This is a false dichotomy—simulation versus Reality. When Neo woke to reality was it Reality or another higher order simulation?<p>Could we not just redefine our capital R reality as a damn fine simulation? Isn’t that the message behind almost all spirituality and religion?<p>This pseudo-question belongs in the trash heap of philosophy along with mind-brain dualism.<p>It is a question generated by murky thinking—-credit to Wittgenstein for pointing out the obvious. Read Richard Rorty—any thing really but “Truth and Progress” a good place to start.<p>If you want way more insight than Chalmers will ever provide then read either “The Quantum Thief” by Hannu Rajaniemi, or hardcore neuroscience: “Principles of Neural Design” by Sterling and Laughlin.
> I’m not putting it forward as a scientific hypothesis right now. It’s a thought experiment for how reality could be.<p>This is a key point. The simulated universe is unfalsifiable, meaning that there is no experiment we can (currently, perhaps forever) perform that could prove it true or false. Even if we could conceive of such an experiment, simulation advocates could argue that the simulation was set up to produce the results we see.<p>Also, it's worth bearing in mind that simulation is really hard and computationally expensive: we cannot yet model a single human neuron at the atomic level, let alone at the quark level. You can try to get around this detail by saying that the simulation focusses computation / resolution on where we are looking, but this again seems to be moving the goalposts.<p>I would like a simulation proponent to propose a credible laws of physics for the host universe, as well as making some comments about how computation (i.e. simulation) works in that universe. For example, is the host computation subject to the same theoretical constraints that our computers are, e.g. the halting problem, and P versus NP.<p>[Edit] minor rewording for clarity.
I am about 1/4 done reading Chalmers’ new book “Reality+” and so far I like it. While I may dislike FB, I am a huge fan of Oculus VR gear, and I helped setup a VR lab at SAIC about 25 years ago, so I am a fan of the technology but not a current expert. I think that high quality immersive VR will be useful, lots of fun, and transformative - as long as it is used sparingly. For myself, I feel comfortable using one of my Oculus devices two or three times a day for about 5 or 6 minutes a session. Sometime, like when getting a new volume in the Star Wars Vader Immortal trilogy, my play sessions would be 30 minutes. My point is, good VR can be great, if used in moderation. I live about 75 meters from a national forest trailhead, and even a 10 minute walk in nature is a great way to round out a short VR session.<p>I am horrified, however, to think of people spending many hours at a time in VR or augmented reality. Nope.<p>Off topic, but even though I have only had one good talk with Chalmers in person, I feel some personal connection because he got his PhD with the same advisor as my friend Pei Wang, and he clashed professionally with my childhood friend Tony Brueckner (who, until he died, was chairman of the philosophy department at UCSB). I find that my enjoyment of reading books increases if I have met and talked with the author. This argues against the meta verse :-)
Well before I started learning to program, I was carefully reading David Chalmers' early magnum opus <i>The Conscious Mind</i>. I still find myself convinced by the argument: consciousness is a basic ontological feature of reality, the part of reality that constitutes my existence.<p>I am horrified that we're taking that Cartesian insight to mean we should actually put our consciousnesses inside little boxes that simulate the rest of the grand mystery of reality—because what's the difference if the lie is good enough?<p>It makes this atheist want to go out into nature and find the Goddess.
I like the simulation idea. But if we are in a simulation wouldn’t the computer have to be mind bogglingly huge, bigger than our universe? I’m just trying to wrap my head around the computing power needed to calculate even something as simple as pouring a glass of sand into another glass and getting all the collisions and final locations of the particles right in the new glass. And this goes on everywhere at all times, unless you think the simulators fudge a lot of it. :)
The following website is a good place to read more, based on Nick Bostroms original paper.<p><a href="https://www.simulation-argument.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.simulation-argument.com/</a>
<a href="https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html</a>
the simulation is in each of our heads, is how we consciously interact with the rest of the world (reality).<p>the simulation is the entire body of scientific understanding.<p>the simulation is how we can do something in order to get an expected outcome, we've simulated our surroundings in order to know this.