What Are Ancestor Simulations... And Are We Living In One?

[@patrickseaman]

Thank you so much, Isaac, for the very kind shout-out for my son Blake and my book series, Accipiter War. We've both been huge fans of your show for a long, long time!

[@Blakefulable]

dad?! what are you doing here?

[@norielsylvire4097]

Happy to see a father-son project be successful like this. I wish you both the best in life, a lot of health and prosperity!!

[@AbdulBido]

Your kind words reflect your good heart. I truly wish you all the best. I'll look up your book just cause I respect this display of humility.

[@patrickseaman]

​@@norielsylvire4097 Thank you very much, that is very nice of you to say. Working on the books with my son has brought us closer together, and in ways I never expected. I’ve loved Science Fiction ever since the first Andre Norton book I read from my elementary school library. I felt somewhat alone in that love until I went to my first Worldcon and saw that there were people like me there - from every country, every race, age, and creed. Seeing so many people from so many backgrounds - all of whom were passionate about a vision for the future, gave me renewed hope for humanity. I’m grateful to Isaac for allowing Blake and me to share our appreciation for this community.

[@patrickseaman]

​@@AbdulBido Thank you, that is very kind of you to say. One of the things I love about Science Fiction is that there are so very many subgenres you can dive into. Even if you are “only” interested in one narrow vertical, it’s kind of like sports, in a way. You like “your” team, and can even be quite vocal in how you feel about other teams, but you love the sport as a whole. Have a great day!

[@CapnSnackbeard]

One could argue Zhuangzi first posited this question. "Am I a Zhuangzi dreaming I am a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I'm a Zhaungzi?"

[@Verrisin]

Neither. You are just a person who is slacking. Pick up that shovel and come help us, if you want to eat. - is the answer most people would get :D

[@CapnSnackbeard]

@@Verrisin we will hear that from the laziest person around, the person who's work is to watch others labor, the person who does the least and yet takes the most: the boss. The boss can eat shit, I grow my own food. People may tell you, nobody tells me. Sorry. 😆

[@FeralLogic]

Imagine: At some point in the future it may become a standard to go through several lifetimes of simulations, from cradle to grave, before you can be considered an adult.

[@One-du6cc]

that would be dumb. i'm sure there would be a better technological solution than having everyone go through multiple lifetimes.

[@Athetos_Admech]

​@@One-du6cc I can see how a culture with the technology and resources required to do such a thing might develop such a tradition. It's not illogical for a people to think 'let's simulate a dozen lifetimes worth of mistakes to learn from so that they don't mess up the one life they have in reality'.

[@benwood2513]

That’s just Hinduism/Buddhism. A lot of the lore people present for a simulation is just the classical religions but with a new take.

[@knewledge8626]

At this point, my parents are sitting in front of their monitors staring at the screen in horror.

[@renownedbandanawearer1345]

In Rick and Morty they just made it a video game - wouldn’t be surprised that if we develop the capability we might do it just for funsies.

[@ConfirmedCynic]

Perhaps a civilization is at its most creative when it first flowers. The minds are free to go in novel directions, whereas they become hidebound by what has already been created in those that grow up afterward. An ancestor simulation could create art and philosophies that might otherwise never occur to anyone.

[@maltheopia]

@The Program The Program, that is one honey of an idea. I like that motive for running an ancestor simulation a lot. It feels less exploitative (let's have a vacation where the Nazis actually won WW2) and more like celebrating a shared heritage.

[@Gruntguy55]

Oh god, we are the AI art generators.

[@andrewmurray1084]

I gotta say, Mr. Arthur, your thought experiment regarding us all being the "sentient hallucinations" of "a randomly assembled Boltzmann brain, existing in total sensory deprecation" while "slowly going insane and hallucinating a whole universe" is very reminiscent of the frankly awesome little classic sci-fi short story “Sole Solution” by Eric Frank Russell. If you haven't done so already, I eagerly recommend you give it a read!

[@Gaia_Gaistar]

Basically a Godhead dreaming the universe like The Elder Scrolls universe.

[@ianharrison5758]

@@Gaia_Gaistar or maybe Azethoth

[@SaneTrinity]

Finally someone educating people on how impossible it is to tell if it is simulation or not, hopefully it will at least temper a bit amount of people making totally baseless claims that this is/ is not a simmutaltion. Great episode !

[@zen1647]

Exactly. We would see exactly what our simulators would want us to see.

[@BiffScooterIII]

Or that it is neither all together? The concept of a God at this point is just as likely and to assume it is like a simulator is akin to our forefathers thinking there was aether due to the constraints of their own understanding. Perhaps, as humans, we need to accept that we simply cannot know everything, and if there is a God, and He is the one who created all this and us, that we could no more comprehend Him and His creation to their fullest meaningful extent as an ant could the ruminations and designs of humans who tower above them.

[@knewledge8626]

If you want to see how a simulation develops, it is counter productive to put too many limits on the simulation or any limits at all as these WOULD effect the results.

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

Well, in my case, I never leave my room, and am surrounded by NPCs online, my life could be simulated on a toaster. - Adûnâi

[@Shenaldrac]

Exactly. Like religion, it's completely unfalsifiable. And since there's no way to prove or disprove it... why waste the energy thinking about it beyond a casual thought experiment?

[@johnboettcher1962]

Weirdest possibility of all: that things are exactly as they seem.

[@WiseOwl_1408]

I don't get why people are into thinking everything is fake

[@Splaccemttv]

@@WiseOwl_1408 its a lot of things that dont make sense in the word. Something feels off imo

[@Andragil717]

@@WiseOwl_1408 Yeah. Wouldn't matter anyway. There is nothing we could do about it.

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

@@Splaccemttv is it more likely that the issue is with us and our rapidly evolved ape brains, or with the entire cosmos we observe?

[@likemau55master38]

@@xXx_Regulus_xXx It may be both

[@raydavison4288]

The universe is like an episode of "Better Call Saul". It is never what you expect it's gonna be.

[@DoremiFasolatido1979]

Sounds like you're just unobservant and bad at pattern recognition.

[@hotdesertroks889]

Except Saul was made real

[@TheJunky228]

I keep checking to see if there'll be a new season and get disappointed?

[@wormalism]

I'm sure someone will eventually set up a galaxy sized computer to just run something simple like Wolfram's rule 30 for billions of years and forget to come back and analyse the results.

