Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

markl323 said:
and dying is the only way to prove my point? doesn't make a lot of sense.





not really.

it's obvious that you don't understand a certain aspect of the brain.

Gravage: But I actually do understand...

normally, the only reason you can see someone is because the light reflected off of their body comes in contact with your eyes, the image of the person is then converted to electrical signals and sent to the brain. when the signals of the person stop arriving to the brain, the person disappears from your view. the same mechanism applies to all of your other senses (hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc.). everything the brain experiences comes in the form of electrical signals. EVERYTHING.

Gravage: Everything disappears when you close your eyes, but it's still there, even if there is no light at all. The same I go through the dark room it's there, it doesn't matter there is no light in it. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything. But we're all bio-electro-chemical beings like every other species.
Brain experiences do come in the form of electrical signals, but because there wasn't any electrical signals the girl I've been speaking about has died. She had no feeling of touch or heat. If entire reality is based on our own experience, we wouldn't have to die, just because we lost our senses or electrical signals in the brain. Objective reality is there, we can't see exactly like it is, but the light shows us at least some part of it.

so if you are in a simulation in which your real brain is connected to a supercomputer, all it takes for a dead person to stay gone is for the computer to never generate that person's signals again. similarly, if the computer wants you dead, it simply stops sending signals to your brain and you will be dead in the simulation. and you will stay dead as long as the computer wants.

Gravage: No, it depends on the environment, not on simulation, brain adapts to the environment, no simulation has anything with this at all.

since human brain perceives the world around it via electrical signals arriving to the brain, it is impossible for anyone to prove that their brain isn't hooked up to a signal generating supercomputer. you may say that when you wrap your hands around your head, you don't feel any cable hooking up to your skull. but if the computer hid the cable by not sending your brain the signals that describe the cable, how would you know? your arms, your legs, your whole body may not even be real, they may be just an illusion.

Gravage: Yes, sure, but why would computer need so much complexity if you can simulate entire universe, without using laws of physics and 4 fundamental forces of the universe? Why would you need food and water just to survive at all? It's pretty much like asking the question: Do you love your family? Yes. Prove it. The same case is with this stupendous hypothesis: is the universe a computer simulation? You don't have to prove it it isn't, compare simulation human against the real world human.
In order for brain to be hooked up into a signal generated supercomputer, supercomputer would have to know just about everything in the universe, plus everything in the brain and the brain decisions-but that's just impossible. Human brain decides what to do in any given situation better than any other computer ever will. It's the same question why some people kill and others do not. It's the matter of religion, education, environment..., or simply a life or death situation. It's not matter of if you have been programmed or not.

you can see the future? 10,000 years ago who would have thought the human race would one day be able to fly higher than the birds?

Gravage: No species lived forever. Proven fact, as we can see humans destroying themselves via profit and high-tech and science, I wouldn't be surprised if we live another 300 years maximum.

i don't see a good reason for bringing emotional stories into this discussion. this is a science forums and it is certainly appropriate to talk about these theories without sounding inhumane. i don't recall seeing anyone protesting The Matrix at the movie theaters.
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Than why don't you let some junkie stabs you to the death? After all everything is simulation and death itself-prove it.

No this has become a philosophy forum, and philosophy is the one thing I really hate. Those are people who have entire time in the world and they never actually felt what is a real life, they live in their own fantasy world, not knowing what is happening there. Vast majority of scientists themselves says the universe is actually not a simulation at all.
 
You are confusing simulator with hologram. The scientists had ideas that this might be a simulated hologram. But you can just simulate the universe in someone's head, and that would be impossible to check out. You could figure it out though, but without proof.
 
Gravage said:
Than why don't you let some junkie stabs you to the death? After all everything is simulation and death itself-prove it.
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you still don't understand how this would work.

if we live in a simulation and someone stabs you to "death" in the simulation, the computer will start sending pictures of your dead body to everyone's brain and you will appear "dead" to them. however, your real body is still alive and breathing and feeling everything around you yet you can't tell anyone in the simulation you are still alive because the computer has stopped letting your brain send anything into the simulation.

so tell me, how would anyone be able to prove to you they are still alive outside of the simulated world?

Gravage said:
Vast majority of scientists themselves says the universe is actually not a simulation at all.
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they can't prove it either.

no one can prove it either way and this is the only claim i'm making. moreover, if you watched the youtube clip i posted many posts back, you would know that several leading & mainstream theoretical physicists are saying that the world we live in mightbe a hologram (which is different than the idea in The Matrix) after all.

Gravage said:
No this has become a philosophy forum, and philosophy is the one thing I really hate. Those are people who have entire time in the world and they never actually felt what is a real life, they live in their own fantasy world, not knowing what is happening there.
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i actually find this thread interesting. this idea came straight out of a sci-fi movie. but different people can have different interpretations of the exact same thing.
 
What if during experience we download information and generate a perspective (or it can be percieved a coordinate in space time that creates the contium if its stable state).

