this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
176 points (75.9% liked)
Technology
76558 readers
2490 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I can't explain how much I hate simulation theory. As a thought experiment? Fine. It's interesting to think of the universe in the context of code and logic. But as a driving philosophy of reality? Pointless.
Most proponents of simulation theory will say it's impossible to prove the universe is a simulation, because we exist inside it. Then who cares? There obviously must exist a non-simulated universe for the mega computer we're all running on to inhabit, so it's a pointless step along finding the true nature if reality. It's stoner solipsism for guys that buy nfts. It's the "it was all a dream" ending of philosophy.
Yes but, also, no.
You already seem familiar but, for the uninitiated playing along at home, Wikipedia's entry for Simulation Theory is a pretty easy read. Quoting their synopsis of Bostrom's conjecture:
it's certainly an interesting thought. I agree it shouldn't inform our ethics or disposition toward our lived experiences. That doesn't mean there's zero value in trying to find out though. Even if the only positive yield is that we develop better testing methods which still come up empty: that's still progress worth having. If it nets some additional benefit then so much the better.
I'd argue that satisfying curiosity is, in itself, and worthy pursuit so long as no harm is done.
That all still sets aside the more interesting question though. If such simulations are possible then are they something we're comfortable creating? If not, and we find one has been built, what should we do? Turn it off? Leave it alone? "Save" those created inside of it?
These aren't vapid questions. They strike at the heart of many important unresolved quandries. Are the simulated minds somehow less real than unsimulated ones? Does that question's answer necessarily impact those mind's right to agency, dignity, or self-determination?
The closer we get to being able to play god on a whim the more pressing I find such questions. That's not because I wring my hands and labor anxiously at truth or certainty for lack of better idols. It's because, whatever this is, we're all in it together and our choices today have an outsized impact on the choices others will have tomorrow. Developing a clearer view of what this is, and what we're capable of doing in it, affords future minds better opportunity to arrive at reasonable conclusions and decide how to live well.
It kind of sounds like you're talking about it purely as a thought experiment or as something to inspire other philosophical thinking. But I think the issue most people have with the simulation theory is when people think that it's actually the way that the world is or think that it's worth investigating the way that the world is just because it theoretically could be the way the world is. But theoretically the world could have been created by the god of the Bible or any of the other million explanations proposed by the million other religions that have existed. Almost every religion proposes a hypothesis that could indeed explain reality, but just because it could explain reality doesn't mean it's reasonable to investigate it.
I agree with you that all the questions you raised are interesting and worth thinking about, but none of that really relates to thinking that we actually live in a simulation. You're just using the idea that we live in a simulation as inspiration to start thinking about these other ideas. But actually thinking that we live in a simulation is much less reasonable.