Both beliefs are fine, but please realize the hypocrisy
Both beliefs are fine, but please realize the hypocrisy
236 comments
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The "belief" we're in a simulation is more like a interesting idea than something people organize their lives around. Is it possible? Yes. Am I going to praise the great programmer every Sunday? No.
The belief in God in most cases is not just belief in some general higher power but a very specific deity with weird morality, silly mythology and bunch of scam artists behind it.
- I think there's a higher power...
- Ok...
- that got mad at us for eating fruits but then impregnated a lady with itself and pissed us off so that we murdered him and he could say he's not mad anymore.
- ... WTF?
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Could an all powerful, loving God be real? Sure. Why not?
Could a powerful, all loving God be real? Yeah, seems realistic. In many ways, I am a God to an ant.
Could an all powerful all loving God be real?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha no.
God is either inept, indifferent, or a straight up ass. None of those items are something I care to worship, even at the threat of the eternal damnation.
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By their own book, the bad guy thought the stupid naked people should have a bit of an education and the good guy punished them for trying to improve their knowledge base. Serpents rule!
I was taught in school that the real battle in the universe is between chaos and order. They gave it a fancy name, Entropy, but that was the gist.
So Chaos is God and Order is Satan. Live all hunter gathering under God or just go to the Supermarket under Satan, and spend the rest of your time doing other things, like making art or scientific theories.
Even now the Church is against progress. Don't let them Gays get married for fucks sake, the world will explode.
Hail Satan.
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God is a programmer. That explains a lot actually. I guess he's still working out the bugs (features)
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Maybe the rapture is actual just the update to reality.
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This argument conflates belief with religious practice. The core similarity of both beliefs is that the universe is intelligently designed. And you can believe in the idea of a God without participating in any kind of formal religious practice. That "most" religious belief is wrapped up in a particular religious tradition is ancillary.
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Religion's weakest argument is the claim that the world was intelligently designed. When it so clearly isn't.
Simulation theory doesn't claim someone designed all this. They built a simulator where all this evolution and history happened, like emergent gameplay on steroids. It's not the same kind of "design" we're talking about.
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There’s no hypocrisy here.
On one hand, the belief in a god doesn’t just end there. There are beliefs in what that god does and what he has control over. So it’s completely logical to believe that there’s no god (although, as someone else pointed out, it’s also not random arrangements of atoms).
On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist. It’s not a belief. The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests. It’s simply conjecture or hypothesis to explain the “why” of the universe. No one who talks about simulation theory (much less who “believes” in it) pretends that the creator of the simulation is uniquely interested in them and responds to their requests and tells them how to live their life. In fact, that would go against the entire concept of simulation theory.
Religion and religious belief have specific definitions. This feels just as dishonest as people claiming that LGBTQ ideology is a religion or that evolution is a “belief”.
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You're assuming belief in the Abrahamic God to make your argument easier. But not all theists subscribe to such a position. And belief in a disinterested god who created the universe seems just as plausible as believing in a disinterested programmer who wrote a simulation.
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Those conjectures aren't just equally plausible, they're the same thing.
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I think their point is belief versus theory. One requires faith, the other thought.
It's why it's simulation theory and not Simulationism. People acknowledge it, but don't follow it, nor believe it, since belief requires clearing unknown gaps with leaps of faith to reach an unknown destination. Theory seeks answers of the unknown with "could be this, could not be this" whereas belief is "it be this".
This always points back to the paradox which all divinity falls into. The moment we know of a god to be real, it is old news and no longer divine. The next scientific step is "What made it so?" and moves right along to bigger things whether theists are on board or not.
Of the few words ending with -ism and -ist in science or theory, none have belief or faith.
Even the most apparent, such as the Big Bang Theory, are still marked a theory, after all. Believing in them—convinction without 100% knowledge—is foolish and closes doors of what may actually be truth.
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What an amazing belief. We believe that a something we know nothing about maybe did something that we have no evidence for.
