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Elon Musk believes we live in a video game - do you agree? in Technology
Elon Musk Says There’s a ‘One in Billions’ Chance Reality Is Not a Simulation
"The strongest argument for us being in a simulation, probably being in a simulation is the following: 40 years ago, we had pong, two rectangles and a dot," Musk said. "That is what games were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it's getting better every year. And soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality, if you assume any rate of improvement at all, the games will become indistinguishable from reality." https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q854v/elon-musk-simulated-universe-hypothesis
Live Poll
Elon Musk believes we live in a video game - do you agree?
7 votes
Yes - I always thought I was related to Mario from SuperMario Brothers :)
It is naive for us to believe that we are "real" whatever that means. I agree with Elon Musk that virtual reality can be indistinguishable from reality and we can be part of it. We are a "real" part of advanced simulation
It is hard to say whether we do or not, and likely impossible to determine - but his argument strikes me as unsound. He visualizes the world where the "base" world creates a virtual simulation, in which the simulated creatures create a virtual simulation, in which... Or even the world where this loop is infinite, with no beginning, and hence no "base" world. Then he proceeds with asking what is the probability of us being the "base" world and concludes that this probability is negligibly small, due to the sheer number of the levels in the simulation.
The problem here is that his argument assumes that the probability of us being on different levels of the simulation is similar. This does not seem to be the case, however, mathematically: the probability of us finding ourselves in the worlds beyond the "base" world must decrease exponentially, as the new levels of the simulation are extremely small in terms of the matter in the Universe involved compared to the whole Universe. For example, in our world, the next simulation level could be generated by a programmer writing a virtual world, and that virtual world will exist on a small hard drive - which is a negligibly small fraction of the entire Universe we live in.
Hence, I believe that the probability of us being the "base" world is very high; or, at the very least, it is not a possibility to be easily dismissed.
evidence for us living in a simulation is non existent so far you seem to be saying that we can simulate consciousness and aliens can but a god can't it's an argument by atheists to disprove god by replacing him with something else that created us
I think I am real because I can touch and think. There could be something like we are all wearing virtual reality goggles but that is extremely unlikely.
It is a possibility. It does not make a whole lot of a sense to "believe" it like he does. As @MayCaesar pointed out, his arguments are not really that solid.
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The problem here is that his argument assumes that the probability of us being on different levels of the simulation is similar. This does not seem to be the case, however, mathematically: the probability of us finding ourselves in the worlds beyond the "base" world must decrease exponentially, as the new levels of the simulation are extremely small in terms of the matter in the Universe involved compared to the whole Universe. For example, in our world, the next simulation level could be generated by a programmer writing a virtual world, and that virtual world will exist on a small hard drive - which is a negligibly small fraction of the entire Universe we live in.
Hence, I believe that the probability of us being the "base" world is very high; or, at the very least, it is not a possibility to be easily dismissed.
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