Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?

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news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.html
“Now, a philosopher and team of physicists imagine that we might really be living inside a computer-generated universe that you could call The Lattice. What’s more, we may be able to detect it.”

Interesting theory. What boggles my mind is that scientists would put their time & energy into pursuing this kind of notion.
However, no doubt it seems reasonable to them.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Their premise seems to be that if they do discover a lattice underlying reality, it would prove our reality is computer simulated. But couldn’t God have used a lattice also? Our universe is clearly based on mathematical principles.
 
Viki63 said:
news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.html
“Now, a philosopher and team of physicists imagine that we might really be living inside a computer-generated universe that you could call The Lattice. What’s more, we may be able to detect it.”

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
This is a variation on a theme that’s been around for a while. “The Matrix” movies are an example of this theme being put in to movie form but not the only one. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe” also played on this same theme at the end. It could even be seen as being loosely related to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave where the difference between perception and reality are emphasized.

It’s something that I think is kind of interesting but I don’t wonder about it too much. If I found out I was in a simulation I’m not sure how that information would be actionable.
 
While it is a cool idea, my first question is whether this is funded by our taxes. We could be using this to research things like cancer and aids cures and instead we research this? I think its a waste, even if not government funded
 
Sadly, some government/military funded research goes into alternative what-if science and psychological warfare.

While the idea has a certain level of possibility, which may lead to other discoveries, it does not appear to have a basis in reality. Charles Fort, from which the word Fortean derives, wrote that “we are property,” manipulated by unknown beings/entities/forces. This concept has been borrowed in other ‘true strange’ books that are more recent. Though amusing to read, at best they fall into the science-fiction category and at worst, fall into the psychological warfare category.

Peace,
Ed
 
I guess no one ever told them the Matrix was not based on a true story… 😛
 
I think its complete bahoney.

Its an attempt to circumvent utterly the fine tuning arguement. Ok so lets imagine we’re living in a computer simulation. Their contention rests on the improbability of human life, the seeming implausibility of everything coalescing just perfectly to create a habitable zone for human life to exist and thrive, dark energy and the supposed special time that human beings currently exist in when the universe is accelerating in its expansion rather than decelerating and would just break apart if more than by just a tiny amount. How did the programmers come into being? How did their universe come to exist? All the same mysteries still apply except that we foist it upon some imagined higher beings in another, truly real, universe.

Essentially this theory proves nothing except bringing us back to square one. All it achieves is demeaning the reality and sacredness of this universe and the dignity of human life.

Its pseudo-science.
 
Yes, the world is ‘like’ a computer simulation. Since all real being is eternal (cf. Augustine, Parmenides), nothing of the changing flux which surrounds us is actually real.

When we die, we break out of this matrix (matrix, by the way, means, womb), out of this illusion-prison of filth and pain, into the real world of perpetual light and bliss. Hopefully…
 
So…

am I to understand that these psychologists and physicists are admitting the possibility of intelligent design?

Well, I guess it’s a step in the right direction.🤷
 
If our world were a simulation, would it not be undiscoverable? After all, our minds would likewise be part of the simulation.

It’s like our inability to see atoms: our own eyes are made up of atoms.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
If our world were a simulation, would it not be undiscoverable? After all, our minds would likewise be part of the simulation.

It’s like our inability to see atoms: our own eyes are made up of atoms.

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
👍
 
Viki63 said:
news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.html
“Now, a philosopher and team of physicists imagine that we might really be living inside a computer-generated universe that you could call The Lattice. What’s more, we may be able to detect it.”

Interesting theory. What boggles my mind is that scientists would put their time & energy into pursuing this kind of notion.
However, no doubt it seems reasonable to them.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Their premise seems to be that if they do discover a lattice underlying reality, it would prove our reality is computer simulated. But couldn’t God have used a lattice also? Our universe is clearly based on mathematical principles.
Click to expand...
I read a different article addressing this theme and briefly skimmed this article. I found both articles to be unsubstantial hype. No names are given in the Discovery article, just a vague “team” at Washington University. No interviews, no statement of endorsement from a department at WU.

