Are we living in a Computer Simulation?

I read Robinson's Mars trilogy in the 1990s, and began researching his data on the planet. At the time, I had access to the Ohio State University library, and the internet. There was not a lot on-line at the time, and a good deal of it is suspect. But the data he provided on mean temperature, mean atmospheric pressure and atmospheric composition was spot on. In the equatorial region of the southern hemisphere, in summer, daytime temperatures of 20 degrees C have been speculated, and the Curiosity rover has confirmed that. Bot the bottom drops out of that daytime warmth at night. Currently, the Curiosity team at JPL believes that liquid water can be found there in southern hemisphere summer, largely because the "soil" is so salty. Curiosity is operating in Gale Crater (named for an Australian amateur astronomer), which is about three degrees south of the equator. Some of his speculationj about ground water and aquifers has not been confirmed (nor contradicted). His estimate of the amount of water in the northern polar cap is accurate, but it is still a very, very arid planet. People are not boing to be living there unless is is "terraformed." For that to be possible and safe would require creating an atmosphere. His solution, bombarding the planet at the equator with ice asteroids might work, and so would bringing nitrogen from Titan, a moon of Saturn. (Titan's atmosphere is far denser than Earth's and is more than 98% nitrogen.) But the expense would be astronomical (pun intended). At a conservative estimate based on my reading over the last 20 years, a colony of 200 or 250 humans would cost on the order of several trillion US dollars. and that does not include the cost of maintaining the colony.

It's a fascinating subject, and I agree that we need to get off the planet. However, reality, although it sucks, means we have to shoulder an enormous expense, and we would need to decide before we go there that we're going to terraform the planet.

Much of what they reported as water has been seen to be shifting sand, I read earlier today.

" Are you trying to tick boxes for the amount of nonsense threads you post?"

No, I don't care about that,

"You've got a few more to go before you get your tin foil hat"

The cheap one now. Not very original is it, mate?

" 9/11 was an inside job,"

of course iit was, justy like 7-7-7, sandu hook, boston bombing, paris shooting, lLas Vegas shooting etc. what is your point?

"the Queen of Britain is a shape shifting lizar"

Yes, she is, and not only she, nearly all queen and queens. so?

" the Illuminati rule the World"

Well, if you want to put it betterm they rule everything mainstream, yes,

"the Holocaust never happened "

I don't know about that one, tring to trick me here?

"Trump is a competent and respected World leader. "

Nope, quite the opposite, but all by design.


Considering all your statements and the deep contradictions in it, you clearly have done no research at all. How come you want to ridicule something you have no clue aboit?

"The point is that the "laws of physics" in our allegedly simulated universe are too complicated to be simulated by any computer,"

well, who is to sat there are no very advanced computers who can do this?
Here is your lack of imagination speaking.

"f you want to postulate an exterior universe where the "laws of mathematics" are different, you are into woo-woo land."

and why is that?

'Woo woo land' is inhabitated by tiresome misfits whose social mindset, produces automatic default utterances like 'why ?', and 'how do you know?'. Naturally, their investment in their egocentricity and minority beliefs precludes them from considering genuine issues of epistemology and ontology.

Which reminds me... still great after all these years... bring the beat back! Turn up the strobe! The title "Justified & Ancient" refers to the KLF's pseudonym and earlier incarnation, "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu" (The JAMs). The JAMs took their name from a fictional subversive cult from the 1970s conspiratorial novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Just as the fictional JAMs made it their remit to propagate chaos and confusion, so too did the real JAMs and the KLF.

Now there's some real subversion. And Tammy is great.

Thanks for that ! Anything to do with the mythical 'lost continent of Mu' ?

I believe so.

I remember Smashy and Nicey saying it was about moo cows.

And they do do a lot of work for charidee.

Well, reading your replies in this discussion and in the moon landing one you started, I think we can reach a safe conclusion here: No, we are NOT living in a Computer Simulation. And the answer as to why is, of course, wonderfully easy.

I mean, what sort of supercomputer could even be thought of, even with the best of imagination and creativity, that could properly simulate the limitless scope of your intelligence, and the magnificence of your astounding and riveting points of view? It can't be done, I say, it can't be done. Surely, such a mind is not just unique to its own generation, but it is unique in the entire history of mankind. How could a mere computer hope to ever recreate its vast potential?

I think I'm going to dust those books of again. I am really getting in the mood to read them!

one long worthless ad hominem. cheap eh? oh and a lot of logical flaws as well.

something I wrote, mate?

Please point out the 'logical flaws'.
BTW The literal meaning of ad hominem is 'to the man', but there is no evidence we are dealing with a 'man' here,....more likely a child.

Don't hold your breath.

so you can't do that yourself? hmmmm

I was thinking about a universe in which mathematics was different from in ours, mathematics being historically and culturally contingent human activity, of course. Suppose there is a universe where two plus two equals three; where does the (to us) missing one go? If two couples meet up, does one of the people vanish? (Schrödinger's wife?) Etc. You could argue that the aliens who were doing that mathematics would just treat it as normal, I suppose. In struggling to accommodate this, I came to the thought that what we are actually discussing is, if you like, the hand-wavey bits of science-fiction novels. The bits where, in order to get something unexplainable into the plot, e.g. how a faster-than-light drive works, or a time machine, a bit of clever sounding hocus-pocus in invoked, a deus ex machina, a "flux capacitor". This is sometimes called a Hand Wave (also "Scotch Tape"). It is any explanation which is noteworthy for its lack of detail or coherence. The name comes from academia and techy-land, where a person explaining a process on a whiteboard gets to a part that is not well defined or important so just waves their hand around to indicate that Stuff Happens, then moves on to the important goodies. Going into the hand-wavey place is going into woo-woo land.

About 13 I'd say.

The 'origin of mathematics' is a significant epistemological issue, given that frontier physics seems so dependent on it. One view you might be interested in is that of Lakoff (a linguist concerned with 'metaphor) who claims that all mathematics originates with 'bodily action'. (Ref Lakoff & Nunez:'Where Mathematics comes from'). This position is obviously in opposition to the view that mathematics has any independent ontological status.

When I got tired of thinking about alien mathematics, I went back to Youtube and looked up some early-90s Eurodance stuff that I am nostalgic about, and hit on the German group "The Real McCoy" (Another Night, Run Away) etc. In the videos they used a woman band member called Patricia "Patsy" Peterson. In my opinion there has never been a more beautiful woman:



Anyhow, I found out that she never did any of the singing! She used to lip-sync on the videos. The voice on the records was actually Karin Kasar, who got paid a few Deutschmarks for recording the vocals on the songs, and never copped any of the royalties. She wasn't as good looking as Peterson, in the record company's opinion.