The implications of reality being a simulation

[Nous]

I made this thread to be about the human implications of people believing Simulism to be true - not about whether or not it is true.
​

Oh, OK. That's a much better question than what I attempted to address.

I would think that believing that "simulism" (yours is the first time I've come across that term) is true would be kind of demoralizing for a person, would leave a person with a sort of nihilistic view of everything. "Nothing's real, nothing matters; I'm unaffected by any pain I might cause"--I would think it might instill that sort of outlook.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

It's hardly confirmation bias when the evidence is strong enough to disprove it , with zilch evidences that any alternate methodology or means is at play.

The idea of a simulation is pretty far-fetched to begin with considering it's already been conclusively proven it's not a simulation by the experts, and I'm not aware of any real additional proofs or conclusions to the contrary that there are even plausible alternates that could effectively create a simulation.

You're talking about George Noory material here.

It has NOT been "proven it's not a simulation by experts" at all. Even your cited article didn't make such a claim. Go read the whole thing, rather than skimming google results for bias confirming headlines.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Oh, OK. That's a much better question than what I attempted to address.

I would think that believing that "simulism" (yours is the first time I've come across that term) is true would be kind of demoralizing for a person, would leave a person with a sort of nihilistic view of everything. "Nothing's real, nothing matters; I'm unaffected by any pain I might cause"--I would think it might instill that sort of outlook.

I don't see that that necessarily follows. Assuming I am a simulation, I still experience the universe as though it were physical. Asuming the same is true of everyone else, then the same logic of morality that guides me in a physical universe holds true in the simulated universe.

Now, of course one could argue that although my simulated experience is real, other residents in the simulation are NPCs with no internal life, and therefore a different moral code could apply. To that I'd remind you of the various solopsistic movements and "philosophical zombie" theories that have been argued in the (presumably ) real universe previously. Until we can actual determine if anyone is a real universe philosophical zombie, or a simulated NPC, the moral and logical thing to do is treat them with all the compasion and empathy we ourselves expect.

Ultimately, it's a fun thought experiment, but so long as Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" and Johnson's "I prove it thus!" Hold true, it doesn't make any difference whether we're in one or the other.

 

[Salvador]

I would put simulation theory in the same category as flat-earthers. It's already been disproved aside from a few holdouts.

Physicists Confirm That We're Not Living In a Computer Simulation

Physicists now can't actually disprove if our universe is a simulation, In the words of Zohar Ringel, the lead author of the paper you've cited, "there is no reason that the laws of physics should apply outside it. “Who knows what are the computing capabilities of whatever simulates us?”

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Physicists now can't actually disprove if our universe is a simulation, In the words of Zohar Ringel, the lead author of the paper you've cited, "there is no reason that the laws of physics should apply outside it. “Who knows what are the computing capabilities of whatever simulates us?”

Or if the whole universe needs be simulated at once?

 

[Salvador]

I would put simulation theory in the same category as flat-earthers. It's already been disproved aside from a few holdouts.

Physicists Confirm That We're Not Living In a Computer Simulation

Even in a highly realistic simulation, not every thing at the quantum level would need to simulated, only energy/matter that's observed would need to be simulated, thereby conserving enormous computational resources.

A particle passing through a double-slit behaves as a wave causing an interference pattern when unobserved, but this same particle doesn't create an interference pattern when its path of travel can be determined by an observer. This collapse of the wave-function could indeed be what's happening in order to save computational resources necessary for our simulated reality.

 

[Salvador]

Or if the whole universe needs be simulated at once?

Good question; of course, only what's observed would need to be simulated rather than the entire universe.

 

[David T]

I would put simulation theory in the same category as flat-earthers. It's already been disproved aside from a few holdouts.

Physicists Confirm That We're Not Living In a Computer Simulation

"The realisation we are within a simulation would I believe have a unifying effect –"

This is verbatium modern christianity. Its delusuonal its lost in its own thoughts its confused and its not even the bible. No bible is needed and is not related to the bible at all..

 

[David T]

Physicists now can't actually disprove if our universe is a simulation, In the words of Zohar Ringel, the lead author of the paper you've cited, "there is no reason that the laws of physics should apply outside it. “Who knows what are the computing capabilities of whatever simulates us?”

