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Are We Living in a Simulation?

luniac

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Maybe yes, maybe not, but it just shifts the focus and if it's true, it still doesn't really answer any big questions: who created the "programmer"/simulation/that super advanced civilization that runs us, what is the universe, is there a God and if there is, does God have any consciousness or is it just a big clockwork-like quantum mechanism, who/what created God etc. And the most important question of them all: what is love? And why can't MJ just take us by the hand and give us all these proven step-by-step strategies on how to effortlessly become a millionaire in less than 365 days?

seriously... been on this forum for 5 years and still poor, I think MJ might be a scammer!!!
definitely not my fastlane to nowhere to blame haha
 
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GMSI7D

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Hi guys!

What's your opinion of Elon Musk's opinion that we're most likely living in a computer simulation?

See Elon Musk's arguments here: Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Elon Musk Thinks So.


yes and this goes deeper than you think.

before going out to search for the matrix, one must begin to look inside and search for thinking biaises that have been put in place since childhood by the matrix

because we can only understand things according to our awareness.

that's why most people are slave of the masters behind the scenes.
 

GMSI7D

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seriously... been on this forum for 5 years and still poor, I think MJ might be a scammer!!!
definitely not my fastlane to nowhere to blame haha

MJ DeMarco is indeed the architect of the matrix called " become the next milionaire "

we are slaves on his forum, writting all day to feed the system


slave.jpg
 
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Digamma

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The concept of a simulated Universe doesn't mean that we live in a literal simulation. It means that the Universe works like a simulation - in simple words, that the world we perceive is a representation of the information, not the information itself. Much in the same way as when you play a videogame - what you see is a representation of bits. That's the interesting part because it tells us something about how the Universe works. Where it resides is really meaningless.

If the universe works like a simulation than the universe is the information - where it resides doesn't change anything, much in the same way as an address is an address whether is written down, said aloud, or just remembered.

Musk shit-talks and the press laps it up and serves you a load of bullshit, as usual.
 

luniac

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The concept of a simulated Universe doesn't mean that we live in a literal simulation. It means that the Universe works like a simulation - in simple words, that the world we perceive is a representation of the information, not the information itself. Much in the same way as when you play a videogame - what you see is a representation of bits. That's the interesting part because it tells us something about how the Universe works. Where it resides is really meaningless.

If the universe works like a simulation than the universe is the information - where it resides doesn't change anything, much in the same way as an address is an address whether is written down, said aloud, or just remembered.

Musk shit-talks and the press laps it up and serves you a load of bullshit, as usual.

maybe the world is the information itself but we can only experience it as a simulation through our 5 senses + conscience?

I always wondered how much "invisible" stuff is around me that i'm just incapable of detecting. higher dimensions and all that.

Makes me wonder about the concept of space too, like if I look at the wall across the room, is it really that "distance" away? I guess I can get up and walk to the wall so the concept of "distance" is a real thing at least locally... lmao I'm confused!
 

ironman150

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The evidence strongly suggests that we don't. Even our very mental construct is determined by our genes not just our body.

If reality is in fact a projection then it doesn't leave room for free will because everything has to be determined kind of like how a play is determined by a script.

I would equate free will to the same type of free will a quarterback has on the field. He can change plays as he see's fit but within the construct of the game. There is an out-of-bounds and a defense (life experiences), players on the offence with him (skill set) and a goal to reach. You see the D (life-ex) make an adjustment to your plans, so you change the play (free will) using your players (skills) to try and get as much yardage as possible. Sometimes you get sacked (health-family issues) or the running back you just gave the ball to gets tackled for a loss (business failure). Sometimes you scramble and pick up yards or throw a pass (free will to choose the receiver). Short pass (MLM, Ebay, Shopify etc), long pass (MJ DeMarco).

Or your on the sidelines watching and hoping to get on the field (job).