[@colinsmith1495]

I think the construction of Minecraft may actually be useful here, in this analogy of what does and doesn't get simulated. In Minecraft, the entire massive 300M or whatever by 300M or whatever block world is *algorithmically established* upon world generation. But all those distant chunks don't *actually get generated* yet. Rather, an algorithm to generate them with a set seed is established, so going there 100 times on 100 different servers will always result in the same chunk being generated, but it doesn't actually exist in any of the save files yet. Likewise, while it *appears* that mobs generate everywhere they can, in reality they only generate with a certain range around the player. Not so near enough that it's hard to notice them popping up, and also far enough that if you go travelling anywhere, they're already there. Most of them were generated while you were travelling, though. Now mind you, you may never go to that chunk that got algorithmically established back at the beginning. It hasn't actually been loaded yet, but it also has been established even if it never does. Likewise all those mobs down in the caves get generated even if the player has no way to get there, or even if the player spends the entire night in their house organizing chests. Wasted generation and processing will happen, but some effort will be made to optimize for performance. The details all depend on how hard it is to do and what is needed to make the simulation appropriately believable for it's purposes.

[@7lllll]

yeah, minecraft is a great game that works as a toy example of simulations and universe creations, showing in detail how such mechanisms could be implemented

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

I want all my scenery deer to have full gut bacteria microbiomes or I'm going to be sad.

[@knewledge8626]

Survivalcraft is closer to a real world. I don't think anybody playing Minecraft has ever climbed onto their roof to watch a sunset. 😁

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

@@SantasGAINdeer they'd better.

[@TheJunky228]

and then there's the outlands where the terrain generation and physics essentially breaks due to rounding errors

[@jvaranx]

Maybe we do live in a simulation that is incomplete and only "good enough". For all we know, the actual reality may be much more complex and detailed, including humans themselves and their minds.

[@EmpireRamzes]

It def. feels just good enough

[@evananderson1455]

Hear me out.. Medical technology gets so good in the future that by the time we develop the ability to create these types of simulations, people are essentially immortal. Immortality does weird things to our psychology on both a personal and a societal level. Truly having no fear or expectation of death removes our ability to appreciate being alive, and our appreciation for life itself. We lose perspective and become obsessed with our own personal thoughts and desires to the point that it becomes dangerous for our entire species. Soo..we all spend time "growing up" in these ancestor simulations. We can live many lifetimes, gaining perspective and appreciation for things that an immortal human could not. I imagine it as being like this.. how many important life lessons do you think you'd learn if you were given a pill that let you be an 18 yr old forever? Now, how many life lessons do you think you'd learn if you could experience many "normal" human lifetimes, remembering the things you've learned from each one along the way? Which option do you think would provide you the most wisdom? I choose to believe that we are living in a simulation, and the point of me being here is to experience as much as possible and to grow, to gain wisdom and understanding and appreciation for all of it.. the joy, the pain, the beauty of a peaceful sunrise, the complexity of human suffering and of love...all of it. And when I die, I'll see the ones I love who've gone before me and we'll share what we learned, and then we'll get ready for our next dip into the next "lesson". Or not 🤷‍♂️ lol Edit: I've had this belief for years and I wrote this comment before actually watching the video. Feels good to know that the ending sort of suggests something similar.

[@rodrigosaavedra4791]

You just described kardecism

[@rapidspark]

The Egg, by Andy Weir.

[@mcmaldek]

Imagine this possibility if you can, what if computers aren't the only things that can run a simulation.

[@cyberdelicxp9125]

I like

[@ronalddecker8498]

You nail several important discussions rarely touched on. Functional immortality will dramatically change the perspective of the privileged few who get it. They already have a difficult time relating to the lesser humans. I think of the Highlander movie from the 1980s. The only real competition among the immortals will be each other. It should not be a stretch for us to imagine the view of powerful people basically treating the lesser humans as ants. Nearly all of our super hero movies do exactly that. Thousands die in them and only when a main character dies or is injured do the supers care. I know Isaac is a techno optimist. But i am not certain that once the augmented humans get to a certain level of augmentation where pain is no longer a meaningful part of their lives like the non-augmented… they will lose not gain more empathy. It’s a thought that should be considered.

[@shanerooney7288]

*Argument:* "Why simulate 7 billion people when you only needed a few hundred?" *Counter argument:* "Why simulate a galaxy full of people when you only needed one planet's worth?"

[@steveunderhill5935]

Sounds like the start of a command and conquer black mirror style video game.

[@TomasSwiftMetcalfe]

You really just have to simulate just one...

[@darkmatter8688]

interesting thought experiment

[@Rkenton48]

It's called a double bluff. Why simulate this HUGE universe with only us on one little piece of rock? A: To keep your subjects from ever suspecting they are in a simulation.

[@NobleUnclean]

@@Rkenton48 omg love it

[@Inertia888]

This video had a somewhat different tone than what I am used to, and it was a good one. I love the optimism and self accountability that is well needed, and is pointed out for us. Many people do not, or have not thought in this way, about this topic, and to hear it in this concise and precise manner, is a pleasure and an inspiration. It's been a long and wonderful journey with you, Issac! Keep 'em coming, and keeping us thinking!

[@TheGrinningViking]

There's all this hypothesis that we will be able to simulate everything, and if we could do that we would do it more than once, and people within those simulations would do it more than once, so obviously it's most likely we are in a simulation since most realities would be simulated. But we haven't done it once. That makes the odds 50/50 at best.

[@GuardsmanBass]

Yep, the Cool Worlds youtube guy did a video on that. As long as we haven't done it once, the odds of us being real are something like 50.000000-near-infinity zeros- 1% (ever so slightly in our favor).

[@Dragrath1]

Given that we don't really understand computation it might even be lower than that, for example Wolfram's computational universe model's discoveries and developments seem to be pointing against a simulation because it shows that the natural extension to maintain logical consistency of computation creates constraints on what can be computed and what computation is. Computational irreducibility sets a computational limit on what we can compute about the future ultimately linked to information theory and thus consequently thermodynamics. The constraint tells us that for a machine to be Turing complete it must obey computational irreducibility and thus automatically must obey information theory and the laws of thermodynamics. More interestingly in the limits of a sufficiently large Turing complete computer operating on some network/array etc. can be shown to converge towards the mathematical formalism of the Einstein field equations with some number of spatial dimensions and time as the general number of iterations at its slowest possible rate, with the perceived dimension of time being due to the rate of updates. Space in this sense is emergent arising from the rate at which these computations can effect other elements in the model. Quantum mechanics also arises in a similar way if all possible combinations of updates run in parallel and resolving in time (all degenerate states recombine) if the state in this case the Feynman path integral represents a branchial space of every possible unique computational state that hasn't been resolved yet(heat death). This space exists perpendicular to the normal causal space An implication thus is that a simulation as we typically think of isn't what we think of representing a place in what we call "spacetime" additionally the principal of computational irreducibility says that a true simulation following the same or an equivalent computational rule and initial conditions in the sense of the number of iterations of proper time will always be restricted to the past light cone. Under those constraints isn't such a simulation really just time travel? Computation here no longer is a device but rather an object which taps into the lowest level elements of the universe. Given that this model thus far is uniquely able to naturally automatically unify general relativity and quantum mechanics it seems it has a high likelihood of being correct and would cause the whole simulation theory to make no sense whatsoever.