Than during deep sleep (which is inevitable for all creatures) we sort of upload information from our senses to a collective 'consciousness field' or different property of consciousness that retains information for the purposes of preserving life or reality states that would have some important purpose like ; observation to create stable states in the universe as reality or experience.

To grave If your mom died in your dream would you attribute this to an actual event or a simulated event?

If it had it not been for you waking up are you sure you could tell the difference?
 
markl323 said:
you still don't understand how this would work.

if we live in a simulation and someone stabs you to "death" in the simulation, the computer will start sending pictures of your dead body to everyone's brain and you will appear "dead" to them. however, your real body is still alive and breathing and feeling everything around you yet you can't tell anyone in the simulation you are still alive because the computer has stopped letting your brain send anything into the simulation.

so tell me, how would anyone be able to prove to you they are still alive outside of the simulated world?

Gravage: Yes, but this dead simulated person cannot return to life. the person is dead, and that's it. Computer can send pictures of that person of being alive, or dead, but the person remains dead and eaten by the worms and microbes, eventually. Why don't you kill yourself to prove that you're alive?


they can't prove it either.

no one can prove it either way and this is the only claim i'm making. moreover, if you watched the youtube clip i posted many posts back, you would know that several leading & mainstream theoretical physicists are saying that the world we live in mightbe a hologram (which is different than the idea in The Matrix) after all.

Gravage: Sure, but that means you're not the real person I'm debating against, you just a lot of my computer's 0 and 1 codes, prove that you truly exist-that's how absurd this hypothesis truly is.

i actually find this thread interesting. this idea came straight out of a sci-fi movie. but different people can have different interpretations of the exact same thing.
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This idea of "not being real" from the philosophy known as solipsism in ancient greek times, and anyone who is smart should avoid it.
 
Gravage said:
This idea of "not being real" from the philosophy known as solipsism in ancient greek times, and anyone who is smart should avoid it.
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you are the only person who has brought philosophy into this thread.

a serious case of misplaced anger, IMO.
 
You will find the philosophy most often considered in regards to this is Existentialism

The thing is for any proto-science to evolve from a fringe related reason, it requires a certain amount of philosophizing. Without at least attempting to portray concepts, reasoning and events, it difficult to foretell what directives to state, what goals to aim for and how to deal with "extreme" scenarios where altercations occur.

Incidentally it's not that real isn't real, it's real is as is real is.
 
Originally Posted by Gravage
Vast majority of scientists themselves says the universe is actually not a simulation at all.
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1) I truly doubt most have weighed in on the subject. 2) It would be just their opinions, guesses. They would have nothing empirical to go on to draw such a conclusion.
 
diode-man said:
lol don't tell me that! :rolleyes:
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don't worry, you may feel some residual nervousness, but it will now seem to you like i am joking. We don't mind our decoupled minds having some doubts or anxiety, but we do try to set things up so you believe in the simulation. Not that this is necessary, but we find it aesthetically pleasing both as a simulation and as a programming task.
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-the programmers
 
markl323 said:
you are the only person who has brought philosophy into this thread.

a serious case of misplaced anger, IMO.
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I have no anger in myself at all. The one who started this philosophy is the one who started this thread.
Vast majority of scientists are also philosophers. The idea that the universe is a simulation (whatever simulation) is pretty much like saying you don't exist.
This is how much it is ridiculous
 
Pineal said:
1) I truly doubt most have weighed in on the subject. 2) It would be just their opinions, guesses. They would have nothing empirical to go on to draw such a conclusion.
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Than the idea of scientists. that nothing beats the entropy also should not be considered serious conclusion?
Yes, sure.
Like I said, comparing universe as a simulation is like comparing myself to you, that you don't exist, you are only my simulation, nothing more. It's simply ridiculous.
 
It's not ridiculous when mankind can almost do it already. You could glue a virtual helmet to a baby, and it wouldn't know the difference.
 
Gravage said:
The idea that the universe is a simulation (whatever simulation) is pretty much like saying you don't exist.
This is how much it is ridiculous
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Is it?

Do you know how much of an atom's volume is actually space?
Less just say it's a greater volume than the volume of content.

In essence we "barely" exist.
 
Stryder said:
Is it?

Do you know how much of an atom's volume is actually space?
Less just say it's a greater volume than the volume of content.

In essence we "barely" exist.
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Yes, sure tell that for those who are dying from hunger in Ethiopia and Ruanda, why don't you try it, just to see how simulated hunger truly is?
If your organism was a simulation, there would not be any need to eat and drink at all.
 
Stryder said:
Is it?

Do you know how much of an atom's volume is actually space?
Less just say it's a greater volume than the volume of content.

In essence we "barely" exist.
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Exactly, we don't actually know anything about atom, we know what we can measure but beyond that limit is the unknown area. That alone gives no right to think that atom is an illusion, since we don't what actually is beyond measurement.
 
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