# Is Elon Musk correct? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305 "2016-06-02T13:07:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/21 "2016-06-02T15:03:37Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I certainly hope we’re not part of a video game. My video games have dragons and aliens and power armor and shit. I can’t imagine how dull some alien’s life must be that watching virtual me do landscaping takeoffs is considered entertainment. Remember how popular SimCity and The Sims type games are. We are just the Sims of some female god like being who has way too many cats and sips wine and plays us in the evenings after her work. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/22 "2016-06-02T15:06:45Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > The simulated universe idea certainly is getting a lot of traction in the media lately, even though the idea has been around for awhile. The difference is that instead of an idea floating around your WoW council meeting, or a sub-reddit group, or even a side forum at the recent comic-con, you have a well known CEO of a large tech company saying that he actually believes it. ETA: this is someone that has been pitched as a potential presidential candidate, and has even said he might consider running one day. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/23 "2016-06-02T15:23:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’ve heard that argument too and accepted it for awhile, but the odds are just SO steep that chances are my being here was inevitable. If we assume the current accepted version of reality, I only had one shot. One in a quadrillion, win or lose. So the most unlikely thing that will ever happen to you is just being here in the first place. That just strikes me as unlikely to be how reality actually is. What seems more likely is that your odds are one in a quadrillion, but you get an infinite number of rolls of the dice. Well, yes. Any given state of the universe is incredibly statistically unlikely to be exactly what it is, and that probability gets more wildly diminutive each nanosecond you are removed from that moment. However, given the existence of existence, it is 100% likely that one particular infinitely improbable state will exist at any given moment. Why shouldn’t it be this one? It’s just as improbable as any other. Tim Minchin does a good bit on this. [Things that have a 1 in 64 million chance of happening happen all the time.](https://youtu.be/ET1-_PeExMs?t=1m50s) (Video starts at the specifically relevant quote, but it’s worth watching the whole bit). ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/24 "2016-06-02T15:29:54Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > Yes, but since it’s coming from St. Elon, there are a lot of people who will listen. > > I, on the other hand, think this seems like the beginning of him following in the footsteps of Howard Hughes. I think it’s the direct result of having achieved a not insignificant level of success and starting to believe that if you were “right” about that one thing, maybe you’re also right about so many of these other things. I mean, why not, right? Since every time he opens his mouth about anything, media sees it as wisdom fit for reporting. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/25 "2016-06-02T15:31:12Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > The difference is that instead of an idea floating around your WoW council meeting, or a sub-reddit group, or even a side forum at the recent comic-con, you have a well known CEO of a large tech company saying that he actually believes it. > > ETA: this is someone that has been pitched as a potential presidential candidate, and has even said he might consider running one day. How is Elon Musk a potential presidental candidate? He’s ineligible for the office. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/26 "2016-06-02T16:04:33Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > ETA: this is someone that has been pitched as a potential presidential candidate, and has even said he might consider running one day. He would have to have been kidding about that, which also raises the possibility he’s not really that serious about the sim theory. He has a sense of humor. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/27 "2016-06-02T16:07:18Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > How is Elon Musk a potential presidental candidate? He’s ineligible for the office. But Elon only has to get the Creator to change one line of code, and then he’s allowed to win level 73. I mean, win the presidency. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/28 "2016-06-02T16:17:45Z")
What’s the evidence he’s doing 1) Cnut the Great checking the reliability of his advisers vs 2) going down into delusional megalomania? ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/29 "2016-06-02T17:31:00Z")
Statistically speaking, he’s (probably) not wrong. If any given universe can simulate more than one universe (a simulated universe which, to its inhabitants, seems to be “real”), then simple mathematics shows that we’re more likely to be simulated rather than “real”. We’ve only been playing around with computers and simulations for less than a century, but in about two months we’ve got a \*game \*coming out which simulates an entire \*galaxy \*filled with Earth-sized planets for us to explore. The idea that we, ourselves, could be the “aliens” populating someone else’s universe simulation game doesn’t seem that far-fetched. The thing is, short of finding some sort of easter egg with the programmer’s name, there’s no real way to prove or disprove it, so the entire concept is really nothing more than mental masturbation. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/30 "2016-06-02T17:37:14Z")
