# Simulism: The Reason I Have Become Religious **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 16, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488 "2013-12-16T18:56:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/41 "2013-12-16T21:25:28Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > I was once a staunch atheist; now I am somewhat religious. My changed of attitude came about from Nick Bostrom’s Theory of Simulsim. I too, was once a staunch atheist. When I was a sophomore in college, I came up with the same theory as Nick Bostrom independently, and I thought that I must be extremely clever to have come up with something so clever. It did not lead to be becoming religious. Nowadays I am a religious, but that change did not result from this particular theory. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/42 "2013-12-16T22:16:19Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > Perhaps I didn’t explain the theory well enough. \*\*If we assert that there are other alien civilizations, it follows that there are a fairly high number of simulations running. \*\*We run thousands if not millions of primitive simulations already. The exact number does not matter; just the fact that the figure puts our chances of being in “the real universe” very low. \ No - it does not follow that. Secondly - if the simulations are advanced enough that the participants do not know the difference (no observation would ever show they are part of a simulation) - then what have you gained by this “belief” - what difference does it make? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/43 "2013-12-16T22:22:48Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > Further, I do not fully believe them myself, I just consider simulism to be a possibility but not a certainty. I am happy to debate with you on how likely the assumptions of the theory are if you wish. How did the possibility of something that you don’t fully believe turn you from an atheist to a believer? The logic doesn’t flow. I can think of many things that are possible that don’t change my basic view of the world. What is it about this concept that stuck a chord with you. I’m afraid I don’t see how this very basic and unprovable concept gains traction. It sounds like something a stoned college student would dream up. ---
**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:** [December 16, 2013, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/44 "2013-12-16T22:48:03Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > Simulism theory allows for a metaphysical power who created the universe–do you not consider this theory to be a form of religious belief? There is no metaphysical power involved here once we know we are in a simulation. And those who run the simulator are not gods in any sense, any more than you would be if you wrote a simulator of a bouncing ball and changed the value of g in it. Might I ask what reasons you used to have for being an atheist? This is a very poor reason to abandon that lack of belief. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/45 "2013-12-16T23:24:32Z")
**IMfez** , what form does your religious belief take? How do you conduct your life that is different from how you conducted your life before? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/46 "2013-12-17T00:06:09Z")
Before I opened this thread, I was a staunch atheist. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/47 "2013-12-17T00:35:17Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > In this case your odds are low. My \*\*odds \*\*hinge on 2 assumptions which I both \*\*believe \*\*have a high \*\*chance \*\*of leading to a conclusion of simulation. YMMV of course. Bolded the relevant phrases. Of course, your numbers are completely pulled out of midair, and you do nothing to demonstrate your premises, which many here will _not_ simply assume to be true. And once you’ve made those assumptions, what does that tell you about the world? What door does that open, what useful information does it present? If we establish Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or any major religion as true, it gives us a clear set of directions - what to do, what not to do, what we are working towards. Your “religion” offers nothing at all. We don’t know who made this simulation. We don’t even know if their society still exists. We have no known way of influencing them. We don’t even know if they have noticed us (given the size of our “simulated” universe). It’s a similar type of pointless philosophizing so well-characterized by things like hard solipsism. Yeah, maybe the universe is a simulation. We have no way of determining this (or even knowing what differences we would find between a “real” and a “simulated” universe given the computational power at work here), we have no way of testing this, and it tells us nothing. It’s a complete and utter waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/48 "2013-12-17T00:56:02Z")
(kicks a rock) I refute it thus. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/49 "2013-12-17T00:58:06Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > (kicks a rock) > > I refute it thus. You were programmed to do that, thus fulfilling absolute decree. In casual simplicity, yet. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/50 "2013-12-17T02:04:06Z")
