Perhaps it stems from the commonly held religious belief of an inherently flawed humanity that must transcend the terrestrial in order to return to a “perfect” creator. If anyone can create, there is no need for one master controller.
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Being convinced we are in a simulation because of some misused probability argument is a kind-of understandable mistake for a person who doesn’t really get probability. But being convinced we are in a simulation because evidence from the world points to that conclusion is only possible if you fundamentally just don’t get how evidence works.
Something could only be evidence we are in a simulation if it is evidence that we are not in real reality. That means, it would have to be something that wouldn’t/couldn’t happen in real reality. That means anyone claiming to have such evidence is claiming to know something about real reality from inside a simulation.
It is so desperately obvious that is impossible that the fact that people don’t get that makes me think we might be living in a simulation…
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What are you talking about? I loved those sequels!
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Instead of sim heads I’d suggest philip k dickheads.
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Alright, here’s why I think the simulation argument is dumb:
It often makes me think about the old question of whether mathematical knowledge is invented or discovered. Max Tegmark suggests that any conceivable mathematical structure (laws of physics) giving rise to a possible universe, means that that universe does in fact exist, simply by virtue of being valid knowledge (whether anyone knows about it or not). I think along similar lines: even if we are being simulated, the simulators are merely discovering our reality, not inventing it. This would mean that the question of “simulated or not” is not a valid one.
I’ll admit, this leads to difficulties in the case where there is interference from the simulators. I suspect it’s equivalent to just changing initial conditions, but I don’t know. Is anyone interested in this sort of philosophizing? I find it fairly pointless even though I’m the offender!
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I sure am!
I think the question of whether we are being simulated is definitely impossible to answer without direct intervention from the simulators to confirm that we are. I also agree that it’s kind of a pointless question anyway: whatever reality we are in is our reality, whether it was created intentionally by beings with super-advanced computers, made by an eternal outside-of-time-and-space God, or just a conclusion of randomness.
However, I think there is a fact of the matter about whether we are simulated or not, and that the only things that exist by virtue of philosophical argument are philosophical arguments themselves. I think underlying everything there is something that “exists” (though we can’t grasp what that means) and that it exists prior to our ability to philosophize about it. Math was invented, but it is invented in order to try to describe something we’d like to discover (but probably can’t).
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It would be a comforting alternative to the truth wouldn’t it?
Exactly! The simulation argument is apparently the culmination of our present culture’s seemingly infinite capacity for disappointment. “The universe is a sham! 1 out of 5 stars! Would not recommend existance to a friend.”
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I think you can find that sentiment going back centuries in philosophy and literature.
and so it goes.
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Is it OK that I kind of find this article loathesome?
[QUOTE]
This wasn’t just a minor kerfuffle. This was a major malfunction. Trump cannot be President—forgetting all the bounds of ideology, no one vaguely like him has ever existed in the long list of Presidents, good, bad, and indifferent, no one remotely as oafish or as crude or as obviously unfit. People don’t say “Grab ’em by the pussy” and get elected President. Can’t happen. In the same way, while there have been Oscar controversies before—tie votes and rejected trophies—never before has there been an occasion when the entirely wrong movie was given the award, the speeches delivered, and then another movie put in its place. That doesn’t happen. Ever.
And so both of these bizarre events put one in mind of a simple but arresting thesis: that we are living in the Matrix, and something has gone wrong with the controllers.
[/QUOTE]
OR…that’s just how non-simulated reality actually goddamn works. Sometimes fucked up things happen and you need to deal with them. It can happen. It did happen. It wasn’t a surprise to the human beings who were there and who did it and who helped it happen. Expand your definition of what is possible.
You seek escapism, and I get it, but this is, like, the current apex of liberal whinging, and it is fucking poison.
Adam Gopnik, you are not helping.
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What the hell did I just watch? No, no … never mind, I really don’t think I want to know.
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I think it’s proof that breakfast tacos need to be a thing nationwide.
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I feel your pain. This is one of those articles that make you want to start sentences with, “okay, I know you meant this as satire, but really…”
An alternative way of looking at is that up to 2.2% of all people who get elected President are exactly that oafish, crude, etc.
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Hell, LBJ is on record talking abut his dong more than once. (At least one instance of which, I believe, is literally recorded).
I can only imagine the shit that presidents got away with before the advent of modernish record-keeping.
It’s not that this is impossible, it’s that it wasn’t the case for a few years. How do we get back to that place? Not by pretending we’re all in a simulation and so none of it really matters, that’s for damn sure.
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Interesting use of … words.
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Wow. The SubGenius people could only dream of coming up with a video that weird. I know that because the illuminati told me so.
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Matrix whats? it seems your simulation instance is corrupted
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This!
We were the dream dreamed by Abe Vigoda now set adrift in choas.
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It’s not a sim. I keep typing “CASH” and I have yet to see a loose $10,000 in my account.
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