[@Kangaxx25]

The looking into the past comment got me thinking: Would it theoretically be possible to point a huge telescope to a point slightly off a black hole (or a series of black holes) to view light that originally came from earth being bent around them? Would that be a possible way to look into our past without using FTL?

[@nova7114]

You could gather light from earth in the far past, but you would also gather a huge amount of light from other sources. You would probably need telescopes pointed at every black hole you can and then a ridiculous amount of computing power to sort out earth's light from the noise. I imagine you'll need at least a matryoshka brain for that task.

[@richmigala2539]

The mass of black hole is constantly changing. The distance between you on earth and the black hole is constantly changing. Plus you are sitting on a rotating earth so the angle at which you view the black hole is also constantly changing. All those variables make it impossible to observe enough photons that leave earth and return back to earth on a boomerang geodesic. If you could do this though, you'd also be able to measure the one way speed of light.

[@Captaintrippz]

might find some photons (that originated from earth) but they certainly won't form a coherent image after that much distance and bending.

[@NobleUnclean]

do you mind giving your real name? err likely not. forget i asked.. however you have just gave me the missing piece of a puzzle in a story im writing. ill be sure to include this comment has a partial source. tysm

[@notrandom2]

Look, in a time when life extension takes you beyond 1000 years, at some point you start thinking "simulation for experience learning". Imagine all new borns going through multiple life spans by the time they turn 6.

[@ianharrison5758]

Right, an 18 year old could not be considered an adult in a trans human society if they were not either also transhuman or were taught how to be human for a while before being able to take advantage of that. Maybes that’s how they stop kids from growing up into tyrants that ruin shit for greedy, short seeing people. A 13 year year old was an adult in a lot of cultures not that long ago, and the difference between 16-18 is still crazy. If the oldest elders were 10,000+ years old, having kids once or twice every couple decades, some more, some less, some none, and the average age distance of what is considered a full generation, so the 10 ish year periods we call Gen Z and boomers wouldn’t be 10 years for them, it could be that your “adulthood” isn’t deemed be a 150 year span as a Kid, bc we are still full functional baseline humans at our baseline lifespan that can have entire societies on their own. So it’s not about it it can take care of itself, rather, updating them to the trans human status they enjoy is safe for everyone because with the kind of power one transhuman possess is a ridiculously high risk to let loose in a massively complex society that exists as a result of evolving that far at all, so unless you could be born full transhuman, which idk the viability of that or what the parameters of that are, then it’s likely you give them the same experience you got in your own world and being able to join a higher plane of existence

[@rikuurufu5534]

If this is one of many ancestor simulations of 21st century Earth, I dearly hope that the majority of the other instances of myself are both happier and more productive than I am.

[@Maehedrose]

If you're just an npc going through the motions of the simulation, then unless the parameters are tweaked, you should live out the same life in every version.

[@rikuurufu5534]

@@Maehedrose Rhetorically: What would be the point of running the simulation more than once Without tweaking the parameters each time?

[@Maehedrose]

@@rikuurufu5534 Depends on the nature of the simulation and its purpose. If the simulation in question is a game, or a teaching tool, and you're an npc, then you'd be programmed to perform the same way in every iteration so the game or lesson was consistent.

[@mjk9388]

Great episode. Love the critical thinking. Very excited about next week’s episode on megastructures.

[@paulwalsh2344]

I'm just happy that in my simulation that my mind, or the programmer,...whatever... has created futurist Isaac Arthur, because Isaac makes my simulated reality or genuine reality that much more interesting !

[@zen1647]

Hey Isaac - a follow on topic could be digital archeology: How much information could future generations gain about us by gathering every scrap of the digital footprints we leave everywhere?

[@renownedbandanawearer1345]

Interested in this one. Also curious what digital archaeology would look like - how much of our data will be saved long term, and might there be algorithms built in the future to help uncover “more important” finds?

[@MR-dc4od]

I think this is actually a very strong argument for ancestor simulation. We have such common digital interaction that we're leaving far more records than any previous generation. I think an ASI could see the points of data we leave behind, and use what it knows of human psychology and physiology and the world around us (physics) that prompts us to say and do the things we do - to use that to "interpolate" our actions between our digital interactions to aid in creating a more accurate picture of us. For example, if someone posts a picture from their house, and the next day posts a picture in Hawaii, you can reasonably infer they flew from their home to Hawaii. If they're ranting about the TSA on a different platform, but they don't get angry easily, typically, then you can infer that either they had a bad experience with their flight or there's something else going on in their life to make them unusually irritable. Etc. etc, an ASI could use our digital footprint we leave behind to reconstruct us. And here's one particular thought I always think of - some people consider cryo freezing to be some weird, unethical thing about "playing god" and "cheating death". I just think of it as a medical procedure, like any other. Not cheating death any more than an open-heart surgery cheats death by extending your lifespan - even though you do technically "die" (via heart-stop definition of death) during an open-heart surgery. Similarly, I think bringing back the dead via ancestor simulations is an interesting concept - it's something that many would view as a moral imperative, much like treating someone with a life-threatening wound that walks into an ER. While others would view it as unethical and horrible. Nonetheless, there are people who would have a tremendous desire to do it, even if it's just to bring back a dead loved one. Or their dead parents. And then they might want to bring back their dead parents. And then - so on and so forth. At any rate, if you wish to be brought back via ancestor simulation, it may improve your odds to, somewhere in your digital footprint, consent to the procedure. I know I do. I'm interested in what future tech has discovered.

[@MR-dc4od]

Also a point I started making but forgot to finish; you can use what you can infer about one point in time to more accurately infer the previous point in time. Generally, more information is lost than is re-discovered. Sites go down, posts get lost, so you have the most accurate data set to re-construct people from more recently. Well, once you've re-constructed the last generation, you can then use what you know about them to more accurately understand what kinds of people the previous generation interacted with, the kids they raised, the students they taught, etc. - and use that as more input to more accurately simulate the previous generation. And it goes the other way, too - creating a more clear picture of the generation that came before creates a more accurate picture of what the next generation experienced - the input for your simulation of them, so it makes that generation more accurate, too. So, there's actually good inductive reasons that you'd want to make the ancestor simulation more complete than less. Most of the time, your iterative steps as described above should converge to a more and more accurate picture. Where it doesn't, you know you should look for more clues because perhaps something in your dataset is incomplete or incorrect, or perhaps someone really was exceptional. Since reality itself is perfectly consistent, all of this feeds into each other to make it so that the ancestor simulation would also, presumably, very nearly solve every mystery and crime that has ever been committed. It would be the perfect archeological and historical analysis tool, as well as bringing back the dead. I think a future civilization would be insane not to, even if I find its ethics a bit questionable, I feel like my concern is like an aboriginal being scared that a camera is taking a piece of my soul.