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God got bored lol. Yeah nah I'm spiritual, but I'm not much a of a theist.
I just trust that many that don't believe in a higher power also often believe that they're very important and therefore "above". Essentially most old school religion is like a dam that withholds personal narcissism from overtaking society.
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Of course it's a belief. Any position held as fact in the absence of evidence is a belief, and is irrational by definition.
It also absolutely does not provide an explanation of "purpose". Someone else already wrote a good comment about why that is.
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Your comment added nothing to the discussion and provided no counters to what was said. What was the point of writing it?
It’s not a belief because there’s not an absence of evidence. There’s quite a bit of evidence for it. Whether you agree that it’s compelling is another story. Also, no one “believes” in simulation theory. It’s simply a theory to explain our current understanding of the world. In the same way that no one “believes” in the theory of gravity. It’s just a possible explanation of what we observe.
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I completely agree that's what this basically boils down too. ST was an interesting concept I read about once and only briefly recalled twice since. Nothing more. This could be a valid criticism of individuals putting more stock into the idea but for anyone else it's a reach.
The belief system built around God affects me every single day of my life. I have family that are hardcore Christians that pester me about it regularly. Approximately half of the political ideologies being pushed in my country center around Christian dogma.
Honorable mentions: Foreign and domestic terrorism threat and future wars being incited.
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On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist.
Now see. I think simulation theory is one of the possible explanations for our existence. But, I would disagree that it gives any credence to a purpose to our existence.
It also doesn't really answer the core question of how things began, it just defers them upwards to another civilisation. Unless you want to say it's simulations all the way down, there needs to be be a root real existence somewhere and there the origins pose the same questions.
I've not yet heard any explanation as to how our universe came to be that I truly believe. All explanations are problematic. But even if simulation theory were true, I'd still be bugged by the fact that we still don't get any closer to the answer of how it all began. It just explains how the universe as we know it exists.
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It does bring up the interesting conundrum: is there one "base" universe? Then how did that start? Makes no sense. Is it turtles all the way down? That also doesn't make any sense. And yet those are the only 2 possibilities (assuming a few intuitive things about logic and reality, which is a whole 'nother thing...).
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It doesn’t need to answer the question of how things began any more than our own understanding of our world answers that. The “Big Bang” is just the start of the simulation.
And I think you’re wrong to disagree about the purpose of our existence because the entire point of a simulation is to get information and data about the “real” world by running the options in a simulation. If we are indeed in a simulation, then the purpose is to give the creators of the simulation more information about their own world.
Ironically enough, it would also infer that these beings created us in their own image. Otherwise, it wouldn’t really be useful to them.
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Even more importantly: God is omnipotent, which means they don’t make mistakes. A simulation doesn’t imply a higher power that is perfect in every way.
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God is omnipotent, which means they don’t make mistakes.
Actually, no - the dictionary definition of omnipotent is literally being able to do anything. God being faultless is a different thing entirely and depending on how you interpret scripture, that is a false statement. He regrets making humans, so you could argue he sees humans as his own mistake - which is an entirely different kind of fucked-up for another day’s topic.
So whomever is running the simulation would be omnipotent, because they are literally making whatever happens in our universe happen by running a simulation of a universe.
EDIT: meant “everything” instead of “anything” but fuck it
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How can a programmer or simulation operator have a mistake?
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Great point. For all we know, we’re a simulation created by ancestors who are just as imperfect as we are.
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Personally I sometimes wonder if the truth is hybrid. We're a simulation and "god" is someone on the outside interacting with our simulation. Might also explain why god seems to be missing nowadays. Maybe he grew up, maybe he got bored, maybe he's doing exams, maybe our simulation is owned by a company that went out of business and is only running because the electricity is still on and the backup generators still have fuel. Maybe we live in a forgotten universe.
I also sometimes wonder if we live in an educational simulation. Maybe we're college students learning about the horrors of the 21st century in a fully immersive VR program.
