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yrope; erections
Topic Started: Apr 30 2014, 06:39 AM (3,460 Views)
The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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I just don't get the 'almost certainly' part.
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gs
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alright tell me where you disagree:

first, remember time is just as slow as we perceive it. our universe's 15 billion year history could theoretically be calculated by a program within seconds, if that program's host is powerful enough. except we don't perceive this as a single second. time is not a constant, it's just an idea we invented to help measure the rate at which things change.

now imagine developing such a program. obviously you're going to run more than one instance, maybe editing some variables in each instance to make it interesting. with each instance you run, within a short moment (in the simulation one might perceive this as billions of years) a civilisation has evolved and is making its own virtual universes. within a year you'll have millions such universes all running within each other and that's assuming you only run a couple of instances.

so in the end, the odds of us being one of those (tr)(b)(m)illions are much higher than the odds of us being the first. i especially like how this theory fits so well with the big bang, since that is exactly how one would program the start of a universe: a bunch of stuff packed together with an energy to help it expand.

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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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Your argument is fine, I just don't see how it follows that we are 'almost certainly' part of a simulation.

Yes, the odds that we will be the first civilization to produce a simulation are extremely low, but that wouldn't make the universe 'almost certainly' a simulation, unless the odds that any given civilization will develop the ability to simulate a universe like ours aren't negligibly low.
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imagine our descendants creating such a simulation. facing the fact that this is almost certainly possible, there are only 2 possibilities:
- we are the first universe that got this far
- universes previously got that far and created us

we could be the first but consider that if we aren't, a bajillion of simulations would be running right now (agree?). the odds that we're one of them are much higher, it's a simple 1:999999999 type of deal.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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There could be a bajillion simulations, but there could also be ten bajillion actual universes filled with civilizations that failed to develop the technology to create a simulated universe before becoming extinct.

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imagine our descendants creating such a simulation. facing the fact that this is almost certainly possible

This is primarily what I'm taking issue with here. We have no examples of civilizations simulating a universe as complex as our own. Saying that our descendants will 'almost certainly' achieve this is just speculation. I'm not denying that it's possible; I'm pointing out that we have no grounds for assuming that it's even remotely likely to occur.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 01:35 PM
There could be a bajillion simulations, but there could also be ten bajillion actual universes filled with civilizations that failed to develop the technology to create a simulated universe before becoming extinct.

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imagine our descendants creating such a simulation. facing the fact that this is almost certainly possible

This is primarily what I'm taking issue with here. We have no examples of civilizations simulating a universe as complex as our own. Saying that our descendants will 'almost certainly' achieve this is just speculation. I'm not denying that it's possible; I'm pointing out that we have no grounds for assuming that it's even remotely likely to occur.
then I guess we disagree about the (in my opinion endless) possibilities of software, which ultimately comes back to our discussion earlier ITT
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software can simulate everything
simulate random then
there's no such thing as random
nuclear decay
etc
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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Tbh I don't see any problem with using software to render complex simulations. I just don't think it's very likely that humans will be able to design this kind of software before being wiped out.
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Vondongo
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 25 2014, 03:40 PM
There are two things about the origin of the universe which might be interesting to consider:

Firstly, most physicists think that it's meaningless to talk about a time 'before' the beginning of the universe, since our best models indicate that the big bang itself was the origin of space and time. According to this view, we can't learn anything useful about the origin of the universe from trying to imagine what happened before the big bang, because it wasn't until the big bang had actually taken place that events started to arrange themselves sequentially in time.

Secondly, unless our universe caused its own existence, then whatever caused the universe happened outside it. Since we have no idea of what the physical laws of this 'outside' environment are like, our current scientific theories can't be used to develop a clear understanding of why the big bang took place. In order to do so, we would have to develop a new theory which encompasses the totally unknown and unfamiliar physical laws of this 'external' universe, which probably isn't possible.
Ultimately that's got a lot to do with why I believe in a higher power. There's just this endless cycle of "study this, study that" to find the answer to all things universal. If the universe began by something we have no way of measuring or some force not bound to our understanding of science...hey, sounds like a deity (by my broad definition) to me. Not the deity most people would think of, but functionally it's the same thing.