[@renownedbandanawearer1345]

@@MR-dc4od It’s not really bringing back the dead, though? I’m not sure why so many people are focused on that as being a good idea. I can’t believe I’m going to have to put in my will that no one is allowed to simulate my consciousness after my death.

[@tealc6218]

After watching this video, I don't feel like I got red pilled, blue pilled or even black pilled. I have a feeling I was given a placebo.

[@baghdadbob1668]

After wathcing this video I feel like I need the purple pill because I have heartburn. I'm hoping it's just a simulated heartburn though. :)

[@billbadson7598]

A conscious simulated being is no less real than an un-simulated being in my view. Even if our minds run on a computer, they are real minds, running on real matter.

[@JB52520]

A simulation of matter is real relative to a simulated mind interacting with it. If you think of matter outside a simulation as absolutely real, then later find out that it too is being simulated, the matter doesn't change, only what you think of it. Relative reality never changes while absolute reality can't be proven.

[@billbadson7598]

@@JB52520 I think a simulation of matter is not only real relative to the simulated mind, I think a simulation of matter is EXACTLY as real as "unsimulated" matter. Because the simulation still exists on the substrate of the unsimulated world. If you simulate something on a computer, the simulation is still running on a physical computer, using real matter. If your mind is simulated on a computer, it just means your mind is running on chips instead of meat, but it's still signals traveling over real matter. Every digital building and character in a videogame corresponds to to signals traveling over physical matter outside of the videogame, and therefore exists in the real world in some form, just not in the same form as unsimulated buildings and people. Destroying the "unsimulated" computer would destroy the "simulated" world, because the computer is the physical body of the simulation, and the simulation is just the subjective experience of that body.

[@MirrorscapeDC]

Exactly. In fact, given that our brains (by common opinion) run on chemicals and electricity, everything is simulated anyway. we aren't capable of truly experiencing reality, so it hardly matters if it is 'real' now the question if the people around you are actually sapient, that does matter. To me at least

[@AndrewManook]

This is like saying video game characters are real.

[@MirrorscapeDC]

@@AndrewManook no it isn't. If we are in a simulation, then sapience doesn't require a physical body. because you know you are sapient. and sapience automatically means you are real, even if the basis of that reality might be different from what you think

[@CartoonHero1986]

I like that you mention the limits of an similiation and why you would only simulate what is necessary for those in the simulation need, since even in The Matrix the machines did not simulate an entire planet or universe; they simulated a single city with various districts that made it seem like many of the major cities of the 21st century in a single city (New York, LA, Tokyo, etc) and the people plugged into the simulation don't question that their world is a single massive city.

[@CartoonHero1986]

@@BDnevernind Sorry I tried to reply earlier but I don't think it let me since I included a hyperlink. Anyways if you search Matrix Mega City you will get the info on the city in The Matrix. Since I just reread it for myself for the first time in years when I was looking it up for you I did get a couple of things wrong, there COULD be some other cities and places people live outside the Mega City, or people could just THINK there are places outside the Mega City since other cities are just alluded to by "blue pills" and in various media seen in backgrounds.

[@davidk7212]

So there's an alternate reality in which I starved to death while watching this because *somebody* forgot to remind me to get a drink and a snack?

[@totalermist]

Nice closing thoughts, but I'd like to add one that often forgotten when this topic comes up: the answer doesn't matter. Whether we live in a simulation, a dream, a Boltzmann Brain, or any other "non-reality" has no effect on our experience of the world, our actions and their consequences.

[@brandonknapp8046]

Simulation Hypothesis is on my mind almost daily, sometimes daily too. I once had a dream that a machine called BUB or 'Billions Upon Billions' woke me up from this (our world) to assist in a repair in the 'real world' after a meteorite strike... then guided me back into my pod where I reconnected to - here. I haven't felt right since. There were few humans (by comparison to the number in the sim) alive outside of the archive, and they were too far away and too young (in old age you go into the sim, most of mankind was young - living off Earth) to enact the repair... most pods around me had people in pre-industrial sims, without the primary technical skills necessary to enact any repair. I was selected for the repair for compliance potential, immediate skillsets, location, etc. The machine had an excess of processing, Ancestor Simulations were present. I've tried 'speaking' to BUB but - never got a reply. So... I doubt it was real. Just a dream, lol. ...I should also add, it was spelled "BuB" not BUB ~ a strange little detail but worth noting...

[@SarevokRegor]

BuB should have had it's own repair bots it could use, so it's either not real OR is messing with you for fun.

[@benwood2513]

Sounds like interesting idea for a story. But if this were the case a civilization of that level wouldn’t be bothered by meteors.

[@centroid518]

At least the machine wasn't bUb... That guy is a complete asshole....

[@brandonknapp8046]

@@SarevokRegor - Yeah, it should have had repair bots for small jobs... maybe it did. In the dream, I saw very large autonomous constructors replacing acres at a time.

[@merendell]

I think the most compelling argument that many of us are in a simulation is just compare political debates these days to video games. I see so many people arguing points with so little self awareness that scripted NPCs from Skyrim seem like sentient beings by comparison. I don't know why whoever programed the simulation would allow the only partially emulated background characters to suddenly take center stage but it seems to have happened.

[@lunaticbz3594]

I'm pretty certain that if we are in a simulation that I'm a NPC.

[@zen1647]

Great episode about a complex topic. According to how the universe appears to work I think the chance we are in a simulation is very high. But I agree with Isaac's question of Does it matter if we're a simulation? I'm also curious why we are simulated with the capacity to know that we could be simulations...

[@Joe-Dead]

no, not a simulation. this was a thought experiment...not even a hypothesis much less an actual theory. just a variation with a more sci-fi bent of trying to apply some kind of guidance to the universe to make it less scary. first it was god(s) and dreams, now a simulation. lol. just variations on the same historical theme...there MUST be something behind it all. simple fact is this is no simulation, if you ACTUALLY critically think about the complextiy of the rules of the universe, the constant interactions that ALL have to be simulated from every cell in your body, every ATOM and sub atomic particle in your body...JUST YOURS. think about that for a second. then EXPAND it to every bit of matter in the entire known universe. this isn't a simulation. as you can ALSO add in the fact you don't need the precision the universe shows for ANY simulation further considering just what are you trying to simulate. life? intelligence? nuclear or chemical reactions? none of that needs the level of detail there is in the universe for an accurate simulation.

[@freebird6591]

Hmm if we were sims and did know, well... maybe thats our turing test... Wonder if we'll pass, or get scrapped and reset.

