2 Comments
User's avatar
Brett F.'s avatar

Bob wanted to talk physics and the nutty guy wanted nothing to do with that. Why should I care if I live in a simulation? Feels real to me. I have an internal life. I don't care if the rest of you do.

Expand full comment
David Gillman's avatar

When Konrad Lorenz was a kid he would fill an aquarium with water from the creek. Sometimes the water would stay brackish and inhospitable. Sometimes the water would clear, because the mix of critters he had swept up could make an ecology.

This is a simulation. It preserves some of the complexity of the thing being studied and excludes the rest. It's not a simulation where the experimenter controls everything, but that's not the kind of scientist Konrad Lorenz was.

The people who think about whether we're a simulation are obsessed with control.

Expand full comment