Is the Universe a Simulation?

[CarlinAnnArbor]

Sorry about the double post. Not sure how that happened.

 

[Thunderbird]

Yes. Yes it is.

I created the simulated universe you inhabit to frustrate & perplex you. You are my pawn. Your purpose is only to entertain me.

 

[saveliberty]

Imagine how big the hologram chamber must be....

Yes, no unfortunately we have to own this whole deal.

 

[irosie91]

the universe is a board game by parker brothers

 

[DOTR]

Yes. Yes it is.

I created the simulated universe you inhabit to frustrate & perplex you. You are my pawn. Your purpose is only to entertain me.

I know every simulation needs a boss monster to defeat at the end of each level...but you kind of overdid it with Hillary Clinton.

 

[mhansen2]

(In my best Lt. Reginald Barclay voice)

"Computer, end program." Well, I'm still here.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Sorry about the double post. Not sure how that happened.

• Cosmological N–body Simulations and their Analysis
  
• N-body Gravitational Interactions
• Galaxies in N-Body Simulations: Overcoming the Overmerging Problem

 

[anotherlife]

Simulation is not a scientific term, because everything can be reproduced by simulation. Simulations never give us understanding of how the laws of nature work.

If you have a successful simulation, then you claim your theory a successful explanation for the observations. If you have a failed simulation, then you keep tweaking your parameters until you get a successful simulation. That is not science.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Is the Universe a Simulation?

I cannot answer that question because I don't think about whether the universe as we know it is a simulation. I don't for two main reasons:

• I'm not paid to think about it and other people, among them, potentially, is the guy in the video found in the OP, are.
• If it is a simulation, it stands to reason that "someone" is running the simulation. Inasmuch as we currently have no way to interact coherently with that "someone," it's pointless for me to consider whether the universe is a simulation.

Similarly, I don't wonder whether, say, the zeros and ones in a computer simulation are in fact sentient, as we presume ourselves to be, and, in turn, wonder whether they are are part of a simulation. FWIW, I also don't ponder whether lab rats undertake such thoughts because for whatever attempts one might make to ask them whether they do, they have devised no means of communicating to us that they so wonder, and we presently have no reliable means of decoding their communication to that effect if they happen to be making them.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Imagine how big the hologram chamber must be....

Yes, no unfortunately we have to own this whole deal.

unfortunately we have to own this whole deal.

I too am living my under that assumption.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Simulation is not a scientific term, because everything can be reproduced by simulation. Simulations never give us understanding of how the laws of nature work.

If you have a successful simulation, then you claim your theory a successful explanation for the observations. If you have a failed simulation, then you keep tweaking your parameters until you get a successful simulation. That is not science.

??? -- Computer Simulations in Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Descriptions of what is
• Predictions about the future behavior of what is
• Observations of what is
• Hypothesis about what is.

-- Foundations of Scientific Research
-- Definitions of Fact, Theory, and Law in Scientific Work

 

[anotherlife]

Simulation is not a scientific term, because everything can be reproduced by simulation. Simulations never give us understanding of how the laws of nature work.

If you have a successful simulation, then you claim your theory a successful explanation for the observations. If you have a failed simulation, then you keep tweaking your parameters until you get a successful simulation. That is not science.

??? -- Computer Simulations in Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Descriptions of what is
• Predictions about the future behavior of what is
• Observations of what is
• Hypothesis about what is.

-- Foundations of Scientific Research
-- Definitions of Fact, Theory, and Law in Scientific Work

Science needs to incorporate the goal to understand what we observe. Simulation can never provide this. At best, it is a demonstration of an already established understanding. Encyclopedia Stanford or not, how can you say that you understand something, when you can always pull out any number of parameters from thin air to reproduce an observation. So simulation is not science although an interesting game and you can get a PhD for it.

 

[SixFoot]

If we're nothing more than a simulation, we are but a passing thought in the mind of the creator.

 

[sealybobo]

Sorry about the double post. Not sure how that happened.

Gravity and expansion have been battling each other for 14 billion years. Expansion is winning right now but eventually gravity will. Then the Big Crunch. And one day every star will die out and even black holes will go out with a bang

But right now we are still expanding into empty space and even picking up speed into “dark energy”

Dark energy is what’s beyond our seeable universe. It’s what our universe is expanding into now

 

[petro]

How about a hologram?
Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe | University of Southampton
Is our Universe an illusion? Theory claims to prove we're living in a hologram | WIRED UK
Interesting concept.

 

[Inmar]

Yes. Yes it is.

I created the simulated universe you inhabit to frustrate & perplex you. You are my pawn. Your purpose is only to entertain me.

Where are you going, liberal? Your level is shit about the Communists. And they are very afraid of them.