Is there anyway to prove we are not hooked up in a virtual world like the Matrix?
Zhūangzi (c. 369 BC - c. 286 BC):
Well, I just tried dividing by zero and the world didn’t crash.
No.
The argument for the existence of something capable of infallibly fooling human consciousness is infinitely recursive. That is, if we accept the possibility of the premise, any arguments or evidence against it can simply be argued to be products of the “malicious demon” (or computer simulation, as the case may be), as there would be no way for humans to distinguish between reality and falsehood.
Because of this, I recommend working under the assumption that reality is in fact real. It might as well be, because if it isn’t, you don’t know the difference, and you can’t do anything about it anyway.
Would it matter if it wasn’t real? if we were the imagination of a brain in a vat or if we were a computer simulation, it would be real to us for all intents and purposes.
Unlike* The Thirteenth Floor *we can drive anywhere we want and not have the world become vectorized.
No simulation, real is real. And it is just a coincidence that a bunch of stuff tastes like chicken.
Prove? Absolutely? No. It’s a similar problem to asking us to disprove the existence of God - one cannot prove a negative, and any point I might make (say, “we can observe quantum phenomena that would be very computationally complex to simulate”) can be rebutted with "yes, but that’s because the simulation is meant to be that way. If you’re positing the existence of a comprehensive simulation indistinguishable in every way from the “real world”, there’s no statement I could offer that would prove you wrong.
That said - even though I can’t prove that the world isn’t a simulation, Occam’s Razor (don’t leave home without it!) suggests that it’s unlikely to be one. The Razor states that, all else being equal, the simplest explanations for given phenomena are likelier to be correct (or at least useful) than more complex ones. There are good reasons for this, the most important being that complex explanations raise serious recursion problems. If I say “the world is real”, then the only questions remaining are simple ones like “where did the world come from?” and “how did life emerge?” Simple!
But on the other hand, if we posit that the world we perceive is really nothing more than an elaborate sham, this raises a whole 'nother set of questions: “What is the nature of the simulation? Where did it come from? And given that this simulation may be entirely unlike the real world, which we have never experienced, what is the real world like? Where did that come from?” And so on. This isn’t to say that we should shy away from hard questions, or explanations that produce them, simply because they’re hard - but when there aren’t any data suggesting that a more complicated explanation is needed, it’s sheer perversity to add complexity for the heck of it. As Occam put it, “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”.
Another point to consider: say we do live in a computer simulation. Who cares? So far as any of us can determine, this notional simulation is still populated by billions of human minds, and there’s not evidence to suggest that they continue being simulated after they “die” in this simulation. Regardless of what the nature of the world is in some grand, cosmic sense, people really are living, breathing, eating, shitting , suffering and dying in it. Or, at the very least, you can readily demonstrate for yourself that it’s prudent to act that way - try acting as if you’re the only conscious human on Earth, playing an elaborate videogame, and things will get very unpleasant for you, very fast.
So, in short: No, we can’t prove the world isn’t a simulation, but it’s probably not, and even if it is, it’s still real to you and everybody you care about. So, it doesn’t matter.
ETA: Or, what Roland said.
Well, according to Nick Bostrom of Oxford University’s Philosophy Dept., it’s actually likely that we are in a simulation. Original article here, and links to related articles and news coverage here.
Well, if we are a simulation in a digital computer, then one would expect the world to be quantized at a fine enough scale.
Hmmmmm.
Hmmmmm what?
Most parameters in our world aren’t quantized, but that doesn’t prove it’s not a simulation.
What do you mean by “parameter”? Is there any quantity that can be measured that isn’t quantized if you look closely enough?
Not quite. Bostrom argues that if humans can reach a “posthuman” phase of development - extremely advanced technology, sentient AI, virtually limitless computing power, and so forth - and if these posthuman civilizations lack laws banning the use of people-simulations on ethical or other policy grounds, then it is likely we’re living in a simulation. The idea is that, if the technology and desire existed to conduct these sorts of simulations, they’d probably be done fairly often, and so the number of “simulated” people in the universe would quickly outstrip the number of “real” people. It doesn’t take a whole lot of “Earth 2008” simulations, running at six billion people a pop, before the odds favor any particular person who’s ever lived being a simulation.
That being said - Bostrom would concede that if “posthuman” development is impossible, or very very difficult, then we almost certainly aren’t living in a simulation. I would suggest that this is the case - there’s no reason to expect that we will ever be able to successfully model human minds, let alone in the huge numbers that a world-simulation would require. Perhaps, someday, we’ll develop technologies “akin to magic” that give us the capabilities we’d need to become posthumans who enjoy running people-simulations. But there’s darned little evidence to suggest that this is possible.
I agree that, if humans are likely to someday develop the capacity and desire to run large-scale people-simulations in large numbers, then it’s likely that we are living in a simulation today. But this premise is so fantastical that we needn’t take it seriously.
There is no way a computer could come up with the kinds of questions my patrons ask at work.
imho if we’re in a simulation there should be more reports of missing doors and pool ladders. why create one if you’re not going to fool around in it?
Computer, End program!..Still Here, I guess we have reality.
By “parameter” I meant physical quantities.
In this context, I took “quantized” to mean a quantity can only take values that are integer multiples of some basic unit. Electrical charge is one example, but is there any evidence that position, momentum, etc. behave that way?
Didn’t someone point out once in an earlier similar thread that the number of bits of information needed to simulate this universe in its entirety would require a whole 'nother universe’s worth of information processing to do so? You could cut corners I guess (everything which any conscious agency inside the sim is not aware of ceases to exist-the old tree falls in the (virtual) forest concept.
Perhaps quantum computers would allow you to avoid that kind of thing…
Because the Master Control Program says we’re not.
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