
The Men Who Are Convinced We’re All Living in a Simulation - tosh
https://melmagazine.com/the-men-who-are-convinced-were-all-living-in-a-simulation-d2c76772df2f
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matt_the_bass
Slightly More technical discussion:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-
in-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-
computer-simulation/)

This idea isn't new. Robert Heinlein wrote about this decades ago.

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sorokod
Stopped reading after: "That all changed last November, though, when the
Chicago Cubs, the most futile franchise in the history of professional sports,
won the World Series, and Donald Trump, the most unqualified candidate in the
history of the U.S. presidency, won the Electoral College"

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skydv
Tom Campbell is also famous for his virtual reality theory. According to him
the acceptance among scientists grew from few people to several thousands and
continues to grow

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nol13
:wonders what the women believe:

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divbit
It kind of feels like someone made a fairly well-intentioned simulation, and
then some other people came along and hacked it for their own benefit, taking
away a large part of the value proposition, and leaving a mildly shitty
simulation for the remaining people. I guess that sort of thing would be
inevitable.

~~~
divbit
Here is a more interesting question imho: Assuming we are in a simulation, how
does a person make sure that their thoughts are 'really their own' and not
sort of programmed in. E.g. How does a person make sure that they are not a
robot, that they are not being manipulated to e.g. vote for someone, have
whatever political view, do this or that thing.

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dogma1138
The whole topic is pointless because it does not detract or add to the realism
of our existence; this is just another exercise in pure determinism.

You already are bootstrapped by your biology and life experience you do not
make decisions in vacuum and there is a good chance that your biology has as
much of an impact on your base political views as your nurture.

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divbit
Hypothetical scenario 1: Let's suppose Person A exists for a while and has
belief set A. Now person B comes along a while later and /claims/ to be a
life-extension clone or something of Person A who is maybe entitled to some of
the resources that Person A had available. (Maybe just a different avatar, in
video game terms) Should Person B. exhibit some or all of the same beliefs
that Person A had in order to claim this? (I would say obviously yes..?)

Hypothetical scenario 2: Suppose that Person A has whatever beliefs in
ordinary times, but is put in a stress or otherwise abnormal situation and
forced to make whatever decision. Should their decision be their ordinary time
logical choice, or their choice under a high amount of stress?

I'm sure I could come up with more scenarios, but the point is, what should be
intellectually considered a given person, in circumstances like a simulation
where an adversary could heavily muddle the waters.

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dogma1138
I don’t understand the scenario you proposed or it’s relation to the
simulation hypothesis.

However as for the latter part of your post anything which is external is
irrelevant.

Basically it doesn’t matter if the universe is a simulation a hologram or a
marble it has no actual impact on our reality since it’s ohtside of its scope.

If we are being tinkered with it does not detract from our reality in any way
it doesn’t change anything since if we are in a simulation then an
administrator who modified your code is on the same level as natural law, they
are a part of the universe not our peers.

~~~
divbit
(I guess that's sort of off the thread)

