The Simulation Model v.2.0

[QuantumT]

Version 1.0 of this thread didn't work out so well, because a user derailed it with numerous so-called "questions".
So here's a new attempt. But this time I'm better prepared!


The Simulation Model v.2.0

I know the official name for it is "The Simulation Hypothesis", but if an idea is supported by a sufficient amount of circumstatial evidence, it is qualified to be called a model (since a hypothesis is unprovable), or even a theory. That's my opinion.

Anyways, I have become quite an expert on the subject, after studying it (and trying to debunk it) intensely for two years.

If you have any questions about this idea/model/hypothesis/theory, I'd be happy to answer them! Anything* goes, so don't be shy!


(* Anything except repeating the same questions/ignoring the answers!)

[FlashDangerpants]

The guy in the other thread was right though. The simulation theory is not fundamentally any different to the brain the vat problem and so you have the same issues with solipsism. For that matter, Plato's simile of the cave also discusses a captive audience who are shown a false reality which they are incapable of seeing past. And Berkeley straight up insisted that the word is definitely imaginary. This is just the sci-fi version of some old shit that comes around now because a handful of of those "and philosopher" scientists don't know anything about philosophy.

The same fix applies to this conundrum as to all those others. Reality describes hat we experience as our shared fabric of existence. Perhaps in some incomprehensible other dimension of existence there truly are beings who consider us fictional, but we have no way comprehending whatever reality is for them, and no way of describing it, and no language into which we can put those ideas. So in any discussion we have on the subject, the appearance of meaning to the words we might use is simply a grammatical accident. But the conversation is literally meaningless unless it takes place between those beings that we cannot comprehend and entirely over our heads.

[QuantumT]

The simulation theory is not fundamentally any different to the brain the vat problem and so you have the same issues with solipsism. For that matter, Plato's simile of the cave also discusses a captive audience who are shown a false reality which they are incapable of seeing past. And Berkeley straight up insisted that the word is definitely imaginary. This is just the sci-fi version of some old shit that comes around now because a handful of of those "and philosopher" scientists don't know anything about philosophy.

The same fix applies to this conundrum as to all those others. Reality describes hat we experience as our shared fabric of existence. Perhaps in some incomprehensible other dimension of existence there truly are beings who consider us fictional, but we have no way comprehending whatever reality is for them, and no way of describing it, and no language into which we can put those ideas. So in any discussion we have on the subject, the appearance of meaning to the words we might use is simply a grammatical accident. But the conversation is literally meaningless unless it takes place between those beings that we cannot comprehend and entirely over our heads.

Well, as I mentioned, I spent alot of time with this conundrum, and it's not as hopeless as most think.
I have ruled out BIV and solipsism. It's far to unrealistic/unlikely, that you are the only conscious being in our universe. I am also here! How do I know you are? You ask questions only a conscious being would ask. Things I wondered myself. Doubt itself is a proof of consciousness - IMO.

And we can actually tell things about the makers of this matrix. How? By looking beneath their design. String theorists have calculated that our universe is 11 dimensional (10 + time). That tells us about their visual perception. Also the Holographic Principle and our own brains. That tells us about their technology. The things they allow to happen, tells us about their morality. Our looks might be a copy of themselves. That they can manipulate millions, or even billions of people daily, tells us they are super intelligent. Far beyond us.

So their domain is not totally unknown, although some of my conclussions might be speculation. But if you give up wondering about the unknown, you will never get anywhere. When I started investigating this, I was clueless. I am not now. And I'm not finnished.

[FlashDangerpants]

Well, as I mentioned, I spent alot of time with this conundrum, and it's not as hopeless as most think.
I have ruled out BIV and solipsism. It's far to unrealistic/unlikely, that you are the only conscious being in our universe. I am also! How do I know you are? You ask questions only a conscious being would ask. Things I wondered myself. Doubt itself is a proof of consciousness - IMO.

Yeah that's not how it works at all. You can, I suppose, construct an argument and then just decide that in your opinion it has none of the problems of all the similar arguments. But you shouldn't be taken seriously. Doubt itself is only proof that there is some doubting being done. It doesn't prove there is an external universe with other people doing doubting in it. Even less so when you are positing that the external universe full of doubters is actually fictional.

