I think the question is underspecified. There is no single “simulation hypothesis” as I understand the term; there are multiple large classes of hypotheses that could be expressed as “the universe is a simulation.”
There exists a universe in which sapient beings have access to large amounts of computing power which they are dedicating towards simulating our civilization/universe. Or a class of such simulations. They have access to sufficient computing power that such simulations are cheap, and they run enough of them that most beings exist in a simulation rather than the base-level universe. This would include ancestor simulations, works of fiction/games where we happen to be NPCs, models for exploring alternate histories and futures, models of possible alien lifeforms, all kinds of purposes.
There exist (infinitely?) many layers of such simulations, nested, driving the probability of being in a simulation to ~1. (Time may flow at very different rates between levels, which might confuse the anthropic reasoning, I’m not sure.)
Base-level reality has physics allowing for infinite error-free computing power, so someone somewhere decided to run all possible programs in order, or some subset thereof.
There may not be a base-level physical reality at all. It’s turtles all the way up and all the way down.
Base reality is computable, infinite, and randomly initialized, such that it by default includes infinitely many instances of all possible simulations and programs running in parallel forever.
The idea of “simulation” is itself confused in some way. Reality is fundamentally mathematical and computational.
Alternatively, the idea of “existence” or “reality” as a property separate from mathematical consistency or some form of computability is in some way confused.
I am a Boltzmann brain, or something dreamed up within one, or equivalent (for example, as a fluctuation in a max-entropy infinite universe in what I would regard as the far future).
I think the term “simulation hypothesis” usually refers to (1) or (2) only? But I’m not sure if that’s universal, and I find the others just as interesting if not more so.
For me, a main argument for is that there are many simple sets of rules that could be the physics of universes containing vast computing power—much simpler than our own apparent physics. But the main argument against, from my POV, is that our own apparent physics is fairly computationally intensive to simulate as far as we know, and I can get a similar effect just by assuming our own universe is infinite in spatial extent and randomly initialized. I don’t have a sufficiently precise, unambiguous, and natural concept of simplicity that would guide me to one or the other conclusion in terms of priors.
That said, is there a particular reason you’re looking to be argued out of the idea?
I think the question is underspecified. There is no single “simulation hypothesis” as I understand the term; there are multiple large classes of hypotheses that could be expressed as “the universe is a simulation.”
There exists a universe in which sapient beings have access to large amounts of computing power which they are dedicating towards simulating our civilization/universe. Or a class of such simulations. They have access to sufficient computing power that such simulations are cheap, and they run enough of them that most beings exist in a simulation rather than the base-level universe. This would include ancestor simulations, works of fiction/games where we happen to be NPCs, models for exploring alternate histories and futures, models of possible alien lifeforms, all kinds of purposes.
There exist (infinitely?) many layers of such simulations, nested, driving the probability of being in a simulation to ~1. (Time may flow at very different rates between levels, which might confuse the anthropic reasoning, I’m not sure.)
Base-level reality has physics allowing for infinite error-free computing power, so someone somewhere decided to run all possible programs in order, or some subset thereof.
There may not be a base-level physical reality at all. It’s turtles all the way up and all the way down.
Base reality is computable, infinite, and randomly initialized, such that it by default includes infinitely many instances of all possible simulations and programs running in parallel forever.
The idea of “simulation” is itself confused in some way. Reality is fundamentally mathematical and computational.
Alternatively, the idea of “existence” or “reality” as a property separate from mathematical consistency or some form of computability is in some way confused.
I am a Boltzmann brain, or something dreamed up within one, or equivalent (for example, as a fluctuation in a max-entropy infinite universe in what I would regard as the far future).
I think the term “simulation hypothesis” usually refers to (1) or (2) only? But I’m not sure if that’s universal, and I find the others just as interesting if not more so.
For me, a main argument for is that there are many simple sets of rules that could be the physics of universes containing vast computing power—much simpler than our own apparent physics. But the main argument against, from my POV, is that our own apparent physics is fairly computationally intensive to simulate as far as we know, and I can get a similar effect just by assuming our own universe is infinite in spatial extent and randomly initialized. I don’t have a sufficiently precise, unambiguous, and natural concept of simplicity that would guide me to one or the other conclusion in terms of priors.
That said, is there a particular reason you’re looking to be argued out of the idea?