I don't think it's lazy at all, I think it's a lot lazier to propose that the answer is a flat "nothing." I actually think the Simulation Theory is a lot more credible too. I'm not a proponent of it of course, since it posits that yes, there is some intelligence beyond our understanding that's involved in our existence.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 05:15 PM
Tbh I don't see any problem with using software to render complex simulations. I just don't think it's very likely that humans will be able to design this kind of software before being wiped out.
what makes you think we will be wiped out? the odds of that happening anytime soon (as in, in the next million years) are actually pretty tiny. and i don't think humans will write this program, but rather AI or transhumans will, eventually.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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gs
May 27 2014, 05:53 PM
Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 05:15 PM
Tbh I don't see any problem with using software to render complex simulations. I just don't think it's very likely that humans will be able to design this kind of software before being wiped out.
what makes you think we will be wiped out? the odds of that happening anytime soon (as in, in the next million years) are actually pretty tiny. and i don't think humans will write this program, but rather AI or transhumans will, eventually.
Well, if time is finite, then the universe has got to end at some point. I'm pretty sure we'll be wiped out eventually, even if it only happens billions of years into the future.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 05:59 PM
gs
May 27 2014, 05:53 PM
Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 05:15 PM
Tbh I don't see any problem with using software to render complex simulations. I just don't think it's very likely that humans will be able to design this kind of software before being wiped out.
what makes you think we will be wiped out? the odds of that happening anytime soon (as in, in the next million years) are actually pretty tiny. and i don't think humans will write this program, but rather AI or transhumans will, eventually.
Well, if time is finite, then the universe has got to end at some point. I'm pretty sure we'll be wiped out eventually, even if it only happens billions of years into the future.
i think you misunderstand time. time is just the rate at which matter changes, as perceived by us. when things stop changing, time stops, but time itself is neither finite nor infinite. it's an abstract concept.

anyway you're talking billions of years into the future. considering how fast technology has evolved (exponentially i might add) over the past years it's really a matter of thousands or even hundreds of years before software like this is available, not billions.
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Vondongo
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ryker
May 26 2014, 01:21 AM
If you want my honest opinion, here is my problem with the idea of a divine entity. You would be correct that there are several things about the creation of our universe that are currently unknown. That being said, the idea of a deity not only falls under the same issues as with science but it also creates additional unknowns.

For example, can your god create something so heavy that he cannot lift? You see, this thought alone logically invalidates the thought of a deity. If he cannot create such an object, he is by definition not omnipotent due to his lack of ability to make himself non omnipotent. If he can create something he cannot lift, he makes himself non omnipotent, which a truly omnipotent being cannot do. So you see, it is logically impossible to have a truly omnipotent being.

Do you believe in free will (and despite my above paragraph still believe in an omnipotent being)? If so then you are completely wrong about one. You can have an omnipotent being, or free will. You cannot have both by definition. An omnipotent being is all powerful, able to see everything past, present, and future. Being able to see the future means that your life is pre-determined. If you truly have free will, then your chosen deity, by definition, is not omnipotent. If he is truly omnipotent however, my path was pre-determined. That means that he created me to be an atheist. If this is true, he created with the purpose of going to hell. I had no choice in the mater. I am going to hell, because I was created to not believe in god, which is the reason that I am going to hell. I am sorry I can’t believe in a god who created me to endure eternal suffering with not choice out of it, kind of sick if you ask me.

What makes the idea of your god so much more believable than another? You obviously already know about the roman gods by you previous post but that is just one of many. Your bible says that man was created and god was known from the beginning. This means that it is not possible for there to be other gods worshiped before him. We both know that this is not true. There were several religions before Christianity, or the god of Abraham. What about Allah, another currently accepted belief of a deity? What makes god more true than Allah?

