Elon Musk says were living in a simulation, here's his argument

[May90]

By the way, if Musk is right, wouldn't it essentially prove the existence of God? Think about it: if someone is running the simulation, then they can always tinker with it, if they so desire. Wouldn't the simulation controller be exactly what God is supposed to be, an omnipotent being able to do whatever they desire with our world?

Will be funny if they apply a patch to the simulation tomorrow which will change the speed of light to be, say, 270,000 km/s. Imagine the shock in the scientific community.

[Espe]

It's always hard to define exactly what is an idea

All pedantry aside, it's an old concept. That was my point.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

He's right in the sense that if - as our good fellow Stephen Hawking pointed out - there are parallel universes, we are indeed living in a simulation. One of many trillions upon trillions of simulations.

[Sorshen]

"Elon's theory" ... oooooook

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

[seek]

well... we already creating simulations that "mostly" mimic our universe , so yes it could be possible

[zorkuus]

well... we already creating simulations that "mostly" mimic our universe , so yes it could be possible

By "mostly" you must mean "hardly".

[Shudder]

His theory. That's hilariously ignorant. Hell the matrix was even based off this. There is also Solipsism. Many different philosophical theories that have been thrown around for many centuries. This is nothing new.

[seek]

By "mostly" you must mean "hardly".

Either way it's possible

[Goondicker]

Party right / need more info.

This is more of a philosophy question than scientific at this point. Maybe that won't be the case years in the future when we can better understand it.

Bottom line: It doesn't matter if it's a simulation or not. It's our reality.

[Eroginous]

He says look at computer games. First we had pong, 2 paddles and a dot that simulated a tennis game. Today what 30-40 years later we have multiplayer games that simulate whole worlds pretty accurately and with hundreds of other players sharing the game, think WoW or GTA 5. And the sophistication of these simulations are growing all the time. What kind of simulations will we have in 40 years time? He says simulations by then will indistinguishable from reality.

So that's why he believes we are living in a simulation. In fact he said there is only a one out of a billion chance that we are living in "base reality". "Base reality" meaning the real world or simulation level 0.

Do you buy into Elon's theory?

Here's why this theory cannot be correct: the universe appears vast and complex, but actually follows a very simple set of rules that open up the possibility of permutation for this reality. It stands to reason that the laws of this universe would produce a similar permutation every single time, with the only real differences being specific details of each representation. In this way, we cannot exist as part of a simulation because the very idea of a 'simulated environment' requires that you participate via some methods by which the simulation will have meaning. For video games, we're using very powerful networks of electrical signals to do the job of rendering the simulation we see displayed on the screen. But this simulation only exists on the face of the monitor it's being displayed. It's not a physical world somewhere that we can travel to and interact with.

No, our version of a 'simulation' necessarily precludes the possibility of us being a part of it. We can mock up a world and give it rules to governing every virtual particle of the world (and we have to because the simulation is a reflection of our manipulation of it), but that's all it is, a mock up. Even at the very highest level of technology. Because a simulation requires external input to generate an output, this explanation is not sufficient without further explanation, making the whole theory impossible. We find ourselves in a universe with such a set of rules that the universe itself could begin to exist with no external input, removing the need for there to be a simulation in the first place.

I believe Occam's Razor is sufficient here.

[Auxora]

His idea is far from original. There have been "we're a living fishtank" theories for many years, long before The Matrix movies.

There is one problem with even the big bang theory (not the show) that helps support the sim or fishbowl idea, which is that something or someone had to have at some point created the void of space and the blob of mass that exploded into the universe for the big bang. If we say the universe started from that tiny clump of incredibly dense mass that exploded, then what created the mass? What created the few feet of space you are existing in right now? And even in the theory that the universe is in a constant cycle of exploding, expanding, and then imploding and repeating, something or someone still created that mass and the void of space.

[seek]

I think you mean the Newtonian physics, which is not that hard. Most do not integrate the later physics, and none do quantum physics.

nope, artificial universe is the keyword

[Malachi256]

Interestingly enough, it's not too far off from what Christians believe. We're eternal souls in a biological simulation of sorts.

[Dhrizzle]

I think philosophers have talked about this for hundreds of years, but they would've said "a dream" or "a magical Chinese box" instead of simulation.

The Chinese box is something completely different. There is a connection to the "butterfly dreaming they are a man" conundrum, in the way it relies on us not knowing what base reality really is, but this simulation theory is different.

Today we are creating virtual worlds. It is well within the realms of possibility that we can create a simulated reality that is indistinguishable from the "real" reality. It seems quite obvious that the "real" reality would be able to hold many of these simulated realities so the idea Elon is repeating is correct, simply looking at the odds we have a higher chance of existing in a simulated reality than in a "real" reality.

Iain M. Banks' novel "The Algebraist" (2004) features a similar idea where simulation theory is known as "The Truth" and has replaced pretty much all other religions.

One of his other books, "The Hydrogen Sonata" looked at the problem from the other side. If you are capable of creating a simulation that features entities complex enough to be considered sapient, what are their rights and what are your moral obligations towards them?

[Granyala]

And the sophistication of these simulations are growing all the time. What kind of simulations will we have in 40 years time? He says simulations by then will indistinguishable from reality.

That is VERY doubtful, because the hardware power increases have slowed down already.
Unless we get quantum computing working and matured in just 40 years (fat chance) we will likely plateau for a while.

Real life is infinitely complex. We cannot simulate infinite complexity.

[Dhrizzle]

I think you mean the Newtonian mechanics, which is not that hard. Most do not integrate the later physics, and none do quantum physics.

Quantum physics could just be an approximation of what actually happens in base reality.

Maybe that's why quantum physics and relativity can't be reconciled by our physicists, some programmer decided to fudge it and have two sets of laws to save on processing power.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Is this real life? Is this just Fanta sea?

Caught in a landslide; No escape from reality.

[Arganis]

The real question is: what difference does it make? Last I checked everybody's simulation/reality ends when they die.

[hrugner]

To anyone that said no... Can you definitively prove we live in base reality?

Sure I suppose I could do that. There is no workable theory to describe wave function collapse without state decay. Since state decay requires an absence of measurement, you couldn't have an organized simulation that used our universe type as the simulator. If we had no observable quantum zeno effect(or similar) then we could possibly be a sim.

We could be a created unobservable universe with it's own randomness to it, but that's not much like a simulation.

[Yvaelle]

He says look at computer games. First we had pong, 2 paddles and a dot that simulated a tennis game. Today what 30-40 years later we have multiplayer games that simulate whole worlds pretty accurately and with hundreds of other players sharing the game, think WoW or GTA 5. And the sophistication of these simulations are growing all the time. What kind of simulations will we have in 40 years time? He says simulations by then will indistinguishable from reality.

So that's why he believes we are living in a simulation. In fact he said there is only a one out of a billion chance that we are living in "base reality". "Base reality" meaning the real world or simulation level 0.

Do you buy into Elon's theory?

It's a slight misrepresentation of the position.

The argument is that if simulations were indistinguishable, then we would be unable to differentiate between reality and the virtual.

If there is only one base reality, but simulations are extremely commonplace (millions, billions, etc) - then they may contain many, many orders of magnitude more people within simulations than outside them (in 'the real').

Given those assumptions, it's a fair position to suggest that we are more likely - statistically to be virtual beings than real beings.

The assumptions themselves however are fairly dodgy - knock down any one of them and the argument falls too.