Walter Bradley Center fellows weigh in:
The idea that we are a simulation by space aliens is a staple of science fiction, of course (think The Matrix, 1999). But some scientists take this simulation hypothesis seriously.
Serious discussion started with a paper by philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003, “Are you living in a computer simulation?” in which he suggests, “One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears.”…
Jonathan Bartlett offers,
The simulation hypothesis is interesting but it fails precisely because it is too loosely stated, and equivocates more than it clarifies.
The primary “proof” for the simulation hypothesis is that, let’s say that we could simulate a universe. If we do, there are now two universes, ours and the simulated one. In the simulated universe, if it succeeds, there will eventually be organisms that can also discover how to simulate a universe. Now we have three universes, and two of them are simulated. So, if you wake up in any universe, there is now a higher probability of a particular universe being simulated than the universe being real…”
“How do we know that our universe is not a sim world?” at Mind Matters News
It gets crazier. You will reach for sanity and not find it… 😉
See also: Tyson bombshell: Universe is likely just computer sim
To postulate that you live in a simulated universe is to presuppose a ‘real’ reference frame “above it all’ in which you can differentiate between what is a real universe and what is a simulated universe.
The argument for a simulated universe reminds me very much of the self deception that Darwinists play on themselves when they deny that they themselves really exist as real persons.
The claim from Darwinian materialists that they are not really real persons, of course assumes that they have the capacity within themselves to differentiate real persons from illusory persons. David Bentley Hart succinctly puts the fatal flaw in Darwinian thinking as such, “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.”
David Bentley Hart’s critique, besides being devastating to Darwinian materialists, also goes to the heart of the ‘simulated universe’ argument.
What is actually being presupposed as being ‘real’ in both the claim that we live in a simulated universe and in the claim that we do not actually exist as real persons, is consciousness itself. Simply put, consciousness itself is the unstated presupposition of ‘realness’ that Atheists, unbeknownst to themselves, presuppose as being real so as to give them a vantage point “above it all’ in order for them to deceive themselves into thinking that they have properly differentiated what is real from what is illusory.
There simply is no way around this fact. Consciousness is the required prerequisite of all possible required perquisites for anything to be ‘real’ for us in the first place:
Thus with the preceding line of evidence laid out for the prerequisite of consciousness for anything to be ‘real’ for us in the first place, the argument for the Mind of God from a ‘simulated’ universe becomes much easier to understand:
Nonlocality disproves the simulated universe hypothesis. All conservation laws are inherently nonlocal meaning that they apply to the entire universe, that is, every particle in it at every instant. This is like saying that every particle in the universe sees every other particle all the time. This is impossible to implement using an algorithmic simulation because every update would take forever.
Bornagain77 @ 1
That’s right. If all this is a simulation then there is presumably some sort of computing device that is running the simulation and some sort of intelligent agency that designed the simulation and the computer on which it is running. The problem is that if you and I are part of that simulation we’ll never know. Simulacra can never escape the virtual reality in which they are being simulated.
Which is why not all Darwinian materialists – such as myself – make the nonsensical claim that we are illusions. Attacking that claim on the assumption that all materialists believe it is to attack a strawman.
The differentiation problem is that illusions, dreams, delusions and, we assume, objective reality are all experienced by us within the same internally-constructed mental model so how do we distinguish between them? Dreams, for example, can be convincingly real at the time we experience them. I once dreamed of going into work on a very ordinary morning in an office building where I had worked for years. I greeted co-workers, whom I had also known for years, as I made my way to my desk. But when I woke up I realized I had never worked in such a place and I had never known the people in the dream. Yet, while I was in the dream, the sense of recognition was immediate and strong. There does seem to be a qualitative difference between the experience of what we assume to be objective reality and the dream experience but we are only aware of it after the dream event. Unless you are one of the approximately 50% of people who are lucky enough to be capable of lucid dreaming.
Consciousness is the prerequisite for the capacity to experience ‘reality’ although if, as you seem to believe at times, reality only exists when we are aware of it, in what sense is it real? But to be conscious is to be conscious of something, a “something” that must pre-exist the consciousness that becomes aware of it. So which comes first, the conscious ‘chicken’ or the real ‘egg’?
I don’t concede that.
The mind that created the simulation need not be the Christian God. I don’t think most Christians think of God as a giant video-games designer.
Seversky states that
I did not claim that ALL materialists make that claim. After all it is, or should be, the very definition of a ‘SELF-refuting” claim.