How does this theory address a first cause? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/51 "2013-12-17T02:08:48Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > 1. We are almost certainly in a simulation ourselves. 10 billion alien computers programs running simulations simultaneously, for example, reduces our chances of being in the real universe down to 1/10 billion. Allow me to introduce you to [Rosko’s Basilisk.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk) > [@RationalWiki entry on Rosko's Basilisk](#): > > The claim is that a hypothetical, or inevitable, ultimate intelligence may punish those who fail to help it or help create it, with greater punishment given to those who knew the importance of the task in advance. In a sense, it could be considered singularitarian hell (and we don’t mean just a robotics conference on the practicalities of developing technology). > > However, this idea goes a bit beyond just “serve the AI or you will go to hell” — the AI and the person punished have no causal interaction; the punishment would be of a simulation of the person, which the AI would construct by deduction from first principles. In LessWrong’s Timeless Decision Theory (TDT),[3] this is taken to be equivalent to punishment of your own actual self, not just someone else very like you. Furthermore, you might be the simulation. > > Roko’s basilisk is notable for being completely banned from discussion on LessWrong, where any mention of it is deleted. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/52 "2013-12-17T02:22:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Before I opened this thread, I was a staunch atheist. I am a stench atheist. (Gotta go shower.) I think **Voyager** has the key points: why would a simulation bother with all of this spurious detail? If we’re doing a sim of the earth’s biosphere for global warming analysis, we don’t sim in every single strand of seaweed, every single jellyfish, every surfer dude, every individual styrofoam cup. For them to simulate me and my life at the detail I observe, they would have to have a purpose. And my life simply isn’t that meaningful. Nothing I do couldn’t be simmed using the crowd-sim software that they used in Lord of the Rings to make up those giant armies of orcs. “Ash Sim Durbatuluk…” (Or “Pushdug bagronk **IMfez** glob.”) ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/53 "2013-12-17T02:30:45Z")
Reality is not a simulation the mind is constantly running? ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_Raygun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c67d28/32.png) [@Ronald\_Raygun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_Raygun)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/54 "2013-12-17T02:37:39Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > Simulism requires 2 basic assumptions: > > 1. Computing technology has the power to simulte a universe, in the eyes of the unknowing inhabitants of the simulated world. > > … > > 1. We are almost certainly in a simulation ourselves. 10 billion alien computers programs running simulations simultaneously, for example, reduces our chances of being in the real universe down to 1/10 billion. Your (quoted) conclusion reminds me very much of the standard creationist argument – There is only a 1/10 zillion chance of a soup of amino acids spontaneously arranging itself into a functioning protein, and yet here we are. Therefore, proteins didn’t self-arrange, and God exists. This argument is based on the faulty assumption that amino acids and base pairs “randomly” sort themselves. Similarly, your argument is – There is only a 1/10 zillion chance of me being in the real universe, and yet here I am (i.e., I am self-aware). Therefore, I am not in the real universe, and godly aliens exist. I strongly doubt your second assumption, even if I were to only consider the amount of stimuli that I myself experience. What I experienced just today is such a massive amount of self-consistent information that the idea that it could all simply be a simulation is unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/55 "2013-12-17T03:13:49Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I too, was once a staunch atheist. When I was a sophomore in college, I came up with the same theory as Nick Bostrom independently, and I thought that I must be extremely clever to have come up with something so clever. It did not lead to be becoming religious. Nowadays I am a religious, but that change did not result from this particular theory. I was so clever that I thought of Captain Pike before Star Trek did. That’s how clever I am. So clever. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/56 "2013-12-17T03:15:27Z")
Re: the OP, I think I’m missing something between “alien races exist” so therefore computers. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/57 "2013-12-17T03:20:35Z")
It’s an extension of the Drake Equations: there are (per Drake) so many intelligent, technologically advanced civilizations in the cosmos. Of those, some will have supercomputing technology, sufficiently advanced (magic!) to sim a human mind. Or a community of human minds. Or a whole cosmos of intelligent minds. And, indeed, of those, some will actually have the computing capacity to simulate trillions and quadrillions of human minds, so many, in fact, that the odds of any given human mind not being simulated is infinitesimal. Therefore… The problem is the same as with the standard Drake equation: there is always the possibility that the number of intelligent species in the cosmos is exactly 1 (count 'em) one. Us. It might even be unlikely…but it’s possible, and that knocks the idea back to mere speculation. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/58 "2013-12-17T03:42:58Z")
