this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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I don't think that we're in a simulation, but I do find myself occasionally entertaining the idea of it.

I think it would be kinda funny, because I have seen so much ridiculous shit in my life, that the idea that all those ridiculous things were simulated inside a computer or that maybe an external player did those things that I witnessed, is just too weird and funny at the same time lol.

Also, I play Civilizations VI and I occasionally wonder 'What if those settlers / soldiers / units / whatever are actually conscious. What if those lines of code actually think that they're alive?'. In that case, they are in a simulation. The same could apply to other life simulators, such as the Sims 4.

Idk, what does Lemmy think about it?

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[โ€“] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Okay, but you're glossing over the point, so let's talk about black holes. They are part of our universe, information can go in past the event horizon, but no information can come out past the event horizon. Are they connected? Yes, absolutely. Can we collect any information from them, beyond a few basic physical measurements (gravity, momentum, rotation, mass-energy)? No, that whole event horizon again. So are you proposing that causality doesn't exist in black holes, doesn't exist in our universe, or that maybe we can have an interconnected system with a one-way transfer of information?

Again, I'm sure someone with a PhD could not only come up with better reasons for the flaw in your assessment, but has probably already articulated it somewhere. Perhaps you should search that up.

[โ€“] mister_monster@monero.town 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Information comes out of black holes. That's the whole point of the Hawking radiation thing. And information enters, obviously. Also those few basic measurements are information. Black holes are falsifiable and detectable.

Causality inside black holes is not like causality out here, but it does exist. Once you enter, there's only one direction you can go, no matter what you do. The outcome of everything was decided the moment you touched the event horizon. That outcome is that you will eventually evaporate as hawking radiation.

I'm not glossing over the point. I've already addressed the crux of it. An environment in which systems can be totally isolated cannot function in any conceivable way as a universe. Everything inside would not be able to interact at all. It would be more like a substrate on which universes exist, if an environment can be isolated that does not allow for anything inside it to be 100% isolated.

[โ€“] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Energy is not information. You are misinformed.

[โ€“] mister_monster@monero.town 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yes it is lol I love being called misinformed by misinformed people. You should look into hawking radiation and why it was theorized.

[โ€“] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well, after doing some reading, you may be right. I didn't hear about the issues brought up, and Hawkings responses in 2004. It seems the consensus is that information is conveyed somehow, with some limits on practicality. That may still raise issues with determining whether you're in a simulation, if the capability to determine if you are is beyond the reach of your technology. At that point though, the only way you can falsify the hypothesis is to increase your capabilities to the point where you can test that, and I don't think we're there now.

[โ€“] mister_monster@monero.town 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If we aren't there yet, no point in believing it's true. It's like believing in god because we don't have the technology to prove or disprove god. We can't believe something that's not currently falsifiable, we have to disbelieve it until we see evidence of it. I don't think we are in a simulation.

I do think though that if it were true it could be detected with current capability, just that, if it is true, nobody has drawn the conclusion and investigated it yet. And information leaking in or out could be anything. The expansion rate increase of the universe could be energy leaking into the simulation. The speed of light could be a hard limit in the outside environment or something like a "clock speed" of the machine the simulation is running on. A slowly changing constant of nature, it could be anything. If it is true, there are indicators we are probably detecting, it's just that we haven't figured out what they're indicating.

[โ€“] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago

You can believe or disbelieve anything you want. I don't think we're in a simulation. I dismiss the idea because we don't appear to currently be able to prove or disprove it and the outcome currently doesn't have a bearing on our options.