
Why Reality Is Not a Video Game – And Why It Matters - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/03/09/519376356/why-reality-is-not-a-video-game-and-why-it-matters
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credit_guy
I was really hoping this article would show a clever argument why we don't
live in a simulation. Instead it questions why an advanced civilization would
have any interest in performing this simulation. We can't have the faintest
hope to understand what some super-advanced beings want to do, just like a
drosophila melanogaster fly can't understand why we spent time on Hacker News.

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laughfactory
Yeah, so was I. Instead it was simplistic drivel. I'd expect more from a
theoretical physicist (the author).

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lcw
>"we have no free will"

I preface this by saying I haven't thought about this much or know much about
the subject, but I would argue that a stochastic simulation model would
generate what we consider "free will". I mean if they ran the simulation
multiple times there would be a different outcome so our "decisions" would
matter at that point, and affect the outcome.

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nefitty
The idea of free will is thorny. Even philosophers who work on it a great deal
have a hard time figuring out what anyone means. This is my conclusion, after
much thought: All events necessitate causes, therefore no event, including
human action, can be self-caused. Quantum physics doesn't save free will.
Randomness and unpredictability are just as constricting to human will.

The entire question is super fascinating. It's one of the last remaining
delusions of humanity. Many otherwise thoughtful people are uncomfortable
considering the question at all.

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colorint
Look, here's the thing. We all ought to be able to agree that you could build
a digital computer out of pipes, valves, and diaphragms (the water analogues
of wires, diodes, and capacitors). Does anyone believe that a sufficiently
complex plumbing system would be self-aware? That a sufficiently complex
plumbing network might become confused about whether it is, in fact, pipes and
water?

Though, the other reason we're not living in a simulation is that reality is
continuous, and numerical simulation can never overcome that barrier. But that
point is more esoteric.

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licked
I agree we can build plumbing complex enough that it can convince anyone,
including itself, that it is self-aware.

We can philosophise about whether that's true consciousness. But that's the
same directionless thought experiment as questioning whether anyone besides
yourself truly exists.

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laughfactory
I've actually thought a lot about exactly that: how can I be certain that
anyone else actually exists? They could all, you could all, be NPCs populating
my universe of one. The argument for this is that it takes far less
computational power to render such an experience than it does to render that
same experience for billions of people and all their complex interactions. But
if it's one person than you simply render what they are currently
experiencing. You don't render far off places, economies, environments, etc.
Just focus on the individual.

And perhaps it's no simulation at all, but some super realistic form of VR
(via brain implant?). Perhaps if the future world is a wasteland than this may
be a way for future people to experience the "good old days." Or perhaps this
is how education is conducted in the future: we live some number of virtual
lives before getting a crack at a real one.

