I don’t think that we’re in a simulation, but I do find myself occasionally entertaining the idea of it.
I think it would be kinda funny, because I have seen so much ridiculous shit in my life, that the idea that all those ridiculous things were simulated inside a computer or that maybe an external player did those things that I witnessed, is just too weird and funny at the same time lol.
Also, I play Civilizations VI and I occasionally wonder ‘What if those settlers / soldiers / units / whatever are actually conscious. What if those lines of code actually think that they’re alive?’. In that case, they are in a simulation. The same could apply to other life simulators, such as the Sims 4.
Idk, what does Lemmy think about it?
The idea is self-defeating. A simulation requires a higher reality for it to be contained within. Which in turn would by definition not be a simulation.
Another way to look at it is as any civilisation gets sufficient technology they begin simulating entire universes, to better understand their own.
That means we’re either the OG universe and haven’t figured out how to run simulations of that size yet (so no simulated universes exist yet), or there is some chain of universes above us who are likely also simulated until you get to the OG universe.
Considering everything in our universe seems to follow a set of base rules (speed of light, attraction between masses, etc), I’m partial to thinking of those as essentially input variables prior to our sim being run.
Explain that, please
Suppose I had a copy of the Sims. Inside the copy of the Sims, the characters are looking around and notice things that seem suspicious about their world. They come to the conclusion they’re in a simulation, a video game. But nobody asks what they were made to simulate? Because it always implies there is something which, to them, is metaphysical, i.e. our world. And, if they were thinking about this, it would devalue the simulation theory itself, because if the basis is a higher world, that would be the point of reference of why things are the way they are anyways, thus saying “so-and-so is the way it is because we live in a simulation” would be a moot remark.
So a virtual machine is a lower reality version of a computer?
In a sense, either “sub reality” or “para reality”. The latter is how I think.