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  • Originally posted by Bisto View Post
    It wouldn't be a surprise if it wasn't correct, this isn't my field. I'm just sharing my thoughts and I'm pretty sure you and others can understand what I meant.

    What do you think about the question?

    I've got just one quick thought. The video game/computer simulation theories sound fun, but, wouldn't that just move the question to "How did their universe come to have the laws to host them?"
    Actually good question. The problem is the hypothesis of many-worlds (many universes) and the possibility of parallel worlds or universes is very hypothetical. Yes, computer simulations can be fun and interesting, but reflect too many human assumptions, and possibilities that do not necessarily represent falsifiable science.

    On second thought, computer simulation of our universe is plausibly accurate given what we know of our universe, and run given certain variables to show different possible results given the same beginning conditions. This would assume the same Natural Laws and conditions apply to other universes modeled after our own universe.
    Last edited by shunyadragon; 01-17-2017, 11:55 AM.
    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

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    • Originally posted by Bisto View Post
      I've got just one quick thought. The video game/computer simulation theories sound fun, but, wouldn't that just move the question to "How did their universe come to have the laws to host them?" (I can imagine an infinite regression of Big Bangs and Crunches or whatever, but I cannot imagine an Inception-meme-style infinite regression of simulations )
      Most people who suggest the game or simulation hypotheses agree that the logic of the argument suggests we are multiple layers deep. i.e. games/simulations are so popular and outnumber base reality by such a degree that probabilistically we are likely inside a game inside a game inside a game etc maybe 3 or 10 or 100 layers deep.

      We can't necessarily know all that much about what is in the reality above ours, just as Super-Mario in his world of coins and pipes -if he were sentient- would have little way of knowing anything much about our world just by looking at his own world and wondering if he were in a computer game and trying to speculate what the reality above him were like. At most we can speculate that the reality directly above ours might well be fairly similar to ours in many respects, but that could be very wrong and such reasoning would lead Mario astray.

      As I noted in #155 there is a sense in which religious creation views fall into the same category as game/simulation views. They assert that our universe is not the ultimate reality and that it was created deliberately by someone beyond the universe who operates in another level of reality. The difference lies in what we speculate was the level of knowledge and motivations of that being - were they a child entering a science contest who fumblingly created a universe in a jar, or were they a computer programmer who created a computer game for her people to enjoy, or were they a particularly powerful and knowledgeable being (a 'god' of some kind) who wanted to create people to worship him and whom he wanted to judge, etc? For example, I know of someone who alternates between thinking that our universe is a child's science experiment, and that the scientists who created our universe manifested themselves as gods to the Greeks and thus in a sense he seriously believes that the Greek 'gods' created the universe. One of my best friends has for most of his life espoused the view that this universe is a game/simulation. Some in my family are Christian and believe orthodox Christianity. If I were a betting man, my own money would be on the computer game hypothesis. But with any of those scenarios the question naturally arises: Were those creators themselves living in the ultimate reality or were they themselves in a created world of some kind (a computer game/simulation/creation of a higher 'god'), and would they even be able to know it if they were?

      As I said in #155 there are 3 general types of possibilities about the universe's existence:
      (a) natural mathematical forces generate a multitude or infinity of universes (I include in this the infinite-big-bangs-and-crunches option)
      (b) some intelligent entity somewhere in a reality above ours (a computer game maker, a scientist in a lab, a child in a science contest, a god) made a deliberate decision to cause this particular universe
      (c) only this one universe exists, and by natural causes, and there's no god or anyone or anything in some reality above ours - we're in the only reality that there is

      Option (c) suffers from the fine-tuning argument - it seems awfully coincidental that the only universe that exists happens to be quite an interesting one (as opposed to just dying a heat-death or collapsing back in on itself) - options (a) and (b) are much better at generating universes that intelligent beings would find 'interesting' than option (c) is. Also, to me, option (c) screams of arrogance - it's like a person living in an island civilization looking out to sea and saying "I see no other land, therefore the island my people live on is the only land in the world. We are the special people who have grown up on this island and this island is all there is." - option (c) is the equivalent of that but with ourselves and the universe.
      Last edited by Starlight; 01-17-2017, 03:43 PM.
      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
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      • Originally posted by Starlight View Post
        Most people who suggest the game or simulation hypotheses agree that the logic of the argument suggests we are multiple layers deep. i.e. games/simulations are so popular and outnumber base reality by such a degree that probabilistically we are likely inside a game inside a game inside a game etc maybe 3 or 10 or 100 layers deep.

        We can't necessarily know all that much about what is in the reality above ours, just as Super-Mario in his world of coins and pipes -if he were sentient- would have little way of knowing anything much about our world just by looking at his own world and wondering if he were in a computer game and trying to speculate what the reality above him were like. At most we can speculate that the reality directly above ours might well be fairly similar to ours in many respects, but that could be very wrong and such reasoning would lead Mario astray.

        As I noted in #155 there is a sense in which religious creation views fall into the same category as game/simulation views. They assert that our universe is not the ultimate reality and that it was created deliberately by someone beyond the universe who operates in another level of reality. The difference lies in what we speculate was the level of knowledge and motivations of that being - were they a child entering a science contest who fumblingly created a universe in a jar, or were they a computer programmer who created a computer game for her people to enjoy, or were they a particularly powerful and knowledgeable being (a 'god' of some kind) who wanted to create people to worship him and whom he wanted to judge, etc? For example, I know of someone who alternates between thinking that our universe is a child's science experiment, and that the scientists who created our universe manifested themselves as gods to the Greeks and thus in a sense he seriously believes that the Greek 'gods' created the universe. One of my best friends has for most of his life espoused the view that this universe is a game/simulation. Some in my family are Christian and believe orthodox Christianity. If I were a betting man, my own money would be on the computer game hypothesis. But with any of those scenarios the question naturally arises: Were those creators themselves living in the ultimate reality or were they themselves in a created world of some kind (a computer game/simulation/creation of a higher 'god'), and would they even be able to know it if they were?

        As I said in #155 there are 3 general types of possibilities about the universe's existence:
        (a) natural mathematical forces generate a multitude or infinity of universes (I include in this the infinite-big-bangs-and-crunches option)
        (b) some intelligent entity somewhere in a reality above ours (a computer game maker, a scientist in a lab, a child in a science contest, a god) made a deliberate decision to cause this particular universe
        (c) only this one universe exists, and by natural causes, and there's no god or anyone or anything in some reality above ours - we're in the only reality that there is

        Option (c) suffers from the fine-tuning argument - it seems awfully coincidental that the only universe that exists happens to be quite an interesting one (as opposed to just dying a heat-death or collapsing back in on itself) - options (a) and (b) are much better at generating universes that intelligent beings would find 'interesting' than option (c) is. Also, to me, option (c) screams of arrogance - it's like a person living in an island civilization looking out to sea and saying "I see no other land, therefore the island my people live on is the only land in the world. We are the special people who have grown up on this island and this island is all there is." - option (c) is the equivalent of that but with ourselves and the universe.
        Nice scenarios. But I see your point. I'll think about it and if there's any comment to be made I'll come back to you.

        Thanks for your answers :) (that goes to SD too)
        We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore on Christ's behalf: 'Be reconciled to God!!'
        - 2 Corinthians 5:20.
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