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if we're a simulation i somewhat doubt whoever made our simulation is really worried about "resources" and "efficiency". Whatever real universe that may exist m

if we're a simulation i somewhat doubt whoever made our simulation is really worried about "resources" and "efficiency". Whatever real universe that may exist may not even follow our laws of physics. Maybe energy is actually unlimited and free in the "real world". Maybe matter can be made from nothing effortlessly.

thu2111 6y ago
Why would someone build a simulation of a world utterly unlike their own? When we build simulations for ourselves, they're always attempting to approximate reality as closely as possible. The goal is to learn useful things about our own world or society and to try out many forking paths, in a simplified representation of reality. If we're in a simulation it stands to reason that whoever is running it is somewhat human-like, and exists in a world that has basically the same physical laws ... or at least, similar enough that sociological and technological development would be the same. For instance, the speed of light barrier is pretty damn inconvenient for us but would be great at blocking an arbitrarily large population and state space explosion. And why are these magic physical constants so arbitrary anyway? If we are in a simulation, and our simulators did want to limit their resource consumption, adding in a few physical laws that are never really a problem in daily life and which block us from colonising the galaxy would be a nice way to do it.
- dencodev 6y ago
  Conversely, I would wonder why anyone would simulate something so similar to their own reality. We've already seen with humans that history repeats itself endlessly. Humans haven't really fundamentally changed in thousands of years. And humans do studies of the sociology of other species all the time. I think it'd be much more entertaining to simulate a world the laws are near opposite of our own. I would want to see what a species is capable of when restraints are lifted. To limit them to a single planet seems boring. As an aside, I think one of my personal arguments that we're in a simulation is that we live in such an interesting time. We're beyond a world with 95% farmers. Technology is advancing faster than ever before. It's such a critical time in human history and the 20th century is personally where I'd choose to start a human simulation. It's convenient that this is our shared spot in time.

thu2111 6y ago

Why would someone build a simulation of a world utterly unlike their own? When we build simulations for ourselves, they're always attempting to approximate reality as closely as possible. The goal is to learn useful things about our own world or society and to try out many forking paths, in a simplified representation of reality. If we're in a simulation it stands to reason that whoever is running it is somewhat human-like, and exists in a world that has basically the same physical laws ... or at least, similar enough that sociological and technological development would be the same. For instance, the speed of light barrier is pretty damn inconvenient for us but would be great at blocking an arbitrarily large population and state space explosion. And why are these magic physical constants so arbitrary anyway? If we are in a simulation, and our simulators did want to limit their resource consumption, adding in a few physical laws that are never really a problem in daily life and which block us from colonising the galaxy would be a nice way to do it.

dencodev 6y ago
Conversely, I would wonder why anyone would simulate something so similar to their own reality. We've already seen with humans that history repeats itself endlessly. Humans haven't really fundamentally changed in thousands of years. And humans do studies of the sociology of other species all the time. I think it'd be much more entertaining to simulate a world the laws are near opposite of our own. I would want to see what a species is capable of when restraints are lifted. To limit them to a single planet seems boring. As an aside, I think one of my personal arguments that we're in a simulation is that we live in such an interesting time. We're beyond a world with 95% farmers. Technology is advancing faster than ever before. It's such a critical time in human history and the 20th century is personally where I'd choose to start a human simulation. It's convenient that this is our shared spot in time.