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Comment by consumer451 | Hacker News Reader

<rant>

I may be repeating myself here, but I stopped indulging in simulation theory once I realized one simple concept:

Simulation theory is deism for techies.

Thousands of years ago the Greeks looked to the sky and used their modern tech to explain the mechanics of the heavens. Clearly it was Helios, who drove the chariot of the Sun across the sky each day.

Simulation theory is meerly us techies applying our latest technological concepts to try to explain the complexity of our universe. Instead of god we have alien scientists. They are the ones who set the parameters of our existence, it is not as random as it seems. Whew, I feel so much better now.

It really bothers me that otherwise scientifically minded people are still wasting their time on this.

Disclaimer: I fell for this trap as well for a couple years. At least the experience gave me an appreciation for the draw of such thinking.

</rant>

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Hard disagree.

Science is about making hypotheses and testing them. It's fine to come up with a hypothesis that is untestable, especially if it's reasonable to assume that we may one day be able to test it. It's fine to even consider the probability that your hypothesis is true, absent the ability to test it, given whatever priors we have.

Sure, believing that we are in a simulation without evidence would be some form of religion. But merely acknowledging that it's possible that we're in a simulation... well, that's just basic science.

It sounds like you are doing something anti-scientific yourself: rejecting the possibility without evidence. This is one of the things that bothers me about hard-line atheists: just because gods are not falsifiable, it doesn't mean that they don't exist. I personally don't think they exist, but I accept that it's possible I'm wrong. Asserting that atheism is absolutely true and correct is no less a "religion" than theism is.

Consider this: if it is possible for our society, someday, to simulate a universe with the fidelity that we ourselves observe in our universe, then it is not only possible, but incredibly likely, that we, ourselves, are living in simulation. We can come to this conclusion using logic and reason. No belief or religion is necessary.

>if it is possible for our society, someday, to simulate a universe with the fidelity that we ourselves observe in our universe

That's the biggest if I've read all day.

Sure, that's fair. But my view is that humans are still primitive when it comes to technology. Consider that we are able to harness but a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the energies in our sun. Our understanding of the universe is still quite limited, even as we learn more and expand our knowledge -- and find applications for that knowledge -- as time goes on.

Assuming we as a species survive long enough, some time in the future we may consider reality simulation to be a fairly simple thing that we don't give much thought. Just like we take a lot of technology for granted today that people even a few hundred years ago would think is magic.

In the past couple decades we've gone from computers mostly being heavy boxes that sit under desks, to hand-held things we keep in our pockets. And a bunch of decades before that, computers were massive pieces of technology that required large rooms to contain them. My mother, who passed away in 2001, would be astonished to the point of disbelief to learn that, just ten years later, I had what she would consider Star Trek technology in my pocket.

And that's a decade or two. We likely can't even imagine today what humanity's relationship with technology will be 200 or even 100 years from now. Being able to simulate a universe at some point seems well within the realm of possibility, at least to me.

And remember, we don't need to simulate an entire universe. Sure, we see light from billions of light-years away. But the fidelity of things that far out -- hell, the fidelity of things not even all that far from Earth -- need not be simulated with any fine detail at all, in order to fool people such as ourselves.

And I think that we're all living inside a giant cosmic blueberry pie. Modern humans are able to bake simple pies today, but there's no telling what will possible with the ovens of the future. Now, you may be thinking "that's absurd" or "so what if we're in a pie", but let me assure you that the implications are profound and dire. We need to convince the Baker that we exist inside the Pie and that It should not be eaten lest our universe come to an end.

This is a serious theory, and I will require grant funding to pursue the implications of living inside a multidimensional filling-time manifold, as well as possible means of escaping through the crust. Buy my book to learn more and for recipes to bake your own scale model of the Pie.

Now if it had been a Raspberry Pi, you could've united your theories.

Sorry, had to.

> This is one of the things that bothers me about hard-line atheists: just because gods are not falsifiable, it doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Hard line atheists don't exist like this though. This is a "not like the other people" statement. The solid statement "god does not exist" is true enough for any social interpretation of the question. No one who opposes it is ever planning on exploring the edges of that statement - they're waiting to bait and switch in "ah hah! And so therefore God exists and is the Christian god!".

Which is to say, atheism dismisses any specific interpretation of God in the manner rather succinctly put by Ricky Gervais: "You don't believe in 2,999 gods. And I don't in just one more."

[1] https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2017/02/02/ricky-gervais...

It’s probably not deism, since it doesn’t require a non-involved agent, and deism does: you can posit both the simulation hypothesis and also that the universe is a game being played by some alien teenager with a sick sense of humor, or used as a car battery for an alcoholic mad scientist. This is then roughly Gnosticism and Manichean thought in a blender. (Instead of a blind watchmaker, nothing about being in a simulation prohibits a demiurge instead)

You’re right that the simulation hypothesis is equivalent to any number of previous ontological arguments, though, and you’re also right to notice how rarely that’s stated in public. I think, ironically, this is primarily because the people who are really into the simulation hypothesis are unaware of ontological arguments because they all seem to deride religion as superstition and foolishness that doesn’t need to be studied and can just be discarded.

i don’t think the simulation hypothesis is necessarily bad (i do think it’s false), except to the extent that esoteric and gnostic traditions all tend towards quietism, which i disagree with strongly. Y’all can believe whatever you want about the universe but if your beliefs lead you to ignore the troubles and joys of your neighbors, I suggest you update your priors.

I never know what to think about that theory. What makes you certain it's false?

Strongly disagree.

As humanity progresses our tech gets more and more advanced. At some point, our "latest technological concepts" will reach peak/extreme levels. Clearly our tech is more advanced than it was 2000 years ago. We now have the ability to create simulations are ourselves and we do in droves: many trillions of simulations per day we create.

I think it is only natural to wonder about the next level up. For the ancient Greeks it was yes, the stars--the heavens. We can now see the stars clearly. So now we're wondering about the next level, if any. And I think neither of us can say definitively yes or no as to whether or not there is another level.

Besides wondering if there is a current level there is another unanswered question that seems to be the most important ones, at least to those of us that still think about these things: what was there before our universe. What happened before the big bang?

100%.

It is unevidenced and unfalsifiable. It is fun to think about, but so is a lot of science fiction.

I agree to a limited extent. But deism implies belief. I'm agnostic to the theory, but enjoy imagining that we're in an astrophysicist's simulation, a detail that will go unnoticed because the PI is only looking at the evolution of stars -- that if there's a bug in the simulation, the universe will be unceremoniously rebooted. Much like the multiverse theory, it doesn't really get us anywhere unless somebody dreams up a testable hypothesis. Until then, it's an enjoyable thought experiment.

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