A link in the paper goes to a research paper found at “http://arxiv.org/”, a repository claimed to be owned by Cornell University. Even if the repository is legitimate, there is no claim that the articles are peer reviewed for quality, just that they meet “standards”.

Ultimately, I find that it dubious that any legitimate researchers are putting serious effort into. At best, it is a “soft” project, a side project worked on for amusement by otherwise productive academics. At worst, it is prepared by hacks.
 
runningdude said:
I read a different article addressing this theme and briefly skimmed this article. I found both articles to be unsubstantial hype. No names are given in the Discovery article, just a vague “team” at Washington University. No interviews, no statement of endorsement from a department at WU.

A link in the paper goes to a research paper found at “http://arxiv.org/”, a repository claimed to be owned by Cornell University. Even if the repository is legitimate, there is no claim that the articles are peer reviewed for quality, just that they meet “standards”.

Ultimately, I find that it dubious that any legitimate researchers are putting serious effort into. At best, it is a “soft” project, a side project worked on for amusement by otherwise productive academics. At worst, it is prepared by hacks.
Click to expand...
Then we can’t assume anything about the articles unless we contacted someone at Cornell for further confirmation and clarification. Trust me, scientists have studied supernatural phenomena with the carved in stone mind-set that there may be human abilities that are rare and beyond the norm or that humans can use their minds to do things that are scientifically impossible, based on known science.

Peace,
Ed
 
Vouthon said:
I think its complete bahoney.

Its an attempt to circumvent utterly the fine tuning arguement. Ok so lets imagine we’re living in a computer simulation. Their contention rests on the improbability of human life, the seeming implausibility of everything coalescing just perfectly to create a habitable zone for human life to exist and thrive, dark energy and the supposed special time that human beings currently exist in when the universe is accelerating in its expansion rather than decelerating and would just break apart if more than by just a tiny amount. How did the programmers come into being? How did their universe come to exist? All the same mysteries still apply except that we foist it upon some imagined higher beings in another, truly real, universe.

Essentially this theory proves nothing except bringing us back to square one. All it achieves is demeaning the reality and sacredness of this universe and the dignity of human life.

Its pseudo-science.
Click to expand...
👍👍
 
Viki63 said:
news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.html
“Now, a philosopher and team of physicists imagine that we might really be living inside a computer-generated universe that you could call The Lattice. What’s more, we may be able to detect it.”

Interesting theory. What boggles my mind is that scientists would put their time & energy into pursuing this kind of notion.
However, no doubt it seems reasonable to them.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Their premise seems to be that if they do discover a lattice underlying reality, it would prove our reality is computer simulated. But couldn’t God have used a lattice also? Our universe is clearly based on mathematical principles.
Click to expand...
There’s nothing, in principle, that precludes a scientist from investigating any claim about Reality. In this particular case, there’s not much you need to assume to get the idea off the ground. A super-advanced race of beings from the future (perhaps our descendents, perhaps an alien race) have programmed a super-advanced computer with a simulated reality containing us. We have programs like Sim City, and as far as we’re concerned, the Sims in the program don’t have consciousness. But to the beings that programmed our reality, we wouldn’t have consciousness either. If they pulled the plug on the computer. Not only would we be gone, we would never know we were there in the first place.

I’m not sure about the proposed “test,” though. It seems to me that any such test would only tell us exactly what it’s programmed to tell us. Which could be the truth, or something else.
 
edwest2 said:
Then we can’t assume anything about the articles unless we contacted someone at Cornell for further confirmation and clarification.
Click to expand...
No, we can assume the subject matter of the articles is bogus because inadequate proof was provided.
Trust me, scientists have studied supernatural phenomena with the carved in stone mind-set that there may be human abilities that are rare and beyond the norm or that humans can use their minds to do things that are scientifically impossible, based on known science.
Click to expand...
Scientists have studied many things. However, these articles don’t don’t provide any evidence that anyone is actually seriously studying the subject of living in a computer simulation.
 
I listened to this theory explained. Course when elaborated on it was not contested at any point. I believe the whole of a different suggested reality resides in that we do not know as much as we would like about the now.
 
Yes, it’s certainly possible that we are living in a computer simulation. Our world is a fantasy world marked by make-believe.
 
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