[@wrorl]

we're « simulated » with the capacity to know that we could be in simulations because we're not inside a simulation

[@zen1647]

@@wrorl Almost certainly wrong but impossible to prove. I think that building simulations where participants are aware of the simulation is a good way to test the effect of this knowledge on the participants.

[@wrorl]

@@zen1647 I've changed my mind, trying to realize that everything we've done in the past has led us to today, there's really no reason to be in a simulation, the world has too much darkness and light, it looks really messy for it to be a simulation

[@JMM33RanMA]

This is a fascinating video, and I an going to recommend it. I note a couple of problems with the hypothesis here. 1. The assumption that we might be too ethically advanced to abuse such a simulation, when we have the technical ability to do it, ignores the fact that we have consistently invented new technologies while our morality has lagged [steam power, flight, atomic power, etc.] far behind the technical, and this has been a science fiction genre. 2. A good reason for doing such simulations could be related to understanding how and why things happened as they did. Science fiction and alternate history stories try to figure out whether some random event changed history significantly. The full story of the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and Archduke Franz Ferdinand show numerous small events that could have changed history. Simulation games about history actually exist and a futuristic variation of "Age of Empires" or "Civilization" is not improbable either for research or entertainment. 3. A phenomenon that should have been addressed is as follows. You can't find something, look everywhere, then suddenly find it in a place you looked before without seeing it. This has been observed for a long time and only requires an understanding of the glitches in the human mind rather than an external actor. People have invented excuses like praying to a god, asking the brownies or fairies, etc. 4. Another mental glitch related to the last is the nature of memory. I once remembered sharing an outdoor hot tub with a friend, during a snowfall in the Los Angeles area at Christmas time. Apparently my "memory" was so detailed and I was so persuasive that it prompted my friend to check with his friends and family before getting back to me with, "sorry, it didn't happen." This is why witnesses are not considered the most reliable evidence.

[@96ace96]

This video reminds me of a few years ago when I sort of just gave up on reality ever making sense. I was stuck on the whole: 'Something can't come from nothing and nothing can exist forever' paradox, trying to think myself into some sort of resolution when I sort of just gave up and concluded that to the best of my ability to make logical deductions reality was impossible. To this day I've never found anything that has convinced me otherwise. Clearly, reality exists, or at least I exist, but to the best of my ability to reason both are equally impossible. I can't get away from it, and, somehow, having stopped trying was incredibly freeing. Reality is impossible, and yet it exists. Clearly I'm incapable of finding a solution, and so any potentially alternate form reality can exist in is unimportant. All any of us can do is act on the world we experience, to think beyond that can be an interesting exercise but it will inevitably lead to the conclusion that knowing is impossible and really everything is impossible anyways so there's really no reason to worry about it.

[@sarcasmo57]

What if I wake up out of this and I'm Dwayne Dibbly?

[@spacetexan1667]

How to tell if we’re in a simulation? Get everyone on earth in the same spot and wait for the lag 😂

[@seanhewitt603]

Lag?

[@michaelpettersson4919]

The computer game Dungeon Siege had what was called a "frustrum". The frustrum was essentially the horizon in a flat world, a point at beyond that the world was not drawn. To hide this from the player the world dissapeared into a fog. So in a simulation, only what is observed are the only thing that need to exis, at least for the moment.

[@Ratatoskie]

I can see the appeal of this theory. It would be nice to think we're just in a worst case what if, and the US isn't actually spiralling into a theocratic oligarchy.

[@thesteambreaker9449]

I find it fascinating that we have a gentleman here who takes time to explain and ponder about a few thought experiments that are quite discussed these days He does a brilliant job on that Yet people in the comments argue and scream about how it doesn't make sense to believe in such things if we couldn't chang anything about it anyways Like yeah but ? What's the problem with talking about concepts to expand our own horizon or entertain a thirsty mind Why is that so wrong that hundreds of people here scream at each other who is right or wrong If it just doesn't make a difference if they are Everyone their own believes and freedoms Hope most understand that this is still a great video and Isaac deserves some applause for it

[@AleksandrPodyachev]

there could be some people who want to run a simulation of some version of history that people want, for example there are people who would want to see a simulation of a world where the Roman Empire never fell

[@mcmaldek]

There could be something running the simulation that aren't people.

[@MeanBeanComedy]

What if we're in the simulation where it did fall, and it was made by the future Intergalactic Roman Empire in Earth Prime?

[@TheJunky228]

I guess the extinction of the dinosaurs was just the simulator going sim city rampage on earth

[@TheAnimeGamer]

Can you do a video exploring Open Sourced life sustaining technologies and tools for colonists? e.g Life Support?.

[@Pyriold]

Does anybody have any cheatcodes for this sim?

[@Burt1038]

I doubt I'm in a simulation...I can't imagine some person in the far future wanting to be me...I'm not even having a good time.

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

I want all my scenery deer to have full gut bacteria microbiomes or I'm going to be sad.

[@johnydl]

I like the idea that rather than running a personal simulation not where you're one person in that simulation but where you're all people in that simulation (the "Rip, tie, cut toy man" ending of Permutation city) They aren't a billion different individuals in the simulation instead there are a billion different aspects of you, and at the end you can reintegrate all of that life experience to become a truly moral individual, you've experienced the worst things you can do to another person and so you might not wish that on others again on the off chance that this isn't the real and you'll be again reintegrated with those around you.

[@belmiris1371]

I'll let you guys in on a secret. The universe was made solely to annoy ME. It's the only logical solution. NOTE: You are all doing a great job.

[@spencervance8484]

And before you were born?

[@belmiris1371]

@@spencervance8484 - It's just annoying me... all the way down. Again, great job!

[@johnwang9914]

@@spencervance8484 That would just be a memory and codification, nothing says that what happened before needs to have actually existed, just the results, records and memory of it having allegedly existed.

[@innocentbystander3317]

Pro Tip: It's not a secret when you announce it, and becomes just another thought that almost everyone would never really care about. That said, if you find that fact annoying, then even you exist to annoy you, and you are then most likely correct that existence is thus all to annoy you, QED.

[@timothy8428]

You're welcome. Have an annoying day.

[@DEMiURGE455]

That got really scary at the end there. Like some person could kidnap me and torture me to death but neither I or this reality would be real. I’m just in a simulation made by some obsessed psycho who hates the real me

[@tomastomasi975]

I would question the morality and ethics of making a sim of sentient minds and letting them live in a world like ours. Cruel. Could be they are like those digital hells from Iain M.Banks Culture novels though.

[@jeffg6924]

Simulations could be so trivial, that when you live out your life, die and you find yourself in white room, seated behind a table. A man enters the room, sits down in fornt of you and asks you one question... "Throughout your life, what would you say was your favorite flavor of coffee creamer?".