You’d think he’d be putting his huge brain to better use by working out how to re-charge his damned cars in the same time it takes to fill an average fuel tank. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/31 "2016-06-02T18:00:46Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > If any given universe can simulate more than one universe (a simulated universe which, to its inhabitants, seems to be “real”), then simple mathematics shows that we’re more likely to be simulated rather than “real”. No, like I said in the other thread on this topic the ‘simple mathematics’ rests on a lot of highly unfounded assumptions. Simulating an entire universe at a level where it can evolve human-level intelligence is not remotely a given, running a simulation within that universe that can also give rise to human-level intelligence in a reasonable time frame (like ‘before the heat death of the actual universe’) is even less given, and it keeps getting more and more unbelievable as you ad layers. > [@](#): > > We’ve only been playing around with computers and simulations for less than a century, but in about two months we’ve got a \*game \*coming out which simulates an entire \*galaxy \*filled with Earth-sized planets for us to explore. The idea that we, ourselves, could be the “aliens” populating someone else’s universe simulation game doesn’t seem that far-fetched. That game doesn’t simulate an entire galaxy, doesn’t give rise to human-level intelligence within it, and isn’t capable of running a universe simulation itself. Jumping from ‘we have a game that randomly generates content’ to ‘we have a simulation that can give rise to its own intelligences running simulations’ ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/32 "2016-06-02T18:03:13Z")
_“How’s your joint, George?”_ -Wyatt, aka “Captain America” ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/33 "2016-06-02T18:04:19Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I certainly hope we’re not part of a video game. My video games have dragons and aliens and power armor and shit. I can’t imagine how dull some alien’s life must be that watching virtual me do landscaping takeoffs is considered entertainment. I see you haven’t played [Roy: A Life Well Lived](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szzVlQ653as) ;). ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/34 "2016-06-02T18:12:18Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > No, like I said in the other thread on this topic the ‘simple mathematics’ rests on a lot of highly unfounded assumptions. Simulating an entire universe at a level where it can evolve human-level intelligence is not remotely a given, running a simulation within that universe that can also give rise to human-level intelligence in a reasonable time frame (like ‘before the heat death of the actual universe’) is even less given, and it keeps getting more and more unbelievable as you ad layers. A hundred years ago, would simulating even a _toy_ universe (like No Man’s Sky) have been possible? Your problem is that you’re looking at what we’ve got right now and you’re saying, “Nope, can’t do it now, can’t _ever_ do it.” We don’t have to simulate the evolution of intelligence. We just have to make a reasonable facsimile thereof- one which looks real to the intelligences in the simulation. Hell, for all we know, our universe started up last Thursday. > [@Pantastic](#): > > That game doesn’t simulate an entire galaxy, doesn’t give rise to human-level intelligence within it, and isn’t capable of running a universe simulation itself. Jumping from ‘we have a game that randomly generates content’ to ‘we have a simulation that can give rise to its own intelligences running simulations’ Sure, it’s not really an entire galaxy. Only 18 quadrillion earth-sized planets. For all we know, the “real” universe (of which we’re just a simulation running therein) is far more complicated than ours. How would we know? ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/35 "2016-06-02T18:12:59Z")
Does it matter? If I call our experience “reality” and he calls it “a simulation,” we’re both still going through life doing the same stuff. I might call something “a couch” and he might call it “a sofa,” but the piece of furniture is working the same way for each of us when we sit on it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/36 "2016-06-02T18:34:17Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > A hundred years ago, would simulating even a _toy_ universe (like No Man’s Sky) have been possible? Your problem is that you’re looking at what we’ve got right now and you’re saying, “Nope, can’t do it now, can’t _ever_ do it.” > > We don’t have to simulate the evolution of intelligence. We just have to make a reasonable facsimile thereof- one which looks real to the intelligences in the simulation. Hell, for all we know, our universe started up last Thursday. > > Sure, it’s not really an entire galaxy. Only 18 quadrillion earth-sized planets. > > For all we know, the “real” universe (of which we’re just a