Many things from what and the way Christians and Jews worship were stolen from other religions. When you say Amen after a prayer was actually stolen from the Egyptians. At the end of a prayer, Egyptians said Amen, but not as a random close out word. They were actually addressing the lead deity Amen Ra directly. This means that every time you say Amen after a prayer, you are praying to a “false” god… What about the idea of the flood? There are at least 10 other religions that speak of a great flood. All ideas are the same. A guy built an Ark due to divine communication, the flood came for 40 something (days, weeks, etc.) They sent out a bird of some type, which always brings back a branch of some type. They also always land on a mountain. Same story, different names, all false.

What is your opinion on new world philosophy? I.E. those who believe the earth/universe is only 6000 years old? Before I go into rebuttal of this, I figure I would get your opinion of it.

Do I know how the universe began? No, I am not going to bullshit you. I have no idea. I don’t have a problem however saying I see potential possibilities with a few explanations

Big bang for one. It isn’t really a “big bang” as much as a “big inflation”. This does not violate the laws of physics as matter or energy is not created or destroyed. There is a point, pure energy. It existed, always did. It inflated due to an unknown reason. Once it got roomy enough, energy was CONVERTED (not created) into mater. Mater-energy-mater conversion is possible in physics, just not the creation of them.

There is some good stuff out there on string theory, or multiverse, etc. I don’t put my faith solely on one more than the other. The thing I like about the idea of the universe creating itself in some way is that it is an event. An event is more likely than a being. People against evolution always throw out that a human being created would be the equivalent of a tornado going through a junk yard and creating a Lamborghini. What they leave out is that the idea (by this logic) of an all-powerful god simply existing is the same as that same Lamborghini simply existing with no event to create it. At least with the tornado idea, there was an event that created it. This pared with the fact that their analogy is simply not true. Evolution follows rules and progress that the tornado analogy cant. Everything is cause and effect in evolution based off the outcome of what works and what doesn’t. The tornado analogy is cause and effect based off of wind patterns, flow, and connection of specific parts. Two completely different processes.

Also, please know (I am sure you do) that this post is not a personal attack on you. I actually love debating like this. I have no ill feelings toward you, or your beliefs. I have my opinions, you have yours, neither of us is likely to budge, but it is fun to argue about. For perspective, my wife is a Christian. She knows I am atheist but we leave it at that. She gets sad and depressed thinking I won’t join her in the eternal afterlife she so dearly believes. It is easier for me to just leave it alone as it upsets here, where her belief does not upset me.
Yeah, it's cool. I know you're not hating on me. The main purpose of this board is for debating and discussing stuff, isn't it? :p

Oh yeah, the old "irresistible force versus immovable object" thingamajig. That's an interesting one and it really gets to the bare-bones of what exactly constitutes God, doesn't it? As far as the Trinity goes, He has multiple bodies, and the one Christians are most familiar with is the physically-oriented one. But we really don't know hardly anything about the Father. When you have the ability to manipulate all things that are conceivable and are the fabric of all existence, you can make an object too heavy to lift and easy to lift all at the same time. Paradoxical, I know, but trying to use a human logic puzzle to characterize God is like trying to measure time with a ruler. He can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. Attempting to understand the how and why is being the power of my own mind.

I don't believe in human free will. Why are things the way they are? I don't know. I'm not omnipotent so I can't tell you why you're an atheist. I can't tell you if you're going to be an atheist for the rest of your life, or even if you'll be one tomorrow. I would love if I could see the future because I could use it for what I think is good, but I also know that I'm not all good, and that's not the plan so I'm not going to doubt it.

