Talk:Why we are not living in a Simulation
From Simulism
Very unpopular view on this Wiki... any comments? (ducks out of the way as stuff is thrown) --TonyFleet 21:34, 7 March 2007 (CET)
Tony,
"So the question is, if anyone can do this, why would they wish to run a simulation? What would be its purpose?"
"Let us say that all this is possible. The beings who have reached this stage have effectively solved all the problems in the universe. They understand biology, they understand themselves, they know all about physics; if they don't they can't create a reality simulation. So the question is, if anyone can do this, why would they wish to run a simulation? What would be its purpose?"
I imagine one answer to be a profound sense of emptiness. Realization that finally understanding all of the universe's processes is just as fullfilling as dinner at a Chineese restaurant, and that we and our simulated relations are "the only things that make the emptiness bearable".
I do not think understanding the universe's processes are all that interesting. Sure, it will take some great thinkers some time but who really cares about that other than the practical benifits it will bring and the actual achievement. We really want to know who or what created us and why. We may need to create zillions of simulations, like colonies of rats, and let them progress at their own pace to solve the unsolvable.
I think we must be living in either a simulation or an experiment. If the theory of evolution is correct, we are living in one of several parallel experimental threads of nature. The design of nature seems to be that it creates experiment after experiment, with each experimental thread lasting just as long as it can find a way to last. We don't know why but it would seem that we are in a rather brutal experiment to generate the most efficient, adaptable creature within a particular dynamic environment that will advance the experiment to another level. Or, if certain religions are correct then some type of God created the universe. He may have even created others. We don't know why, but possibly to test us or teach us, or test, confirm, or deny, one of God's ideas. In any case, we are living in some sort of wrapper environment, virtual machine, or substrate if you will. Even if the world or reality as we know it is the substrate.
--Maughaum
You may well be right. If there were a God, on his or her ir its own, with nothing else, the emptiness must have been/is/will be completely unbearable. Invention of some other part which is not God would be the only thing to stop insanity. If this is it, we are figments of an imagination, a delusion, the only purpose of which is to avoid complete and utter madness for the whole of eternity.
--TonyFleet 00:24, 8 March 2007 (CET)
