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

[Septik]

This sounds like absolute retardation if you're not familiar with the theory. Here's how it goes : If it is POSSIBLE to recreate our universe, it's a one in a billion chance that we are the first one to do it, since you have let's say "universe A" and they create an universe identical to theirs, eventually that universe will reach the point where they also create another universe, then the one after too, so on and so forth. If you believe that it is possible to recreate our universe, you also believe that there's an astronomically small chance of us being the "prime" and "true" universe, and I assume these people believe that you can reproduce the universe.

Eek barba dirkle, somebody's gonna get laid in college.

[Deleted]

This matrix model of the universe is human centric and just garbage.

[the]

If they are "funding research" then that means they are actually paying someone, you can't just dump money in a hole and it magically produces results. Where are the researchers that are being paid? What do they do? How do you get into that line of work?

Why would they pay the money in secret? Elon Musk already does wild things that seem unreasonable... so why would he hide paying for this, something that he has spoken about publicly? If he never said anything like this publicly and someone had unearthed a secret video of him saying it then it'd be plausible because he's trying to hide it, but he's completely not trying to have it private and uses it as a talking point.

That's what makes no sense here. What is the point of trying to hide the research? Why would they and why would they do such a good job of hiding the research but then throw it away by publicly sharing their feelings on the matter?

[Celista]

Elon Musk can piss away his fortune on whatever the fuck he wants, but trying to figure a way out of a hypothetical Matrix at this stage of technological advancement is akin to asking an infant to pick up a bottle of baby formula on their way home from work.

[Deleted]

I just like that we already have plenty of mystery in our current infinite universe but now we also entertain triple infinity theories

[Rudkobing]

Holodeck End Program......

Holodeck door opens.......

Oh vey........

Um, we don't live in the Matrix or a holodeck......
No, siree.......

/takes a look out the holodeck door......
Well, that's interesting and unexpected........

[Blade Wolf]

I can picture Elon Musk sitting in a corner crying and goin insane holding a ball in his hand goin, "This isn't real, it's just simulation".

[Dhrizzle]

A lot of people are presenting qualitative flaws like the existence of suffering or whatnot, but there's another simple mathematical flaw.

The probability that we are in base reality is not 1 in a billion. That number requires that other conditions be met, so the probability that we're in base reality is the 1 in a billion plus the probability that the conditions aren't met.

It's conditional probability. If I remember correctly, the guy that created the simulation argument only thinks that it's ~20% likely that the conditions for the simulation argument hold, i.e. he assigns the probability that we aren't in a simulation to be ~80%.

Any number quoted on this matter is an obvious ass-pull, we simply don't have enough information to quantify the probability.

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Being around and being accepted are TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS.

I'm sure it has been "around" for MUCH longer than 30 years, but accepted is completely different. I don't blame you, you just follow the crowd which isn't a wrong way to live life.

Similar ideas have been around, but the "simulation hypothesis" that looks at modern technology and considers its development is relatively recent.

[Ariselea]

I've never seen the Matrix and I've only been briefed down by a co-worker about what it is but in a Matrix, aren't we pretty much allowed to do whatever we want?
I can't imagine willingly getting myself into debt and living in a stinking hot country.

[Garnier Fructis]

Any number quoted on this matter is an obvious ass-pull, we simply don't have enough information to quantify the probability.

Exactly. Even the ~20% or 30% or w/e figure that the simulation argument's author cited is also just an arbitrary guess.

[I Push Buttons]

I'd be more worried about whether we ourselves are simulations.

If an entity possessed the power to simulate an entire universe down to the subatomic particle scale... I would think simulating human consciousness, even for billions of humans, would be a simple matter.

People keep discussing this as if we are live humans trapped in a simulation, if simulation theory is true we may only exist on a computer in the reality above us, which itself might not even be the base reality.

[Dhrizzle]

I've never seen the Matrix and I've only been briefed down by a co-worker about what it is but in a Matrix, aren't we pretty much allowed to do whatever we want?
I can't imagine willingly getting myself into debt and living in a stinking hot country.

