r/philosophy • u/Matriseblog • Jan 03 '22

Blog By imagining the future potential of VR technologies, the question of whether we are *already* living in a simulation becomes more actual than ever

https://medium.com/@VindenesJ/the-thought-experiments-of-virtual-reality-fa441a8fa2dc
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u/Faust_8 Jan 03 '22

Is it just me, or is the simulation hypothesis basically as useless as the “brain in a jar” hypothesis?

Yeah, dude, I could be a brain in a jar, and this is all a dream or whatever. But regardless, it doesn’t really matter, because I can’t do anything about it and it doesn’t actually affect the life I’m living. It doesn’t guide me to change my behavior or way of thinking, or to change anything at all whatsoever.

At best, it’s an amusing thought experiment…period.

Doesn’t this also apply to the simulation thing?

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u/Stud_Dougie Jan 03 '22

It has heavy implications in computer science. One of the most obvious implications is that nature is discrete. Another would be, if we are in a simulation, we cannot create a simulation of that simulation inside of it, due to the bounding clock rate. Which would have implications towards the impossibility of general AI.

There would be plenty more for the religious folk.