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Life As A Computer Simulation (Simulation Hypothesis)

This is a somewhat different take but a great article:

https://julian.digital/2020/09/25/is-this-real-life/

Perhaps this is Hollywood’s greatest achievement: It gets us excited about our dystopian future. The world might be ending, but at least it’s an ending that’s entertaining to watch.

... His theory is that it’s not the lack of tech talent or venture capital that explains why Europe hasn’t been able to create a tech ecosystem on par with the US. It’s the absence of religiosity that has kept Europe from creating its own Google or Facebook. The US is able to create larger companies because it’s able to believe in larger and more ambitious narratives.
 
In the recent documentary film A Glitch in the Matrix, it mentions this guy:
News story

Richard Russell, who it says believed he was in a simulation game and stole and hijacked and flew a plane (doing aerobatics) because of this. I guess he knows for sure now because he also crashed and killed himself in the process.

Here's the footage:

But I'm not 100% sure he believed he was in a simulation, though he does mention playing video games to learn to fly. Weird story, anyway. Any thoughts?
 
Sleep is when they plug the laptop running you back in so the batteries can recharge.

/ I could use an upgrade.
 
This thtead reminds me of the great TV series from last year 'DEVS' if you didnt see it i recommend it, also the film 'The Nines'

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... But I'm not 100% sure he believed he was in a simulation, though he does mention playing video games to learn to fly. Weird story, anyway. Any thoughts?

Russell never said anything about believing he was in a simulation. He did mention more than once that all his experience with operating an airplane came from playing with flight simulator software / games.
 
Russell never said anything about believing he was in a simulation. He did mention more than once that all his experience with operating an airplane came from playing with flight simulator software / games.

It doesn't really fit with his devout Chrisitan beliefs either. I'm pretty sure he just said he'd played "video games before". I think he just snapped. He said he didn't really plan on landing.

Weird I can't find anything about how much time he spent on flight sims.
 
Also weird that he learned how to take off in a plane from a simulator, but never learned how to land. Did he always end the game before the landing part? He was getting plenty of advice from ground control.
 
Also weird that he learned how to take off in a plane from a simulator, but never learned how to land. Did he always end the game before the landing part? He was getting plenty of advice from ground control.

Not many flight simulator games (or game setups - e.g., with dedicated controllers) provide sufficient realism in conveying the nuances of landing. Russell didn't know enough about the controls or basic aviation terminology to parse the advice he was given. In any case he consistently changed the subject or went off on a tangent any time advice was given. He wasn't listening at all, and he gave the impression of not caring whether he could safely land the plane.
 
Not many flight simulator games (or game setups - e.g., with dedicated controllers) provide sufficient realism in conveying the nuances of landing. Russell didn't know enough about the controls or basic aviation terminology to parse the advice he was given. In any case he consistently changed the subject or went off on a tangent any time advice was given. He wasn't listening at all, and he gave the impression of not caring whether he could safely land the plane.

I'd agree he had a death wish. I guess that kind of determination can help you take off and pilot an entire plane.
 
Not many flight simulator games (or game setups - e.g., with dedicated controllers) provide sufficient realism in conveying the nuances of landing. Russell didn't know enough about the controls or basic aviation terminology to parse the advice he was given. In any case he consistently changed the subject or went off on a tangent any time advice was given. He wasn't listening at all, and he gave the impression of not caring whether he could safely land the plane.
Should have used the simulator from 'The Krypton Factor' :p
 
Not many flight simulator games (or game setups - e.g., with dedicated controllers) provide sufficient realism in conveying the nuances of landing. Russell didn't know enough about the controls or basic aviation terminology to parse the advice he was given. In any case he consistently changed the subject or went off on a tangent any time advice was given. He wasn't listening at all, and he gave the impression of not caring whether he could safely land the plane.

He actually says something like "I never planned on landing",
 
The thing that has always bothered myself about probably being in a simulation of somekind, is how easy it would be to set up.

You don't need to create a real univerese, only the programmable concept of this.

Of more significance is that same applies to Earth. Like any computer game, you only have to generate an image of the player's visible surroundings when they get there.

What we can see, is all that ever exists. Whst lies over the horizon hasn't been generated yet.

Which is why I took up camping on hiil tops. The idea was you could pretend to be asleep, then jump out the tent and due to there being a 360° view, it would be a challenge for those who control my character.

Despite several attempts, in varying landscapes and weather, they are just too good and always, naturally, so many steps ahead.

Ever wonder if you actually have, 'free will', or are merely running someone else's program... :btime: :popc:
 
Thats a good idea but I am sure the programme allows for this scenario.

What about misty days?
 
Perhaps the universe will continue to grow until the capacity or data has been filled up and we will get an implosion so the universe will start again (reset and reboot) and perhaps create new laws of nature. Perhaps an error also will trigger a reset. Yes I know, a lot of perhapses.

Not saying there's a god or intelligent creation behind it.
 
In the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis, the word that is translated in most versions of the Bible simply as "God", is the Hebrew word Elohim - which, oddly, is a plural form that mixes both male and female attributes; it probably should, therefore, be translated as "gods and goddesses". The conclusion is inescapable; the world was created by a committee.

