In another thread, I discussed that time cannot exist only now and change. I also discussed that the immediate future must exist. I finally argued that now must be constantly annihilated and the immediate future must be constantly created to have change in time. Time is a thing that accommodates anything subject to change, including physical entities. So, two instances of anything subject to change must exist as well, one at now and another in the immediate future. But what exists now must be the subject of constant annihilation; otherwise, there would be no room left for the existence of things in the next point of time. A constant creation of anything subject to constant change is also necessary; otherwise, things get terminated because the thing is constantly annihilated. Therefore, anything that is subject to constant change is constantly annihilated and created as well. Now, let’s consider a lawful change in a physical entity. By a lawful change, I mean a change that, given the state of the entity at the present moment, one expects a very specific state of the entity at the next moment. A computation is, however, needed to create the physical entity in the immediate future. A physical entity does not have computational power. Therefore, there must be an entity that computes, annihilates, and creates. Hence, we are living in a simulation.
I really liked your arguments until I read the quote above at the end of the post.
I can’t understand why you claim that there must be an entity that does all of that. I don’t want to disagree with you. It is just that I was expecting that you would claim that time (or whatever subject) works in that way, without someone pulling the strings in the shadows.
We could absolutely be living in a simulation. But why do you think this simulation is done by an entity?
A simulation of what?
I have a feeling, having not gone through your thread on time, that this betrays a concept of time that probably doesn’t obtain.
Time appears to be a tracker of change in objects, rather than something that can be talked about properly with phrases like “point in time”. A point in time obtains as a catch-all for the exact states of all matter at the “now”. We just speak about other “nows” out of habit, I think. There is nothing other than this. Just imagined “nows”.
I actually wrote an album based on this concept called Other People’s Nows. That makes me think I may be way off. LMAO
I am really very happy that you liked my argument. Let’s discuss the rest of the issues in the following.
The existence of an extra entity with the ability to compute comes from two facts: 1) A computation is needed to create the physical entity that evolves according to laws of nature in the immediate future, and 2) The physical entity itself does not have any computational power (this is true at least within physicalism, in which physical entities are assumed to only have simple properties).
Understood.
But that makes me ask another question.
What or who creates the extra entity you are referring to?
And then, don’t you think we could end up in an infinite loop?
Physical entities either move according to the laws of nature, read it as physicalism, or are moved, read it as simulation.
Do you mean a mechanical simulation?
I really encourage you to read the other thread. My argument is plain and simple, and it wouldn’t take much time for you to understand it.
That is what I call the mental representation of time. Time itself is a thing that accommodates other things when change is involved. I have an argument for time, so-called the argument for time from change: Consider a change, X to Y, where X and Y represent two states of affairs*. X and Y must lie at two different points of something; otherwise, they are simultaneous, and there cannot be any change. Let’s call these points tx and ty, respectively. Moreover, Y comes after X, so ty comes after tx as well. tx, and ty are two points of something that we call time.
*X and Y could be two states of a physical system, such as a falling apple, where X and Y represent the states of the apple in two different positions.
Cool.
If the entity that is in charge of keeping changes in things changes, then a sustainer is needed to sustain the entity; otherwise, no sustainer is needed.
That is a very good question. To avoid infinite loops, we need to accept that there exists a changeless entity that is in charge of change in other things. By the way, this is called vertical causality.
Any simulation is done by a set of rules, so I am happy to use the word simulation only unless you explain what you mean by mechanical.
Only now exists.
The future is what may be, but therefore, what cannot be and so is not now. The future does not exist yet, or simply, the future does not exist.
The past is what used to be now, but now no longer is now. Simply put, the past no longer exists, so the past does not exist.
Only now exists.
A memory exists in the present. In the present we are recollecting experience for our conscious to experience it again. But remembering something is a new experience happening only in the present (as only the present exists, which is where and when everything happens). Plans for the future,
similarly only exist in the present. We don’t exist in the past (other than as metaphor for poetry and psychology) and we don’t live in the future of our dreams. We make present recollections and plans to reflect on them here and now, and only here are now do such reflections exist.
Only now exists.
So a time line is a tool like a measuring stick. Time marks moments, measuring sticks mark positions. So as with time, here is all that exists, here in the present.
There is no traveling (position) to the past (time), because the past is not a place or thing. It is a present memory, or projection of imagined or hypothesized present moments.
So by definition the past can’t be existing but can only have existed before but no longer exists. Just as the future by definition can’t be existing but can only some other day exist.
Present means here.
Present means now.
Past and future are never here and now, never present, never existing in themselves. Only reflections of the past or of the future can exist in mind here and now.
Time, other than now, is a mental construct, a tool to mark durations of now plus now plus………(wait)…….now.
I strongly suggest that you read my other thread on time. I would be happy to discuss things further there if you are interested.
If we must be in a simulation in order for your understanding of time to be correct. . . then maybe you are working the wrong end of the issue.
How would the understanding of time in the original have to differ from the understanding of time used in the simulation?
Isn’t saying it must be a simulation in order for your understanding to work necessarily saying the original has an understanding of time that you are not yet able to grasp?
Folks, The Matrix is fiction.
More realistic is the ancestor simulation hypothesis. 
Probabilistically we’re likelier to be in one than not.
Imagine there’s 1 real world and 2 simulations. If you exist then the \text{P(sim)} = \frac{2}{3} and \text{P(real)} = \frac{1}{3} and we know \frac{2}{3} > \frac{1}{3}.
Issues
- The nature of reality
- Doubt
- How to know we’re in a sim?
Perhaps change is the annihilation.
It seems to me that your simulator needs a simulator, and that simulator needs a simulator, and so on… And if it does exist, it needs constant annihilation and creation. That means it is inside the same structure it is supposed to be running from outside. So why not call it just more reality?
I agree. Time is a measure of change. Even our units of time are rooted in changes that appear to be regular and ongoing (days, seasons, years) and then we level up using the units to better enable social organization and cultural cohesion.
(Machines, Computational power), a nice pair.
What then is time? If no one asks I know. If I wish to explain it to someone who asks I know not
I like Einstein, a well-rounded person, and his definition of time, as the thing a clock measures.
Minkowski came along and dimensionalized time, which seems to work for realtivity quite well. Time as a dimension in spacetime leads to quite spectacular results e.g. the 1919 solar eclipse (Eddington et al).