Tech Billionairs convinced we live in the Matrix and are trying to find a way out

[Underverse]

On the other hand, I find a simulation to be the only plausible explanation for some sort of afterlife. I like this idea, but I have yet to see any evidence for it.

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Maybe it changes what happens after we "die", but it shouldn't change your current "life".

The question is why would we be put into a matrix, I think the only answer can be summed up with... Have you ever woken up from a dream that you immediately try to fall back asleep and get back into? Well, if we're in a matrix, then this dream world we're living in must be better than the real world. Why try to wake from it? Wouldn't you rather live in a dream world better than the real world?

That begs the question - what would a holocaust survivor's reality be?

[jimboa24]

If we are living in a matrix, then doesn't that make creationists technically correct?

Hell, doesn't that render some serious validity to Christians/religious types?

[Underverse]

If we are living in a matrix, then doesn't that make creationists technically correct?

Yeah. But we haven't gotten to proving it yet, so they're still wrong/making assumptions without evidence.

[apples]

Im pretty sure it would matter to a lot of people if we could actually scientifically prove that we were in fact simulated, only virtually existing people. Like i said, 85% would dismiss it as nonsense, some others would likely end up in some sort of a crisis because of it. Im not exactly sure how you can just say it matters when so many people are seeking a meaning in their life and all... Yea, sure, it doesn't change what reality is and we still got to eat our virtual food and whatever and work to get "food on our plates", but im sure that knowledge would influence people.

Its as simple as the concept of a bottlecap, apples~

allegory of the cave says hi

but i agree, things are simple if you choose not to care

[Fasolina]

uuuuuuuugggggghhhhh, eyeroll...

Just because an idea is interesting and/or possible, does not make it probable.

[chunx0r]

The flaw is why would we choose to live in this kind of world where most of the people in the world are miserable? If we could choose among billions of realities to live in why choose this one? Is history false or did it really happen? Why choose to live in a world to backwards technologically from a place of such vastly superior technology?

Even now no one would choose to live in a world where they could die of the black plague or live in a world where they were destined to be slave? or would they?

You're assuming that all humans are the "players" in the simulation. Some outside being that chose to enter the simulation. Couldn't we just be part of the simulation itself? As far as the conditions of the world, suffering, war, plague and despair. Why would we make movies and tv shows about horrible zombie apocalypses? Why do people play WW2 video games?

[Axelond]

From what I understand it is Nomologically impossible to know if we are living in a simulation. From our point of view inside this hypothetical simulation we can never know what is outside the simulation, similarly to how it's impossible to learn if parallell universes exist.

Someone might say why is the speed of light 299 792 458 m / s.
Why is the planc lenght 1.61622837 × 10-35 meters.
How come the gravitational constant is 6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2


Are these signs that we live in a simulation? We have no idea because we got nothing to refer it too when everything we know is in this "simulation" we can't compare those numbers to the "real world" because no information from the real world can reach the simulation. Those constants may be the same in the "real world" but we will never know if they are a made up "simulation speed limit".

Another thing to consider is that there is no guarantee the simulation would be less detailed ie the size of the atom is smaller in "our simulation" than in the "real world". You could hypothetically run a more advance version of the universe but in slow mode. So 1 second in the simulation is 1000's of years in the real world that way there would be a potentially unlimited amount of processing power. When more processing is needed just slow down time. From within the universe we will never know if time passes faster or slower in the simulation than in the real world.

[apples]

Unless you can change the parameters. If we don't try well never find out.

Also interesting overlap with some of the holographic principal.

yea. once you can do something with the info people will care.

but until then no one gives a dam.

multiverse is your proof.

[Garnier Fructis]

Someone might say why is the speed of light 299 792 458 m / s.
Why is the planc lenght 1.61622837 × 10-35 meters.
How come the gravitational constant is 6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2

This is really tangential to your post, but the numbers are funny because of our choice of measuring sticks, i.e. the meter, second and kilogram are all essentially arbitrarily defined. It's more interesting to ask why things like the fine structure constant are the value they are, since that number doesn't depend on choice of measuring scales.

[jimboa24]

You know, the more I think about this, the more I want to facepalm.

Let me get this straight: these tech-heads are convinced that our world isn't real, that it is a created plane of existence by an extremely advanced, intelligent being that is for all intents and purposes, all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere, and that we can, should and eventually will "wake up" from this reality into the real reality?

Do they just not have the self-awareness to realize that they're basically saying the same thing that Christians, Jews and other monotheistic religious types have been saying for thousands of years, just with a sci-fi spin? I mean, you say "potay-to", I say "potah-to", one man's God is another man's advanced, hyper-intelligent AI controlling the matrix we all live in, etc?

[Beefsquatch]

You know, the more I think about this, the more I want to facepalm.

Let me get this straight: these tech-heads are convinced that our world isn't real, that it is a created plane of existence by an extremely advanced, intelligent being that is for all intents and purposes, all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere, and that we can, should and eventually will "wake up" from this reality into the real reality?

Do they just not have the self-awareness to realize that they're basically saying the same thing that Christians, Jews and other monotheistic religious types have been saying for thousands of years, just with a sci-fi spin? I mean, you say "potay-to", I say "potah-to", one man's God is another man's advanced, hyper-intelligent AI controlling the matrix we all live in, etc?

