MovieChat Forums > Through the Wormhole (2010) Discussion > 2 problems I have with the universe bein...

2 problems I have with the universe being a "simulation"

posted 9 years ago by creatorof2002
17 replies | jump to latest

1. If we were a computer simulation and not real that would essentially make us all fictional characters. Breaking the 4th wall is a term in literature for a fictional character realizing they are fictional, often they speak directly to the audience. However, this is relatively rare and occurs in only a small percentage of fictional works. I do not know the exact percentage but it is less than half, so just the fact that we are CONSIDERING that we might be fictional is evidence AGAINST it. If we were really not real most likely we would not come to that conclusion.

2. Where does it end? It is like the "turtles all the way down" argument. Maybe the advanced aliens running the "simulation" are themselves a simulation of an even higher order of being making us a "simulation within a simulation" and how do they know that is not the case? At some point you cannot have any more "turtles".

[–] Vashramana 9 years ago

I have never been a fan of this concept either. I kind of think that it is beneath this show to even cover it.

[–] majandralover30 9 years ago

I've never heard of the turtles, but haven't they already covered this concept when they did the Creator and REality real episodes?

[–] Vashramana 9 years ago

Yeah it seemed like a rehash of previous episodes. I think they have run out of interesting topics to cover.

[–] creatorof2002 9 years ago

"Turtles all the way down" is a philosophical concept involving infinite regression, it is based on the old myth that the EArth is on the back of a giant turtle but an even bigger turtle is under that etc.

At some point you HAVE to have an end to it. I applied it to this episode because the beings making the "simulation" could be simulations themselves for all they know and the beings simulating them could be being simulated by even higher level beings etc, it has to end somewhere.

It is a similar reason why I am annoyed when people say life on Earth began somewhere else, it is just pushing the argument back its a form of copping out.

Scientists who believe this crap are a bunch of crackpot frauds.

[–] majandralover30 9 years ago

it's kind of like what happened before the beginning, or who created God, or what caused the quantum ripple flux, etc. Sooner or later, there has to be a final end to it.

[–] rainofwalrus 9 years ago

If we were a computer simulation and not real that would essentially make us all fictional characters.

But what is real depends on frame_of_reference.

Lets use the example of the only substance on Earth we've failed to synthesize: Royal Jelly (turns female bees into queens).

There are two parts to the synthetic science:

1. molecular replication (form)
2. simulate desired effect (function)

We're able to recreate the chemistry just fine. Even tricking the females into eating it. FORM is a success.

However, for all our efforts, our synthetic royal jelly fails to FUNCTION; e.g. it does not turn the recipient into a Queen. No matter what we do.

So, our lab-jelly is both REAL (bees eat it) and NOT REAL (queens are not made) depending on the frame_of_reference.

Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

[–] tokyomilmil 8 years ago

Yep you've got a point, but I really think we're all too obsessed w/ that "creationist" part...
...to be honest, I'm more bewildered by the fact, if we're all a big computer simulation, why IT NEVER CRASHED?!?
......as we all know, ALL COMPUTER crashes at some points!

Or it may be overwriting its crash errors by taking everything over from "a different API server", but once again we all know, there's maintenance time for every crash recovery. LoL so why we NEVER FELT IT?!?
So here comes the hypothesis: Have our possibly-exist, super smart descendants (as if we dumb humans now can live through "environmental crisis" XDD) somehow broken through the speed limit of light, and successful put into use Einstein's idea of "everything slows down in hyper-light-speed mode"?
......Like they actually function our codes in a faster-than-light-speed sort of way, so that they can take their time repairing us while we are "nearly FROZEN in time"?!

Anyway, what I'm sure is, if it's really a simulation from our descendants, the machine is definitely developed by anything being the continuation of Xpple CO. , but not the ever-crashing Xicrosoft CO.!
(sorry I'm here mainly to make this lame joke XDD)

[–] rainofwalrus 8 years ago

Yep you've got a point, but I really think we're all too obsessed w/ that "creationist" part...
...to be honest, I'm more bewildered by the fact, if we're all a big computer simulation, why IT NEVER CRASHED?!?
......as we all know, ALL COMPUTER crashes at some points!

And "Crash" isn't exactly the entire picture when it comes to a complex machine we all take for granted: the modern PC.

Sure, your screen may have gone BLUE (hehe) and the O/S is unresponsive, but the FANS are still spinning and the SOUTHBRIDGE hasn't even offloaded its instructions yet.

When we blink, our perception of reality "crashes," if only for a second. Brought back online as we open our eyes. We're conditioned to not let this alarm us, but what about Quantum Strangeness at Planck Scales? Everything, including Gravity itself, crashes.

If our Universe was a computer, and it did crash, we humans would be that 80MM PC CASE FAN... humming along, never perceiving any disturbance at all. Not capable of processing the paradigm for the trees.

We, too, have redundant systems_of_consciousness in place. We, too, depend on it to function. SLEEP is the primary redundancy. We slept last night, wouldn't sleeping again tonight be redundant? Or further reduced: we've already slept an hour, wouldn't another 6 hours be redundant?

Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

[–] tokyomilmil 8 years ago

Yes, w/ all due respects, yours is a well-portrayed, thoroughly-technical piece of arguments. I'd have hoped I could write mines like that ;-)

Just that I think you misunderstood my point a little bit:

(1) I don't perceive something like black-holes as a sort of "system crash".
Rather, it's more of a logical execution of this big code-compressing machine known as our universe.

black-holes exist as a result of physical laws, just as you know it.
And I think it's proper to say that our so-called physical laws represent the "computer codes" in this simulation theory under discussion.
Now it's clear, gravity-compression is just a manifestation of executing a string of codes.
Honestly, I just don't know by how can it be hooked w/ the term "crash".

(2) You said humans can't experience crash b/c we are like "fans", which don't belong to the central execution system of a computer. Obviously humans as fans are out of the disaster picture.

But my problem with this theory is, fans crashes too!!!
Just not as often as the O/S part, which I think we all can agree, ;-)
Still, you know my point, there's always a time "any" part of a computer crashes.

P.S. Sleep being the redundant system is a very interesting point of view. But I think it's not related to our central argument. I'll just leave this piece of analogy nice & clean there, no nasty counter-arguments ;-)

[–] rainofwalrus 8 years ago

No, I said humans witnessing a seamless, crash-free reality, could literally be similar to the way a PC Case-fan hums along -- unaware that the O/S has crashed.

I'm saying no loss in apparent reality/purpose/operation is witnessed by the human/case-fan.

:))

Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

[–] tokyomilmil 8 years ago

yep don't worry I get what you mean :-)

What I'm saying is, what if the case-fan also breaks?
As we all know, there's NO possibility any substantial items NEVER BREAKS.
So there will always comes a day when humans in that simulation theory having to experience "a maintainance period reality" XDD.

[–] Metatron_Fallen 7 years ago

How do you know it never crashed?

Why would we be aware of a crash?

If you're playing a game on xbox and it freezes up on you, you just switch it off and switch it back on. The game continues from the last saved point. But the characters in the game... They never know.

They don't all stop and get freaked out and say, 'Damn, what just happened?'

In other words your conception of time is dependent on the sim running. If the sim stops- so do you. So does your mind. If there is some fault that causes whoever/whatever is running the simulation to reboot it to an earlier save, why would you be aware of that?

The you that made it those few minutes or whatever past the one save point before it crashed would cease to exist. The one that began again at the save point wouldn't realize anything.

[–] nico230383 9 years ago

Maybe we are meant to find out that we live in a simulation. Maybe this is just the beginning and we are meant to find out "why" we are not real, what the point of the simulation is and how we eventually learn to communicate with our "creators"

[–] xxpo 9 years ago

Maybe we are meant to find out that we live in a simulation. Maybe this is just the beginning and we are meant to find out "why" we are not real, what the point of the simulation is and how we eventually learn to communicate with our "creators"

This already happened in a film called THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR where people from the 1990's created simulations of themselves in a 1930 WORLD, and then discovered how they themselves were also SIMULATIONS created by others from 2024.

As for communication with one's creator, that issue was also already explored in another film called BLADE RUNNER.

And things also didn't go well for the creator when his creation asked him to expand the expiration date on when his life would come to an end.

So one also suspects things wouldn't go very well for our creators either if they also refused to extend our expiration dates???

One also suspects that our creators may also already be aware of BLADE RUNNER and of what happens in that story???

So that knowledge would most likely also make them very reluctant to communicate with us or to admit to us that they were our creators??

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[–] kelzan 9 years ago

I don't think the universe is a simulation.
But if it were there would be nothing preventing those in that simulation from wondering if they were in a simulation, especially if those in that civilization were capable of independent thought, AIs.
Any civilization capable of doing this would be monumentally advanced. If humanity ever advances that far people are likely to create simulated universes for a variety of reasons.
But those part of the simulation are unlikely to be able to prove they are in a simulation, even if they had the capability to wonder whether they were. Any civilization advanced enough to create such a simulation would also be advanced enough to be able to make one without glitches that the sims could discover.

[–] xxpo 9 years ago

In the THIRTEETH FLOOR the way the 90's character discovers he's a SIMULATION is by ignoring a ROAD BLOCK BARRIER which leads to the end of the road and to where he can see the GRID.

Here's the link to the imdb website where you can see the POSTER of the character as he stares at it:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/?ref_=nv_sr_3

SPOILER TALK for the 13TH FLOOR FOLLOWS:

*

*

*

*

But the most interesting part is the way the MIND of this 90 character ends up inside of the 2024 BODY of the character who creates him.

Because IF someone from the FUTURE TIME DIES while still jacked into the system, then the mind of the SIMS ends up inside of their body.

And the 2024 character had also become a SIMS SERIAL KILLER.

So the WIFE also gets the MIND of her hubby back again before he becomes corrupted by killing SIMS.

Thus the reason why the film also ends with the SONG saying ERASE and REWIND ... I'm changing my mind.

So that could also be interesting if one day we were to WAKE UP in a FUTURE TIME.

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[–] Dark_Star09 9 years ago

further reading http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls079023906/