Free will with limits. Success based on your development of skills and most importantly, your work ethic. In this set up, i would rather work to be Aaron Rodgers than Tony Manziel.
 

luniac

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Sorry, but that line of linear thinking just doesn't make sense...

That's like telling someone 100 years ago that storing the amount of data we currently have stored on this planet would be impossible, because there aren't enough trees to cut down and turn into paper. Turns out that we were able to innovate and create a better technology for storing data than paper (whodathunkit???).

Who knows, maybe in a year or two or ten or hundred, we'll have technologies that allow us to model the Universe that fit in the palm of our hands. It's no more crazy that the idea of the Internet 100 years ago...

yes I was myself wondering if quantum computing type tech can solve the data size problem.
like maybe everything exists and doesn't exist at the same time or some weird shit.

if a tree falls in the forest and noone's there to hear it, did it make a sound?
 
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luniac

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I would equate free will to the same type of free will a quarterback has on the field. He can change plays as he see's fit but within the construct of the game. There is an out-of-bounds and a defense (life experiences), players on the offence with him (skill set) and a goal to reach. You see the D (life-ex) make an adjustment to your plans, so you change the play (free will) using your players (skills) to try and get as much yardage as possible. Sometimes you get sacked (health-family issues) or the running back you just gave the ball to gets tackled for a loss (business failure). Sometimes you scramble and pick up yards or throw a pass (free will to choose the receiver). Short pass (MLM, Ebay, Shopify etc), long pass (MJ DeMarco).

Or your on the sidelines watching and hoping to get on the field (job).

Free will with limits. Success based on your development of skills and most importantly, your work ethic. In this set up, i would rather work to be Aaron Rodgers than Tony Manziel.

or another theory a character had in the book Metro 2033, u have free will during certain pivotal life decisions(a fork in the road), then you're forced to follow a linear path until the next fork in the road.
 

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ApparentHorizon

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Sorry, but that line of linear thinking just doesn't make sense...

That's like telling someone 100 years ago that storing the amount of data we currently have stored on this planet would be impossible, because there aren't enough trees to cut down and turn into paper. Turns out that we were able to innovate and create a better technology for storing data than paper (whodathunkit???).

Who knows, maybe in a year or two or ten or hundred, we'll have technologies that allow us to model the Universe that fit in the palm of our hands. It's no more crazy that the idea of the Internet 100 years ago...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/dna-could-store-all-worlds-data-one-room
 
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ReubenA

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Sorry, but that line of linear thinking just doesn't make sense...

That's like telling someone 100 years ago that storing the amount of data we currently have stored on this planet would be impossible, because there aren't enough trees to cut down and turn into paper. Turns out that we were able to innovate and create a better technology for storing data than paper (whodathunkit???).

Who knows, maybe in a year or two or ten or hundred, we'll have technologies that allow us to model the Universe that fit in the palm of our hands. It's no more crazy that the idea of the Internet 100 years ago...

Not to mention.. what does '128 Computers' mean? There's a massive range in computing power. Maybe their department is under-funded and has shitty computers.

Not even 100 years, but 10,000 years in the future. What will the world look like in 10,000 years? Think of a caveman trying to understand a smartphone, or even electricity

The argument for us being in a simulation is based on the presupposition that humans will reach a point in time in which the thing in which we're living in can be simulated. Doesn't matter when it happens.

If we can/do.. the chance of us being in base/real reality is very, very low

Lots of info on this here, it's super interesting: Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
 

Digamma

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maybe the world is the information itself but we can only experience it as a simulation through our 5 senses + conscience?

I always wondered how much "invisible" stuff is around me that i'm just incapable of detecting. higher dimensions and all that.