In "a Matrix" there is a virtual universe with rules in which you are a conscious actor, either a program or a living being in a "higher" reality in which the hardware for the matrix is based. Essentially you would have no more control in a simulated universe than you would in a "real" one.

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Exactly. Even the ~20% or 30% or w/e figure that the simulation argument's author cited is also just an arbitrary guess.

All we can really say is P ≥ 0

[Underverse]

Hey guys, want to start a pseudo-rational religion founded on worship of the developers of this digital universe? Maybe they'll give us free stuff!

[Garnier Fructis]

All we can really say is P ≥ 0

We can also say 1 ≥ P!

[Yvaelle]

no.

none of that would happen as whether or not you live in a simulation doesnt matter.

just like whether you live in the 3rd 4th 9th 144th dimension doesnt matter

it doesnt put food on your plate

its all academic

In the video game Metal Gear Solid 2, the main protagonist (of the franchise up until this point, if not the protagonist of this game particularly) Solid Snake, acknowledges that he is keenly aware that he exists within a simulated world.

He also acknowledges that the information doesn't change his course of action, except to embolden him to take action - that it is the choices we make that matters, not whether or not we do so in 'base' reality or not. Whether his reality is 'true' or not is - to him - irrelevant - he still chooses to do whatever he considers to be the right thing, in the given moment.

[Forogil]

According to Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a machine of just 300 qubits could be used to "map the whole universe", processing all the information that has existed since the Big Bang.

Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ibm-watson-...nitude-1509066

The reply to this and the simulation argument is: "Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

A counter-statement is that if we want to simulate something we either have to use more processing power (measured in some way) for the simulation compared to the original - or we will lose accuracy. (Could throw in the pigeon-hole principle to sound convincing.)

So, if we have a universe having 10^80 qubits (or however many there are in the current universe)>300 qubits we cannot simulate it accurately with 300 qubits.

Similarly we can in theory simulate parts of our universe - but unless we assume that it is 100% efficient (far from the case currently), and universes in general dedicate 99.9999999999% of their "processing power" to simulating other universes (which doesn't conform to observations) - the one in billion argument doesn't hold.
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For the universe as a simulation a completely different counter-argument is the following: Advanced societies can create artificial universes, not as simulations - but as real tangible ones (well, I read a story that suggested it - so it must be true), we are more likely to be living in an artificially created universe than in a simulated one!

[Deleted]

Wrong, Cyberspace expressed as bits and bytes may not take up any more room than a hard drive. How big is the computer that renders Warcraft?

It is not wrong and you may just not understand what youre talking about since you're asking about Warcraft. The world in that game is much much smaller than any hard drive, even one of those really compact ones. It's possibly even smaller than a real life atom. Why? Cause if you take a real world object, even a tiny one, it contains more information that you can access. Say even a grain of sand, its made out of billions of atoms, which in turn are made of quarks which are made of who knows what undiscovered particles. Each affected by forces, quantum effects, molecular bonds etc.

Now take WoW. What can you do there? Can you even dig into the ground? Nope, it's 1 pixels deep. What are the objects made of in that world? Nothing.. cause you cant access that information being in the game world. If the characters in WoW somehow became sentient, they could not build their own VR.. hell they could not even discover a wheel cause the laws of physics are too limited and there are no actual materials in the game.

So my point stands. To make WoW as realistic as the actual world where you could do the exact same things in the real World, say go into that world, grab a handful of tauren hair and put it under an ingame version of electron microscope and see the exact same things you would IRL you would actually need a way bigger computer than that world.

Or maybe a simpler answer is you still dont get it. Forget all that. Just say it exists. A completely realistic simulation of the real world and it runs on a small computer. Now someone in that world creates the same simulation. It doesn't run in that simulation, it still runs on the original computer running the first simulation and they arent limited to just one, how about if they run a billion of those? And in those, each will also run a billion and so on. Your original hardware will have to be infinitely fast to be able to handle that and thats impossible.