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The OG simulation operator has gone offline to direct another porno
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It’s possible but the interaction part is what makes it unlikely. There’s neither evidence nor logic that would explain a god that was able to interact with the world they created with any kind of consistency.
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What is religion, if not conjecture about the origin of mankind (and by extension the universe) that people believe without evidence?
I don't think that religion is predicated on the answering of prayers, or in a Creator who takes a special interest in some particular human.
Also, I don't think that either of those go against simulation theory; what if you're a sim in some alien version of The Sims, and they're going around fuckin with your life, removing ladders from your pools, etc.
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What is religion, if not conjecture about the origin of mankind (and by extension the universe) that people believe without evidence?
Religion identifies the simulator and insists that its intermediaries can offer a liaison between you and them, and also that if you don't believe in their particular simulator, you will be punished. It has been used for centuries to control the populace and to take their money.
A proponent of simulation theory isn't likely to tell you that it solves any philosophical problems, or that they now understand the universe wholly. I've never heard anyone talking about it claim that they know who/what is behind the simulation.
So IMO the distinction between the two couldn't be more clear.
I imagine there's at least a couple wacko groups out of there trying to twist simulation theory into a purely religious endeavor, but that wouldn't represent the mainstream conversation about it.
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That’s exactly where religion falls apart, though. If the Creator can interfere with their creation or directly influence it, then the idea becomes inconsistent based on what we directly observe as happening. The answering of prayers was just an example since the image in the OP is an image of the god of the Bible that people do believe answers their individual prayers (and that some people believe they can speak to and through).
Simulation theory doesn’t really allow for that kind of intervention so your Sims example isn’t relevant. Ladders in pools and whatnot don’t disappear before your eyes.
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What is the purpose of such a simulation if ST is "correct"?
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Check out Ancestral simulation In a nutshell, it says that humans are living in far future and we are just a simulation from scratch so that they can study their origin, how they come to be etc
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The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests.
How do you know? What if the guy running the simulation actually monitors what we think and reacts to it? What if the personally decides to give people cancer or cure it? What if he copies our minds to simulation of hell after we die? What if 2000 years ago he copied himself into the simulation to get crucified?
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I know because that’s not part of the theory. Simulation theory doesn’t offer any kind of mechanism for that and it would go against the entire idea of simulation.
On top of that, even if that was the case, then the person running the simulation would be acting inconsistently in a way that prevents us from understanding their intent. That would mean that it’s illogical and that there’s no way for us to actually infer anything about the world we’re in yet we are able to do exactly that.
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I've literally never met someone who claimed we actually live in a simulation though
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I saw a theory by some physicists that there is some evidence we may be a hologram but I'm not smart enough to understand exactly what that means. Sounds neat
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Yeah that doesn't mean we're running on an alien projector. Science communication of theoretical physics is horrible.
Anytime you find yourself getting excited about some galaxy brain SciFi stuff just clap out some chalk board erasers and inhale the dust. That's about how pleasant and exciting theoretical physics is (and how worth doing, fight me you keyboard tapping nerds) and it should help you get in the mood for appreciating findings.
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Musk said it in Rogan a few weeks ago, and it became a justified belief overnight. It had huge flaws in logic when he said it, and no one who is parroting the talking point today is thinking beyond "the real life Ironman says we live in the matrix".
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If you take your opinion from either of those sources I really can't help you they aren't representative of what the majority or anyone worth their shit thinks
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You have a level of happiness most of us can only briefly imagine as being possible.
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They are similar in that neither are scientific theories, as they are equally non-falsifiable. We may live in a universe where it is impossible to see the face of god or a glitch in the matrix by construction.
Given that impossibility, how then could you perform an experiment or make an observation that contradicts the theory? To be reductive, science isn't about proving. It's failing to disprove. If there isn't a set of circumstances in which a theory can be disproven, it isn't scientific.
