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I think the experiment as designed could show you that you are inside a simulation, but would make it hard to show you were real.

Think about time-lapse photography and simulated photons. As we get better at doing time-lapse photography (more FPS), we might see movement along the predicted course become step-wise (rather than a smooth function). Barring some weird physical phenomena, this could show we were inside a simulation.

But it's also possible that the simulation's FPS is far higher than what we can ever measure. That doesn't make it any less a simulation, but we also can't assume it's reality.




Such a result would show that we're in a simulation built with technology and scientific understanding not entirely different from our own -- that whoever modeled us modeled us after themselves.

But the lack of such a finding wouldn't necessarily disprove a simulation. It's possible we're in a very simplified model of the real universe, and that the simulators --whoever or whatever they are -- inhabit a universe of very different physics and phenomena. Broadly and metaphorically speaking, we're trying to probe for the glass walls at the edge of the fish tank. But what if it's not a fish tank?




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