Following this train of thought to its logical conclusion, then; the universe was designed; whether "intelligently" or otherwise is a whole other question. Most arguments for "intelligent design" (ID) cite aspects of living creatures as "irreducibly complex" and thus supportive of ID; but let's instead take a look at the atom itself. After the "Big Bang" the cosmic fireball, we assume, was electrically neutral and thus "should" have given rise only to a sort of neutron soup, or neutron fluff. The committee thought that a universe consisting of nothing but neutrons was kind of boring, so they thought, okay, let's jazz it up a bit, let's have electrically charged particles, positive and negative, equal numbers of each of course to preserve overall neutrality; let's call them electrons(-) and protons(+). But, someone objected, unlike charges attract, so won't the protons and electrons just smush together and make more neutrons? So, someone else suggested, let's give the electrons kinetic energy so that they orbit around the protons, and let's make the energy quantised, so that it can't drop below a certain level - a ground state - so it doesn't just spiral into the proton. So, right, now we've got hydrogen; better than just neutron fluff, but still kind of boring.

So can we make more complicated atoms, they thought? True, like charges repel, but perhaps if we can press the protons close enough, and add a few neutrons here and there, perhaps we need an extra force - let's call it the Strong Nuclear Force, which only operates over very small distances but is strong enough to overcome electrostatic repulsion - NOW we're getting somewhere! Now we can have bigger atoms!!

So for a few billion years, the Committee watched their universe evolve; nebulas, stars, planets, galaxies formed . . . and, eventually, in a few places, living creatures . . . well, bacteria anyway . . . and after a few more billion years while nothing much more seemed to be happening, the gods and goddesses lost interest . . . "C'mon, leave it be, it's a bit of a creaking contraption but you never know, something might come of it, let's go for a drink . . . ." So off they went to get drunk on Olympian wine, leaving our universe to its own devices, and then they went off to create another, hopefully better, universe somewhere else . . . . .
 
Since everything we experience is filtered through our own perceptions, we could argue that we are living in a simulation anyway, regardless of everything being completely real.
 
I read and listen to a lot about this stuff.
I still have no idea what the idea is.

There are numerous problems with calling all of 'reality' a simulation - the biggest of which is the consistent failure to acknowledge what is meant by 'simulation' in the first place. It's cool to speculate that 'reality' isn't 'really' what (we assume is) present and what we (think we) engage in everyday existence. If, however, one doesn't get more specific than suggesting 'reality' is actually 'something else' (than commonly presumed), applying the metaphor of a simulation doesn't provide any substance to the suggestion at all.

The same thing can be said about claims the universe is a hologram / holographic. It represents the ascription of a metaphor the person ascribing it typically doesn't understand beyond knowing it's somehow cool.
 
Since everything we experience is filtered through our own perceptions, we could argue that we are living in a simulation anyway, regardless of everything being completely real.

Yes, no, sorta ... One could just as easily (and far more justifiably) claim we are 'living' in 'reality', but our actions are guided by reference to our individual 'simulations' of what that 'reality' may be and how it works. There's a big difference between:

(a) claiming we operate by reference to our 'simulation' of an extant reality, versus ...
(b) claiming the 'reality' is a 'simulation' itself.
 
After the first Matrix film came out I cynically went looking for the book or story it was based on, doubting it had come fully formed out of the minds of the Wachowski brothers/sisters.
The nearest I came on various forgotten forums to a possible inspiration, was a story concerning a world run by big businesses. Problem there was that the Markets were saturated and it was becoming more difficult and expensive for the staff in advertising (main thrust of the economy) to convince the consumer population to buy even more stuff. It was decided to design and run a programme to simulate real life where the effectiveness of advertising strategies could be tried out in a virtual setting, before rolling them out on the real world. Once the programme was running, it became clear that the 'real world' was itself a computer-simulation. Does this ring any bells with anyone ?
 
After the first Matrix film came out I cynically went looking for the book or story it was based on, doubting it had come fully formed out of the minds of the Wachowski brothers/sisters.
The nearest I came on various forgotten forums to a possible inspiration, was a story concerning a world run by big businesses. Problem there was that the Markets were saturated and it was becoming more difficult and expensive for the staff in advertising (main thrust of the economy) to convince the consumer population to buy even more stuff. It was decided to design and run a programme to simulate real life where the effectiveness of advertising strategies could be tried out in a virtual setting, before rolling them out on the real world. Once the programme was running, it became clear that the 'real world' was itself a computer-simulation. Does this ring any bells with anyone ?
Are you referring to this title:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3

Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

"Science fiction has highlighted themes such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and computer gaming for more than fifty years. Jokester (1956) by Isaac Asimov explores the idea that humour is actually a psychological study tool imposed from without by extraterrestrials studying mankind, similarly to how humans study mice. Simulacron-3 (1964) by Daniel F. Galouye (alternative title: Counterfeit World) tells the story of a virtual city developed as a computer simulation for market research purposes, in which the simulated inhabitants possess consciousness; all but one of the inhabitants are unaware of the true nature of their world. The book was made into a German made-for-TV film called World on a Wire (1973) directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The movie The Thirteenth Floor (1999) was also loosely based on this book. "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" is a short story by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in April 1966, and was the basis for Total Recall (1990 film) and Total Recall (2012 film). In Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, a 1983 television movie, the main character pays to have his mind connected to a simulation."
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#In_popular_culture
 
Simulacron-3 eh ? I'll give it a whirl, thank you very much.
 
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