But what I do claim is that if you logically follow the premises of reductive materialism out to their bitter end, then you are driven to the logical conclusion that consciousness, and ‘personhood’ in particular, must necessarily be an illusion of the material brain:
Moreover in post #1, I quoted several prominent thinkers in the atheistic community that have followed the logic of materialism out to its bitter end and have concluded that consciousness must be an ‘illusion’. Thus you can claim it is a strawman argument all you want, but the fact of the matter is that I have argued against what materialism itself actually entails and I have not argued against the varying beliefs amongst atheists as to what their worldview actually entails. (Frankly, I would rather herd cats than do that).
You see Seversky, to put it simply as I can, the entire concept of ‘personhood’ is an abstract, i.e. immaterial, concept that simply can find no grounding within your materialistic worldview.
Besides ‘personhood’, there are an entire universe of abstract, immaterial, objects that everyone, including atheists. hold as being real, and yet, since they are necessarily immaterial, those abstract objects can find no grounding within your materialistic worldview, and therefore necessarily become ‘illusory’ for the materialist. In fact, mathematics itself, the very backbone of science itself, is abstract and immaterial and thus can find no grounding within your materialistic worldview.
Even the entire ‘abstract’ concept of species becomes illusory within the Darwinist’s materialistic worldview:
Thus for Charles Darwin to write a book entitled “Origin of Species” whilst at the same time, due to his reductive materialism, denying the existence of “true species” is obviously an exercise in self-refuting futility.
Moreover, to make this dilemma even more devastating to the Darwinian materialist, it turns out that atoms themselves are not the solid indivisible concrete particles, as they were originally envisioned to be by materialists, but it turns out that the descriptions we now use to describe atoms themselves, the further down we go, dissolve into “abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,,”
In fact, according to quantum theory, the most fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not even matter or energy, (as Darwinian materialists presuppose) but is immaterial information itself
Thus, in irony of ironies, not even the material particles themselves turn to be are ‘real’ and concrete, (on the materialistic definition of what is ‘real’ and concrete), but turn out to be “abstract” immaterial information.
This puts the die-hard materialist in quite the conundrum because, as Bernardo Kastrup further explains, to make sense of this conundrum of a non-material world of pure abstractions we must ultimately appeal to an immaterial mind. i.e. we must ultimately appeal to God!
Or to put it much more simply, as Physics professor Richard Conn Henry put it at the end of the following article, “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.”
Of supplemental note:
The Darwinian materialist, in his rejection of God, simply has no anchor for reality to grab onto:
As I have pointed out several times now, assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
FourFaces@2,
Humans are both naive and arrogant. For some reason people go to assume that “simulation” is being performed using technology which is conceptually similar to what we use to simulate a 3D computer game. This is just lame. …Why not instead assume that “they” can re-compute the state for every atom or even for every elementary particle (that is 1^80 .. 1^90 states) as often as, say, 1^30 times per second? This then takes care of all available nonlocality just fine.
Further, the simulation could be performed not even in a strictly computational “pure virtual” form, but as a mixture of some physical processes, assisted by some computing power. …The way the quantum states are computed by “nature”(?) to account for all possible paths and states in parallel may be a good hint on the workings of the simulation “engine”. And then there is the random number generator which is somehow also part of the same “nature”. To me this all looks rather suspicious.
Ultimately though, the point is that our reality is very likely not the most basic reality out there. It is a created one.
Eugene @5,
You start an argument by accusing the person you disagree with of being arrogant and naive? Be cool.
1^30 times per second? This then takes care of all available nonlocality just fine.
If you truly understood time and motion, you would know that it’s impossible to move faster than the speed of light for a reason, not just for grins and giggles. The reason is both strange and simple. In a discrete reality (there can be no other kind), bodies move by making jumps at the speed of light, each happening over a minute fundamental distance known as the Planck length and a minute fundamental interval known as the Planck time. Thus the speed of light is the only possible speed. Nothing can move faster or slower. If something appears to move at half the speed of light it’s because it is at rest half the time. At ordinary speeds, moving bodies are at rest almost all the time. So the speed of change that would be required to simulate the universe would break the laws of reality.
Ultimately though, the point is that our reality is very likely not the most basic reality out there. It is a created one.
No disagreement here, as far as it being created, that is. The notion of one reality existing inside another (simulation) doesn’t hold water, IMO.
FourFaces @6,
The reference to humans being naive and arrogant was not a personal one. It is a generalization for mostly everything I have seen so far written about the simulation idea. (See http://www.my-big-toe.com as just one example).
I definitely do not truly understood time and motion, I am afraid no one does. My favorite derivation for the speed of light comes from Richard Conn Henry “The Physics of our Universe” where it is just the metric of our space (-time) which happens to be
ds^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 – dt^2 (where the unit of time is simply scaled by c^2). Again, no one knows why this is so, but in our “reality” this is what it is.
The laws of reality are obviously just the laws of “our” reality. They could mean nothing to the simulation engine.
