Human
beings have longed to understand their origins. There are several theories as
to why this is the case; maybe it is an attempt to nail down the disruptive
thought that our identities are anything but static or that understanding our
origins will clearly point out the purpose of our lives. At any rate, countless
hypotheses have been advanced as to human origins. One of the newest (or at least
the one that is getting a lot of press lately) is the hypothesis that the
universe is a simulation run by an intelligence superior to our own. The
details of this hypothesis are laid out here in this Discover magazine online
article, though if you just want to go straight to the analysis of this
poppycock idea, I provide snippets of the text below with a corresponding
rebuttal.
The article starts with this gem, “To
us, these programmers would be gods, able to twist reality on a whim…are the
implications too disturbing?” Well, yes, the implications would be disturbing
but not because we would discover these particular gods. In discovering these gods,
we would still be inclined to ask who or what created these gods. So,
discovering there are gods in this case doesn’t bring us closer to any ultimate
truths. These so-called gods would still exist in some universe of their own
and whose universe may be a simulation itself. (The article even acknowledges
this possibility further on in the reading.) In uncovering these ‘gods of the
simulation’ we would solve nothing other than to reveal our own slavery. Any
ultimate truth would still be waiting to be discovered.
“Given
the rapid technological advances we’ve witnessed over past decades — your cell
phone has more processing power than NASA’s computers had during the moon
landings — it’s not a huge leap to imagine that such simulations will
eventually encompass intelligent life.” That’s a very humorous sentence since
the definition of intelligent life is so contentious to say nothing of the fact
that people often treat others unlike themselves as though they weren’t human. Do
simulations qualify as intelligent life? I suppose we could ask Siri…
“Legislation
and social mores could soon be all that keeps us from creating a universe of
artificial, but still feeling, humans — but our tech-savvy descendants may find
the power to play God too tempting to resist.” In other words, regardless of
whether we are or are not simulations, we’d still be assholes. Great.
“John
D. Barrow, professor of mathematical sciences at Cambridge University,
suggested that an imperfect simulation of reality would contain detectable
glitches. Just like your computer, the universe’s operating system would need
updates to keep working.” This article began by mentioning the amount of
computing power and intelligence that would be needed to create our simulation and
it came off as sounding as if our simulators would be a whole lot smarter than
the team that programmed Windows Vista. Barrow’s suggestion is pure
speculation, aiming to suppose that our simulators would be as incompetent as
we are. Well, I should hope not. After all, they kept blowjobs as part of the
simulation. That implies vast intelligence.
“Most
physicists assume that space is smooth and extends out infinitely. But
physicists modeling the early universe cannot easily re-create a perfectly
smooth background to house their atoms, stars and galaxies. Instead, they build
up their simulated space from a lattice, or grid, just as television images are
made up from multiple pixels.” Wow, this is exactly the same kind of reasoning
that leads people to believe in miracles, events that supersede the laws of
physics: If we cannot do it or explain it, then it must have been the Hand of
God. Utter B.S.
“Unfortunately,
our almighty simulators may instead have programmed us into a universe-size
reality show — and are capable of manipulating the rules of the game, purely
for their entertainment. In that case, maybe our best strategy is to lead lives
that amuse our audience, in the hope that our simulator-gods will resurrect us
in the afterlife of next-generation simulations.” First, a ‘universe-size
reality show’ is still a smaller universe than the one our simulators are in,
meaning, the size of our universe isn’t actually that impressive. Second, we
have no idea what, exactly, amuses our supposed audience the most, since our
simulators are eerily mum on that account. Much like (insert the name of your
god here).
Other
thoughts? As one commenter, Chris Pope wrote, “If we can conceive of any test that would prove that we
are in a simulation then would not that possibility have already be conceived
by the designers of our simulation? If the designers are able to respond to our
actions and construct the simulation in such a way that we observe the results
that they want us to, then how can we ever devise a test that can prove that we
are in a simulation? Unless the designers want us to have that power they will
be able to gimmick the results of any "test" such that the result
returns to preserve the illusion of the simulation.” We don’t know how the
simulators would react to us discovering we are a simulation. Do they want us
to know? If we found out could they simply erase that knowledge from our
memory? What if we rebelled against the program and would that even be
possible? Moreover, theguy126 wrote, “Exactly what would define a real world as opposed to a simulation
anyway? If we were to break free of our simulation
and enter the real world what would
be so distinctively different about that real world that makes it more
"real" than a perfect simulation? The answer is nothing. There is
nothing substantial about real matter because all that is just
information that could have been simulated. There is no meaningful difference
between a real world and a perfect
simulation of the real world.”
It’s all speculation, folks. And if it
turns out I’m not real, well, I’ll just move to California where it’s okay to
be as fake as you want.
The utter nonsense of this hypothesis is
relatable to solipsism, which I have defeated. Read about it here.