How old the world is, old artifacts predating Judaic worship, etc. etc.? This might sound silly, but it doesn't really matter to me. Is it contradictory to my worship or my faith? Well I guess it is, if my belief is premised on an archaeological and paleontological record. And in a world where we've got unexplained flying monstrosities and interactions with 'ghosts' and other reality-bending insanity. I have to bear in mind that Earth is the domain of the ultimate evil. And that domain means the ability to place objects, and other religions, etc. It's all interesting, but also very tangential to the meat and drink of my religious belief, so I don't pay much mind to it.

Why do I think my God is the right one? Personal experiences that I've had, and that my family has had. Way too many to list. It can't be a coincidence at this point. It's not much of evidence in being able to convince others but I guess that really isn't the point of a personal experience, is it?

Oh, the "Amen" thing is...tenuous, at best. It's pure speculation that Amun is the origin of the word. Linguistic corruptions and parallels happen all the time (the etymology of "avocado" is a great example) and considering that several thousand years ago, the Levant and Fertile Crescent were the center of human population, as well as linguistic and cultural diversity? Some words carry over. Even if it is derived from the name of Amun, using it does not mean I'm chanting or supplicating to Amun. Just like how worshiping in a building designed like a pagan temple does not actually make you a pagan.

Where did you get the "Amen" thing from? This sounds like the kind of thing one of those celebrity atheist hucksters threw out there, just like that "Jesus is modeled after Horus!" thing that was also debunked.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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i think you misunderstand time. time is just the rate at which matter changes, as perceived by us. when things stop changing, time stops, but things won't stop changing for a loooong time.

Time is hardly limited to being something that we just perceive. Besides, your definition is circular; by calling it 'the rate at which matter changes', you're defining time by making reference to time, i.e. by stating that 'time is the number of changes of matter that occur per unit time'.
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anyway you're talking billions of years into the future. considering how fast technology has evolved (exponentially i might add) over the past years it's really a matter of thousands or even hundreds of years before software like this is available, not billions.

Considering how, for the vast majority of human history, technology has advanced at a comparatively sluggish pace, it seems more reasonable to assume that technological progress will slow down at some stage, instead of increasing exponentially for ever. It's risky to extrapolate so far into the future, when all the data we have on the exponential growth of technological development is confined to the very recent past.
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ryker
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I have done a lot of reading over it. IMO it is one of the more interesting theories out there. Do I necessarily believe it? I am not sure, but the key word is that it is plausible. It actually answers several questions such as the possibility of god (for this universe and all universes until the top one where laws may allow for such a being). "God" truly could have made man in his image much like we made the Sims in our image.

All the research I have seen says in order for us to truly know if we are a computer simulation we have to find out via a glitch. In the matrix it was deejay-vu. None of them have pointed to a very obvious glitch, when there is a potential one that scientist have been spending YEARS trying to figure out, ever since the discovery of quantum physics.

For years scientist have studied quantum physics where the general rules of physics such as gravity completely break down. conversely, large scale physics show no signs of being compatible or influenced by quantum physics. That could in itself be a glitch in the system, the fact that large scale and quantum level physics are incompatible (to our current knowledge). We may figure it out in the future and it is not a glitch, but then again we may never solve it because it is an unsolvable glitch of the system we are in.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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conversely, large scale physics show no signs of being compatible or influenced by quantum physics.


Isn't Schrodinger's Cat supposed to illustrate that large-scale physics can be influenced by events on a quantum level?
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 06:32 PM
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i think you misunderstand time. time is just the rate at which matter changes, as perceived by us. when things stop changing, time stops, but things won't stop changing for a loooong time.

Time is hardly limited to being something that we just perceive. Besides, your definition is circular; by calling it 'the rate at which matter changes', you're defining time by making reference to time, i.e. by stating that 'time is the number of changes of matter that occur per unit time'.
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anyway you're talking billions of years into the future. considering how fast technology has evolved (exponentially i might add) over the past years it's really a matter of thousands or even hundreds of years before software like this is available, not billions.