Insane delusional dissassociation. I put This theorist in the ken ham catagory nonsense. Because someine is a physicist doea not make them an expert on amything except a very narrow specific aspects modeled out into math language and thats it.

 

[David T]

It has NOT been "proven it's not a simulation by experts" at all. Even your cited article didn't make such a claim. Go read the whole thing, rather than skimming google results for bias confirming headlines.

Amen!!! Not only has it not been proven Simulatuons are used as foundational statements in science. A bit like my model is reality about reality. Nonsense circular self referencial.

 

[Salvador]

What do people think the consequences would be of humankind believing itself (in considerable numbers) to live within a simulation? Regardless of whether or not this is the case. Here are my thoughts:

“Simulism” is the belief that we humans and our reality are somehow simulated, most likely by some kind of advanced computer the likes of which we cannot imagine let alone understand and think about. The creators of The Simulation would be a race of super-advanced beings.

But what if the whole world – or more realistically a significant portion of it – came to believe we were living in a simulation? In this post I shall discuss the consequences this would have on humankind.

If we are in The Simulation then what does that say about our humanity? One term that has been used is “virtual human”. Such beings would be reincarnated somewhere within The Simulation once they die. The workings of reincarnation would be done from behind a veil of ignorance but would be scrupulously fair and perhaps somehow related to our conduct? Unless it’s done by blind chance. But the thing is, either way we would not know where on Earth (or any other planet) we would be reincarnated, which would be a powerful reason to make the whole of our world a good place to live, lest one gets reborn in some horrid corner.

The realisation we are within a simulation would I believe have a unifying effect – as we would all be equal participants of The Simulation, regardless of race, sex, sexuality, or whatever. Also, as we die and are reborn we would exist as different races and sexes, meaning that (for instance) in one life one could be a man and in another a woman. This would I believe make people take racial and gender equality much more seriously and would result in a more equal society.

In some lives we would live in poor, undeveloped countries and in others we would live in a rich, highly developed country. I believe we’d take it in turns to live good lives and bad lives, so it would be in all our interests to make the whole wide world a better place in which to live as we don’t know in what part of it we’ll be born into in our next life.

So basically, if a great number of us believed we were living in a simulation the world would, due to rational self-interest, become an increasingly equal and developed place.

Assuming The Simulation is mechanical as opposed to organic then that would mean that the so-called “hard problem of consciousness” has been solved, by the creators of The Simulation. If of course there is a valid distinction to be made between “mechanical” and “organic”.

Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia

Premise 1: The hard problem of consciousness must be solved to produce sentient AI
Premise 2: We are sentient AI
Conclusion 1: Somewhere, the hard problem of consciousness has been solved.
Conclusion 2: Sentient AI is therefore possible.

This is at least valid!

This would mean that human civilization within The Simulation could someday produce sentient Artificial Intelligence. Unless of course we humans will always be much less able than the creators of The Simulation! But we can at least imagine as a possibility a future in which we can produce Artificial Consciousness within The Simulation. It would follow that such beings would also be citizens of The Simulation, which would mean in one life a person could be a human, and in another some kind of sentient “machine”.

What would happen to religion if significant numbers of people started to believe that we are living in a simulation? I think the world’s religions would continue, no doubt. And that most people would not believe we’re in a simulation, at least initially. But perhaps people would embrace Simulism as some kind of secular humanist philosophy? I think if Simulism were to become a philosophy rather than a hypothesis then the world would become a much better place, as I’ve previously explained.

But of course, it is still possible to believe in Simulism and a Supreme Being – it’s just that there’s an extra layer between humanity and the Supreme Being (namely The Simulation admin and its overseers). I personally believe in an ineffable God who rules over the whole of ultimate reality. And it is entirely possible that the influence of the Supreme Being reaches into The Simulation. But we could never understand this being – God – just as an ant cannot understand subtraction or grammar.

I don’t believe the world’s religions are lies, based on things done by The Simulation rather than God although I did use to. I do not believe, for instance, that The Simulation gave Moses the Ten Commandments, whilst pretending to be God. I believe all human religions arise from a mix of history, culture, myths, and the imagination, and various things that either didn’t happen or did, but were either added to and subtracted from later on. But I still believe in God – perhaps a Deist God?

