If I may sum up your argument in my own way: there may be more worlds the deeper you go in the stack of simulations, but there is more time per world higher in the stack, so if our 14 billion year old universe is a deep simulation as some say is probable, then the real world is much, much older than 14 billion years old, and so probably has (had) far more observers in it than in any simulated world, making us more likely to find ourselves one of those real observers than a simulated observer. — Pfhorrest
Even if we did live in a simulated world, the data relating to the simulated world would have to be stored somewhere, and this storage would have to be in something that was 'real'.
So something has to be 'real', but quite what it is, is unknown. Even if we live in a non-simulated world, we don't really know what is 'real' and I am thinking of the ephemeral string theories here. — A Seagull
s there any disagreement about this argument? Annoying if I won't get a good argument about an argument because my argument is good enough :P — Qmeri
3. If (like in Men in Black) the universe is much smaller than the owner of the simulation and his computer, then maybe something is possible
4. The old standby, there is but one base reality and untold numbers of simulations, so we must be in the latter — Devans99
The OP addresses the point 4 by saying that the odds of being in one of the many simulations is reduced by the fact that time in said simulations has to run slower than time in the base reality, so simulations are necessarily younger and have fewer observers in them. — Pfhorrest
Point 3 ends up with pretty much the same result: if simulated universes are necessarily smaller than the base reality, then fewer observers are likely to be in simulated universes. — Pfhorrest
For example say the simulation runs at 60fps. But in base reality each frame takes 1 second to calculate. So each minute in base reality corresponds to a second in the simulation. But trillions have years have passed in base reality, so it would be possible for our 14 billion year universe to be a simulation. — Devans99
Each simulated universe could contain more simulated universes. So Faberge egg style nesting. Base reality contains say X individuals, each nested universe contains X smaller individuals. — Devans99
Pneumatic digital computers are an actual thing. Voltage is continuous too, that doesn't stop us from using "high voltage" and "low voltage" as discrete states, switching between them, and making digital computers out of that. The same can be done with water, air, basically anything that flows. — Pfhorrest
Right. You can SIMULATE a continuous system with a discrete one. But their fundamental nature is different. — fishfry
the main thrust of my point ("everything is computation" is just an evolution of "everything is a machine", — Pfhorrest
I'm not trying to change your mind about whether or not the mind is algorithmic, I'm just commenting on the progression of technologies-people-think-the-mind-is-like that you mentioned. — Pfhorrest
I'm not sure I follow your reasoning entirely. Would a simulation require to calculate everything that was and is? Would the fact that it only needs to render observations make it easy enough? Or did you take that already into account? — Benkei
Therefore if we don't specify our own processes and prove that they are somehow necessarily hugely more represented in simulated worlds than in non-simulated worlds, we most likely live in a non-simulated world. Any thoughts? — Qmeri
If a simulation leaves anything that affects ones observations in any way irregardless of how indirect not processed, then that could be observed and differentiated by us since our observations would not be exactly the same as they would be in a non-simulated world. And the existence of things that do not affect our observations in any way is highly controversial. — Qmeri
If I may sum up your argument in my own way: there may be more worlds the deeper you go in the stack of simulations, but there is more time per world higher in the stack, so if our 14 billion year old universe is a deep simulation as some say is probable, then the real world is much, much older than 14 billion years old, and so probably has (had) far more observers in it than in any simulated world, making us more likely to find ourselves one of those real observers than a simulated observer. — Pfhorrest
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