Considering how, for the vast majority of human history, technology has advanced at a comparatively sluggish pace, it seems more reasonable to assume that technological progress will slow down at some stage, instead of increasing exponentially for ever. It's risky to extrapolate so far into the future, when all the data we have on the exponential growth of technological development is confined to the very recent past.
Ultra, I forgot to mention one thing. We will use your logic as your logic actually rationalizes it.

There are three possibilities:

-A civilization destroyed itself before it can reach this level of technology.
-A civilization reaches this level of technology but has no need for it therefore does not run the simulation.
-A civilization reaches this level of technology and curiosity compels them to create and run said simulation.

Based off of the first two, the simulation is never ran. The third one however is the tricky one. If you reach that level of technology and run the simulation, then your program, once refined enough to do so, will replicate itself in the same way starting a chain reaction. This means that if you reach this level of technology and run the simulation, you are now part of the statistic that GS and I are talking about. Until you reach this level of technology however it is only speculation and probable. Once you reach the level of technology and run the simulation, statistically speaking you are almost certainly a computer simulation, but not until the civilization actually runs the program. until that point, the other two options are still an option, but once you reach option 3, there is no getting out of it.

Even if you reach option 3, is there a chance we were the first civilization to start the chain reaction? yes. But the chance that we are that 1 in almost infinite situations, the odds are almost infinitely against us.

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Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 06:51 PM
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conversely, large scale physics show no signs of being compatible or influenced by quantum physics.


Isn't Schrodinger's Cat supposed to illustrate that large-scale physics can be influenced by events on a quantum level?
Sorry, what I was trying to say isn't how it came across. yes the can affect each other, but the physics are not compatible. obviously, if something happens at the quantum level it can affect the large scale level and vice verce, but you cant apply quantum physics to anything but the quantum level. Conversely, you cant apply general physics to the quantum level. they are incompatible at the moment until we find a bridge linking the two or find out we were close but off on both and develop a fathering idea of physics that describes both accurately. This is the holy grail of science right now, finding this out in my opinion would be one of the single biggest triumphs in science of all time... past, present, and future.

That being said, it could also be a glitch in the computer program we are living it and the search is futile as there is no answer ;) lol
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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Based off of the first two, the simulation is never ran. The third one however is the tricky one. If you reach that level of technology and run the simulation, then your program, once refined enough to do so, will replicate itself in the same way starting a chain reaction. This means that if you reach this level of technology and run the simulation, you are now part of the statistic that GS and I are talking about. Until you reach this level of technology however it is only speculation and probable. Once you reach the level of technology and run the simulation, statistically speaking you are almost certainly a computer simulation, but not until the civilization actually runs the program. until that point, the other two options are still an option, but once you reach option 3, there is no getting out of it.

Even if you reach option 3, is there a chance we were the first civilization to start the chain reaction? yes. But the chance that we are that 1 in almost infinite situations, the odds are almost infinitely against us.

Hmm, I see. In that case, it's absolutely true that we're almost certainly part of a simulation given that, somewhere out there, a simulated universe already exists. But we can't be anywhere close to certain that such a universe has been, or ever will be, created, and I guess that's the reason why I'm so skeptical.
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Sorry, what I was trying to say isn't how it came across. yes the can affect each other, but the physics are not compatible. obviously, if something happens at the quantum level it can affect the large scale level and vice verce, but you cant apply quantum physics to anything but the quantum level. Conversely, you cant apply general physics to the quantum level. they are incompatible at the moment until we find a bridge linking the two or find out we were close but off on both and develop a fathering idea of physics that describes both accurately. This is the holy grail of science right now, finding this out in my opinion would be one of the single biggest triumphs in science of all time... past, present, and future.