Unless you are a string theorist. Then you just say whatever the hell you want.
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Idk what's the exact purpose of this meme but I really do see a lot of similarities between God creating the world and simulation theory. Obviously ST and religion are wildly different in their impact on society and how many people genuinely believe in them, but ST is pretty silly too.
It's just a "what if" scenario, one that's potentially possible but wouldn't change or explain anything if it was true. All you're doing is moving the existential problems up a layer and forgetting about it, it's the same as saying God made us: at the end of the day both the beings in charge of the simulation AND God have to come from somewhere, they live in a "real" universe, and you're not explaining that.
Why can't it be that we simply live in a real universe? That's the simplest answer, the one that requires the fewest assumptions. It doesn't have a convenient, satisfying reason as to why we're here, or how reality came to be, but it's easily the most plausible.
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Why can't it be that we simply live in a real universe? That's the simplest answer, the one that requires the fewest assumptions.
The argument goes that: a sufficiently technologically advanced society would run ancestor simulations. Those simulations may also run simulations. There's no ceiling on the number of nesting simulations. It's the height of conceit to think we're the top level when there are squillions of simulated universe.
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"there are squillions of simulated universe."
Huge assumption there lol, but I guess I see your point. If you assume simulations of this scope and quality are possible (again HUGE assumption), then your odds of being in one go up a lot, obviously.
Again though, at some point you have to hit actual, non simulated reality, and when everything seems to point towards that being the case for us, and absolutely nothing hints at a simulation, I don't see why we couldn't just be in that actual reality. I can't help but see that thought experiment as just an attempt to answer "the big question" in some way, even though in actuality it just moves it out of view.
It's Russell's teapot, impossible to disprove and theorically possible, but there's nothing backing it up besides fantastical assumptions. In that regard yeah, I think the comparison with God is warranted. The creators of our simulation, and especially the ones up above that are actually real would need such absurd levels of technology so far beyond our comprehension that it would be magic to us, and they would absolutely be our Gods.
I don't see much of a difference, it's kind of just a tech themed spin on it, with the same fallacies plaguing the whole concept, IMO. It's cool to think and write scifi about, but that's about it.
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There is a cieling though. A computer made of matter of one universe cannot simulate an entire universe at the same speed. It's like installing a VM on a computer: the VM is always slower. Each layer would then become exponentially slower with a limit of 0 speed.
Having said that, combined with the fact that our Universe is 13B years old, it would make the age of our root universe exponentially larger than 13B years.
It could maybe feasible if we live in the first layers, but beyond that our root universe would have died from Heat death long ago.
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Yes for anyone interested
https://simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
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.
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No it's called deep derealization upon your logic hitting a ceiling lol
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Not sure what part of the message you're responding to, what do you mean?
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I don't think anyone actually believes the latter except room temperature IQ tech bros. It's mostly just a hypothetical.
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Could (a) god(s) exist? Possibly, it's hard to rule out the supernatural in natural terms since it's SUPERnatural
Could the universe be a simulation? Possible too, but also on of those things that's almost impossible to prove.
At the same time, it could be that your e a Boltzmann brain, and that literally nothing existed before and that your brain just kinda formed together spontaneously with all your memories.
All those are possible options that are over 99% likely to be false, but their cooouuullldd be true.
Point is not to rearrange your life on the off changlce that one of those are true. Especially religion, since religions tend to be "believe our particular god(s) or you go to hell for eternity" followed closely by "if you don't believe our particular god(s) we will help you go to hell right now". Nearly all human conflicts in Earth's history were either based on religion or used religion as a tool to whip up the masses to go kill the others.
There are also hundreds of Gods and over 3000 different religious figures out there and they're all pretty much exclusive or, they all claim to be the right one and the rest is wrong. Bold claim to make when it's all based off goat herders texts that were first abused for a completely different god (hello, Christianity!) and constantly conflicts with each other.