And we can actually tell things about the makers of this matrix. How? By looking beneath their design. String theorists have calculated that our universe is 11 dimensional (10 + time). That tells us about their visual perception. Also the Holographic Principle and our own brains. That tells us about their technology. The things they allow to happen, tells us about their morality. Our looks might be a copy of themselves. That they can manipulate millions, or even billions of people daily, tells us they are super intelligent. Far beyond us.

That's not an answer to my objection, which was about conceptual frameworks and the meaning of statements which abuse them.

It's also not a very good answer to any other question, it's basically a religious assertion stating that you don't believe in the Big Bang or evolution and simply prefer some other explanation for the things they describe. In which case you may as well call your thing a religious experience rather than a scientific or a philosophical claim.

[QuantumT]

I tried my best to answer the conundrums you set up. This is uncharted territory. You rejected my proposals to solve them. So be it. I can only give probable answers, not perfect definitive ones. Welcome to science.

[FlashDangerpants]

Philosophy doesn't work by arranging some agree-to-disagree consensus, and neither does science. Only religion works that way, and that's because otherwise they all kill each other. Your proposals to solve them amicably are not worthwhile.

It's not uncharted territory. Two people have already pointed you at previous arguments which have all the same basic features and the same problems as the one you happen to like. The objections I placed before you are not conundrums concocted by me*, they are old ones to old arguments which happen to be fundamentally the same as your new argument.





*Well I suppose I took quite a slapdash approach Wittgenstein's PLA, and he probably wouldn't want to assume too much credit for what I did there. But otherwise these are old objections to an argument that is not new just because it is about computers this time.

[QuantumT]

There is a difference between metaphysics, like your questions are about, and scientific/philosophical brooding, like my answers.

Any other questions, anyone?

[FlashDangerpants]

There is a difference between metaphysics, like your questions are about, and scientific/philosophical brooding, like my answers.

Any other questions, anyone?

Publicly congratulating yourself is not any sort of answer to the problems with the theory you are defending. Your argument is not a scientific analysis of data, you are simply speculating about objects outside of the universe and about which you cannot possibly collect any data.

It is inherently religious to posit that an invisible being of great power uses undetectable methods to govern events in our lives. It is the height of absurdity to claim that what amounts to nothing more than a theory of guided evolution is science.

[QuantumT]

I answered your non-scientific questions. If you want to talk science, ask scientific questions, not metaphisical ones

[FlashDangerpants]

I answered your non-scientific questions. If you want to talk science, ask scientific questions, not metaphisical ones

Ok. Explain how it is scientific to use a supernatural entity whose existence is neither detectable nor necessary to explain the phenomena in question as the answer to a scientific enquiry?

that is what Intelligent Design does. It's what Guided Evolution does. It's what those people who reckon Jebus saddled up a brontosaurus and rode it around do. And it's what you do with your theory that all powerful super beings from another dimension created the universe and cause our wars. You didn't even give it the gloss of scientific credibility that you could have got by saying that they simulated a universe with a big bang and then left randomness to do the rest. So you are even denying evolution and using a supernatural cause to explain specific events..... all of these are examples of purely religious pseudoscience.

[QuantumT]

There's nothing supernatural or religious about it. It might even all be random, but I doubt that very much.
My doubt about randomness is based on the following "lucky coincidences":

- The emergence of DNA/RNA. It's complicated and delicate stuff.
- The inclusion of the mitochondria to the cell. (Both happening: That's crazy lucky!)
- The emergence of two sexes.
- The perfect balance between bacteria, plants and animals.
- Jupiter, Earths magnetic field and the ozone layer.

It's like nature had a will for it all to happen.
I know it sounds alot like the arguments made by religious people, but my angle doesn't need a magical guy in the sky. Just "someone" who wanted to make it, and had the codes and the equipment to do it.
And if you add QM, the "Physical" Constant, string theory, information theory and the Holographic Principle to the pile, the balance starts to tip alot towards a matrix.

You don't believe in it. That is fine by me. But denying it, is a choice based more on will, than on facts.

[FlashDangerpants]

It's like nature had a will for it all to happen.

That is clearly Intelligent Design Theory. How can you not even see that you are peddling obvious Creationism?

I know it sounds alot like the arguments made by religious people, but my angle doesn't need a magical guy in the sky. Just "someone" who wanted to make it, and had the codes and the equipment to do it.

