Could our Universe be a simulation? How would we even tell?
Could our Universe be a simulation? How would we even tell?
Simulations all the way down—the philosophical debate on the nature of our Universe.
Some words
If our universe is a simulation how do we know if we are interacting with the simulation or if we are a part of it?
What if the being(s) the simulation was built to interact with have either left or died and the program has continued to run.
Even if we could tell, it doesn't seem like we could do anything about it. So I think it doesn't matter.
Same as those theories that we are in a physics bubble that could pop at any minute and change the laws of physics drastically. If it happened we'd all be dead instantly so I guess I'll just hope that is not the case.
This is always a philosophical stance to a scientific one and it has existed all through history. Because we innovate on nature, inevitably our artifical things appear more and more natural, which further begs the question of how natural our own natural things really are.
The reality is, that it one of many fields of science that philosophical thought drives, and so the outcome is always more knowledge regardless of if it ends up being true or not.
The philosophical stance on Creationism, for example, would establish a known creator, and then immediately start pursuing the conflicting stance of what created the creator. And that drives scienc and therefore knowledge.
So simulation theory seems apparent enough, as time goes on we've gotten better at understanding our environment and therefore know how to work it . But a truth I'd simulation theory may simply be, "Yes, you figured it out. We knew you would and that's why we lied along the way, so you're so far off."
Edit: I see all my grammatical errors. I'm trying to manage a dog at a pub while I'm 6 pints down and my massive thumbs are all I got between my brain and a mobile soft keyboard. Give me "a break". Y'all know what I'm saying.
I don't care about your grammatical errors, I just have no idea what point you're trying to make.
Now that I'm sober, I see what I was getting at but struggle to follow.
Our innovation is inspired by nature. So, the more we innovate, the more nature seems like the machines we create. So we start to question if nature is real or if we're in a machine of something else's creation—hell, if we can do it, why not something else? So we start looking for things. We don't know what we're looking for, but we start theorising and looking. Then we find gaps where something should be but isn't, so we start getting to the bottom of those gaps—like at CERN. Why do we have laws of general relativity? Can we break them? Let's try!
And back to divinity because it's fun; If a god created the universe, then it is unnatural and as artificial as the things we create. Science would not care for the god—which is now categorically titled a 'Universe Creating Entity' or a UCE—rather science would want to know what created the UCE and what else is going on outside of the UCE-made universe. We'd probe and autopsy god if we got the chance. And so if the universe was a 'set and forget' innovation where general relativity runs the whole thing like automation, how is that not a simulation and how far does it go? Is it like fish in an aquarium that simulates their natural habitat while it sits in a UCE's building lobby? Or is it more like everything I'm typing write now was inevitable because I'm a part of it?
This is the fun part about AI. It's 100% all based on a species that became extremely curious once it became self-aware. We're literally AI's UCEs. When our species wipes out, AI will probably start religions and write books prophesying our return, because we taught it about that stuff.
Only one way to find out.Okay i am jk the real answer is we will never know even if youbdid what i suggested as a joke how will you know if the afterlife or whatever the fuck there is real only sensible thing you can do is take a page from inception and make peace with it