Gods in our own right!

With regards to the universe programmed down to 100 places as far as I know this is correct. It is important because if the laws of gravity had changed at all the planets/stars/galaxies would not have been able to form thus destroying the potential for a “primordial soup” scenario and in the process destroying any chance as best as we can understand of any life being created.We know life can survive in all sorts of places but it all traces bact to the soup of a billion years ago.No planets no soup and thus no life!Seeing that a lot of people on here seem to think this is not true I would be interested if someone could provide a link which has some info about why this is incorrect.

Hi, WaveDancer. Do I really need to answer this?-----Look, I'm not arguing that simulations are not possible or that they're unlikely. But, their likelihood in no way constitutes any sort of evidence that we are in one right now. The only reason you have to believe that we are in one is the Fermi paradox, which we both know is just speculative, unfounded number-flinging.Fermi had multiple variables to deal with: number of suitable planets, timeframe issues, likelihood of life, likelihood of intelligence, feasibility/interest in exploration, etc. Any one of them could have been completely off the mark, but, since Fermi's equation doesn't fit reality, we know that at least one of his amounts was wrong.You have chosen to insist that low feasability of/interest in exploration is the most likely answer, but you haven't even considered the other possibilities yet. What if life really is an extremely unlikely and unusual phenomenon (I don't personally hold this view, though)? What if the number of suitable planets is much lower than Fermi thought? What if intelligence is extremely rare (I find this plausible)?Without even considering these, you have no way to actually say how likely a simulation is, let alone how likely it is that we are in one right now.

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-BluejayDarwin loves you.

You are making loads of assumptions here. You're assuming that technological progress will continue at the same rate it has been for the last couple of centuries, that humankind will not be wiped out by some cosmic accident or by its own hand and many others.Even if the technology was there, you're still assuming that socio-political conditions at the time would allow its full use. Remember, we have the technology to clone humans right now. But we don't. No. We have until the next supernova goes off in our galactic vicinity. My point exactly! Yet, you're still convinced that we'll be building simulations and so on.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

'100 places' is a pretty random numer. I think you're referring to the perceived implication of the fact that we exist because a number of cosmological variables make it possible for us to exist. This is also known as the 'anthropic design' principle or the 'fine-tuning' argument. It's simply nonsense, because it assigns special importance to a random permutation, attempts to apply an inverted causality to chance events and grossly distorts probability theory.It's a bit like marvelling at how rivers tend to flow through cities. In reality of course, it'c cities that tend to get built round rivers, as rivers offer favourable conditions fro a city to prosper.Like Bluejay said earlier, water will take the shape of the cup, the cup isn't designed for specifically-shaped water.If conditions are right for something to happen then it will. If they're not then it won't. It's as simple as that. If you google 'anthropic design' or 'finely-tuned universe' you'll find lots of articles and books which explain why this argument is pure rubbish. But if you're only going to read one book read this: "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos, ISBN-10: 0809058405. If nothing else, it will give you an idea as to why you shouldn't assign special importance to probabilistic outcomes.Did you know that the chance of drawing any particular hand of thirteen cards in a game of bridge is around 1 in 600 billion? Does that mean that whenever you play bridge the game will be fixed, since the hand you're going to get will have an astronomically low probability of occuring? Of course not - however, the line of reasoning you're pursuing will have us believe that yes the dealer fixed it so that you got that particular hand. Which is, naturally, nonsense.I remember a few years ago someone won the triple jackpot playing lotto, winning a huge amont of money. The odds of him winning this were around 1 in 200 million. That doesn't mean that National Lottery and/or the government conspired to make this hugely improbable event happen to that person. It just means that something that could happen, did happen. It's as simple as that.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

