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In the general case, I think that we would not be able to tell. Unless the programmers explicitly program into the simulation the tools for us to interact with the external world, we would not be able to collect evidence of something external to the simulation. We are limited.
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I am agnostic to whether we live in a simulation or not, but I don't think that this hypothesis brings a lot in terms of answering existential questions. We could live in a simulation inside of a simulation inside of a simulation inside of a simulation..... meaning that there is an infinite depth of simulations when we choose to consider this possibility. In my view, being the first rung of existence or being a million simulations deep is the same. Discovering that we are in a simulation just shifts the existential question one universe higher.
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I have been reading some texts about theories of how the brain thinks (predictive coding), and it seems like what we experience as "consciousness" might be the result of our brain simulating what our next sensory experience will be. So, in that sense, we are all experiencing our brain's predictive simulation.
Philosophy
All about Philosophy.
Of what consequence would it be?
Well I think there would be some obvious physical limits because of finite processing power like maybe a minimum distance, a maximum viewing distance, a discrete time interval and so on. Maybe some of the system would be modelled stochastically because being fast is more important than being accurate when simulating such a big system.
From the ads.
The shadow test, multiple people pick a number randomly and keep picking a random number, if the number is the same your in a simulation. Source, the Veritas.
If our simulated experiences were indistinguishable from that of beings in the "real" universe, would the distinction between simulated and not even matter?
Yes. A simulation can be turned off. Or perhaps even crashed...
More generally, a simulation has stuff "outside the simulation" that can effect the simulation. There is nothing "outside" of fundamental reality.
"Magic" can occur in a simulation; things that appear to have great material costs inside the simulation cost nothing to implement outside the simulation.
Would you voluntarily hook yourself up to the Matrix?
No, I don't think I'd make that choice, probably not even under duress.
But if such a sim was absolutely indistinguishable in every way, we'd likely never know and our experiences within it would probably not be any less valid.
It's a big if. And I don't mean to support some BigSim dystopia, only reflect on what makes our perceived reality... real, from the human perspective.
As in, whether one is from an actual reality or a virtual reality, things that have happened to them may feel real to them, and ultimately be their reality regardless. The Sim itself can be wrong, and the experiences of those within still be important to them.
The thing with The Matrix analogy, is that every human in it has a physical body that awaits them on the other side of the pill.
Whereas, if simulated realities were a thing, there would likely be several instances of it and your self would likely also be simulated or at least virtual in nature.
If I was in the canon Matrix universe, I'd definitely want out. If I was in some other form of Sim, where existing outside of the Sim was outright impossible, that might be different.
something like... a maximum speed anything could go?
Or a minimum temperature? A minimum distance resolution?
But how word you confirm this? Like you can't get to that speed? And even if it did break, wouldn't the scientific method kick in and we'd just revise our models?
This "living in a simulation" question appears to be our generation's version of the solipsism trap. Can't prove or disprove it.
Someone would figure out how to hack it.
Bonus fan theory: Jesus was a hacker.
Life already hacked it, that's what we are.
You could also argue all scientists (physicists, biologists, chemists, ...) to be hackers that constantly find new tricks and glitches in the underlying algorithm of the universe...
That's actually a school of thought that exists - that mathematics and science is the programming language of God or whatever supernatural being you believe in, and thus science and mathematics is actually the study of religion in a way. I'm not particularly well versed in this but I've heard that Kaballah has some beliefs along these lines
It's pretty hard in these times to accept that God (the stimulation architect) intervenes in reality. But if there is a God then surely they can intervene in reality. I'd say then that we can't really prove we are in a simulation but we can try more and more ways to petition God and each one builds evidence against there being one. Though I guess you could argue that God could be dead, not in the Nietzschean sense, but literally a corpse in a higher reality, we could be in an abandoned simulation.
I think it would depend if we were getting updates and patches, or constant input, or if we just got forgotten about on some hard drive somewhere,