Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.
You say ( I paraphrase): We live in an unbreakable simulation and can’t break out, but so does every level above us. And presumably every level below us as well.
So I might ask, a simulation of what? A simulation of some reality that is not a simulation? But I thought you just said every level is an unbreakable simulation.
So I might ask, what is a simulation, or what do you mean by a simulation? Because in my thinking, if you’re simulation is not a simulation of something else, then it is reality. So we live in a universe that has physical laws, which means it goes clunking along according to rules we did not write and cannot change. To you that sounds like a simulation, but to me, in the absence of it being a simulation of something else, it sounds like reality.
Right, a good question. I did not mean a simulation of something, rather “let’s set up some rules and see what happens”. In the same sense that the Conway’s Game of Life is a simulation of life. And yes, to those inside it is reality. And to those outside it is a small subset of reality. And my original point was that those inside can potentially infer that there must be something outside by hitting the limit of what they can explain. But they have no hope of breaking out. This last argument, of course, relies on the tenuous assumption of the physical laws being mathematical structures and every event in the world being, in essence, a theorem.
Am I correct that you suggest an infinite regress, or rather progress? That every higher level is also a rule-following game set up as a subset of a (presumably) yet more complex level above it? And that there is no end to this progression, no top level?
Quick search of “define simulation” yields this:
Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.
You say ( I paraphrase): We live in an unbreakable simulation and can’t break out, but so does every level above us. And presumably every level below us as well.
So I might ask, a simulation of what? A simulation of some reality that is not a simulation? But I thought you just said every level is an unbreakable simulation.
So I might ask, what is a simulation, or what do you mean by a simulation? Because in my thinking, if you’re simulation is not a simulation of something else, then it is reality. So we live in a universe that has physical laws, which means it goes clunking along according to rules we did not write and cannot change. To you that sounds like a simulation, but to me, in the absence of it being a simulation of something else, it sounds like reality.
Right, a good question. I did not mean a simulation of something, rather “let’s set up some rules and see what happens”. In the same sense that the Conway’s Game of Life is a simulation of life. And yes, to those inside it is reality. And to those outside it is a small subset of reality. And my original point was that those inside can potentially infer that there must be something outside by hitting the limit of what they can explain. But they have no hope of breaking out. This last argument, of course, relies on the tenuous assumption of the physical laws being mathematical structures and every event in the world being, in essence, a theorem.
Cool enough.
Am I correct that you suggest an infinite regress, or rather progress? That every higher level is also a rule-following game set up as a subset of a (presumably) yet more complex level above it? And that there is no end to this progression, no top level?
I did not mean to suggest it when I started writing the original post, but the logic, flawed as it is, seems to be pointing that way.