Simulation theory and Boltzman brain ideas are fun to entertain and talk and think about, but they've never been used to control who can love and have sex with who, they've never been a used whereas religion just IS abuse and control in every way possible.
I do not like religion
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Agree with most of what you said except the "over 99% likely to be false".
Like you mentioned it's not possible to prove either way so it isn't meaningful to describe it as likely or unlikely. We have no way of knowing (at least currently) so the likelihood is simply undefined
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One of those is a belief and the other is a theory.
One requires the absence of evidence and the other requires evidence.
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Okay. But no. You can find evidence of god or a simulation the same way. Confirmation bias. There is no way to prove either belief.
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Are you a farmer? Because you have an awful lot of straw!
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Does anyone base their lives and their worldviews around the simulation theory?
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Its such a philosophical dead end. I know a few people who really want the world to be a simulation but I cant understand why. I think they want an excuse to have nothing matter and be shitty.
But i would not live my life any differently if we found out that this is a simulation. Because its still real to me and there's no reason to believe I can exist outside the simulation any more than my sims can exist outside the game.
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I know one person who does. And, of course, everyone thinks he lost his marbles.
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We do live in a simulation and I can prove it.
\ Stick your whole hand up your ass and push the secret eject key.-
just did this. didnt work but i learnt something about myself.
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( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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bad religion bait post is bad
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Both are just as unlikely as the other and have as much evidence, I'd find anyone who possesed both beliefs to be weird.
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One is obviously made-up by ancient peoples who knew fuck-all about the world, but insists it's eternal truth beyond debate. Even the parts that contradict the other parts.
The other is an openly hypothetical idea based on what we expect is just beyond our current capabilities... and it relies on that we're-just-atoms materialism.
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That's not true
- We have no evidence about either and both are non-falsifiable
- Living in a simulation is one idea. Each individual religion is a whole bunch of assumptions rolled into one system.
Therefore “we live in a simulation” is just as likely as “there's some higher power”, while “the Matrix is a documentary, everything will happen exactly like in the movie” is as likely as “the Christian god is real, just as described in the bible”.
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Why being in a simulation is unlikely? How do you estimate the probability of that?
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I use the same estimation on the likelihood of vampires or the Norse gods, it's an interesting thought and I can't prove those things don't exist (nor do I have to due to the burden of proof) but since we have no good reason to believe they're true I don't have to entertain the ideas.
That which is brought forth without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
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Makes me miss my old roommate, who didn't believe in God but believed this all could be a simulation. Hope you're doing well buddy, wherever the fuck you've wandered!
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honestly, who is this targeting? conspiracy theorists?
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Why must a meme target anyone?
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its clearly making a point targeting an unknown group of people, so you tell me
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It's just a dumb philosophy/science meme meant to bait people into convo
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It's always the worst people who believe this too. The only interpretation of Simulation Theory that I will even remotely entertain is the one that we're all information stuck on the surface of a black hole, because it's the only one that isn't just there to feed tech bros' god complex.
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Counterpoint: we're in an educational program. The program is about the horrors of the 21st century, including climate change, greed, the rise of AI in a capitalist society, COVID, the return of fascism, the fall of the west and god knows what else. The tech bros, billionaires, politicians, etc aren't actually real, it's everyone else who is. Why? Those positions are too comfy and your students might learn the wrong lessons if you let them participate as trump or musk.
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Dr. Blitz called Simulation Theory religion for tech bros and I can't get it out of my head 😅
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both have people believe humans are part of a greater design
both include some otherworldly figure either observing or mandating how we live our lives
both reject the idea that maybe we’re just fuckin’ here because we are just fuckin’ here
Love how some people are legitimately proving this meme in the comments.
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I don't think there's a significant number of people who believe in a specific simulation scenario the way so many people believe in a specific religion.
