
Elon Is Wrong About Simulations - charleshmorse
http://www.braineight.com/bite-sized/2016/6/6/elon-is-wrong-about-simulations
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cttet
I feel that the question that "if we are in a simulation" is quite equivalent
to "if there is a god that reasons beyond human logic", or "is there is a
husky dog that has super ability and always be hidden from any kind of human
observation".

You can never say that these arguments are wrong, but they are rather
pointless since they are always not wrong.

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mpbm
The difference is that "we're in a simulation" is still a natural, as opposed
to a supernatural, explanation.

We can come up with ways to test whether or not we're in a simulation. If the
tests return positive we can come up with ways to study the rules outside of
the simulation. If it's natural then we can work with it.

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cttet
"We can come up with ways to test whether or not we're in a simulation"

How?

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mpbm
Well, if you can look past the simplification, The Matrix had some examples.
Like how deja vu is a glitch caused by the controllers manually changing
something. And an example from The 13th Floor is to travel so far you reach
the limit of what the environment the engine rendered.

An example of a test that's phenomenally complicated is, roughly speaking, to
zoom in on physical reality until the resolution starts to drop
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#Testing_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#Testing_the_hypothesis_physically)

An example that's like magic is to communicate with someone outside of the
simulation. Either someone in an adjacent simulation, or someone outside of
the simulating system itself.

Basically, a simulation has to have rules and constraints. If we can get a
fingernail into a crack we can expand it. Just keep pushing the limits until
they break. We could even start the simulation version of SETI. That's a
project that's testing the hypothesis that there are ETs out there we can
communicate with. We could start a project like that based on the hypothesis
there are Simulators outside of our simulation we can communicate with.

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cttet
In the wikipedia page you mentioned it stated: "Under the assumption of finite
computational resources, the simulation of the universe would be performed by
dividing the continuum space-time into a discrete set of points." How will we
know if this assumption is correct? If the beings that run the experiment have
higher intelligence, they may successfully hide all the evidence of simulation
and we may never find the constraints.

Unless we reduce the simulation hypothesis to "Beings of similar intelligence
level as us running similar computer simulations that we do in the late 20th
and early 21st century", then it is testable.

