Is the First Cause argument Valid?

[Tiberius]

There are five indications of us living in a simulation:

1. Crude simulations and virtual realities have already been simulated by computers .

A study conducted by Henry Markram and his team at the Blue Brain project have successfully simulated elements of a rat’s neocortical column, a complex layer of brain tissue common to all mammalian species. " Henry Markram at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his team built their model based on experimental measurements of rat brain slices. The simulation represents roughly 37 million synapses, or neuronal connections, in the brain region that receives sensory information from the whiskers and other parts of the body. Using the model, the team simulated rat whisker movement and saw similar neuronal responses to those observed in rat experiments."

Computer model of rat-brain part - Nature.

I realize a computer simulation of a rat's neocortical column is nowhere near the complexity of a computer simulation of an entire living human brain, but this does demonstrate at least a bit of progress so far being made towards an entire human brain's consciousness being simulated by a computer.

Perhaps when scientists have figured out how to read the actual results of a consciousness simulation, then the simulation hypothesis will become a widely accepted theory.

So what? The ability to simulate it is not evidence that the universe is such a simulation.

2. Wave-function collapse - Matter exists as a probability wave that collapses to a particle upon observation. Wave-function collapse would be expected in a simulated reality, because computational resources would be conserved by only simulating observed matter.

This is assuming that the programmers (for lack of a better term) are using the same sort of computers that we are using, and with similar limitations. If there were such programmers, there's no reason to think they are bound by the same kind of physical laws that we are bound by, so what they consider a computer could be vastly different to what we would think of as a computer. Your idea depends on the programmers having the same kind of computers with the same kind of limitations that we do, which means they would be bound by the same physical laws that we are bound by. Yet if our universe with our physical laws is likely to be a simulation, doesn't that mean the programmers themselves are also in a simulation?

3. Matrix glitches - Paranormal phenomenon might happen in a simulation where the rules governing the simulation are disrupted or changed

There's zero valid evidence of anything supernatural.

4 Compromises in simulation algorithms - The human mind and the internet use very similar algorithms or methods to manage the flow of information., these methods often take short cuts to conserve energy or conserve computational resources, this might be expected in a computer simulation.

Study: Internet, Human Brain Use Similar Algorithms to Process Info

And our brains are very similar to computers in many ways. That is not evidence that the universe is a simulation.

5. Computer code found in string theory.

Yeah, someone posting a video on YouTube is not valid evidence. Anyone can post anything on YouTube. Show me someone with relevant credentials and then I'll take notice. Until then, this is an argument from a kook.

 

[Suave]

".....Yeah, someone posting a video on YouTube is not valid evidence. Anyone can post anything on YouTube. Show me someone with relevant credentials and then I'll take notice. Until then, this is an argument from a kook."

Please note the discovery of error correcting codes within the equations of symmetry is a rigorously proven theorem.

Reference: https://www.quora.com/Is-theoretica...mmunity-and-has-it-been-corroborated-by-other

Is theoretical physicist James Gates’ intriguing discovery of error-correcting codes within the equations of supersymmetry accepted within the theoretical physicist community, and has it been corroborated by other physicists?

Tristan Hubsch
, PhD Physics, University of Maryland, College Park (1987)
Answered 3 years ago · Author has 1.4K answers and 1M answer views


A.: The discovery is a rigorously proven theorem.

To be precise, the (error-detecting and error-correcting binary doubly-even linear block) codes were discovered/identified within the classification of worldline off-shell supermultiplets without central charge [On Graph-Theoretic Identifications of Adinkras, Supersymmetry Representations and Superfields, by C.F. Doran, M.G. Faux, S.J. Gates, Jr., T. Hübsch, K.M. Iga and G.D. Landweber: Int. J. Mod. Phys. A22 (2007) 869-930, arXiv:math-ph/0512016]. It was then proven that these (minimal) supermultiplets in turn encode the continuum of all possible worldline supermultiplets [On General Off-Shell Representations of Worldline (1D) Supersymmetry, by C.F. Doran, T. Hübsch, K.M. Iga and G.D. Landweber: Symmetry 6 no. 1, (2014) 67–88, arXiv:1310.3258]. See also my answer to “James Gates claims that he found code in string theory. Does that imply that we live in a simulation?”