Sure, some dumb tech bros believe “i think we live in like, a simulation, dude”, which would correspond to “there must be some higher power out there for sure”. Both beliefs are irrational, but more likely than “the Matrix is real, just like in the movies” or “this specific codex got it all right and we should live our lives after the thousands of unclear moral teachings that can be extrapolated from it by untrustworthy human preachers”
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both include some otherworldly figure either observing or mandating how we live our lives
There is a big difference between observing and mandating. Most interpretations of simulation theory don't even talk about humans being observed.
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Some religions don't either, and ST doesn't preclude it.
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Agreed
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Uh, not random. Evolution has a system.
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Evolution is just random. The "system" is just the good random changes live and the bad don't.
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It's a bit more complex than that, with multiple levels of feedback with DNA (potentially even with the nucleotide) and a damn complicated process while creating descendants (vs. just clones).
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The system is just a representation of the aggregate.
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...but we're not just random arrangements of atoms...
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Not with THAT kind of attitude!
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I'm Cave Johnson, here to personally thank you for volunteering to test Aperture Science's brand new long range spacetime displacement device. Before we begin, there's 2 things I need to mention.
First off, there is a non-zero percent, closer to 90, chance that you will end up being a just a random arrangement of atoms after the test. Not in a philosophical way. Just an absolutely random heap of atoms sprawled across the testing chamber floor.
Second, I need to remind you that the waiver you signed is iron clad. You can thank the suits in legal for that.
Now let's begin!
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Or are we Boltzmann brain
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Why not? Even if it we're meant to be important why can it not be by action rather than by birth, see how narcissistic it is to think we're supposed to be here?
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I didn't say we were important or supposed to be here. Just that we aren't random. The initial state of the cosmos may have been random but everything after that is following a trajectory based on physics.
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Oooohhooho. You really touched a nerve on this one.
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yup.
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Baseless Belief is not equal to evidence backed theory
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Go learn where the simulation universe and timless holographic universe came from before saying a theory is evidence backed. Both have leap of faith instead direct proven evidence or tested results. Both exist because they're possible theories that cannot be proven true nor false, and most impoartantly they are not in the same scientific level or field to be compared in first place, and also they both can exist without even contradicting each other. Religon does not only try to explain the arrow of time and current universe like simulation theory tries to do and that's one reason of many why they are incomparable. First, religon answers why the laws of existences exist which has no matching theory in theoritical physics except for because laws exist otherwise there wouldn't be ones that create conciousness aka it is what it is otherwise it wouldn't. Secondly, most of the religon ones hold defined philosophical consequences and requirements for your existance while the simulation one comes with no philosophy, provides you with nothing and asks nothing from you because it's just theoratical physics that answers nothing more and still needs explanation.
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I guess I wasn’t clear enough. Both of those particular theories of the origin of our existence are foolish and not based in reality. There exists Overwhelming evidence we evolved. No evidence of any alternative. You have to actively deny reality and logic to think otherwise. I will not entertain your or anyone else’s response to this, it’s garbage. Theists are a cancer on our society and tools for billionaires. It’s a convenient social hierarchy for which the plebs to police themselves. No thanks.
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I exclusively pray to the god of the sentient beings running our simulation for truly we are but a part of their intelligent design. 👀
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Change the top text to remove the word "random" and instead explain how people actually talk about evolution.
Change the bottom text to say "statistics may imply the universe is a simulation..."
And then you remove the straw man argument.
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This is why I prefer to believe in Gnosticism.
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Holy shit, another one of us? There are dozens of us! Dozens!
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God is real and he said to kill all those people that don't believe the exact same thing as you.
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The subset of mathematical rules that guide the movement of the very small and very large seem to be engineered.
Totally the same shit.
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it's not a fair comparison, in the sense that the religions people tens to not believe in are those with disputable claims in a book dictated by god.
Caims such as simulation theory or unspecified god without evidence for or against it make way more sense than major deistic religions. And again, that's not to say it's true, its just significantly more likely to be accurate.
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yep.
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