If we're in a sim...

AdeleneDawner

My father, who is home recovering from surgery, emailed the following web page to me and a few other members of my family, and expressed interest in reading interesting responses.

If We Are In A Computer Simulation

Is the universe just a big computer simulation running in another universe? Suppose it is. Then I've got some questions:

Are intelligent entities modeled as objects? In other words, are they instantiated and managed as distinct tracked pieces in the simulation? Or is the universe just modeled as huge numbers of subatomic particles and energy?

If intelligences aren't modeled as objects are they at least tracked or studied by whoever is running the sim? Or is the evolution of intelligence in the sim just seen as an uninteresting side effect and irrelevant to the sim's purposes?

Is The Big Bang the moment the sim started running? Or did it start long before that point? Or has it been started at a much later point with data loading in to make it look like it started earlier?

Do the creators of the sim intervene as it runs? Do they patch it?

What is the purpose of the sim? Entertainment? Political decision-making? Scientific research?

Were the physical laws of the universe designed to reduce the computational cost of the sim? If so, what aspects of the physical laws were designed to make computation cheaper?

Imagine the purpose of the sim is entertainment or decision-making. Either way, it could be that out-of-universe sentient beings actually enter this universe and interact with some of its intelligent entities. Interact with simulated people for fun. Or interact in order to try out different experiments of political development. In the latter case I would expect more rerunning of the same sim backed up to restart at the same point but with some alteration of what some people say or do.

So what's your (simulated) gut feeling? Are you in a sim? If so, what's it for?

Any thoughts?

My father, who is home recovering from surgery, emailed the following web page to me and a few other members of my family, and expressed interest in reading interesting responses.

If We Are In A Computer Simulation

Is the universe just a big computer simulation running in another universe? Suppose it is. Then I've got some questions:

Are intelligent entities modeled as objects? In other words, are they instantiated and managed as distinct tracked pieces in the simulation? Or is the universe just modeled as huge numbers of subatomic particles and energy?

If intelligences aren't modeled as objects are they at least tracked or studied by whoever is running the sim? Or is the evolution of intelligence in the sim just seen as an uninteresting side effect and irrelevant to the sim's purposes?

Is The Big Bang the moment the sim started running? Or did it start long before that point? Or has it been started at a much later point with data loading in to make it look like it started earlier?

Do the creators of the sim intervene as it runs? Do they patch it?

What is the purpose of the sim? Entertainment? Political decision-making? Scientific research?

Were the physical laws of the universe designed to reduce the computational cost of the sim? If so, what aspects of the physical laws were designed to make computation cheaper?

Imagine the purpose of the sim is entertainment or decision-making. Either way, it could be that out-of-universe sentient beings actually enter this universe and interact with some of its intelligent entities. Interact with simulated people for fun. Or interact in order to try out different experiments of political development. In the latter case I would expect more rerunning of the same sim backed up to restart at the same point but with some alteration of what some people say or do.

So what's your (simulated) gut feeling? Are you in a sim? If so, what's it for?

Any thoughts?

Sometimes humans have empathy towards suffering things, sometimes they don't. I guess you could say this is a capacity to not have empathy or a capacity to have empathy and our difference about human empathy is a cup half-full or half-empty thing. Of course, as a predictor of how aliens would treat us, the fact that humans aren't consistently empathetic would be a prediction that aliens might not treat us well. I don't expect aliens to treat us well, whereas I expect our simulators would. Perhaps I am giving the simulators too much credit, intelligence-wise and empathy-wise, for how much I am grateful for certain aspects of the universe. Maybe they just cut and pasted a lot from their own universe and I give them too much credit.

If the beings who make the simulation are much smarter than we are, then I see no reason why they wouldn't take our suffering about as seriously as many humans take the suffering of animals for medical research,

I suppose, but nevertheless I'm OK with this. It would be nice to have a purpose.

or even more blunt, how some humans take hunting or dog-baiting or cockfighting, or a hundred other activities that cause pain and suffering to with animals for their sheer amusement.

While I would expect these behaviors from any evolutionary evolved intelligence (excepting whales perhaps), they are so contradictory with other evolved traits, I think they must be transient. For example, many people don't enjoy such things at all and cockfighting is illegal where I live.

If such threads are not meant to be transient, then I am wrong about all of this.

While I would expect these behaviors from any evolutionary evolved intelligence (excepting whales perhaps), they are so contradictory with other evolved traits, I think they must be transient. For example, many people don't enjoy such things at all and cockfighting is illegal where I live.

Sure, many people don't but how much of that is simply due to cultural norms? Many such activities are outlawed more because they are associated with lower classes or marginalized groups. Look at how in the United States hunting is in many areas a popular past-time, wh... (read more)

7

If we're in a sim...

7

7

7

If we're in a sim...

7

7