Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
So...do we actually exist in a real Sims game?
ModerateOsprey
Posts: 4,875 Member
Am posting this just for a bit of fun 
If this has been posted before, then please forgive me, I find this concept quite...'interesting?'
There is a theory that has been taken, to some extent, quite seriously by some in the scientific community and that is our universe is actually one massive computer simulation.
Anyhow, make your own minds up.
This is an abstract of the published scientific paper:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
And for those that like a really juicy read. Here is the whole thing:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
If this has been posted before, then please forgive me, I find this concept quite...'interesting?'
There is a theory that has been taken, to some extent, quite seriously by some in the scientific community and that is our universe is actually one massive computer simulation.
Anyhow, make your own minds up.
This is an abstract of the published scientific paper:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
And for those that like a really juicy read. Here is the whole thing:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
2
Comments
I play this game too much.
Matthew.
Also, has anyone heard of "Glitches in the Matrix" before? Like, say you spent all of the money you had that was in your pocket, but it winds up in your pocket again?
There are stories on reddit.
Sorry for winding up off topic, but this is pretty interesting.
Pricefield forever.
Time Won't Keep Us Apart - A story.
MTS: SimsForever15 | Origin: vba152318 | Paradox: PixelsSquared | Simblr: PixelsSquared
(sorry for going off topic!)
Matthew.
In the future there could be the Sims 20, where you can see your Sims in real life with special glasses and control them in real life and let them do things and let them go to real life places
Matthew.
Something about the game does sort of draw you to think about the larger picture and how the Universe might run.
MiffoShort made a very good point - I don't think my 'Player' uses any sort of cheats, either. In fact, I wonder if there is a way to appeal to the kinder nature of the Player or if some of us are doomed to be at the mercy of the sort who likes to torture their Sims?
Maybe we need to set an example to our Player by being kind to our own Sims - to let him or her know how it's done
And look up now and then with that quizzical expression on our faces to let him or her know we 'see' them.
Or maybe they control us controlling our Sims so the lives and characters of our Sims are more likely to reflect our own...
On the other hand, all those who give their Sims fabulous lives may be getting the message "Make the most of the fantasy, that's the closest you'll ever get"
> I don't know why, but this reminds me of the Matrix. Like the concept of being programmed to be set in a dream world without knowing that people are actually being turned into batteries is interesting. I actually made a Sim of myself already and I nearly freaked out seeing my Sim self pregnant.
Aww yeah you mentioned the Matrix when I was typing my comment about the Matrix! We must have the same simulation master or something. :P
If I suddenly become rich I'll let you all know
Matthew.
I had a slight problem with the central premise of The Matrix, though I thought it was an excellent film - Trinity saying 'Dodge This' is one of my favourite movie moments ever!
Anyhow, it was the battery thing I didn't like. The human body requires a higher amount of energy input to keep essential functions operating, than it is capable of producing - i.e. the process it costs more energy than you would get out.
IMO, what they should have done was use humans for their brains that would provide a grid of parallel processing units that makes the matrix is what it is.
I don't think it too far fetched though to speculate that it was that film that inspired the above article.
Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at Reading, UK also wrote a very interesting essay on the Matrix and contemplated some ideas of the culture and art of those running The Matrix and further argued that Neo and crew were just contemporary luddites - lol
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
> kineticlops wrote: »
>
>
>
> Maybe. I saw the edited TV version, but just the whole concept of it was interesting. I really liked the movie Inception too. Like what if Sims was a dream within a dream type of thing going on? The was a recent Doctor Who episode based off Inception too. Some days in life it feels like I'm stuck in the Twilight Zone because things don't make sense anymore. It's like the older I get, the more I don't understand the world that surrounds me.
Oh yeah I think I know which Doctor Who ep you are talking about.
You know, thinking about all of this and the possibility that we may be controlled in some way sort of explains people who do horrible things for seemingly no reason.
I mean with the concentration camps, it was so saddening that it happened in trying to wipe out a part of the human species. I think the Sims games do provide more freedom in genetics. Like the supernaturals in the games are pretty fun to play with. There could be many factors of why humans do the things they do. Environmental factors are actually causing a lot of health issues around the world. My mom actually told me regarding the dinosaurs that the O2 levels dropped and CO2 levels have risen so the current environment became not so friendly towards them. At least Komodo dragons, crocodiles, and sharks still exist. I am finding Sims 4 a pretty sadistic game so far. My Sims are like not programmed to survive. Poor little things.
