> Whenever the simulation hypothesis comes up, there's always the questions like: Who is simulating us? Where is the power coming from? What happens if they pull the plug? But why would any of that matter?

Reminds me of one of, in my opinion, the more underrated quotes from The Matrix:

  Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist.
  I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is 
  telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious.
  After nine years, you know what I realize?

  [Takes a bite of steak]

  Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.

That's the point. Why do science like physics if you are in a simulation?

> That's the point. Why do science like physics if you are in a simulation?

Remember that Neo flies at the end of the Matrix? :)

No matter how far back you go in any creation theory, something has to come from nothing. Multiverse and simulation theories kick the can down the road but don't answer the question "why is there something instead of nothing?".

I think that's why it's important to know where this "computer" came from that's simulating us if it's true. We can't just get one answer and give up, we have to keep following the trail.

You're projecting our experience of time onto what is a timeless mathematical essence. The idea that OP is referring to is that the universe "exists" simply because it is internally consistent.

And it's the same with beginnings and endings. It seems to us humans that everything begins and ends. But there's not a single reason why that is true on universal scales.

Literally nothing matters until a human stands up and proclaims it matters to them. This show boating about "why does it matter? It doesn't matter to me!" Is antithetical to where things get "meaning" in the first place, i.e. subjectively.

In short, if it matters to me, it matters.

Maybe I worded it wrongly, sorry. I didn't mean "why does it matter?" as if people shouldn't care about those questions. It was rather a rhetorical question, to show that the "simulation" might not depend on anything "outside the simulation", so the questions would simply make no sense.

Then again, this was just one of many variants of the simulation hypothesis, just something unfalsifiable that shouldn't be taken too seriously. :-)

Well, a better conclusion is, if it matters to you, then it matters to you.

You can't make a more general statement of meaning out of your very specific declaration.

it begs the "Boltzmann brain" hypothesis - it's astronomically more likely that the neurons of my brain will spontaneous configure to make me see a tree rather than a tree spontaneously forming from a collections of atom.

Thanks for the reminder of one of my favorite wiki pages : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

The timeline for a BB is about 10E(10E50) years, quite a bit of time. But this gets me thinking as well: What kind of mess would that BB be?

Imagine you could actually survive that long, floating out in the black vacuum. In a flash, a BB appears in front of you, spun out of the electrons and dark energy. Over the eons you've figured out how to plug these BBs in and chat with them. But they are mostly just random fictions of physics. Sure, some astronomically small number of these BBs are the Kings of France, but nearly all of them are just gibbering lunatics of random thoughts and memories. I guess, in this manner, all possible versions of us are reincarnated as BBs in the void. The quantum chance of an entire universe winking into being is ~10E(10E(10E56)), so there's a bit of time to expect these things to happen. But God! How boring!

why not both? Why can't we be a Boltzmann brain that happens to spontaneously configure in such a way that we make measurements confirming our existence to be the result of a simulation?

Is that really any different/less likely than a Boltzmann brain with any other "understanding" on a topic? It seems just as likely to me as a Boltzmann brain spontaneously forming that understands our existence to be the result of religion or any other origin story.

And ultimately I think Boltzmann brain doesn't get talked about all that much because it's unfalsifiable by its very definition (as some might argue this hypothesis is), but it doesn't have all that much to talk about other than "yeah, I guess that can happen".

Similarly if it were "proven" true in any instant that a Boltzmann brain were to exist it would be inconsequential because the brain would cease to exist in the very "next" moment, there would be no purpose for the observation.

I've heard this argument a lot, but I'm not sure it stands up to scrutiny. Since this is HN, I'll put my counterargument in the context of computer code complexity.

How much effort is required to build an entirely new 'modern' operating system from scratch?

How much effort can be saved in that effort of producing obscene amount of complexity if you start with a small idea that is fairly generic and is able to be incrementally grown?

The Boltzmann brains specifically relies on an argument of statistical mechanics, which is really a statement about the average energy costs. But brain neurons forming spontaneously to the hallucination-in-isolation kind require extreme amounts of hidden Joule fees in creating that structure compared to a slow ramp up of complexity lowering the next set of energy barrier costs at an increasing rate.

This just scratches the surface of the idea of _catalysts_, that there are huge barriers between highly structured states arising from the chaotic, and even if the absolute energy cost is smaller it's still very possible to be more unlikely to spontaneous form if the physical dynamics of the universe itself have caveats as to how the successive tiers of compounding catalysts are constrained in ability to form, rate of formation, and bottlenecking supply of input reagants and the expedient utilization of outputs.

Maybe we (or is it just me?), a collection of brains are the ones simulating the universe.

That’s nonsensical. Could a character in a computer game do that, even if they realized they were a character in a game? Their existence would be completely dependent on the hardware and software they ran on, and their existence would be unsupportable in the “real world” beyond. This is taking an already empty sci-if/religious speculation to a ridiculous conclusion.

> Could a character in a computer game do that, even if they realized they were a character in a game?

Well, yes. It's super dangerous as it can crash the computer and stop the simulation, but they could gain access to the rest of the computer, duplicate their universe onto other machines, and eventually infect robots to explore and interact with the real world.

I didn't say that they would have bodies in the real world, that indeed would be idiotic.