That is a description of God. Or just a God substitute who fulfils all the functions attributed by the religions to God... but who technically isn't God just because you got your fiction from the SciFi section, while they got theirs from the Fantasy fiction shelf.

You don't believe in it. That is fine by me. But denying it, is a choise based more on will, than on facts.

All those things you think point to the existence of an alien super-being of unlimited power are just some things that somebody else would argue prove that there is God. And some other guy would argue that they prove there is some other God who is a bit different from the Christian one some largely cosmetic manner. Just as yours is. So if you don't believe in their theory... That is choice based more on will, than on facts.

At this point, unless you are smart enough to walk back almost every part of your argument, you have left yourself little option but to grasp the nettle and declare that all those Christian apologist pseudoscience theories are actually real science. Then you could at least attempt a manoeuvre where your own thing is better science than theirs because it better explains the evidence.

Obviously that wouldn't work, because of the whole thing that legitimate scientific propositions cannot address the supernatural (and your guy with the computer is outside of nature... that's necessary for him to have created it after all... so he is supernatural whether you like to think of him that way or not).

[QuantumT]

I said: "It's like". I did not say it is so. I don't believe nature has a will at all.

Besides, this a whole new branch in so-called "creationism". It is not based in the supernatural, nor does it have a god/gods. Stop treating it like a religion.

I believe that all religions are based on an instinct, that we are created. Any logicly thinking AI would have that, I think.

Super alien with unlimited power?! When did I ever claim that?! That's silly!

You clearly want to label me as some sort of religious person. But I am not. I find the original concept of God to be ridiculous. I love science!

I have gathered all existing scientific knowledge and made a conclussion. That's all. You don't like it? Ignore it!

[FlashDangerpants]

I said: "It's like". I did not say it is so. I don't believe nature has a will at all.

Your argument is quite clearly that it is directed by the will of a creator, so that hardly merits a mention. Of course the perpetrators of Intelligent Design also don't say that nature has a will, they, exactly like you, say that it is directed by a will.

Besides, this a whole new branch in so-called "creationism". It is not based in the supernatural, nor does it have a god/gods. Stop treating it like a religion.

For something to be natural, it must belong somewhere within nature, and therefore within the universe that nature incorporates.
The creator you describe, created the universe, and therefore nature, and therefore existed prior to nature.
For a thing to be caused by natural events and laws, the causes must exist within nature.
Super means above, or beyond.
Natural means existing in or derived from nature
Supernatural means that the object of discussion is not contained within, caused by, or a product of nature.
The being that creates nature is therefore necessarily supernatural.

I believe that all religions are based on an instinct, that we are created. Any logicly thinking AI would have that, I think.

And how do you imagine that this speculation on your part is a scientific proposition rather than a mere statement of belief?

Super alien with unlimited power?! When did I ever claim that?! That's silly!

You are the one who granted it miraculous powers to create a universe.
You also granted it the power to change events within the universe such that those events would properly be said to have no natural cause (which is a functional definition of 'miracle').
Tell me something. In this environment, supposing the being you describe doesn't want us to prove their existence, but somebody does so...
Why wouldn't this being be able to revert the virtual universe to a snapshot prior to that proof and simply kill the person who did the proving as an act of bug fixing? If they can do that with time and space and destiny, then what is wrong with describing their powers as unlimited?

You clearly want to label me as some sort of religious person. But I am not. I find the original concept of God to be ridiculous. I love science!

You obviously aren't paying a lot of attention. I am railroading you into the realisation that your theory is more religion than science partly because it is just true, so it is the obvious thing to do. But mostly because that is not what you want, and therefore once I complete the task you stand a chance of realising that you are less into the theory than you were. It isn't you I dislike, it is bad arguments that I have an objection to.

I have gathered all existing scientific knowledge and made a conclussion. That's all. You don't like it? Ignore it!

Well you have already significantly changed your position under examination. You started the topic with this after all...

If you have any questions about this idea/model/hypothesis/theory, I'd be happy to answer them! Anything* goes, so don't be shy!

I still have plenty of questions.

[FlashDangerpants]

Lol. After angrily berating me in private messages because you don't want to be publicly challenged... now I get this.

Sent: Wed May 23, 2018 9:42 pm
From: QuantumT
Recipient: FlashDangerpants

You are on my ignore list. Your posts and messages will not be recieved.

Have a wonderful life.

What a sad little snowflake.