Actually the biggest clue is all the mundane things that we go through: actually going to work, having to lay in bed for hours without going to sleep, putting clothes on piece by piece, and millions other minute things that no company would ever take the time to code into a game.
I have no patience to read that paper right now. Not sure what is meant by a posthuman stage. Does mean that we evolve past being human, like we are now in the postcaveman stage?
I doubt we are being run by a computer. Maybe you could consider evolution to be a kind of simulation: by trail and error different random genes are chosen and the ones that fail eventually get eliminated and ones that succeed multiply until they take over. I'm sure that a computer program based on evolution has already been created or is at least possible to create.
The player to sim relationship mirrors the God to human theory. But, I think that if we are in a sim-game then we are on fairly seamless one. For one thing there's seamless connection to cause and effect. If two cars bump into each other in my world then they have accident, if two cars bump into each other in sims3 they just go straight through one another. I can't make my stove fireproof by hitting repeatedly by a hammer, would have to install something to make it fireproof. It seems like if there is a God then he created science before he did anything else almost like he wanted to hide his existence from us and make everything explainable through rational thought and logic. If I was a sim I couldn't explain my world through logic because there sometimes is a logical basis for things that happen and sometimes there's not.
The Sims2 Land Rich: Cash Poor Challenge
The Gods of Monte Vista
Athena & Crog: Life in Sims 4
Hit the Like Button - and let me know you liked my story.
> If we do live in a sims game it's fair to say that it wasn't made by EA or upon occasion I'd wake up in the morning with no skin and default hair.
>
> Actually the biggest clue is all the mundane things that we go through: actually going to work, having to lay in bed for hours without going to sleep, putting clothes on piece by piece, and millions other minute things that no company would ever take the time to code into a game.
>
> I have no patience to read that paper right now. Not sure what is meant by a posthuman stage. Does mean that we evolve past being human, like we are now in the postcaveman stage?
>
> I doubt we are being run by a computer. Maybe you could consider evolution to be a kind of simulation: by trail and error different random genes are chosen and the ones that fail eventually get eliminated and ones that succeed multiply until they take over. I'm sure that a computer program based on evolution has already been created or is at least possible to create.
>
> The player to sim relationship mirrors the God to human theory. But, I think that if we are in a sim-game then we are on fairly seamless one. For one thing there's seamless connection to cause and effect. If two cars bump into each other in my world then they have accident, if two cars bump into each other in sims3 they just go straight through one another. I can't make my stove fireproof by hitting repeatedly by a hammer, would have to install something to make it fireproof. It seems like if there is a God then he created science before he did anything else almost like he wanted to hide his existence from us and make everything explainable through rational thought and logic. If I was a sim I couldn't explain my world through logic because there sometimes is a logical basis for things that happen and sometimes there's not.
You make some interesting points, but for me at least, the suggestion isn't that we are in a simulation game that is similar to or even as simple and illogical as The Sims. We would be in a simulation of sorts that is way beyond The Sims. A simulation where cause and effect makes sense and the world can be explained through logic and science. Just like we are more logical and advanced than the world our Sims live in, whoever could be controlling us would be more logical and advanced than us.
I'm not saying I believe we are really being controlled but if I were to subscribe to that theory that would be basis I guess.
If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that is running the simulation may or may not resemble the physics of the world that we observe. While the world we see is in some sense “real”, it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.
It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
My Wishlist
> Cherry picked from the paper:
>
> If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that is running the simulation may or may not resemble the physics of the world that we observe. While the world we see is in some sense “real”, it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.
>
> It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.
You know what this excerpt made me think of?
Making the Sims in our games get on the computer to play Sim City. Simulation within a simulation.
Heh. I drop my queued interactions a lot.
Either I'm really glitchy or I just have the absent-minded trait.
Pricefield forever.
Time Won't Keep Us Apart - A story.
MTS: SimsForever15 | Origin: vba152318 | Paradox: PixelsSquared | Simblr: PixelsSquared
The Sims2 Land Rich: Cash Poor Challenge
The Gods of Monte Vista
Athena & Crog: Life in Sims 4
Hit the Like Button - and let me know you liked my story.