"Can I buy some pot from you?"
Posted on 04/24/2016 7:20:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
We trust the scientists around us to have the best grasp on how the world actually works.
So at this year's 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History, which addressed the question of whether the universe is a simulation, the answers from some panelists may be more comforting than the responses from others.
Physicist Lisa Randall, for example, said that she thought the odds that the universe isn't "real" are so low as to be "effectively zero."
A satisfying answer for those who don't want to sit there puzzling out what it would mean for the universe not to be real, to be sure.
But on the other hand, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was hosting the debate, said that he thinks the likelihood of the universe being a simulation "may be very high."
Uh-oh?
The question of whether we know that our universe is real has vexed thinkers going far back into history, long before Descartes made his famous "I think, therefore I am" statement. The same question has been explored in modern science-fiction films like "The Matrix" and David Cronenberg's "Existenz."
But most physicists and philosophers agree that it's impossible to prove definitively that we don't live in a simulation and that the universe is real.
Tyson agrees, but says that he wouldn't be surprised if we were to find out somehow that someone else is responsible for our universe.
One of the main arguments that physicists use to talk about what's known as the "simulation hypothesis" is that if we can prove that it's possible to simulate a universe — if we can figure out all the laws that govern how everything works, which physicists are trying to do —
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Yup, bare-metal assembly code.
[Nothing unreal exists]
What if God built the computer?
I have never heard someone who is so in love with his own voice. It is maddening to listen to him. Makes O look humble.
Does this mean I don’t have to pay my bills?
Honestly I’ve sometimes wondered if this is a chrysalis state and when we die we are really born.
He tests it in production as well.
I always thought how could you prove times exists if memory didn’t? For example if you put an apple on a table and moved it to a new spot on the table, if you didn’t have memory you would think the apple was always in that new position. Or if you looked in a mirror and stuck your tongue out, would you detect the movement of your tongue or would you think it was alway existed in one certain position with each new position of that movement?
an idiot trying to sound smart
Hey Neil! Line 3,, Morgan Freeman wants to chat about God and the implications if you were correct.
"Can I buy some pot from you?"
Just stop paying your Income Taxes and the Reality of your existence will become crystal clear.
Check out the Movie “Lucy”. It will all become clear.
But he’s sure there’s no God.
I know someone who has pretty good long-term memory, but because of brain damage has no short-term memory whatsoever. He doesn’t know what was just said five minutes ago or, as in the example you cited, he has no idea of the applewas moved 6 inches over just a minute or two ago.
I have a friend who is the head of physics at a prestigious college. He once told me that any “discovery” should be prefaced by the qualifying statement “At our present level of ignorance we assume that....”
You beat me to it.
:-) LDA Universe
Him and Steven Hawkings, which one is the bigger idiot?
I feel like a mean person because I laughed at that.
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