Alert: you may be living in a simulated universe

Today is a busy day, with the allocation of supercomputer time though ASTAC and the announcement of the 2012 Excellence in Research for Australia, which always leads to robust "discussion", and board of examiners meetings. So, only time for a quick post.

A new article in The Conversation on the controversial topic of "Are we living in a Synthetic Universe?". It's called Alert: you may be living in a simulated universe.

Given the comments, I could have alternatively called it "Baiting philosophers is easy and fun", but have a read yourself and let me know what you think.

Location: Sydney NSW, Australia

Comments

  1. Phillip Helbig7 December 2012 at 01:21

    http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2535

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phillip Helbig7 December 2012 at 01:23

    http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2055

    ReplyDelete
  3. Phillip Helbig7 December 2012 at 01:47

    http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2382#comic

    There's another one which is even more appropriate, but I can't find it now.

    Consider the following: Arguments for our being inside a simulation are based on something like Moore's law and thus the conclusion that there should be many more civilizations than actual worlds, so it is likely that we are simulated. However, this assumes the laws of our universe. If our universe is in fact simulated, then it might have completely different laws to the real universe in which it is embedded, for which these assumptions might not hold.

    In other words, once one allows that it is possible that we are simulated, one cannot draw any conclusions about the probability of this situation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ggreybeard16 December 2012 at 11:58

    If the Universe is simulated then exactly what is it simulating?

    Another Universe?

    Well, maybe that is a simulation too...

    Better to save a step and accept our own reality, unless there is a scientific test for simulation.

    ReplyDelete

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