# What do you think about the simulation theory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 27, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042 "2020-10-27T17:04:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/21 "2020-10-27T19:24:06Z")
Interesting. That all seems very anthropomorphic, though – does it have to simulate dog brains? Flea brains? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/22 "2020-10-27T19:28:02Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I don’t understand how whether we’re in a simulation or not has anything to do with morality. Can the OP flesh that out some more? Assuming you’re a sentient being, either in a simulation or not, you’ll still feel regret and guilt (I hope!). It seems like the fairly straightfoward morality of evangelical Christians who assure us that the only reason they aren’t out there raping and murdering is that they think God will punish them for it. No God, no punishment. Scary bunch of people. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/23 "2020-10-27T19:29:38Z")
There is a degree of circular contradiction in the logic that bugs me regarding this. It uses the laws of our reality to define a greater reality in which the laws or our reality are not real. If we are not real what is our basis for believing that computer based simulations are the easiest way to go in the “real” universe. You may just as well speculate that in the “real” world actual bonafide realities can be made with a mere thought, and these have been popping up all over. However, this current reality was made as a joke where unlike most places we poor benighted souls have to just simulate rather than creating by scratch. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/24 "2020-10-27T19:37:17Z")
Actually it just needs to simulate just one brain. If you are going this far you might as well invoke solipsism. I this case solipsism seems the most probable secnario. Its far more efficient to simulate a mind than a universe. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/25 "2020-10-27T19:39:36Z")
I agree with this, and also, you’re all zombies. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/26 "2020-10-27T19:40:45Z")
I dunno. Maybe that’s something the simulators argue about. Like the run two versions of the same universe, one with ants driven by an algorithm, and one with ants having a normal amount of awareness… for an ant, and compare the results. I’d think if they’re about conscious minds, it would be only the minds with consciousness. But even if it were every single living thing, that’s only a few order of magnitude more complex. If you have a [jupiter brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain), that’s a rounding error. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/27 "2020-10-27T19:41:13Z")
Except, oddly, the other way around. If we are in a simulation, that means that there is a creator, and that means that there is someone that could be omniscient, as well as omnipotent, and there may very well be an afterlife that sorts us out based on our actions and attitudes while we were here on Earth. While I doubt simulation theory, I find it just a tad more plausible than religious beliefs. The idea that we could have recursive universes, where each universe manages to create simulated universes within itself either quickly becomes simpler with each iteration, or requires some method of infinite computation. I’ve never been a big fan of the stacked simulation theory. OTOH, the idea that we are an advanced version of Sims, or even a massive RPG, is slightly more plausible. We could be playing a game, with our manifested avatars in this world not knowing anything more than the avatar you control with a joystick in your favorite FPS or RPG. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/28 "2020-10-27T19:44:17Z")
Yeah. But if you simulate seven billion minds, you’ve simulated a world. We’re only brains in a bone box getting electrical inputs. What we perceive as reality is in itself a simulation provided by our senses. So if you can emulate the world’s minds, by necessity, the reality they interact with will be less complex. Also, if we’re a single brain reality, it’s me. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/29 "2020-10-27T19:45:33Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Except, oddly, the other way around. > > If we are in a simulation, that means that there is a creator, and that means that there is someone that could be omniscient, as well as omnipotent, and there may very well be an afterlife that sorts us out based on our actions and attitudes while we were here on Earth. You could postulate that there is a creator, but what _sort_ of creator, and how would we know? Most likely our world’s creator would be a created being like ourselves. We’d still be no closer to knowing anything about that creator. We’d know that our religions are wrong about creation, and therefore likely wrong about other things, but we’d be no closer to knowing which (if any) originated from the truth. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/30 "2020-10-27T19:49:45Z")
And there is no need for omnipotence. If we’re gonna be able to do this eventually (and we’re not that far from being able to emulate a single mind), then it’s only a matter of scientific and engineering improvements. We could be a pet universe for a high-school science project. There may be plenty of things our creator can’t do, like change the laws of physics without stopping the simulation. Or get a date to prom. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/31 "2020-10-27T19:50:18Z")
I think there might be a misunderstanding but I’m not sure who is misunderstanding whom. I am agreeing with your premise that simulation of a brains is more likely than simulating worlds and just taking it one step further to say that simulating a single brain is more likely than simulating a multitude of brains. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/32 "2020-10-27T19:52:18Z")
Yeah that’s true. I wasn’t disagreeing, just noodling out loud. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/33 "2020-10-27T20:11:35Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > We’d still be no closer to knowing anything about that creator. We’d know that our religions are wrong about creation, and therefore likely wrong about other things, but we’d be no closer to knowing which (if any) originated from the truth. If we created a fully simulated universe that mimicked ours to the point where the residents in it start making simulated universes of their own, then we would know all about the creator when we look into a mirror. > [@Lobohan](#): > > We could be a pet universe for a high-school science project. There may be plenty of things our creator can’t do, like change the laws of physics without stopping the simulation. But those would be limitations that it chose to impose on itself. I can play a game of Sims, and I can alter time, I can save and reset, I can torture and torment my creations if I choose to do so. If I am a bit clever, then I _can_ change the source code, the “laws of physics” in real time. I’ve played games with the ability to adjust gravity on the fly, no reason that you couldn’t use a slider bar on all the other forces and constants of nature, other than that would most likely kill us all. ---
