Like my world? At least according to my math teachers.
Cosmos - With Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Thread starter Greylock Crescent
- Start date
Like my world? At least according to my math teachers.
Yeah, that doesn't really make sense... if our universe is a simulation running within some other universe, then it would be bound by the same laws of mathematics that apply in that universe, since the programmers would use those mathematics to program it in the first place. Not to mention that the computer, its builders, and its programmers would have to exist in a universe with similar enough physics to ours to allow it to have life and technology.
The argument I've heard for us being in a simulation isn't that the math seems too perfect. It's that if we reach the point where we can create a perfect simulation, we'll likely create others as well. So the odds that we're the original version of reality that creates the simulation is very low.
This is of course assuming that we can create a perfect simulation of the universe in the first place. I try not to worry about it. Worst case scenario is that we're The Sims 3000, which would explain a lot.
This is of course assuming that we can create a perfect simulation of the universe in the first place. I try not to worry about it. Worst case scenario is that we're The Sims 3000, which would explain a lot.
^More to the point, the argument is statistical. Eventually, so it says, we'll have enough computing power to simulate a vast number of universes, and any other advanced species in the universe would as well. Therefore, virtually all universes would be simulations, and thus, the probability that our universe is not a simulation is infinitesimal.
This is just focusing on the universe that we believe we're in. We could be a simulation of our universe, but in another universe if the multiverse exists. Because I'd want to run a simulation to see how the universe would play out if things were different. We could be a simulation run by evolved dinosaurs who wanted to see how history would play out if they had gone extinct. The rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper.
No, it's not, because it's a statistical argument. The point is that if a universe can be occupied by intelligent beings that can create countless simulated universes, then simulated universes would immensely outnumber naturally occurring ones -- particularly when you take into account that the denizens of those simulated universes could simulate their own universes, and so on in a vast matryoshka regression. Therefore, if simulated universes so immensely outnumber natural ones, then the odds of any given universe, including ours, being natural are vanishingly low. The basis of the argument is that our universe is not special or exceptional, that it's more likely to be just a typical, run-of-the-mill universe, and therefore overwhelmingly likely to be a simulated one.
Of course, this argument is based on the assumption that a simulated universe is equivalent to a real one in its function and complexity, and I'm not inclined to accept that as an axiom.
Thank God (sic) we have science fiction then, so at some point someone will throw Occam's Razor at us before we get lost down that rabbit hole. 
Mark
Mark
This has probably been posted here somewhere before so I apologize if this is old news but this made my day, what would Tyson sound like stoned?
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSHNyppwS5w[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSHNyppwS5w[/yt]
I might have written a bit a weird but I think we're hitting at the same point.
Still turning out to be a simulated universe that exists in an alternate universe where dinosaurs never went extinct and evolved into a sentient species at least takes the sting out of being simulated.
But if there are multiple universes with multiple versions of ourselves in every possible scenario so that in the big picture nothing we do matters we'd be better off not worrying about it. Because at least we get to enjoy this one, even if it is a simulation.
It may bother some people though.
^Except there probably wouldn't be any "ourselves" in those other universes, because a universe is a hell of a lot more than just Earth or humanity, despite the impression that fiction gives. We're an undetectably tiny drop in a vast ocean. The idea isn't just that we're in an illusory representation of part of an existing universe, like the Matrix. The idea is that the entire universe from the Big Bang onward is a full simulation from scratch that's been running for 13.8 billion years, that it's evolved independently according to its own internal rules, exactly as a real universe would. Whatever life forms would have created the simulation would be totally alien, and might not even be subject to exactly the same physical laws. (The basic mathematics would have to be the same, but the physical parameters they represent could differ.)
The hypothesis isn't about a simulation in the sense of a computer game, but in the sense of a scientific exercise. Some entity in the real universe (or in the next higher level of simulated universes) might be running a series of simulated universes to see how they work, or to test out various possible laws of physics or initial conditions and see the results. Maybe they're trying to design an ideal universe and we're just one of the test runs. Or maybe they're just playing God as a power trip (although if this hypothesis were true, they'd be literally God from our perspective).
Cool episode so far... but how the heck does Tyson, an astronomer, not know how to pronounce "Proxima Centauri"? It's as in "centaur," not "century."
And yes, that was Patrick Stewart voicing William Herschel.
And yes, that was Patrick Stewart voicing William Herschel.
This may be my favorite episode so far. Fantastic topic. I loved hearing Patrick Stewart. Tyson seems much more enthusiastic and animated. And couldn't give a flying fuck how he pronounces "Proxima Centauri."
It's HALL-ees Comet!
Oops, Tyson just fell into the black hole. We're gonna need a new host!