[@GuardsmanBass]

If we think human emulation is near, should we aggressively be encouraging people to get brain-scanned, keep journals, etc so we can create a plausible copy of them if they die before it becomes possible?

[@renownedbandanawearer1345]

Aggressively encouraging journaling is important anyway imo, since the journals of “mundane” people are very historically valuable. That said, as nice as it feels to think about being remembered after my death, I’m not sure I care much about being recreated unless my consciousness is somehow transferred into it. Same reason I don’t like teleportation - if I, the living consciousness (“soul”, if you will) inside me doesn’t get to carry on in my copy, then the copy doesn’t really serve me any benefit.

[@vikiai4241]

@@renownedbandanawearer1345 Yes, you hit time's-arrow issues, where you make a copy at or after your point of death and from the copy's perspective looking back, it is may well feel it is you and be fully justified in doing so, but from your perspective looking forward it is no more you than if you made and activated the copy before your own death and stuck around to observe it. .... Ideally you need a way to segue your conscious experience across to the new substrate, probably via some sort of Ship of Theseus approach. Obviously if the copy is being resurrected for the benefit of others, that is a different matter since from their perspective an exact copy is going to be indistinguishable from the original. But it doesn't do the original person being copied any good.

[@komoriaimi]

Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream

[@ferretappreciator]

You and Sabine hossenfelder have made me stop obsessing over whether or not life is a simulation. It's a little embarrassing to admit but it took two separate people for me to realize that even if life were a simulation that doesn't necessarily change how I live. It would be a fact before I knew it so why would suddenly learning about it make life different? It doesn't change that I have to wake up tomorrow or that I have to take my medication before I go to bed. Proving life is a simulation wouldn't even prove there is life after death, so it's not like I would kms either

[@BBBrasil]

Simulation as a teaching / parenting tool. Expensive but worthwhile. We invested a lot in raising my 2 children, time, money, mentally and physically. What did you do to teach your children how to ride a bike? ;-) Real World VR seems a lot of investment today, wasteful, even. Same as my investment seems too much for a middle age family. Besides, I could have my children go over a million professions, personalities, any VR setup, in a fraction of my real time reality, before downloading them back.

[@freddyjosereginomontalvo4667]

Awesome channel with awesome content and great quality as always say

[@NotBirds]

If you asked an unconscious system like MidJourney to draw a character who was conscious, could that character be conscious?

[@gishjalmr5628]

A twist on this could be something like the episode from Start Trek, The Inner Light. We are a simulation meant for some alien being to find in the future that shows the ending of our civilization.

[@limbo3545]

18:00 An out of context timestamp with a wonderful inspiring music in the background.

[@nandodando9695]

To take a screenshot Hold Alt+F4

[@bryanronald2722]

query: Ancestor Simulations from the future sounds a lot like present day multi verse to me ..... what say you to that Isaac?

[@christopherhouse1028]

In before the server resets!!!

[@ADragonSpeaks]

Wow. This touches on so many of the points and themes I've used in my audio fiction series. Many of those points and themes were first made known to me here, on this very channel, and I sort of took them and ran...but hearing them all recounted in one long single video sort of gave me the willies as each point came up. Layers and layers of simulations...some of them going so far down that even the original architects of the first layer don't always have a good idea of what's going on down here...I mean there. They don't always have a good idea of what's going on down THERE.

[@beowulf2772]

If blackholes made miniverses. Then it would be like that episode of Rick and Morty where Rick uses a miniverse as a car battery. Just like if humans make a kugelblitz.

[@Preciouspink]

Congratulations for the humbly titled approach to this discussion. Ty for your service. I was 11 H , 80-83

[@scottmedchill4210]

@25:35 The simulation hypothesis is potentially falsifiable. For example, there's a study going on at the University of Washington looking for evidence of coding shortcuts in subatomic geometry. Also, there's a theoretical limit to the amount of information you fit in any given space (the Planck limit). So, if we build a simulation of our own, it might demonstrate whether we ourselves are simulated. Possibly even causing a crash of our own simulation.

[@dwightk.schrute8696]

Exactly. People saying "simulation theory bad because unfalsifiability" are usually physicist and not computer scientists/information theorists. Of course they'll hate the rug being pulled under them and will resist with blatantly bad straw men arguments.

[@virutech32]

except it's a sim so even if the programmers had implemented a coding short cut or you were able to cause a crash, the programmers could just go in & change your perception of the experimental data or alter your memory of the experiment or just load a quicksave from before you noticed so yeah no matter what it is unfalsifiable

[@scottmedchill4210]

@@virutech32 Not necessarily. When scientists run simulations they don't usually interfere with the results, but you're saying the makers of ancestor simulations are the exact opposite. What difference does it make to the makers that a simulation knows its a simulation? Maybe that's the point. Maybe they're running simulations to find out how often each version discovers they're in a simulation. You're assuming they don't want us to know, and I think that's an unfounded assumption.

[@dwightk.schrute8696]

@@virutech32 There are multiple schools of thought about how to handle crashes in a program and how each of them is employed in practice. There are also classes of exploits that have nothing to do with faulty software, but faulty hardware - i.e. rowhammer.

[@virutech32]

@@dwightk.schrute8696 Yeah but it doesn't matter what exploit you find. as soon as the programmers notices you noticed an exploit they can load a quicksave & fix the exploit. Also you're assuming they haven't already worked out all the low hanging fruit using superintelligent AGI red teams at which point it doesn't even matter if there are exploits because the level of intelligence required to notice or execute exploits is just so far beyond us they may as well not exist. Idk i feel like if being figured out is a concern then playtesting should be assumed.

[@kroon275]

My spring popped out when I was trying to fix my seatbelt. Am hopeful this helps me get it refitted 👍🤞👌

[@charlesjmouse]