To some, the Simulism hypothesis may sound bleak. I think it’s an uplifting idea and that if people came to believe in it the world would eventually become a better place. It would also mean that it is possible for a species to become ultra-advanced, which would give science and technology something to aspire to, to learn what the over-seers know. Perhaps some day we will become post-singularity space-faring post-human species, and become the equal to those who created The Simulation. But basically, I believe that the future of this planet, were people to believe in Simulism, would be a much happier one.

But of course, whether or not we’d like it to be true has nothing to do with whether or not it is!​

The implications of a simulated reality may likely have the same implications as the delayed-choice quantum-eraser experimentation results.

Figure 1. Setup of the delayed-choice quantum-eraser experiment of Kim et al. Detector D0 is movable

Figure 2. x axis: position of D0. y axis: joint detection rates between D0 and D1, D2, D3, D4 (R01, R02, R03, R04). R04 is not provided in the Kim article and is supplied according to their verbal description.

Figure 3. Simulated recordings of photons jointly detected between D0 and D1, D2, D3, D4(R01, R02, R03, R04)


The experimental setup of the earliest performed DCQE involved an argon laser that shot 351.1 nm photons which went through a double-slit apparatus. After an individual photon went through one (or both) of the 2 slits, a Beta Barium Borate Crystal converted the photon into 2 identical entangled photons at half the original photon's frequency. The paths followed by each of the entangled photons were caused to become diverged by a Glan-Thompson Prism. One of these 702.2 nm photons (the signal photon) then traveled on a path from the Glan-Thompson Prism to a lens and then to a detector designated as D0. This point was scanned along its X-axis. A plot of the "signal photon counts" recorded at D0 versus X were examined to determine if the cumulative signal formed an interference pattern. The other entangled photon (the idler photon) went from the Glan-Thompson Prism to another prism where the idler photon was then deflected along a divergent path, depending upon which slit the photon went through. Beyond this path split, the idler photons encountered beam splitters that gave the idler photon a 50% chance of passing through and a 50% chance of being reflected by a mirror. The beam splitters and mirrors directed the idler photons towards detectors which were designated as D1,D2,D3 and D4. This experiment was setup so if an idler photon was recorded at D1 or D2, then this detected photon could have passed through either slit. If an idler photon were recorded at D3, then it must have passed through the one slit designated as Slit B. If an idler photon were recorded at D4, then it must have only passed though the one slit designated as Slit A. The optical pathway from slit to D1,D2,D3 and D4 was 2.5m longer than the pathway length from slit to D0. Thus, information acquired from an idler photon would occur 8ns later than information acquired from the corresponding entangled signal photon. The idler photon recorded at D3 or D4 provided a delayed "which-path" indication of whether the signal photon with which it was entangled had gone through Slit A or B. Whereas, the idler photon recorded at D1 or D2 provided a delayed indication that such "which-path" information was not available for its entangled signal photon. The experiment used a coincidence counter to isolate the entangled signal from photo-noise, recording only events where both signal and idler photons had been detected. ( after compensating for the 8ns delay ) When signal photons whose entangled idler photons were recorded at D1 or D2, the experimenters detected an interference pattern. When signal photons whose entangled idler photons were recorded at D3 or D4, the experimenters detected a simple diffraction patterns with no interference.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 1 (2000) - Delayed ``Choice'' Quantum Eraser

Reference: Delayed “Choice” Quantum Eraser Yoon-Ho Kim, Rong Yu, Sergei P. Kulik, Yanhua Shih, and Marlan O. Scully Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 1 – Published 3 January 2000 Issue
Vol. 84, Iss. 1 — 3 January 2000


The DCQE is unlike the classic double-slit experiment, in that the choice to preserve or obfuscate the which-path information of the idler photon was not done until 8ns after the position of its corresponding signal photon had already been measured at D0.

Although, an idler photon was unobserved until after its corresponding entangled signal photon arrived at D0, interference at D0 was determined by whether a signal photon's entangled idler photon was recorded at D1 or D2 which was on a pathway where the photon's "which-path" information had been obfuscated, or at D3 or D4 which was on a pathway where the photon's "which-path" information was preserved.

Does the DCQE indicate that the delayed choice to observe or not observe the idler photon's path affect the outcome of a past event?

Does Relativity reveal that if quantum entanglement influences are able to travel faster than light, then they must also be able to travel backward in time and influence the past (which they do in this experiment)?