Makes me wonder about the concept of space too, like if I look at the wall across the room, is it really that "distance" away? I guess I can get up and walk to the wall so the concept of "distance" is a real thing at least locally... lmao I'm confused!
It depends on what you mean by "real". The wall is there. The idea that I was trying to express is that in a "simulation" model of how things work, reality is "drawing" or "rendering" the wall, but the instructions on how/where/what to render are elsewhere. Where, doesn't matter - maybe a super computer running a sim, or maybe just a projection of constructs in higher dimensions (imagine a square, but the square is actually the shadow of a cube - but you live in a 2D world and have no idea).
 
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G-Man

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If it turns out to be true, my money is on an ancestor simulation. It's actually trillions of years into the future, and the "real humanity" is huddled around a dwindling number of black holes. They are black hole farming to simulate the glory days of the universe, when nuclear fuel was abundant and the universe was bathed in energy.

"huddled around a dwindling number of black holes" - You had to know it'd be a shitty movie if we're the origin story prequel.
 

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luniac

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It depends on what you mean by "real". The wall is there. The idea that I was trying to express is that in a "simulation" model of how things work, reality is "drawing" or "rendering" the wall, but the instructions on how/where/what to render are elsewhere. Where, doesn't matter - maybe a super computer running a sim, or maybe just a projection of constructs in higher dimensions (imagine a square, but the square is actually the shadow of a cube - but you live in a 2D world and have no idea).

if our reality is not a simulation, where are the instructions stored?
if the instruction themselves are "real" no matter where they're located, then the simulation is real too I guess, although I can see how a square being the shadow of a cube means we really don't have the whole picture.

Like the allegory of the cave and all that.

I guess there's no way to learn the answer relying on human senses since whether or not we live in a simulation, our brain produces yet another layer of simulation on top of that.

Perhaps the human senses are comparable to the chains keeping prisoners in the cave. Maybe meditation really can open up a "sixth sense", "third eye", or something that sees the "real" reality, or expose that it's just a simulation(a shadow), even if we still can't see the cube because we're 2D.
 

7.62x51

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It should be possible today to build a fairly elaborate ancestor simulator. It could cover the entire world and have the most cutting edge graphics, VR support, advanced weather, day/night circles, amazing AI, physics, etc.

Yet no one has done that...why not?

If we wanted to learn about the lives of our ancestors, we open up history books.
If we want scientific data on weather conditions in the past, we take some measurements.
If we want to be entertained, we play Assassin's Creed.

Suppose there was a huge motivation for this and we tried to make it anyway, there would be significant disparities between what was in the simulation and how life was actually like due to limited data, so then what would be the point?

Just because it seems that there is nothing in our world which cannot eventually exist within a simulation, it is myopic to think that humans (or whatever the dominant form of intelligence is) in the next 1000 years will show any greater interest in us than the amount of interest we show to the humans from the last 1000 years.

It's not to say that it can't happen but it's far from an inevitable conclusion.

Cool idea though, makes for great sci-fi, I'd put it in the same category as time-travel, zombie-virus and some kid accidentally inventing general AI in his basement.
 
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scottmsul

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2) There's simply no evidence for it. One would expect to see, as we do with all computer simulations, digitization artifacts (i.e. aliasing in video games). As we probe deeper into the universe, we simply don't see this. That doesn't mean it isn't there, but the lack of it does call the idea into question.

In quantum mechanics, energy levels and states are discretized. Maybe that's the artifacts? Although if the laws of physics in a simulation are indistinguishable from a non-simulation, then there seems no way to tackle the question at all. However, cosmology seems to indicate the geometry of the universe is flat, which would imply an infinitely large universe, which would require infinite processing power, which is impossible on a finite computer, so therefore we're not in a simulation. So who knows?

The way the universe actually works at the deepest levels is probably so strange and incomprehensible that asking "are we in a simulation?" is by comparison extraordinarily naive and provincial lol. We only invented computers 70 years ago.
 
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Delmania

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The way the universe actually works at the deepest levels is probably so strange and incomprehensible that asking "are we in a simulation?" is by comparison extraordinarily naive and provincial lol. We only invented computers 70 years ago.