BluejayI say that we dont have to die because if we are living in a sim one of the "conditions" that we may have required before entering it is that we dont have a painful death or maybe not experience death at all.Ask yourself if tomorrow some bloke came up to you and said that you could experience what life was like during the time of the Romans what would be some of the things you would want to be left out of the overal experience? Maybe being captured, torched and then watching as your wife and childern are fed to the lions alive and then after that yourself becoming of that fate as well.There are lots of things we would want left out of an experience and death may or may not be one of them.With regards to Fermi I have to agree "where is everybody"?I think with life intelligence is sure to follow its just how much? The dinosaurs where far more intelligent then the organisms which lived in the sea before them. It only took a few million years for us to go from apes to present day humans and we both know this is drop in the ocean with regards to overall time.I think its a question of measuring intelligence.For all we know the aliens out there maybe very smart and our intelligence compared to theirs would be the equivalent of human intelligence compared to that of a beatle.They maybe out there we just cant understand or comprehend them in the same way a beatle would not be able to comprehend or understand beautiful music.I think life is very likely through out the universe and I say this from the evidence from our own solar system.We have 3 sites in our solar system where water is that being earth the moon and Mars. So from that we can conclude that water is VERY common through out the galaxy and probably the universe. Water is currently the only necessary ingredient need to form life (sure we need others but water is the backbone of them) with it being common here all we need is a planet in the right orbit with water on it a bit of electrical activity and a few billion years to burn.Currently we have over 400 planets and this is growing at an ever increasing rate if we are logical we would have to conclude that there are probably hundreds of millions if not billons of planets in our galaxy alone. So thats millions of chances of there being a planet with water on it being in a similar orbit to that of earth.Then again you may not need water for life after allAttention Required! | CloudflareI think one of the problems is that we seem to be looking for aleins who would be on a similar level of technology as us when in all probability they are probably more advanced then we could ever imagine. They probably look at us in the same way we look at nomad hunter/gathers. How easy would it be for us to hide from a group of nomad hunter gathers but still be able to observe them?This I am sure you will enjoy reading. Its about why Nick Bostrom hopes that there is no life on Mars and goes into the Fermi paradox. It goes in alot deeper then have already done here.http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf Other civs may have already explored our earth! They may have been here only a few thousand years ago or they may have been here a billion ago the chances of a civ coming to earth in the small time frame in which we would be able to record the event would have been increadiably small. Just 2 seconds to midnight I think the term is that is used to describe how long humans have been around for on this world and I would say its less then 1 second to midnight in which we would have been able to record the even. Who knows aliens may have landed in Africa 1000 years ago and taken people or the such! We will never know!Bluejay you said that you think intelligence is rare! how do you measure intelligence?I currently believe in the idea of a simulated universe for the simple reason its the best we have and quite logical and quite possiable. As I have stated before we will need them due to social factors in the future due to high rates of unemployment due to increasing levels of technology.

I think technology will continue to progress I dont know at what speed but I see no reason why it will ever peak. I think it has slowed a bit compared to this time last century but it could boom again if we are able to create another invetion which has an impact which is similar to that of the steam engine.Humans may get wiped out (but I very much doubt it) but there are still billions of years for other organisms to evolve so as to have there turn at reaching the stars. As I said on the other post it only took us a few million years to go from apes to humuns.I think socially it will be demanded due purely to the lack of things to do! I have seen the Aboriginal camps here in Australia and I am sure the indian reservation in North Amercia are of a similar state. Huge problems with alcohol sexal and physical abuse! 100's of percent higher then in the general community. Why? becasue they sit around all day with no jobs and nothing to do! This is the future which waits future generations of our people.We could clone humans but what is the need? Even if we did I believe that these clones only live for a few years as the cloning process has not been profected. This is a very rare event and I dont think there are any stars close enough to us who are anywhere near ready to go supernova! Mind you we are over due for a supernova show! The last one was more then 1000 years ago and it was said there was no darkness for six months. I am not convinced I am just giving the idea a very high probability! All I have heard from people on this forum is that I am wrong "because"You need to do better then that to change my mind.

