Simulation Theory | Elon Musk and Neil Degrasse Tyson

Are we Living in a simulation?

[guillermoa.nerygomez]

Well, there is an argument against the "simulation" conjecture. It's called Occam's Razor which is an important part of science. The idea is that if you are looking for an explanation for something, you should look for the simplest one able to account for all the facts. The reason is that the more unnecessarily complex it gets, the less probable it is the actual explanation. Here's why: Sometimes laws or rules that a universe follows are actually constraints on what can happen. Put in too many (complicate it too much that way) and you can constrain your reality out of existence (your model can't explain your universe). Other times, you might make so many things possible, in trying to be able to explain everything, that the amount of significantly different universes your model allows may be so immensely huge that the probability that it actually corresponds to your universe is infinitely small. Even more, that idea is related to a part of Physics called Thermodynamics, which explains why when you mix, say, water and sugar, the dissolved sugar never -on it's own- separates from the water again to form solid sugar crystals:
A "state" is where each molecule is, how it's oriented, and what it's doing (rotating quickly in this direction, this part vibrating slowly, going quickly towards the right...)
When you give the water and sugar the freedom of mixing, it opens up so immensely more actually possible sugar mixed with water states than there are possible sugar separate from water states that there is simply no significant chance that by random motion and change the sugar and water will reach a "being separate" state again.
A "too free" model of the Universe will not give you your universe, but rather one of a much larger group. The "simulation" explanation seems to me as one of the latter, because while a simulation (purportedly "our universe") has to be simpler than the actual universe in which it is made, else it would not be computable, here the "actual universe" in this scenario would be a free for all of anything.
Furthermore, this idea shouldn't make you lose sleep because even if you were in a simulation, as long as all those to which we relate are in the same and we are all truly sentient (conscious) and mortal, our relationships are real and an abrupt end to the simulation would simply be our turn to die. Additionally, it is questionable we even need to be truly conscious, as Bhuddists see ourselves as machines made of smaller parts, and if the parts are not conscious, there is no reason to think the whole is, so we only experience the illusion of consciousness. And yet they live their lives.
As a final measure, you might also want to apply the "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" criterion -emphasis on "reasonable"-. Now, does that simulation idea hit you as reasonable, versus our understanding of a coherent, physical / chemical / biological law-"abiding" universe?
Which brings us back to Occam's razor.

[travelvids]

If humans had the extraordinary
computing power to simulate the world/universe we are in and perceive; what makes anyone think that creating a simulation would on their agenda to use that computing power?

[Qwertyrfvgy]

Anyone interested in this topic watch the 13th floor

[AJ-fnmk]

Neil, I have a better answer. 3 years in solitude gave me the ability to see this world differently. This specifically applies to all human life on it. I want to publish a research paper, but I don't know where to begin. I don't know who to talk to, or who can help.

[darkwolf]

Isn't this theory kind of a religion, a higher being that us created us.