There are some strong arguments for simulation theory, though to call it a “theory” is scientifically invalid because it can’t presently be proven or even tested. It’s more a way of filling in the holes left by our current scientific understanding. For one, the Planck units are revealing: a fundamental unit of time, length, and energy. If the universe were infinitely divisible (as one would think it would be), then you would need an infinitely powerful cpu to simulate that universe. However, having discrete variables that physics doesn’t allow to divide any further, seems a very convenient way to limit the cpu overhead for a simulation. There’s also evidence ripe in quantum mechanics that the observer in fact changes the world around him. Heisenberg uncertainty dictates that the world is anything and everything it could be until we observe it, at which point it becomes concrete. If this is indeed true, then one could envision a simulation where the fine details that we see are only “rendered” when intelligence can observe them. Why would anyone know or care what happened for the first billions of years of the universe–they may have just sped up the simulation and set it to normal playback when we arrived on the scene! And a very recent discovery, of sorts. A team of scientists working to develop string theory mathematics have discovered an equation that _appears_ to be almost identical to the error-correction code embedded in human software like internet browsers. In other words, some believe the quantum foam in which particles appear and disappear is all being driven by a code inserted into the simulation to prevent instability from ramping up. ---
**Author:** ![Sanity\_Challenged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Sanity\_Challenged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sanity_Challenged)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/59 "2013-12-17T05:06:02Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > It’s just not possible in our simulated universe. I’m not surprised that the simulator is not powerful enough to allow simulators inside of it with the same power. In fact, if we are in a simulation, we would have no way of knowing what the real universe is like. > [@Lobohan](#): > > Of course, the universe we live in, might just be a hugely simplified version of the real universe. And the laws of physics we know might just be fanciful ideas some programmer on the outside had. Once you go there, you’re turtles all the way and “simulism” falls apart. The final conclusion is a mathematical one: > [@IMFez](#): > > 1. We are almost certainly in a simulation ourselves. 10 billion alien computers programs running simulations simultaneously, for example, reduces our chances of being in the real universe down to 1/10 billion. If real universes and sim universes aren’t bound by the same laws then this conclusion does not follow from the perspective of the metaverse, because it is based on the laws of math in the sim universe. Q: Given that sim universes outnumber real universes 10 billion to 1, what are the odds that a given universe is a sim universe? A: No possible way of knowing, since we don’t know the rules of math. If real universes and sim universes \*are \*bound by the same rules, then you either have to solve a major energy problem or else throw out the 2nd assumption as presented in the OP. If you want to be obstinate about holding onto the theory you can replace the 2nd assumption’s set of simulated universes with a set of simulated individuals and limiting the simulation of universes to only those individuals’ experiences of those universes, but are you still going to be able to reasonably assume the huge numerical advantage of sim beings over real beings in order to conclude a high probability of any individual being a sim being? Not without pulling a whole lot of new assumptions out of your _ass_umption factory, and I’ve never seen a set that doesn’t go back into the territory of the rules between the universes being different. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488/60 "2013-12-17T07:44:00Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > There are some strong arguments for simulation theory, though to call it a “theory” is scientifically invalid because it can’t presently be proven or even tested. It’s more a way of filling in the holes left by our current scientific understanding. > > For one, the Planck units are revealing: a fundamental unit of time, length, and energy. > If the universe were infinitely divisible (as one would think it would be), then you would need an infinitely powerful cpu to simulate that universe. However, having discrete variables that physics doesn’t allow to divide any further, seems a very convenient way to limit the cpu overhead for a simulation. Yes, but can we imagine a universe in which these fundamental units do not exist? Is it possible for a universe to exist without them? It’d be convenient, but we run into the same problem - we can’t tell if a universe which wasn’t simulated would look any different from our universe. > [@](#): > > There’s also evidence ripe in quantum mechanics that the observer in fact changes the world around him. Heisenberg uncertainty dictates that the world is anything and everything it could be until we observe it, at which point it becomes concrete. If this is indeed true, then one could envision a simulation where the fine details that we see are only “rendered” when intelligence can observe them. Why would anyone know or care what happened for the first billions of years of the universe–they may have just sped up the simulation and set it to normal playback when we arrived on the scene! This screams of the typical mangling of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that enables so much woo. And the conclusion doesn’t even follow - it just _might_ follow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simulism-the-reason-i-have-become-religious/676488.md?page=4)