If the universe was fine tuned for our life...

[IATIA]

I've had dreams where I know absolutely that I am not dreaming. Then I wake up. It's an odd feeling to say the least.

I have, probably like most, had similar dreams. I have also, over the last few years, attempted, with some success, at lucid dreaming.

I have also had dreams that not only seem real at the time, but lasted longer than I was asleep. Ergo my belief that time does not exist and is only a relative view of perceived causality.

[robvalue]

That is a great point. I've had dreams which I could swear have gone on for several hours, in the space of about a minute of nodding off and waking.

[Heywood]

-Inside- perspective. Keep up. If I am a simulant I may very well exist in a "real" world (just like the simulants we actually observe do). My being a simulant does not imply or lead to any exterior world being simulation (nor does it put any of the limitations we see in our sims on the one I may be a fixture of). See how difficult it is to avoid the comp on this? You think my position is contradictory because you do not understand your own, what it's implications are...and what they -aren't-.

A sub reality is part of the parent reality. It exists as an object in the parent reality but within itself contains its own space.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then, again, we have no examples of a sub-reality to make observations from. There is no "in there" in your games Heywood - only "out here". The illusion of motion that you see - that's happening "out here". It's all "out here", every bit. The game is a description of the operation of a machine, not a window into another dimension or some portal to alternate space. The "in there" is supplied by -you-, programmers can't make that happen, comp engineers can't make that happen - they can only arrange a clever set of pictures and sound that gives you such an impression, they can only build machines which can generate a more compelling illusion.

[IATIA]

Even if we could create a sub reality at the level portrayed in "The Thirteenth Floor", how would we even know?

[Heywood]

Even if we could create a sub reality at the level portrayed in "The Thirteenth Floor", how would we even know?

Very smart people are working on how we could tell if we are existing in a sub reality right now. There are published paper detailing on how we can test for it. There are some serious concerns. If we proved we were living in a sub reality would those simulating us still find us useful? Knowing we are just simulants is sure to change our behavior and that fact might make us no longer useful.

Also it is figured that around 2050 we will have the computing power to make our own ancestor simulations. This may cause a stacking problem if we are indeed in a simulation. The computer running our simulated reality would also then have to run the simulated reality we create. It might not be powerful enough so our simulated reality would be ended or "restored" back to a point when we did not have such capabilities.

Armageddon might be 30-35 years away.

[Lucanus]

[citation needed]

[robvalue]

I can't think of any possible way to test that we are in a simulation. The nearest thing I have to "evidence" is that there is a limit to relative speed, which seems like a computer trait, but I'm sure that says more about my ignorance than the nature of reality.

If anyone has links to serious studies being done in this, actually testing it, I'd be very interested. I know all about the simulation hypothesis, it's very cool but is far from solid yet. Awful lot of assumptions.

The problem I have is that whatever we discover about our reality, how do we know it isn't "just that way"?

The only test I have heard of is to see if the usual laws go wonky at the boundaries, if there are any. But again, we describe not prescribe with laws, so who's to say that isn't just what happens anyway?

---

However... It would make a bit of sense of the uncertainty principle and electrons having probability space instead of definite positions.

Memory saving devices?

But again... It could just be like that.

---

It's interesting, but I dunno, I'm not too convinced yet. It seems to be about testing reality against what we think reality would/should be like, and comparing it to other stuff like computer programs. I don't think we know enough about reality to be able to predict what should be happening, if we ever can.

But I'll reserve judgement until I've read more about it. (But it's bollocks.)

---

Ok, here's the thing. If anyone can help me with this, please do!

We have one "reality" let's say. We have no knowledge of any other realities, or any evidence that there are any others.

So how can we say anything comparative about this reality? If I claim this reality is the sort of reality with a quality X that not all realities have then:

How do I know there are any other realities? If there aren't, it's a meaningless statement.

If there are any other realities, what would a reality without the quality X be like?

The answer to the above seems to be, "I dunno, but it wouldn't look like this."

This is my problem with intelligent design, and claiming we are in a simulation reality. And anything else really. We are the biggest reality? The best? We have nothing to compare it to. What would a non simulation reality be like?

Comparing reality to other facets of the same reality seems to me like proving the bible is true using the bible. And we all know how well that works out.

[The Grand Nudger]

Very smart people are working on how we could tell if we are existing in a sub reality right now. There are published paper detailing on how we can test for it. There are some serious concerns. If we proved we were living in a sub reality would those simulating us still find us useful? Knowing we are just simulants is sure to change our behavior and that fact might make us no longer useful.

A serious concern about "those simulating us"....who? Just how serious a concern is that....really?

Also it is figured that around 2050 we will have the computing power to make our own ancestor simulations. This may cause a stacking problem if we are indeed in a simulation. The computer running our simulated reality would also then have to run the simulated reality we create. It might not be powerful enough so our simulated reality would be ended or "restored" back to a point when we did not have such capabilities.

-this is fucking idiotic. I implement computing systems in minecraft. I don't find myself having to revert a world simply because I simulate a machine within a simulation being run by a machine. You might be familiar with this sort of thing yourself - emulators (ATARI,NES,SEGA,PS running on a PC). The environment a sim runs in puts hard limits on what can be done or made by that system. I can arrange for an effect which might seem like it could break the machine (to a person with little to no fucking clue...). For example, running a simulated 128bit alu on my 64bit system.....with 4 instances of parallel implementation. Seems like it would be too much, how do you get 128bits out of 64...well, I don't..I use 32, the 128bit alu is a simulation (a useful illusion). Could, of course, run 16 of the machines pictured below to achieve the same effect. The manner in which it's achieved is fairly simple - though an explanation would probably only confuse the issue. Fair amount of trickery involved.

---

---

---

---

an NES in Minecraft - or how I would build an NES today, rather than how it was built in the 80's (different architecture, particularly the adder, ram, and bus - the program memory is mechanically identical, quite proud of that actually). I use 7-segment displays for UI instead of a TV because there's no satisfactory way to implement a TV ingame (hard limits....if I could make a tv that might break the machine I would...but I can't). It can run Mario Bros...even though you wouldn't recognize it, nor could you play it.

Armageddon might be 30-35 years away.

Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow?

[robvalue]

Indeed. Even if we are a simulation, there's no reason to think anyone is even watching it anymore. Even if they are, they will "see" it all as a computer version which may appear nothing like what we think is going on. And why would they give a flying fuck about a cancerous life form slowly screwing over one bit of grit in one tiny Galaxy? And not even a real piece of grit.

If I imagine stuff in my head, does it become real in some abstract otherworld? Can the people in my imagination imagine a world into existence too?

All seems like Sci fi stuff to me right now.