What do you find convincing about this argument?
I am arguing that lawful change is not possible without the intervention of another changeless entity who not only in charge of changes but also computes what is necessary for lawful change.
In a nutshell, the math.
@MoK Loaded language
Let h = the number of horses and a = the number of Appaloosas. Then P(App) = \frac{a}{h}. According the Appaloosa hypothesis the majority of the horses are Appaloosas i.e. h - a \approx 0. Hence P(App) \approx 1.
Do you find this convincing too?
It depends, but the intriguing question is, why arenât you convinced by the mathematical argument I presented? Itâs a very simple argument to follow and is the condensed form of the sim hypothesis which I provided a link to in my last post.
If youâre not convinced by the argument I provided, youâd be the type of person who buys lotteries and expects to win.
Iâm convinced by the math, but the math works whatever we substitute into it, so it says nothing about simulated worlds, or Appaloosas, or Hobbits etc. Why are you convinced by the claim that the majority of worlds are simulated?
Read the link for a clearer answer to your question. Good to know that you donât question the math. Are you suggesting that for \text{sims} \in \mathbb{Z}, 0 \leq \text{sims} \leq r, assuming thereâs only r real worlds? Why?
Iâm suggesting that whatever math you might want to recruit to show an answer of âall of them,â it doesnât make a sensible question out of âhow many angels can dance on the head of a pin?â
I find the angels question sensible. Iâd have to get an idea of whether angels take physical form, how big they are, what kind of dance moves they like, how much each weighs, the area of the head of the pin theyâll dance on, the tensile strength of the material, and so on to answer it though. People have calculated a myriad of things. I donât see why this question should be neglected at all.
That out of the way, Iâd like to acknowledge that being in a sim may not go down well with everyone even though the popularity of social media and forums like this one tell a different tale. Itâs not my argument, best clear that up. The sim hypothesis has been popularized by Hollywood, very entertaining. I threw it out there in its original form, different to the OPâs, to show a simpler argument.
I would describe the simulation hypothesis as a form of theology, and I would echo Laplaceâs comment that âI have no need of that hypothesis.â
@Andy
That would mean you disagree with the math, and just because you donât like p doesnât mean p is false. Please read the link.
The math is valid. If you want to apply it to theology then thatâs not my concern.
You answered âSure, yesâ to the first question, but then you called all those other states âcopiesâ, like theyâre not you, but clones or something. Thatâs inconsistent, and I canât answer the question with that inconsistency. Is the state of âyouâ yesterday the same person as âyouâ presently? If yes, then there are no copies. If no, then âyouâ do not exist as an entity in the past. Something else does. Itâs contradictory to pick both.
All interpretations should answer the question the same way. All states of a person experience the time defining the state, which means yesterdayâs Mok experiences yesterday, and tomorrowâs Mok experiences tomorrow, and the only difference between interpretations is an arbitrary decision to assign the label of âexistsâ to each of these states, and in your case, to decide if each of these is you or if you are destroyed continuously only to be replaced by a copy.
Since there is no empirical test for where the ânowâ is, itâs just a label that can be pasted anywhere at a whim. If there was a way to test for which events were the present, relativity of simultaneity would be falsified and all of Einsteinâs theories would be disproven.
Inertia, not dark energy. Expansion has been observed since Hubble, 100 years ago. What is now known as dark energy was first posited in 1998 after study of type 1A supernovas showed acceleration of expansion going on for the last 5 BY or so.
The light that we observe from distant galaxies was emitted a long time ago, when the physical parameters were slightly different, so the wavelength of the light was slightly different as well.
Youâre suggesting that stars emitted different wavelengths of light (with all the absorption lines conveniently also shifted identically) in the past. Your idea doesnât in any way explain the CMB, which cannot exist in a static unexpanding universe where energy apparently fuels stars indefinitely.
Leave the speculations to people who know their physics.
There are two things in any computation: 1) There is an output for an input, and 2) There is a relation between input and output.
- Not necessarily. A simulation needs no output at all except perhaps ânot done yetâ, but yes, the runners of the simulation would probably be interested (for whatever reason) in the continuously changing state (which would be a continuous change, not âchangelessâ).
- That there is. The relation doesnât make a running simulation and example of something changeless.
This sounds like Bostromâs hypothesis. He attempts to justify this by assuming
- Mooreâs law is endless
- Simulations run at efficiency on par with the parent reality
- People will want to run âhistoric simulationsâ, which apparently is us.
All three assumptions are fantasy. The 2nd one is off by maybe 8 orders of magnitude, depending on resolution demands. I worked for some time getting a self-simulation to be more efficient, and yea, being a self-simulation, it went layers deep just like âInceptionâ.
My aim in philosophy is clarifying the claims and statements first prior to coming to some conclusions.
But you seem to keep avoiding the questions which is crucial part of the clarification.
You also keep saying to go back to OP or other thread and read them again when questions are asked. That is not arguments at all. That is looked upon avoiding the questions.
The questions were only asked because your claims and statements in the other threads were unclear and obscure.
But instead of trying to answer the questions clearly, just keep saying read the threads again, or you have discussed already sound nothing to do with endeavour for clarification or engaging in the arguments.
Hence I was leaving the discussion. Maybe we just have different methodology or approach to philosophy. Thatâs perfectly ok. Sometimes thatâs the way it is in philosophy. 
What do you make of alleged error correcting codes in string theory, equivalent to Hamming codes, discovered by an African American string theorist. The only theory that does unify the 4 forces in any real sense seems to hint that reality is a simulation.
I think one must not underestimate computing technology and the ingenuity of coders to find simple yet effective workarounds to the issues you raise. I think video game developers can vouch for me on these points.
My question is simple: Why do you experience events now only if you exist in the past and now? I just used the word âcopyâ to mean there are several of you in the past and now.
You certainly need an output when you are computing something, whether you are computing simple math or something very abstract and sophisticated.
I didnât say that the relation between output and input makes the entity changeless. I said that a relation is necessary for the definition of computation.
Farewell! I hope to catch you in another thread.
This is against convention of classical (non-branching) views. Most views (regular presentism, universal moving spotlight, growing block, eternalism) use the convention that there is exactly one of you, extended in 3 or 4 dimensions depending on interpretation. So the answer is the same for all, and I already gave it above:
That is true for almost all interpretations. It cannot be otherwise without faking empirical experience, such as is done in a VR setup.
Exception seems to be epiphenomenal moving spotlight, which is very much like 37 people streaming the same movie in different screens. The story is exactly the same for all of them, but each has his âspotlightâ in a different place, and can, given control, rewind, pause, skip boring parts and repeat favorite ones. Itâs epiphenomenal because they have no volition to choose what the character in the movie does.
If you say so. You must have years more experience in this than my lifetime in the field.
No, but you did say that the simulating entity was doing it while being changeless. The key bit (bolded) is âingâ. A changeless entity cannot be âXingâ at all, regardless of what X is. Is that true? âExistingâ might be an exception since existing is not a process.
Eternalism is false because it cannot explain motion. It cannot explain present subjective experience as well, since all events, in the past, now, and the future, are real. The growing block model suffers from the same problem: it cannot explain present subjective experience, considering that past events exist. I already argued against presentism in another thread; time cannot exist at now and changes. The universal moving spotlight model is also false since you need time to move the objective present.
That is certainly false. I should objectively exist only at the present if I experience myself only at the present, so the growing block model and eternalism are false. Presentism has its own problem, as well as the universal moving spotlight model. So we are left with my model of time.