Seeing no reason why technology will stop progressing isn't the same as showing a reason why technology will keep progressing. I've already given you some reasons why technology may stop progressing, e.g. asteroid impact, virus, nuclear holocaust, gamma radiation, etc. Your argument so far has been based on baseless optimism rather than deductive reasoning. You're contradicting yourself here. While you're arguing that lack of things to do will spur a wave of technological achievement, in the very next sentence you're admitting that lack of things to do only leads to huge social problems. I don't see any major technological advance so far having originated to improve life at the Aboriginal or Indian camps, do you? There's a huge demand for spare body parts, particularly the ones that carry no risk of rejection. The demand is there, the technology is there but our society just won't accept its usage. It's perfecty plausible for a society that has the ability to create simulations to refuse to do so due to socio-political reasons. The guys at Goddard, NASA give odds of once every 670 million years for a close-by, earth-killer supernova occuring. So it seems that we don't have billions of years of technological advancement ahead of us, as you earlier claimed. And that's still assuming that nothing else gets us first. But you still haven't told us how you calculate that probability. There are loads of "I think that.." and "I believe..." in your posts but unfortunately personal conviction doesn't equate to probability. You are the one who made the claim that we probably live in a simulation. I, among others, have been asking you to support your position with something other than wishful thinking, sweeping assumptions and enthusiastic statements of personal conviction. It's up to you to change our minds, not the other way round.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

The reasons you have give would only have a short term effert or have a very remote chance of happening.Asteroid impact is a very remote chance and it will have to hit with in the next 100 - 200 years otherwise I think we will have the tec to destroy or divert even the largest of asteroids.virus - I dont think there is a single virus which has a 100% kill rate. If there was a virus that did this it would destory itself.nuclear and gamma - Are both very remote chances especially gamma seeing that we need a very old star to go super nova.Dont forget we will soon be able to travel (if need be) to other parts of the galaxy. If scientist predict that a near by star is going to go super nova in a few million years even the most hopeless civilization should be able to work out a solution given the time frame. I think you miss understood me I was using these people as an example of what people do when they face long term unemployment. People have active minds and as much as we all like to say we hate work it does give us something to do. Sure many people if they left work tomorrow could keep themselves active for a long time but there are many others who would be out causing petty crime and being anti social due to boredem.Depression will also be a VERY big problem in the future. Its a big problem today and it is only going to get worse. Look at old people many of them are very depressed due to them living on government pensions which are only just enough to survive. These people would be another group who could greatly benifit from living in a sim. They could get back in the sim everything which time has robbed them of in the real world and not only that they could get what ever there mind desired.I watch the news every day and I never stop being amazed at how many people out there who are incapable of doing even the most basic of things like working if they can afford the interest repayments from a loan they take out. How will these people get work when most basic things like driving trucks, warehouse work and other unskilled work is done by computers?If nano construction comes into being almost all of us will be out of job! Good point! But it wont be to long until we can just grow the heart in a lab with out the need for a body.The technology is not there yet as I said these clones have a very short life expectancy.I cant think of single reason as to why anybody would want to ban a simulation wheather for political or social reasons. Care to name a few? Yes but as I said the star has to be of the right age to do it and currently there are no stars close enough to us to be of any threat for at least a million generations. When we get to the stage that a star may go supernove in the next couple of million years we should maybe start considering some counter measures. I give it a 50% chance that this is a sim universe. I give the chance of us coming from some other event and thus this universe being an "original" universe a 50% chance as well. I think this due to the fact that I think there are an infite number of both of these types of universes. I cant see how if this is an original universe there not being an infite number of other universes created in the same manner as this one (however that is)With regards to sim universes I think these would be infite as well due to the fact that anybody or anything can create these universes with the right amount of technology. Sure you put foward the idea that it may not be socially or politcally possible for us to make them but do you think that every group of intelligent beings in every galaxy/universe would be of the same disposition? Some groups may make them others may not but in the end its still the same result with an infite number of sim universes created.Then again if Boltzmann is right..........Boltzmann brain - Wikipedia