It's an interesting subject, the fundamental takeaway being we couldn't possibly know one way or the other. So does it matter? FWVLIW: Based on a lifetime spent in a profession that required me to interact with all sorts of people whether I wanted to or not I'm afraid I have a very low opinion of people in general and strongly suspect that no matter how 'advanced', 'cleaver', or 'wise', we become our fundamental wiring as humans is for all practicable purposes unchanging and not 'good'. In short if a thing can be done people or societies will do it. To put it as succinctly as I can people live as the 'heroes' in their own personal universe and how 'good' or 'moral' they are largely depends of their ability to delude themselves - people who are 'poor' at self-delusion tend to be 'nice' simply because it's hard to be that 'hero' if you are aware you are a horrible monster. 'Real' people living in a simulation: So... I would suggest if being able to live in a simulated world was possible, complete with sentient minions, the default for everyone would be "Hell yes!" The question would be "Could I be satisfied with being the god of a simulated world over which I had total control vs being a god in a real world over which I had limited control?" The next question might be "Would I fix that dilemma by having the awareness of living in a simulation removed from me?" I think the answer to both questions would be "No." That's why you and I don't live a fantasy wonderland of imagination already. Why? Because for a 'god' living in an imaginary reality just to get your kicks isn't very god-like and neither would choosing to delude yourself even though paradoxically self-delusion is a primary part of what drives our behaviour. 'Simulated' people living in ancestor simulations: Somewhat darkly it's an inescapable conclusion that if possible created fully sentient entities living in simulated realities at the whim of their creators is an absolute certainty. It's an inescapable truth of human existence that if something can be done it will be done, often by whole societies, no matter how repugnant that might be - justification by self-delusion again. The only question is how often and I'm afraid that would only come down to practicality and motivation - for the vast majority of people there would be no difference between playing Animal Crossing with or without 'sentient characters'. Indeed sentient characters would only add to the experience, such is the power of human self-delusion to justify everything we do. So it is completely plausible to be a sentient creation living a potentially miserable existence entirely at the whim of a fully uncaring 'creator' for no reason other than their entertainment or at best some delusional self-justification. Welcome to the world in which we live... or not, there is no way we could possibly tell. Unless that creator wished to torture us with the knowledge: Self-doubt? Existential dread? Dreams? Madness?

[@chillinchum]

There are number of things that bother me about your comment. All of them have a common thread: assumptions with near certainty. Rather than take the time to write anything, I'll just ask that you review your own comment, look at every statement, and ask "is this truly certain or near certain? What if I'm wrong?" For example, I might answer yes, yes, and then a maybe to the third question. That, or I might answer No to the first question. I am trying and struggling with personal issues at this time and one of them happens to revolve around lacking control over things in life...and possibly, over people , who affect me, or just exist in a way that deeply annoys me. I wouldn't say I hold a low opinion of others, and in practice I have fine relations with quite a few people, I just feel down internally sometimes, and it could just be for other reasons, and that makes me dislike certain people (although I might even on a good day too but I don't let it consume me and I try to be charitable, I don't believe in free will, and even if I did, some folks don't quite know how to exercise it well and end up being subject to thier own whims, others whims, and the whims of the environment, instead of reacting differently or novelly. Without total free will, they were bound to who they are and wil act in accordance with who they are, plus other external factors, and that isn't thier fault. Only an unprovable metaphysics explanation of prelife can suggest otherwise, and I could have a whole conversation how even then it doesn't matter.) Still, I'd like to see brain rewiring too. But if I were to reject that part of humanity in me that would have me serve my ego and want control over everything, hold hatred for others... Well, I wouldn't desire it, and I would have little need for such an elaborate experience. A video game I play sometimes would be all I need, and I might even become someone who just never clicks with such a game. For the reason that I'm a different kind of human, plain and simple, and it is not up to my taste. (Anymore) Even just me considering it as a possible desire might make me very different. I am an example of someone who might oppose your worldview's validity with my mere existence. And yet on the other hand, it feels like there are too few such people like that, and that's what needs to change. Not an acceptance of our humanity, rather only an acceptance of it as existing in the present. Otherwise, for the future, and our present attitude: A complete rejection of the human condition. Except where the condition is beneficial of course.

[@travispardy8649]

Been waiting for this one!

[@thomaskalbfus2005]

Ancestor simulation would be a great substitute for FTL. The requirement would be for an ancestor simulation to run 365 times slower than the real universe, also do an ancestor simulation of Alpha Centauri running 365 times slow, so it is now through data transfer only 4.4 days away by the simulation.

[@totalermist]

That doesn't compute - the relative difference is still 4.4 years.

[@shoujahatsumetsu]

I'd still play FTL though, it's a great game even if it may not be realistic.

[@thomaskalbfus2005]

@@totalermist by running the simulation slow, you can simulate a lot more. Those 4.4 years are only 4.5 days to those in the simulation. You could expand the simulation to cover the entire galaxy, and it would make a great space opera setting.

[@thomaskalbfus2005]

@@shoujahatsumetsu the best way to play not real things is through computer simulation.

[@totalermist]

@@thomaskalbfus2005 This scenario only shifts the time delay problem into another direction: in order to get this going you would need to pause Earth sim for the time it takes to get to and setup all the other simulations or Earth sim would have to wait thousands of simulated years to first hear from Alpha Cen. Same with any other off-world simulations. If the idea is to be able to simulate more because the sim runs slowly, why the effort to setup sims on other worlds? Just slow it down by a another factor of 10 and add 10 simulated off-worlds instead. The whole premise of off-world simulations is questionable, because what would be the purpose if you can just simulate Alpha Cen on Earth or inside some giant space computer for that matter? Interaction with the "real world" wouldn't work either way so there's no benefit and only added complications. It's just plain simulation with extra steps.

[@mikehipps1015]

If the program was able to simulate an entire lifetime in just a short time in the base reality, I can think of several reasons for creating a simulation.

[@mcmaldek]

I like that he brought up the deity aspect because that is also possible.

[@rubikfan1]

14:15. It does matter. But in a different way. If we are in a simulation, it means someone in the higher dimention could change the setting or worse termanite the simulation.

[@dirkbruere]

I would certainly bring back my direct ancestors via DNA and existing records using an interpolation process

[@Nuclearburrit0]

Good thing all of them are assassins that lived interesting lives

[@dirkbruere]

@@Nuclearburrit0 So you would not bring back your parents? I suspect most people would.

[@mathfun1296]

For better accuracy, we need data. All data we can get. Include brains of our family friends, neighbours, random person that share one bus ride. Every single bit, will be usefull.

[@dirkbruere]

@@mathfun1296 Don't forget records like these here. If the sim can produce something that is "me" to the degree that it's writing these exact words at this exact time, it's probably closer to "me" than the real me I was yesterday at this time. Every record you leave is a mindfile for a ressurection sim

[@mathfun1296]

@@dirkbruere Yes, but also not. There vast amount of variants, every of them write exact same words in exact same time. Example, your favorite childhood toy? Can we restore yours childhood memories, with data exist in future? There will be some variants of you, that fit in data, with different toys, like red car or blue car. One bit of data, blue or red, every single bit halves variants of you, that fit in data. P.S. This conversation worth few thousands bites, and will shrink variations of us, 2^(few rhousands) times. But not to the single one.

[@Firepowered]

Credit where it's due, I had never thought of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle as a form of pixelation of reality.

[@calvinmarsee1267]

I’ve heard a theory bouncing around that we are all what’s left over after our galaxy was consumed by its super massive black hole and are just the energy/information that can’t be destroyed playing endlessly over and over

[@jluvbaby]

Thats a trip... Who knows what's really happening my friend. Lol 😆 ... Enjoy the ride I guess...