simulation running therein) is far more complicated than ours. How would we know? We just had a big thread about this nonsense in GD. Anyone who believe this doesn’t understand simulation, or the laws of physics for that matter. When you write a simulator you concentrate on the level you want to learn something about. I’ve written several and have had a couple of papers published, but none of what I’m saying would be surprising to any simulator writer. Say you are interested in simulating a computer. You can work at the transistor level, the gate level, a high functional level, or an instruction set level. But if you work at the transistor level you can only simulate a tiny bit of your computer, since it runs too slowly for the entire computer, and takes up too much memory. Gate level simulations run thousands of times slower than the computer does, transistor level ones run thousands of time slower still. If we live in a simulation, we live in one where we can see the finest level of detail of the universe, so if our universe is 14 billion years old the simulating universe has been doing it for a couple of hundred billion years - so the comment about about it taking longer than the heat death of the universe is right on. Forget about starting it last Thursday - if you knew how to set the state of the universe that precisely, you wouldn’t have to do the simulation. Maybe you are thinking these aliens can invent really fast computers. Not good enough - by information theory processing information takes energy. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out how much would be required to simulate an entire universe, but I suspect you’d be lighting off a few supernovas per second to do it. So - if one simulation per universe is even possible, which I doubt, many are definitely not possible. Which kinds of wipes out the statistical argument. What could be possible is that the entire universe revolves around you or me or Musk, and we only see a Potemkin universe where just enough is created to convince us of its reality. But that isn’t a simulation. I know Musk is a CEO, but 20 years ago some other tech CEO was convinced that silicon technology all came from space aliens. I saw none when I worked for Intel. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/37 "2016-06-02T18:42:07Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > A hundred years ago, would simulating even a _toy_ universe (like No Man’s Sky) have been possible? Your problem is that you’re looking at what we’ve got right now and you’re saying, “Nope, can’t do it now, can’t _ever_ do it.” Your problem is that you’re looking at a fairly simple video game and conluding that it’s inevitable that the game will give rise to intelligences who then run their own simulations that give rise to intelligences who then… so many times that it’s statistically unlikely that we’re living in the real universe. And the game doesn’t even work as a simulation, it only presents stuff to an outside observer, there isn’t an internal observer. > [@](#): > > We don’t have to simulate the evolution of intelligence. We just have to make a reasonable facsimile thereof- one which looks real to the intelligences in the simulation. Hell, for all we know, our universe started up last Thursday. How do you get intelligences arising in your simulation and eventually running their own simulations that then run their own simulations and so on if they don’t evolve in it? How do you even get them there in the first place? > [@](#): > > Sure, it’s not really an entire galaxy. Only 18 quadrillion earth-sized planets. It randomly generates terrain for ‘earth sized planet’ at a time as you look at the planet. It’s not actually simulating a planet, or doing anything with the 18 quadrillion at one time. > [@](#): > > For all we know, the “real” universe (of which we’re just a simulation running therein) is far more complicated than ours. How would we know? If there’s no way to know, why are you so sure that we are? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/38 "2016-06-02T18:46:12Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Say you are interested in simulating a computer. You can work at the transistor level, the gate level, a high functional level, or an instruction set level. But if you work at the transistor level you can only simulate a tiny bit of your computer, since it runs too slowly for the entire computer, and takes up too much memory. Gate level simulations run thousands of times slower than the computer does, transistor level ones run thousands of time slower still. Also, it takes far more particles to run the simulation than there are gates being simulated. Trying to simulate a universe will rapidly run you out of memory and processing capability, because you can only manipulate so much matter at a time. And within the simulation, you’ve got even fewer particles to use for processing and memory, so the next simulation has to be even smaller and slower. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/39 "2016-06-02T18:51:14Z")
I think he might read the SDMB because I just [asked](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=793851) this same question. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305/40 "2016-06-02T18:56:14Z")
I think you shouldn’t try to deduce the overall pattern of the universe from one small sample. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-correct/756305.md?page=3)