Simulation Theory - thoughts?

MayCaesar

I have recently been thinking about ways to verify whether the hypothesis is correct. The conventional wisdom is that it in principle is impossible to find out whether we live in a simulation or not experimentally, because we have no way to interact with the "baseline" world. However, this assumes that the simulation is perfect.

We know that in almost any more-or-less complicated computer program there are going to be bugs, rounding errors, unintended behaviors, crashes and so on. There is no reason to assume that the simulation we are in would be any different. As such, we could look out for things that stand out and do not fit in any way into our theories - and, at the same time, that are not reproducible enough to just be natural laws of the Universe. And while, strictly speaking, those observations do not necessarily hint at us being in the simulation, rather than simply being weird laws of the Universe we are not familiar with, they could be a strong indication at the hypothesis being true. And, even more so, once we learn enough about the Universe, perhaps we will even find a way to "hack" the simulation code from the inside, by intentionally behaving in a way that causes the simulation to break down and transform into a version more desirable to us.

Another notion to consider is that the relation between our world and the "baseline" world does not have to be hierarchical. That is, it is possible that our world is simulated in that world, and, in turn, that world is simulated in our world. Maybe on one of our planets there is a computer running a simulation of another world, in which there is a computer running the simulation of our world, in which... If this is true, then, by finding the computer in our world and tweaking its code, we could consequentially tweak our own world, rewriting some of its laws, for example.
The problem with this notion is the "problem of infinities": it would take an infinite amount of processing power to simulate a world simulating a world simulating a world... continuing infinitely. But who is to say that it cannot exist? Infinities are peculiar in that they can be contained in themselves without violating the rules of arithmetics. There is no reason to assume that our world does not contain infinities in it, and just because we have never observed one does not mean they do not exist.

I realise that this is a purely philosophical discussion at this point, and there is no way we can even attempt to verify any of this in the foreseeable future. But still, it is an interesting topic to discuss.

maxx

@ZeusAres42 well, matter is an illusion when you get right down to it.

ZeusAres42

maxx said:

@ZeusAres42 well, matter is an illusion when you get right down to it.

Care to elaborate?

Akhenaten

The universe is binary. Left spin, right spin and no spin. Refer to - The universe is made from only one particle theory.

Akhenaten

@maxx

Matter is made of left and right spin particles which orbit or are falling into a hole in space called a no spin particle or neutron.

SoySipperSarah

Well, the higher being that created the simulations would have created what we call "the laws of science". This could be used as a tactic to prevent humans from investigating further as most people would say "But it's impossible, it defies this ______". That's probably exactly what the simulation creators want you to think. 

ZeusAres42

This theory also opens up the question about the origin of the existence of the simulation creators.