly from a false premise. It has no physical evidence and (so far) no testable model to verify it. It's a mathematical and philosophical argument based on extrapolations and probabilities and axioms, not a (yet) physics argument based on empirical evidence.

This is one of those times where somebody from physics tries to play in philosophy without knowing that this is ground that has been covered before.

Re:Slashdot itself

[Ihlosi]

> the distinct feeling that you've never ever had this experience before It's "jamais-vu". When you experience an objectively familiar situation, experience or event as something completely new.

Cokehead

[internet-redstar]

Typical talk of a cokehead... And even if we live in a 'simulation', who cares; it's OUR REALITY... get sober Elon!

Re:I guess he's never worked on hardware or softwa

[skovnymfe]

Or it could just be this is the umpty infinitillionth run of this particular simulation, where the bugs have, for the most part, been fixed?

Because... God?

[thesupraman]

Why, because he does not believe in a mystical being floating somewhere that refuses to confirm or deny 'the rules' but will judge and punish/reward every single human when they die based on those rules?
Or because he takes a more pragmatic path to considering a little further away from the normal 'on no, we are going to die, but we dont want to, god!' crowd, but still wants to perhaps believe in some purpose, therefore considers this to be a possibility?
Or perhaps because he is willing to openly state what he HIMSELF may think, rather than hiding behind the skirts of an organised religion?
Or because he is not making a claim that would lead to greater power for any particular involved group?

Or, most likely, because he does not agree with your own personal worldview?

Right or wrong, good on him for talking about it.

Re:Because... God?

[XxtraLarGe]

Why, because he does not believe in a mystical being floating somewhere that refuses to confirm or deny 'the rules' but will judge and punish/reward every single human when they die based on those rules?

Sounds like you're taking an opportunity to inject an anti-religious argument where no pro-religious argument has been made. Besides, if we were in a simulation, wouldn't this still be the case? There would be someone else on the other side who has created rules, and hasn't confirmed or denied them?

Or because he takes a more pragmatic path to considering a little further away from the normal 'on no, we are going to die, but we dont want to, god!' crowd, but still wants to perhaps believe in some purpose, therefore considers this to be a possibility?

He doesn't consider it a possibility. He's stating that it's a reality with the smallest improbable chance (1 in 1 billion) that it's not the case.

Or perhaps because he is willing to openly state what he HIMSELF may think, rather than hiding behind the skirts of an organised religion? Or because he is not making a claim that would lead to greater power for any particular involved group? Or, most likely, because he does not agree with your own personal worldview?

Maybe you're not replying to the parent post, but if you are, it's pretty crazy that you were able to read all of this into a comment someone made about Elon Musk losing his faculties.

Right or wrong, good on him for talking about it.

Why would it be good if he was talking about something that is wrong?

Re:Energy Use

[bingoUV]

Why would laws of physics in the simulator world bear any resemblance to the laws of physics in our world ?

Simulation, Multiverses, Panspermism = faiths

[Herve5]

Like the idea of Multiverses (you know, this thing when everytime you make a decision, the whole Universe duplicates in two branches, and in the other branch you made the alternate choice), like the theory of Panspermism (life never born around here but brought by some intergalactic comets from unreachable places), we face here a nice theory that completely eliminates the risk of being tested.

In other words, it is not a scientific proposal : it's a faith that is proposed to you.
And a low-grade one at that. The Matrix movie did much better.

We'll soon have enough such topics to start a dictionary, whose first historical chapter would address Angel's sex debates in the Middle Ages.

My concern is, that historical chapter probably will relate the Angel's thing to the time and place where the quarrel happened -the famous city of Byzantia, just when it was about to be destroyed.

History tells us that when a society's intelligence falls this low, its end is very near.

Allegory of the Cave

[bigpat]

The idea that we are living inside a simulation is far from original from Musk.
Perhaps the most prominent contemporary proponent of this idea is the philosopher Nick Bostrom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It's also peripherally related to the idea of a Boltzmann brain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Also there is Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" which describes prisoners in a cave viewing the shadows on the wall as their reality and similarly our own view of reality being perhaps like a "shadow" of a meta reality.

Re:Found one!

[mongothesecond]

Your bug has been accepted to the roadmap. A fix is tentatively be scheduled for four universes from now. -Divine TechSupport