I suppose that'd be all fine and dandy, so long as there'd be no immediately decode-able information transfer FTL into the past. So then, you couldn't go into the past and kill off your great great great grandparents, and create a paradox.

Does the universe permit anything that doesn't make paradoxes, including FTL and backwards time travel of certain quantum influences (which are intertwined in relativity)?

Perhaps you can reach back into time, so long as you preserve causality. Your changes would have to look like noise at the time, and could only have been seen to be otherwise when it's too late to make any difference (or light has had time to travel that far anyway, in the case of FTL)

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[Twilight Hue]

Even in a highly realistic simulation, not every thing at the quantum level would need to simulated, only energy/matter that's observed would need to be simulated, thereby conserving enormous computational resources.

A particle passing through a double-slit behaves as a wave causing an interference pattern when unobserved, but this same particle doesn't create an interference pattern when its path of travel can be determined by an observer. This collapse of the wave-function could indeed be what's happening in order to save computational resources necessary for our simulated reality.

Even if for sake of argument we are in a type of simulation. Even so , that simulation would be an aspect of actual reality and not really in any true sense "fake".

Another way of putting it would be when I recalled a vivid dream I had that still sticks with me. While within the dream, that was reality in every sense of the word only to notice it was not so when I woke up.

I'm more inclined to view things as not a simulation per se, but a reality of flux, a continuum by which we live and exist.

 

[wizanda]

I still haven't seen any study that demonstrated that computer programs have experiences or act willfully. And I know of no rational reason to conclude that computer programs have experiences of act willfully.

Acting willfully is just a series of reactions based on previous criteria being acted upon, due to previous results.

Many interactive computer programs function based on experiences being recorded, that then cause reactions.

If you had more knowledge on how code functions, you'd already be understanding this.

In my opinion.

 

[Salvador]

The implications or ramifications of living in a simulation is no different than that of living in base reality. In the end, it's game over and lights out for everybody. ...

 

[Nous]

Acting willfully is just a series of reactions based on previous criteria being acted upon, due to previous results.

Many interactive computer programs function based on experiences being recorded, that then cause reactions.

If you had more knowledge on how code functions, you'd already be understanding this.

In my opinion.

I definitely need evidence in order to conclude that computer programs have experiences or act willfully. Apparently there is no study that demonstrates such, and therefore I know of no rational reason to conclude that computer programs have experiences of act willfully.

 

[Salvador]

Acting willfully is just a series of reactions based on previous criteria being acted upon, due to previous results.

Many interactive computer programs function based on experiences being recorded, that then cause reactions.

If you had more knowledge on how code functions, you'd already be understanding this.

In my opinion.

Theoritical physicist Dr. S. James Gates Jr. claims that a certain string theory, super-symmetrical equations describing the nature and reality of our universe, contains embedded computer codes; these codes have digital data in the form of 0's and 1's identical to what makes web browsers function, and they're error-correct codes.

See here:

 

[Salvador]

I definitely need evidence in order to conclude that computer programs have experiences or act willfully. Apparently there is no study that demonstrates such, and therefore I know of no rational reason to conclude that computer programs have experiences of act willfully.

A "machine" is any causal physical system, hence we are machines; thus, machines can be conscious. The question is: What type of machines could be conscious? Odds are robots passing the Turing Test Turing test - Wikipedia would be indistinguishable from us in their behavioral capacities --and could be conscious (i.e. feel), but we can never be certain.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

I definitely need evidence in order to conclude that computer programs have experiences or act willfully. Apparently there is no study that demonstrates such, and therefore I know of no rational reason to conclude that computer programs have experiences of act willfully.

...yet.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

A "machine" is any causal physical system, hence we are machines; thus, machines can be conscious. The question is: What type of machines could be conscious? Odds are robots passing the Turing Test Turing test - Wikipedia would be indistinguishable from us in their behavioral capacities --and could be conscious (i.e. feel), but we can never be certain.

Chinese room paradox

 

[Nous]

A "machine" is any causal physical system, hence we are machines; thus, machines can be conscious. The question is: What type of machines could be conscious? Odds are robots passing the Turing Test Turing test - Wikipedia would be indistinguishable from us in their behavioral capacities --and could be conscious (i.e. feel), but we can never be certain.

If you ever come across some evidence that computer programs or human-made machines have experiences or are able to act volitionally, be sure to do this @Nous to alert me of it.