Simulating a universe is not as hard as it may seem at first. You do not need to model every particle, nor even every human being. You just need to control the sensations reaching each “real” mind, as in the Matrix movies. Thus, for example, particle physics only needs to be modelled accurately when some “real” person is doing a particle physics experiment. Similarly, most of the apparent humans around us may just be simulated constructs (AKA digital zombies?).
The actual amount of data that a human can absorb and process as incoming sensations is quite low. Even your visual perception is mostly a mental construct or model, which your brain creates and maintains to make sense of the data from your eyes. You see details only in the foveal area of your vision. The rest of your visual field is quite fuzzy. Thus, you probably do not even need HD quality of sensations to simulate human vision, so a few megabits per second should be more than enough for all your incoming sensations, perceptions, and outgoing control signals.
The simulating computer (or whatever) would need to have a good model of your immediate world in order to give you a coherent sense of reality. All the world’s books and data are already stored on our own computers, so keeping track of “reality” to maintain consistency should not be too hard. A few thousand “real” people might be enough to maintain the illusion of a huge population, a real world and a complete universe. After all, except for telescopes, we cannot see much detail in stars or galaxies, and it is surely easy to simulate telescope views. Of course, the simulator would have to be very clever to keep up with our scientific experiments, finding new things about “nature”. Also, the simulation models would have to get more complicated as we look deeper into various aspects of “reality”. Perhaps that “explains” why physics has become so unreal and esoteric with weird quantum effects, undetectable aspects, and relativity conundrums? We are pushing the limits of the simulator’s ability to maintain the illusion.
Lots of fun speculating, but I’ll stick to my belief that the universe is “real” – whatever that means.
I think that the case for our reality being some form of virtual reality hyper-computer simulation is fairly compelling, but still not totally convincing to me at least. There is first the issue of how humans figure into the scheme. Dyson and other materialists imagine that human beings are also part of this simulation software, but this is of course untenable – the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness and a large body of evidence shows that although human consciousness is usually in life tied to material brains it is not of these material neural structures and can separate from the physical body. So if there is any truth to the simulation theory (or is it merely a metaphor?) we must be the observers or participants or users of it, not part of it.
The case seems compelling because of the way the analogy of an iterative computer calculation/simulation makes sense of quantum mechanical phenomena. All the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual implications of such a theory are irrelevant to the likely truth of the theory based on its great explanatory power. I think that Ross Rhodes makes some key points on this, summarized in his paper A Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics at http://www.mysearch.org.uk/website1/pdf/615.1.pdf.
Just one part of this analysis is examination of the way electromagnetic waves are not really waves in any sort of medium, but behave exactly as if they are waves of calculation:
Actually, I still don’t subscribe to this hypothesis. Along with other objections, there is the reductio ad absurdum of the inescapable infinite regress of higher realities – if our realm is a simulation, then the higher reality of the simulation computer(s) may itself be a simulation, and so on ad infinitum.
The bottom line is they know from all that they have found that our universe is engineered – not just fine tuned but engineered to be just the way it is – so it is a simulation – God made it by thinking or speaking it into assistance, so its simulated in the mind of God. Notice this and the Holographic universe, and the multiverse, are all forms of atheists religious philosophy – all of them have a creator, in their case its just either that in the beginning was the great code writing simulation gods, or in the beginning their was something that stored the data on a 2D disk and projected us into 3D (all made from highly specified information so it must have a mind behind it especially when the 3D projection is fine-tuned), or in the beginning was a system that created so many universes that it created one fine tuned one. BTW, if we can’t explain life in THIS universe without admitting the DNA enigma forces us to admit intelligence is required, then the multiverse is a mute point…so the multiverse is a distraction…
At the end of the day, we know that the “nature” is already perfectly capable of computing the quantum states for our entire universe non-locally across both space and time (see the delayed quantum eraser experiments). Our quantum computing efforts are just trying to harness some of that enormous computing power for our humble practical needs. Now, whether the computing engine for the universe is outside of our universe, or it is the universe itself (that is, we exist inside the computing engine, aka inside the Creator Mind or something) is likely less important. The quantum state computations of an enormous scale are happening somewhere nonetheless.
Eugene @11,
In my opinion, there is no computation going on. Nonlocality is due to two things:
1. Distance is an illusion of the mind.
2. All conservation laws derive from one master principle: all things must sum up to nothing. That is, the universe is ONE.
Nature automatically tries to get rid of violations to the conservation of nothing by maintaining a universal balance between positive and negative properties or states. Hence, nonlocality. All changes and movements in the universe are driven by this principle. There’s no need for computations. The principle simply correct temporary violations to the necessity that everything must amount to nothing. There’s only one nothing and this is what is meant by everything is ONE.