Submitted by izumi3682 t3_z2jqwa in Futurology
Thatingles t1_ixhe7yf wrote
Reply to comment by izumi3682 in How to test if we’re living in a computer simulation by izumi3682
We'll have to agree to disagree, simply because there are so many unknowns. Your hunch is that it's a simulation, mine is that this is a base reality, neither of us can prove it. C'est la vie.
izumi3682 OP t1_ixhqin3 wrote
No, what I said was that it doesn't make a difference if we are in a base reality or a simulation. I just said that we are going to create our own universes with our minds. And we are going to do that in less than 300 years. But the fact that we are making a simulation of our reality sort of makes me think that our reality, which is reality to us, might be a simulation itself. I'm not alone in this way of thinking.
I put it like this. Suppose that a civilization comparable to ours, arose a million years before ours. And that they are, for arguments sake, 300 years ahead of us in technological capability. That alien civilization could do some pretty fantastic things I would imagine. One of which could be abandoning outer space for inner space, where it would be much easier to get around, not being bound by the laws of physics, but more accurately by the laws of coding, which makes anything possible in such worlds. I cover this in my essays.
I just believe that we are going to do the same thing and in probably less than 300 years. I put it like this once.
izumi3682 OP t1_ixj0wdk wrote
Why is this comment downvoted? What am I wrong about?
Thatingles t1_ixmp83t wrote
Well it's not me downvoting you, I disagree with your perspective but in a friendly way.
I understand the arguments in favour of simulation hypothesis but I don't find them convincing compared to the alternative explanation. Let me put it this way.
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There has to be a base reality somewhere, even if simulations are made they must at least start in some form of naturally occurring reality (unless we are in some sort of spontaneously generated looped simulation, a super version of the Matrioshka brain, in which case you could argue it is both a base reality and a simulation).
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We don't know how much computing power would be required to simulate another reality at the fidelity needed to convince it's inhabitants that they are in a base reality or indeed what what types of reality we might simulate
So given the choice between something which has to be true, somewhere, or something which might only be true I choose the option which is least speculative.
The arguments from the perspective of 'if 99% of sentience is simulated, you are probably a simulation' aren't convincing either, because you only get to that point if a bunch of your other assumptions prove to be correct. Or to put it another way, if I accept that there are endless mad gods dreaming of civilisations then I have to believe I am the dream of a mad god - except I don't have any proof that even one mad god exists.
Well, here's hoping some of what you predict will occur and we can talk about this again in a few hundred years.
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