**Author:** ![MoonMoon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonmoon/32/2959_2.png) [@MoonMoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoonMoon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/34 "2020-10-27T20:12:53Z")
Anyone who’s played The Sims knows that our simulation overlords are clearly at the part of the game where you tire of your creations and start building pools with no ladders, rooms with no doors or toilets and actively pitting your Sims against each other and creating romantic triangles (and hexagons). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/35 "2020-10-27T20:13:06Z")
This is one of those “it’s not even wrong” theories. There is no reason to believe the simulation theory is true in the least, but nobody can truly disprove it, anymore than if someone says “Many trillions of light years away, there is a planet that consists entirely of blue cheese.” It’s obviously wrong but nobody could truly scour the entire universe to disprove it. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/36 "2020-10-27T20:18:17Z")
I think that you are far too dismissive of this. While I do not favor it, and I especially do not favor the infinitely recursive simulation hypothesis, the idea that we are living in a simulation from a highly advanced civilization is not “obviously” wrong. We can prove it the moment that we create a simulation that is good enough that the residents of the simulation claim to be sentient, and also don’t know that they are in a simulation. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/37 "2020-10-27T20:19:07Z")
Statistically speaking, I am a single person out of billions. Statistically speaking it would be _absurd_ for me to conclude that I’m me. And the same goes for everyone else, only moreso - it’s a one in 7.8 billion chance that I’m me, but the odds that I’m myself and my brother is also my brother are one in 60 _Quintillion_. And that’s just two of us. The likelihood that everyone is themself is zero, to any precision you’d care to name. So yeah - you can note that the odds that a random entity is part of a simulation are very high, but using that to _conclude_ that you’re in a simulation is an error. All that said - we’re _totally_ in a simulation. You see that table there? It’s not really a table. Its appearance as a table is an emergent property of the arrangement of the basic elements that compose it, which themselves only exist as an emergent property of the basic elements that compose them, which only exist as an emergent property of the basic elements that compose _them_. Go down enough levels and the basic components stop resembling solid matter and start looking like data. Not to mention that reality has both a resolution and a cycle length - planck length and planck time. So yeah - reality is _absolutely_ a simulation, from a mechanical and functional standpoint. The only thing we don’t know is whether there is an outer reality, or whether our reality just Conway’d itself into existence from a giant field of random static and the simplest of rules. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/38 "2020-10-27T20:23:32Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Statistically speaking, I am a single person out of billions. Statistically speaking it would be _absurd_ for me to conclude that I’m me. Ah…what??? That’s like saying “How can you be sure Joe Biden is Joe Biden?” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/39 "2020-10-27T20:30:36Z")
What is the likelihood that a randomly selected person is Joe Biden? I think can agree for any given randomly selected person, the odds that they’re Joe Biden are very low. These odds don’t change if the randomly selected person happens to be Joe Biden. That’s the argument here - that we’re deducing that only one out of trillions of functional realities is the ‘base’ reality, so it’s reasonable to conclude that you’re not in the base reality. But it still remains a fact that _some_ reality is the base reality, and it could be us. (Despite reality really not looking like a basic reality.) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum\_45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum_45/32/3385_2.png) [@eburacum\_45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum_45)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042/40 "2020-10-27T20:43:29Z")
Every night, when I go to sleep, my brain creates a simulated reality that is sufficiently realistic to persuade me that it is a self-consistent universe. Of course, when I wake up I quickly realise that it was all a dream, but I rarely realise this when I’m asleep. This simulation is achieved using a computer (my brain) which has about the same mass as a large pineapple. > [@Lobohan](#): > > If you have a [jupiter brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain), that’s a rounding error. Exactly. In a Jupiter brain, you could dedicate a million times as much processing power as required to create a human dream in order to create a realistic and consistent dream/simulation for every human alive on Earth, and still have plenty of processing power left over to do more interesting things. A simulation of the Earth would only need to simulate a realistic and immersive scenario for every human alive in the world at the time (and you could probably get away with making some or most of them non-player characters, but that is another matter). > [@Pantastic](#): > > The specific argument that I was responding to and quoted in my post explicitly and clearly stated that scientists would invent a computer so powerful that it could build a perfect simulation of ‘the world’. That is a case of someone attempting to build a simulation of their own universe, unless they’re using ‘the world’ to mean something very unusual. Not at all. The ‘world’ is everything we can see, hear, feel, touch, taste (and perceive using those more obscure senses such as balance). All this could in theory be simulated using the same sort of deception that our brains use to create our own dreams. =================== Here’s the thing; the galaxy is much more inhospitable than the writers of Star Wars and Star Trek realise; there aren’t many planets up there where humans can stand around and breathe the air. But there are vast numbers of otherwise inhospitable planets and moons which could be used to make processing substrates, converting stellar energy into data and information. If we ever colonise the galaxy, we’ll have the opportunity to create hundreds of billions of planet-sized processing nodes in the galaxy, each of which could contain a very large number of very detailed, self-consistent and immersive ‘worlds’. Most of these immersive worlds would probably be just about incomprehensible to us 21st century humans, but some of them could be so-called ‘ancestor simulations’, as Nick Bostrom has suggested. We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, so for all intents and purposes we may as well ignore this possibility as irrelevant. One day we might start trying to make our own Jupiter brains, which is when it starts to get interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-about-the-simulation-theory/924042.md?page=3)