When you simplify it like that, sure it sounds very similar. As do most religions. But when you peel back the layers, you see that the details are very much different from each other. If we're in a simulation, I don't think it would matter much if all this isn't real. We would be bound by the rules here, and wouldn't really be any escape or "waking up". It would be our reality.

If we're in a Matrix..well, that changes things imo. We would more than likely be similar to that hyper-intelligent being, and there would be a "reality" to go back to. Interesting to think about.

[Dezerte]

I suppose dying would bring you up one simulation? Are we going to see new suicide cults now?

[Deleted]

So if we're "living in a virtual world", how can we know whether we've actually been born naturally, or whether we're just simulations ourselves?

Couldn't we just be part of the simulation itself?

Ahh, exactly this.

[Tsar Bomba]

Maybe we are living in a simulation of a simulation run by simulators simulating the simulation in a multiverse simulation of a multiverse in a multiverse...You have to be very educated to say things this stupid.

[Tzalix]

You know, the more I think about this, the more I want to facepalm.

Let me get this straight: these tech-heads are convinced that our world isn't real, that it is a created plane of existence by an extremely advanced, intelligent being that is for all intents and purposes, all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere, and that we can, should and eventually will "wake up" from this reality into the real reality?

Do they just not have the self-awareness to realize that they're basically saying the same thing that Christians, Jews and other monotheistic religious types have been saying for thousands of years, just with a sci-fi spin? I mean, you say "potay-to", I say "potah-to", one man's God is another man's advanced, hyper-intelligent AI controlling the matrix we all live in, etc?

You're reading a bit much into it there. A single being or hyper-intelligent AI being responsible for this is not mentioned anywhere, for example.

The simulation theory is an interesting and stimulating philosophical argument. That some people want to take it one step further and empirically test this should be applauded. After all, if you don't test things you are treating assumptions as facts, and at that point all logic goes out the window.

Yes, the simulation theory as flaws, as many philosophical arguments do. That doesn't make it less compelling. I think it should be explored. We refer to philosophy as the father of science for a reason. I think it's important.

So if we're "living in a virtual world", how can we know whether we've actually been born naturally, or whether we're just simulations ourselves?

Well, if Descartes has anything to say about it, there's one thing you can be pretty certain of: you do exist, in one form or another.

Cogito ergo sum
I think, therefore I am

[Seani]

Saying it is unlikely we live in a "base reality" is different than saying we live in the Matrix. Descartes wrote about this in the early 17th century, it isn't a new concept. The Matrix is a movie based on this concept, not the other way around. I think the headline comes from sensational reporting.

[unbound]

Elon's argument is pretty sound. He says that 40 years ago video games were pac man and pong. Now we have VR AR and console games with graphics that are borderline photo realistic. If we continue to progress at any fraction of current rate we will eventually end up with simulations indistinguishable from reality. Continue that progress further, set top boxes PCs phones would be able to run these simulations. Leading to billions of indistinguishable simulations. Thus the chance of us being in "base" reality is 1 in billions.

He also makes the side point this is the optimistic outlook, because if we don't eventually reach indistinguishable simulations that probably means society collapses.

Personally I can't find a flaw in the argument.

Actually, his argument is not particularly compelling.

He is saying that we should be able to create virtual environment indistinguishable from reality in the next X years. So what? Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it has been done, and it certainly doesn't mean that we live in such an environment.

His argument is just a variation of a creationist argument. It's basically, "Wow! What are the odds of what we see around us being exactly like it is?" which is an utterly stupid argument. The odds of me typing the number 36389284706023435234234 at random is absolutely astronomical...yet, I just did it. The odds have nothing to do with it.

What evidence has Elon provided to demonstrate that we live in a matrix-like environment? None. It's fine as a thought or philosophy discussion, but, until evidence is provided in lieu of idle conjecture, it is nothing more than fanciful thought.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Woah, calm down everyone. It's not so stupid, although probably wrong.

It's one of the many things caused by the quantic theory and the unsolvable riddle of observed versus unobserved state. Add a bit of black hole and a pinch of how time affect and unaffect given things, and you have a group that was bound to happen. Basically, it's a "If a tree fall on the ground in a forest, does the tree make a sound if there's nobody to hear it?" metaphor taken to an extreme, based on empirical data.

We won't know much of it in our lifetime, but it's something worth pursuing. How did the universe come to be in the first place? Why are we living here? What made life?

Also get rid of the matrix idea. If we're genuinely stuck in a simulation, the "real" world will look and feel nothing at all like ours. Chances are that these things don't even exist in the real reality.

With that said, I'm going to take a sip of my real or unreal coffee.

[Kithelle]

Ahh yes...rich peoples money so well spent!

Why not spend some of those billions trying to make it a better place instead of trying to prove it is someone else to blame why it is a bad place?

[Deleted]

Hypothetically speaking, if it turned out to be true that we are in a Matrix of sorts, how do you think the world would react to such news? What would be the ramifications of a discovery like this?

Depends on what the real world is like.

Are we all slaves, like the movie? Are we in suspended animation on a spaceship heading for the new Earth, after the old one over-heated, blew up or got taken over by an alien race? Are we in an actual cave, waiting for the effects of nuclear winter to clear? Are we the entertainer class of future humanity, dreaming up the stories for them to tap into through their neuro-jacks (That's silly, there are no jacks in the future!)?