That being said, it could also be a glitch in the computer program we are living it and the search is futile as there is no answer

kk I see. Although I wouldn't be so sure that it's just a glitch. Hugely complex interactions can give rise to unexpected results. Just look at the apparent differences between the hardware of the brain and the software of thought, or between air particles and the macroscopic properties of a large body of gas. When you throw a large number of particles together, it can lead to unusual effects which the particles all by themselves would never have been able to produce.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 27 2014, 06:51 PM
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conversely, large scale physics show no signs of being compatible or influenced by quantum physics.


Isn't Schrodinger's Cat supposed to illustrate that large-scale physics can be influenced by events on a quantum level?
That cat was meant to show the ridiculousness of some of the claims being made in quantum mechanics at the time.

"One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks." -Erwin Schrödinger
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gs
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Time is hardly limited to being something that we just perceive. Besides, your definition is circular; by calling it 'the rate at which matter changes', you're defining time by making reference to time, i.e. by stating that 'time is the number of changes of matter that occur per unit time'.

yeah i typed that too quickly, poor choice of words. anyway time is abstract, it's all in our heads. it doesn't interact with anything and it can't be influenced, which by the way is why travelling in it is and will always remain impossible.

imagine the simulation we've been talking about. say the program that runs it calculates every single event from the start to the end of that universe in a single second. somewhere in that time period humans existed who are self aware. every conscious thought ever was calculated all within that second, but would the human in the simulation perceive it as such? that human lived a full life, felt emotions and thought about things. in its head, this human perceives time but at a slow rate because its brain cannot process changes and conscious thought as fast as the program running it can.

anyway

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Considering how, for the vast majority of human history, technology has advanced at a comparatively sluggish pace, it seems more reasonable to assume that technological progress will slow down at some stage, instead of increasing exponentially for ever. It's risky to extrapolate so far into the future, when all the data we have on the exponential growth of technological development is confined to the very recent past.
the same sluggish pace 1.01^x advances at in the beginning? we have made more technological progress in the last 100 years than in the 199900 (read somewhere that homo sapiens are 200k yrs old) before that. are you really going to argue this? virtual reality is already here, we're already at that point. simulating a universe really is a relatively small step, especially considering the insane amount of time we have to make it happen. risky? we have computers now, nothing other than a major climate catastrophe is going to slow us down and even that would only slow us down a couple 100 years which is quite irrelevant on the time scale we're talking about. if there is any argument against us ever creating such a simulation it would be that it is impossible, not that we can't get there in time.
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GS is correct. Technological advances have increased exponentially since "technology" was invented. the more technology we got, the faster it progressed. it took thousands of years to use rocks, then spears, the wheel, etc. the more technology we have, the faster technology passes. as GS pointed out, the past 100 years have been crazy in advances. Sure, you could say that advancement has been shaky because of booms of technological growth followed by stagnant periods but the over all trend by fire is an upwards curve exponentially. Most of the stagnant periods is due to something that our society has also overcome. During those times, the speed at which information traveled was slow. even a hundred years ago it was slower. Now, an entire blueprint of some breakthrough can be instantly sent across the world at the speed of light. Communication is instantaneous. Technology has gotten past stagnant periods of growth and will continue its upward exponential trend until the society self destructs or moves on to a new species all together.
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Cough*

http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/mind-blowing-computer-simulation-recreates-our-universe-140507.htm?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=MythBusters

Cough Cough*

There, I feel better now.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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yeah i typed that too quickly, poor choice of words. anyway time is abstract, it's all in our heads. it doesn't interact with anything and it can't be influenced, which by the way is why travelling in it is and will always remain impossible.

imagine the simulation we've been talking about. say the program that runs it calculates every single event from the start to the end of that universe in a single second. somewhere in that time period humans existed who are self aware. every conscious thought ever was calculated all within that second, but would the human in the simulation perceive it as such? that human lived a full life, felt emotions and thought about things. in its head, this human perceives time but at a slow rate because its brain cannot process changes and conscious thought as fast as the program running it can.

