For a scientist that is the most repellent thing you can do reject something because you don't like it (we call that a prior) or you think it is implausible.
Quantum tunneling is implausible BUT it happens.
And there is the idea of keeping an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. Quantum tunneling is implausible, but it also happens to fall out of QM, just the way so many other things you talk about do. The universe as a simulation doesn't fall out of any theory, it falls out of science fiction.
Move forward to 2008 and science can falsify the idea because science can show you can't simulate the universe because QM is now placed as a property of the universe and only a QM computer could fully simulate a QM universe and you can't restrict it to the observer patch mode ... if you want to test yourself why can't you use observer patches on a QM universe?
I see no problem with a computer simulation of QM. Remember that when you are writing a simulation program you can write anything into it that you want to. That includes things that are impossible in reality. If you are writing a simulation of a scientific process then you want to write it so that the output matches reality. But if you are writing a fantasy game you can make anything happen that you want to, including things that are impossible in reality. Remember in a simulation it doesn't have to really happen, it just has to look like it does.
And then there is the next question; Where did that computer come from?
That is really not a valid question Bill even to someone who believes in GOD one could pose the question "Does GOD have a GOD?", how would they answer it?
It is an ontological argument and you just made a variation of the theme.
I don't know why it isn't a good question. Are you now arguing that there is a god and he created the computer that we are being simulated on?
And then of course if we are being simulated on a computer then we are back to the subject of my original post. A computer simulation is basically a mathematical construct. People who build flight simulators have a lot of high level programmers working to generate the mathematical calculations required to create realistic views in the display. And since you don't believe the universe is a mathematical construct you can't believe that the universe is a simulation.
I realize that you don't believe that the universe is a simulation. But you are making arguments against my statements that agree with you, based on your interpretation of how I reached them. Basically I looked at the idea of the universe being a simulation and realized that the likelihood of its being real was so remote that I could ignore it. Now if somebody could actually come up with something that showed it was possible then I would reconsider the matter. For now the sheer improbability of it is enough to keep me from believing it.
Bill Gill