No, we didn't; computers have been around for hundreds of years. To answer the question at hand, I think a bit of this is projection. At its fundamental level, the universe a massive Turing machine. That means at any given moment, the universe has a given state that will be transformed into the next state by the underlying mechanics we refer to as rules. That's exactly how computers and simulations work. I don't believe we exist in a simulation, I believe Musk is projecting the concept of a simulation into the way the universe operates.
 

lowtek

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In quantum mechanics, energy levels and states are discretized. Maybe that's the artifacts? Although if the laws of physics in a simulation are indistinguishable from a non-simulation, then there seems no way to tackle the question at all. However, cosmology seems to indicate the geometry of the universe is flat, which would imply an infinitely large universe, which would require infinite processing power, which is impossible on a finite computer, so therefore we're not in a simulation. So who knows?

The way the universe actually works at the deepest levels is probably so strange and incomprehensible that asking "are we in a simulation?" is by comparison extraordinarily naive and provincial lol. We only invented computers 70 years ago.

I think if you want to invoke QM as evidence of artifacts, then the existence of so called Planck units is a reasonable argument to make. If we were to observe quantization of space time itself, then I would think that's pretty solid evidence in favor of the simulation hypothesis. Not proof, as it's consistent with other explanations in which we are the "real" universe - but some interesting evidence.

With respect to the infinite universe, we have an event horizon, so the total amount of stuff you have to simulate is finite. We can only see ~14 billion LY in any given direction, even if the universe extends hundreds of billions of LY beyond that.
 

Delmania

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Sounds like a good cop out to be irresponsible with your life imo. Also a reason why I cant "Give it Up" to Jesus. I'm a control freak. I make my decisions and no one else will ever get to take that from me.

In reality you merely think you make decisions. By the time you consciously make it, your brain has already decided. Various neuro scientists have connected devices to people and presented them with choices, and discovered that the brain starts firing signals a few seconds before the person decided.
 
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lowtek

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In reality you merely think you make decisions. By the time you consciously make it, your brain has already decided. Various neuro scientists have connected devices to people and presented them with choices, and discovered that the brain starts firing signals a few seconds before the person decided.

The fact that a person isn't consciously aware of a choice until after the "unconscious" mind has made the choice, doesn't invalidate the experience of free will.

Would you say that the fact we don't feel a burn until after a few hundred milliseconds after the damage somehow means we don't really feel pain?

In both cases, the "unconscious" mind takes in some information, processes it, and makes a decision long before our "conscious" mind is aware of it. In one case you argue it means we don't have some property (free will) - you should be logically consistent and argue we don't feel pain either.

I don't believe in free will either, for the reasons I stated above (it's a figment of our imagination, basically) - but the fact that there are two different scales of processing time and awareness within the brain does not, IMO, constitute a strong argument against free will.
 

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if the instruction themselves are "real" no matter where they're located, then the simulation is real too I guess, although I can see how a square being the shadow of a cube means we really don't have the whole picture.

Like the allegory of the cave and all that.

I guess there's no way to learn the answer relying on human senses since whether or not we live in a simulation, our brain produces yet another layer of simulation on top of that.

If we observed a glitch in the universe, the nerd behind the simulation does a backup restore/rewind. None the wiser...

It should be possible today to build a fairly elaborate ancestor simulator. It could cover the entire world and have the most cutting edge graphics, VR support, advanced weather, day/night circles, amazing AI, physics, etc.

Yet no one has done that...why not?

Lack of sufficient understanding of our physical world and current computer power. Possibly funding too...
 

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SteveO

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What a great conversation. There is definitely more to this world than we realize. How does one explain visions and intuition?
 

SteveO

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In reality you merely think you make decisions. By the time you consciously make it, your brain has already decided. Various neuro scientists have connected devices to people and presented them with choices, and discovered that the brain starts firing signals a few seconds before the person decided.
it is simply the part of ourselves that we choose to remain disconnected from.
 

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