• Markimus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The idea that it’s theoretically possible that we would be able to simulate a universe of our own leads to the hypothesis that we could be living in a simulation ourselves.

    • redballooon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That very much reminds me about the reasoning of Descartes why a god must exist: basically because he can think about it.

      But really, just because you can think of it doesn’t make anything theoretically possible. For the simulation of a universe we have no idea how to do it.

      • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        I think that’s a poor analogy.

        It’s true that we’re not capable of stimulating a universe in appropriate detail presently, but it’s inevitable that at some time we will have that capacity.

        Looking at progress in the last 20 years, and extrapolate another thousand years, it’s entirely plausible that one could spin up a “universe” on a personal device to play with.

        • redballooon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s not only about levels of detail. We have no theory about how to compute a universe.

          Moores law already does not hold up any more. There’s nothing to extrapolate.

          I think the analogy is perfect. Thinkers think, but they’re bound in the context of their time and place. Our time and place is full of technology, of course thinkers will spin up an origin myth that is based on technology.

          But that’s really all it is.

          • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            That’s a false dichotomy… “Moores law or bust”. Of course there will be advancements in future.

            I guess there’s two valid positions here:

            We don’t know how to do x therefore it’s not possible, or… we’ve made significant progress in the right direction of doing x and its therefore likely that we will achieve it in time.

            As you said, our thinking is bound in the context of our time and place, it’s difficult to step away from that.

            • redballooon@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No, what I’m saying is, the progress that we’ve seen may be a necessary part (a very small one) of a universe simulation if such a thing can be build.

              But my claim is that we have absolutely no evidence that such a thing can be build, and even less that we’re living in one. As of today the simulation “hypothesis” is as well founded as every other metaphysical claim, creator gods included.

              A sentence like “it’s very likely we live in a simulation” is about as well founded as trying to place us in any other science fiction world that has a 21st century earth at its heart.

      • Markimus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We could already theoretically simulate a universe; our only limiting factor is the amount of power we have available to us.

        It might not be identical to our own universe as we are still missing the necessary knowledge to do that, though who’s to say our host universe has the same laws of physics etc. as ours? It’s not necessary to simulate our host universe, though rather a universe with a specific set of parameters that we decide on.

        That specific set of parameters were likely chosen for our own universe.

    • thebuttonmonkey@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you believe it’s possible we could create that simulation (and why would we only do it once), then it follows it would possible for that simulation to create it’s own simulations. And so on and so on.

      So if it’s possible, then it’s all but impossible that any of this is real.