In one sense, you're absolutely right; time is perceptual, and how we experience the passage of time can be nothing other than subjective. But the perception of time isn't related to the reality of time, any more than the perception of the colour red is related to the reality of electromagnetic waves.

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the same sluggish pace 1.01^x advances at in the beginning? we have made more technological progress in the last 100 years than in the 199900 (read somewhere that homo sapiens are 200k yrs old) before that. are you really going to argue this? virtual reality is already here, we're already at that point. simulating a universe really is a relatively small step, especially considering the insane amount of time we have to make it happen. risky? we have computers now, nothing other than a major climate catastrophe is going to slow us down and even that would only slow us down a couple 100 years which is quite irrelevant on the time scale we're talking about. if there is any argument against us ever creating such a simulation it would be that it is impossible, not that we can't get there in time.

But saying that the current rate of development is guaranteed to continue increasing exponentially is hardly certain when we only have a couple of centuries of information to base our conclusions on. We have every right to estimate how quickly our technology will evolve, but no right to invest a high degree of confidence in these estimates when they extend hundreds of years into the future. When you extrapolate so ambitiously based on such a narrow range of data, your estimates are liable to become conjectures.

Also, considering how we haven't even come remotely close to accurately simulating the Earth, I highly doubt that the step towards simulating a universe would be a small one.

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That's far from a being a complete simulation.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 28 2014, 05:45 AM
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yeah i typed that too quickly, poor choice of words. anyway time is abstract, it's all in our heads. it doesn't interact with anything and it can't be influenced, which by the way is why travelling in it is and will always remain impossible.

imagine the simulation we've been talking about. say the program that runs it calculates every single event from the start to the end of that universe in a single second. somewhere in that time period humans existed who are self aware. every conscious thought ever was calculated all within that second, but would the human in the simulation perceive it as such? that human lived a full life, felt emotions and thought about things. in its head, this human perceives time but at a slow rate because its brain cannot process changes and conscious thought as fast as the program running it can.

In one sense, you're absolutely right; time is perceptual, and how we experience the passage of time can be nothing other than subjective. But the perception of time isn't related to the reality of time, any more than the perception of the colour red is related to the reality of electromagnetic waves.

Quote:
 
the same sluggish pace 1.01^x advances at in the beginning? we have made more technological progress in the last 100 years than in the 199900 (read somewhere that homo sapiens are 200k yrs old) before that. are you really going to argue this? virtual reality is already here, we're already at that point. simulating a universe really is a relatively small step, especially considering the insane amount of time we have to make it happen. risky? we have computers now, nothing other than a major climate catastrophe is going to slow us down and even that would only slow us down a couple 100 years which is quite irrelevant on the time scale we're talking about. if there is any argument against us ever creating such a simulation it would be that it is impossible, not that we can't get there in time.

But saying that the current rate of development is guaranteed to continue increasing exponentially is hardly certain when we only have a couple of centuries of information to base our conclusions on. We have every right to estimate how quickly our technology will evolve, but no right to invest a high degree of confidence in these estimates when they extend hundreds of years into the future. When you extrapolate so ambitiously based on such a narrow range of data, your estimates are liable to become conjectures.

Also, considering how we haven't even come remotely close to accurately simulating the Earth, I highly doubt that the step towards simulating a universe would be a small one.

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That's far from a being a complete simulation.
Didn't say that it was. All I was saying in that post is that we are in pursuit of such a simulation already. That is a pretty crazy simulation and we will only refine it and do more with it. give us a couple hundred or thousand years, and we run a bigger, more in depth simulation with a network of several thousand computers each several thousand times more powerful than all 8000 computers combined that were used to create this simulation....

