Simulation
I can say this with some certainty; a simulation is quite different to a modelling exercise.
In the latter, one is hopefully attempting to get the model to exactly represent some limited set of real world data, thereby providing evidence that your model is pretty good, eh.
Whereas in a simulation, you set the thing up and let it evolve. With a bit of luck it either looks like something you recognise, or goes somewhere interesting.
When nerds ponder whether they are living in a computer simulation, generally that just means that their complete lack of creativity is driving them mad.
For reasons related to social progressiveness they have moved on from believing in a god but simply can’t imagine a self nucleating universe. Nor do they want to take responsibility for their own hypocritical actions. Hence the dive into simulation.
But let’s humour them by taking their hypothesis seriously for a minute. If we’re in a simulation, it’s of the evolutionary type which means that eventually we too would develop a simulation of our own.
You can see it starting now with games such as Minecraft and Roblox. In a thousand years time when our technology has evolved sufficiently we’ll make our own simulated universe, down to the sub-quark level.
Eventually the folk in that simulation would do the same, and just like the cat in the hat, there’d be an infinite line of simulations heading upwards and downwards, eventually joining up in an infinite loop of simulations (because time can’t just start, right? Or stop, so it’s all happening simultaneously even if we think it’s sequential).
But entropy tells me that sooner or later someone would trip over a power cord in one of those simulators. When that happens every simulation would fall over. But that hasn’t happened (or doesn’t, if you will), has it?
We used to call that reductio ad absurdum but I guess you don’t want facts to get in the way of any self serving bullshit.
offshore westerly 