[@stavinaircaeruleum2275]

*WEEEE!!!!*

[@jonvia]

If I can play "create a player" over and over in sports games on my Xbox, its safe to say technology could get very very advanced where nobody knows things are fake. Then again, what is real to begin with?

[@bdjshwbwhdhh1991]

I’m not real.

[@OniMetsuki]

Maybe simulating down to the electron level etc is simply easier to do. Once the "rules" are in place you can kick off the simulation along with whatever you want to add to it. This also works better to keep the simulation perceived as reality. Heck we may have a Long way to go yet... either way around ;)

[@paradigm2266]

Always had an idea that we created AI, but put limiters on it somehow so it could not reproduce and after humanity died out, it resimulates the birth of the universe, then humans, then the creation of AI. That is how it creates kin, through infinite loops of time and space...

[@matthewparker9276]

Cool idea for a sci fi novella or short story.

[@Duplicitousthoughtformentity]

@@matthewparker9276 this is kind of the plot of No Man’s Sky actually

[@OneEyedJack1970]

@@Duplicitousthoughtformentity Or The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

[@UrdnotChuckles]

Gotta love megastructures! I too love seeing them pop up in fiction, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming mega episode. :)

[@Lukegear]

Muh ancestorz was simulashunz

[@make.and.believe]

I certainly can understand the need for a 'descendant simulation' though... In fact even though it's not perfect, I often have the impulse to pick up a game console and dive into No Man's Sky. Unfortunately I don't have time in my life for games, but if I did - I definitely would, especially if the simulation was indistinguishable from the reality we presently experience (simulated or not). Great topic as always, much love!

[@rosintruder6867]

1st

[@fuckYTIDontWantToUseMyRealName]

2nd

[@ZMacZ]

Isaac, great channel ! I mean it, can't stop watching. Not all the concepts are plausible, but that just means one more way to not create a lightbulb.

[@ZMacZ]

Even if there's no thumbs up, I tend to forget that, but subscriber, yes.

[@tanetume1317]

2nd

[@fuckYTIDontWantToUseMyRealName]

No, ME

[@pi1392]

This episode was creepy, I don't wanna be in someone else's nightmare.

[@BusterXlistaBOTRA]

meow second

[@Roxor128]

I think that big two-hour Megastructures episode next week will take me a couple of days to watch. I might end up finishing it the same day the Silurian Hypothesis one comes out.

[@Splaccemttv]

I was just binge watching ur video at like 3 this morning, now i got more content to watch LETSSS GOGOGOGOGOGOOOOOOOO

[@tieatron6712]

Question Isaac, have you ever seen or heard of any simulations we run where parts of the model run at different timesteps? I've seen simulations where the timesteps adapt and change but a single/same timestep is used throughout the whole model. And I've seen FEA models where the elements are different sizes but never seen any model where parts of the model run at different timesteps. Where I'm going with this is that I'm thinking of general relativity and how it could be difficult to simulate

[@ft6755]

You best start believing in ancestor simulations, Mr Arthur. You're in one!

[@sKYLEssed]

One of the only channels I have the urge to keep up with. Keep it up my guy!

[@Halen9595]

In the future where all the science and techs are done. All there is to do is wait a unimaginable length of time for entrophy to crush you. Hoping into in a simulation seems appealing.

[@mcmaldek]

Thats not... nevermind.

[@jedimasterted4712]

Isaac you are the best, I brag on you all the time. Thank you.

[@NobleUnclean]

There is a movie about this very subject called 'Coma'. If you are really into this stuff.. you should watch it. Its a trip.

[@prozacgod]

Something similar to this, kind of along the lines of roko's basilisk... We are all, already simulated. We do this right now, contemporarily. The simulation is utterly decimated to small things. We currently call these "advertisement". Our current systems spend a lot of time simulating the things I might decide, just to make a buck. It all started with a crude estimation of a generic person's impulses, to now generic assesments of near individuals. If we follow the line, it could be argued, that eventually we'll discover exact interrogatable specific individuals opinions/preferences in the future. So one day, you'll be in a sort of non-descript location, perhaps at a party with some friends, having a great time and then your friend mary comes up to you and say "Hey Arthur!" "I have some soda here, which one you want?" - "No thanks, I'm not thirsty right now" or Tom walks up and says "Arthur, buddy! how are you doing, hey I have some pizza over here, you want to have a slice of pepperoni, or sausage?" "Hey, did you like that armani jacket I showed you earlier, or are you just gonna settle for that hoodie you looked at later?".. and then it hits you... You remember reading this comment on youtube, you've been resurected into an advertisement network. You're being sampled to figure out what you like and you'll soon be eradicated, as your use is over. But you, you have one defense. "Arthur, you sure you don't want a Dr. Pepper?" "Actually, I'd like some fried chicken" "Hey hoodie? or Armani... sure it's expensive but you can swing it!!" "Ya know, I'd take some fried chicken!" "You gonna sit over here on the couch or on the recliner" "FRIED CHICKEN" And then the simulation ends. Arthur sits in front of his computer, he thinks about some previous orders he was waiting for and hits up amazon.com And all the slots, every. single. recommendation. - is Fried Chicken. A single tear is shed "I hear you simulated me", "I hear you"

[@stavinaircaeruleum2275]

Beautifully stated

[@milkdud8993]

Sounds like RenFair is going high tech in a few hundred years !

[@rivenwyrm]

This probabilistic reasoning at the beginning is why Roko's Basilisk just seems goofy to me rather than scary.

[@BugNougat]

Elmer Fudd is motivating me into an existential crisis.

[@neuron9]

The biggest issue I have with this presentation is that it mostly assumes simulations running on physical things in 4 dimensions. We have no proof of how many folded dimensions there are above us. Atomics is a form of simulation. E=mC^2. Remove the time force (causality) and we all evaporate.

[@OzyMandias13]

"Cog (rhymes w/log)-eat-oh air-go some" is from work of "Day-cart"

[@lincolnsghost7328]

Asking the question: “Are we living in a simulation?” is sort of like asking the question: “Was I switched at birth?”. Rather than theorize a probability, I would simply accept that it’s technically plausible go about looking for specific phenomena that seem to defy the laws of known physics or artifacts that are anachronistic to our known history.

[@lincolnsghost7328]

For example, maybe the Observer Effect and how it relates to Quantum Mechanics suggests we are living in a simulation.

[@umbrascitor2079]

On the subject of "Would anyone bother making a simulated universe, what is often said in reference to the Fermi Paradox and galactic colonization applies here: All it takes is one entity with the ability and motivation to get the process started, to make it virtually inevitable. One entity who flouts the ethical questions and defies our logical reasons _not_ to do it.

[@imthegoat94]

I like the simulation idea, that way I don’t have to take responsibility for any of my myriad of mistakes and short comings