Listen now | 0:50 Why many intelligent people think we’re living in a simulation 11:00 The philosophical argument that you’re probably not real 26:40 How cosmic rays might (and might not) reveal that reality is fake 34:34 Preston’s dire warning against trying to determine if we’re in a simulation 48:22 Is the simulation hypothesis non-falsifiable? 54:56 Is “the simulation” just religion for atheists? Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Preston Greene (NTU Singapore). Recorded October 8, 2019.
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.
I would’ve liked to hear some justification for the assumption that in the future it’ll be possible to simulate planet Earth in convincing detail. Let alone the solar system, the universe, let alone billions of simulations running in parallel. I mean, computing power too cheap to meter seems to be the implicit assumption.
Interestingly, Bob and Greene kind of wave in the general direction of the computing power issue when they consider the idea that one tell that we’re in a simulation might be suspiciously low granularity in remote parts of the universe. But I’ve yet to see even a back-of-the-envelope demonstration that there could *ever* be enough computing power to simulate the history of Earth.
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.
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.
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I would’ve liked to hear some justification for the assumption that in the future it’ll be possible to simulate planet Earth in convincing detail. Let alone the solar system, the universe, let alone billions of simulations running in parallel. I mean, computing power too cheap to meter seems to be the implicit assumption.
Interestingly, Bob and Greene kind of wave in the general direction of the computing power issue when they consider the idea that one tell that we’re in a simulation might be suspiciously low granularity in remote parts of the universe. But I’ve yet to see even a back-of-the-envelope demonstration that there could *ever* be enough computing power to simulate the history of Earth.
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.