Guess it was a statement to show that in my above post to explain the three rules of whether we are in a simulation, this proves that number two is already out of the question being that we are actively working on running such a program. The only viable options are 1 and 3. According to the logic, of which you do agree with, unless we self destruct as a civilization first, we are getting dangerously close to the tipping point of statistically almost certainly being a computer simulation....
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 28 2014, 05:45 AM
In one sense, you're absolutely right; time is perceptual, and how we experience the passage of time can be nothing other than subjective. But the perception of time isn't related to the reality of time, any more than the perception of the colour red is related to the reality of electromagnetic waves.
but in the case of time there is no such reality. there are no "waves of time", there is no objective clock. anyway the point is that such a universe simulation from start to finish could be calculated in one second, but be perceived by the people in it as billions of years.
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But saying that the current rate of development is guaranteed to continue increasing exponentially is hardly certain when we only have a couple of centuries of information to base our conclusions on. We have every right to estimate how quickly our technology will evolve, but no right to invest a high degree of confidence in these estimates when they extend hundreds of years into the future. When you extrapolate so ambitiously based on such a narrow range of data, your estimates are liable to become conjectures.
i'm not saying i'm 100% certain, but considering the data i do consider them well above 50%. obviously predicting this is not a matter of adding up the numbers because scientific breakthroughs can't be predicted but considering the possibilities of software i'd say it's a safe bet. software is going to blow up (possibly in our faces) when it learns to rewrite itself, but something tells me you don't think it ever can? again we arrive upon a disagreement from earlier ITT.
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but in the case of time there is no such reality.

How does time dilation work then, if time really is just a perception?
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i'm not saying i'm 100% certain, but considering the data i do consider them well above 50%. obviously predicting this is not a matter of adding up the numbers because scientific breakthroughs can't be predicted but considering the possibilities of software i'd say it's a safe bet. software is going to blow up (possibly in our faces) when it learns to rewrite itself, but something tells me you don't think it ever can? again we arrive upon a disagreement from earlier ITT.

I don't see any problem with the idea of software rewriting itself. Anyway, you've made it clear that you aren't completely certain about us being part of a simulation, so I'm comfortable.
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Not sure but wasn't it incog that doesn't think technology will ever be able to program itself?

Ultra, we weren't saying we actually believed we are a computer simulation, at least I wasn't. I just think that it is a possibility. That being said, it still doesn't answer the conundrum of what created the first one.

I am however saying there is a point in which we are almost certainly a computer simulation. Even though we are on our way to it, we have still not reached that point. That point as I stated earlier,is if we create a simulation that in its own creates a being that creates a simulation. At that point, we enter a realm of statistics where we are almost certainly a computer simulation.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 30 2014, 01:36 PM
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but in the case of time there is no such reality.

How does time dilation work then, if time really is just a perception?
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i'm not saying i'm 100% certain, but considering the data i do consider them well above 50%. obviously predicting this is not a matter of adding up the numbers because scientific breakthroughs can't be predicted but considering the possibilities of software i'd say it's a safe bet. software is going to blow up (possibly in our faces) when it learns to rewrite itself, but something tells me you don't think it ever can? again we arrive upon a disagreement from earlier ITT.

I don't see any problem with the idea of software rewriting itself. Anyway, you've made it clear that you aren't completely certain about us being part of a simulation, so I'm comfortable.
we've said from the beginning that we weren't certain so idk why you had to see me say those words literally

time dilation exists because matter changes slower or faster depending on the situation it's in. it's still just matter changing, we can only know how fast it changes in comparison to other matter in other situations but we can't know how fast it really is changing. i'm saying time is not a constant, it's a variable based on the context of the matter you're measuring and based on who perceives it. in a vacuum, there is no time. anyway i'm only saying every event in this 14.2 year old universe could have been calculated by a theoretical program in a single second and we would still perceive it as 14.2 billion years. do you disagree because if not then what are we doing?
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I think he meant my post saying we are almost cirtianly a computer program statistically speaking. It was my fault I forgot to post the rules which stated the circumstances in which it was true.
Edited by ryker, May 30 2014, 05:20 PM.
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almost certain is not certain though?
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