In one sense, because of the game’s procedural design, the entire universe exists at the moment of its creation. In another sense, because the game only renders a player’s immediate surroundings, nothing exists unless there is a human there to witness it.
With a complex algorithm and a single seed an entire universe (264 planets) and everything in it is accounted for (although obviously not generated). It is predetermined what you will find if you fly off into the distance – even though that distant thing doesn't actually "exist" yet. — Michael
Minor adjustments to the source code can cause mountains to unexpectedly turn into lakes, species to mutate, or objects to lose the property of collision and plummet to the center of a planet. “Something as simple as altering the color of a creature,” Murray noted, “can cause the water level to rise.”
The analogy would only hold if the universe is a computer program. That begs the question as to what does it run on or in, and who wrote it. — John
So the major thing is that this world is driven from a single point of view and does not reflect a god's eye coherent point of view. It generates "more world" from wherever you have got to in the game's structure - so incorporates a local personal history. But the real world incorporates a global history in generating its every next step. — apokrisis
This is what I'm questioning. Is it necessary that a real world incorporates a global history? Or is it metaphysically possible for a real world to behave in the same sort of way where "more world" is generated from a single point of view?
Why would a real world have to fake a history - like you dig in the ground and find the mineralised bones of dinosaurs? — apokrisis
I didn't mean to suggest that a real world would have a fake history. I meant to suggest that (in this hypothetical world) the bones we see when we dig don't exist before we see them; instead what "exists" is the "function" that determines that when we dig in a certain spot we will see bones.
What I'm asking is whether such a world is metaphysically possible and whether it would be empirically indistinguishable from our world.
Well my point - again - is that the existence of a historical aspect to this reality would be one kind of empirical evidence against it being the case.
So I am granting your indistinguishability claim - we can't tell if things were always there or generated as we go along.
But then given that, if this world has a look of history, then that still counts as empirical evidence against it being generated.
Given two options - a metaphysics that is consistent with what we experience, and one that would be in contradiction - then we have a reason to prefer the consistent story. And that is the one where the appearance of history is evidence of actual history (just as a lack of apparent history would be evidence in favour of a "generate as you go" ontology). — apokrisis
Yeah, I definitely think some of the classical transcendental idealists could be read as claiming that the universe is procedurally generated based on a starting facticity (roughly, the 'program,' the 'thing in itself') combined with a generation of the empirical world 'on the fly' as the knower's faculties come into contact with it. — The Great Whatever
And so as I suggest, the kind of world that does unfold before our questing gaze ought to be generated in some kind of accordance with our wishes. This becomes an empirical test (even if a reasonably modest one) of idealism as a metaphysical hypothesis. — apokrisis
How would the transcendental idealist or simulationist deal with the fact that accidents happen all the time? I could get struck by lightning and never see the bolt before it kills me. — darthbarracuda
As far as I can see this doesn't follow or support realism. Idealism has never claimed, to my knowledge, that whatever you want to happen happens, nor do I see what would ever commit it to that. — The Great Whatever
And yet it follows that if the world is truly generated from a personal viewpoint, then there has to be some reasonable account of why that isn't the case. — apokrisis
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