Elon Musk thinks we live in the Matrix.

[SergeantBlueforce]

...assuming the media hasn't exaggerated or misrepresented his comments, which often happens.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/03/we-are-almost-definitely-living-in-a-matrix-style-simulation-cla/

http://qz.com/699518/we-talked-to-the-oxford-philosopher-who-gave-elon-musk-the-theory-that-we-are-all-computer-simulations/

(and many other sources besides)

If he really does think this, then I think there are probably a number of flaws in his reasoning, most notably that such a simulation would be a reliable representation of a 'base reality'.

Any particular thoughts on the subject?

Edited June 5, 2016 by SergeantBlueforce

[Superfluous J]

I suspect either the interviewer or Musk (or both) sensationalized the comment, but I do find the argument intriguing. It all comes down to "Can you make a simulation of the Universe that is so accurate to reality, that its inhabitants are as sure they're in reality as you are?"

If you answer "yes," then logically we are almost assuredly in one of those simulations. If you answer "no," then we obviously are not

Edited June 5, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[Nightside]

 

Why would anyone bother to make such a complex simulation in the first place?

 

Unless maybe the singularity ALREADY HAPPENED, destroyed humanity, then recreated our universe as a simulation because it was lonesome.

 

[Superfluous J]

1 minute ago, Nightside said:

Why would anyone bother to make such a complex simulation in the first place?

Other than "besides they can," there are innumerable reasons to make simulations as realistic as possible. If it is not prohibitive to do so, everybody would use the engine to simulate their everything.

[Nibb31]

He's also convinced that AI are going to take over the world, that we need to become cyborgs if we don't want to become their pets, and that he can build colonies on Mars.

Even broken visionaries can be right twice a day. Or something like that.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Nibb31

[PB666]

Well we can all ask if your life follows a movie which one is it. Ive never seen the matrix, so i don't know the relevance to spaceflight and science.  There are al kinds of strange  beliefs out there, people are entitled, if you don't like the reslity you are from create another reality thats creates rose colored glasses of the past. 

Hey, on the bright side aleast he didnt say he was the reincarnation of a 35000 year old caveman, of a vassal of the god thor. 

Edited June 5, 2016 by PB666

[Robotengineer]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

He's also convinced that AI are going to take over the world, that we need to become cyborgs if we don't want to become their pets, and that he can build colonies on Mars.

Even broken visionaries can be right twice a day. Or something like that.

Dang. You really don't like Musk. 

People get simulation theory and the Matrix confused. IIRC (I've only seen snippets of the Matrix) you can disconnect from the Matrix, whereas in simulation theory you can't disconnect because there is nothing to disconnect into. 

[PB666]

3 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

Dang. You really don't like Musk. 

People get simulation theory and the Matrix confused. IIRC (I've only seen snippets of the Matrix) you can disconnect from the Matrix, whereas in simulation theory you can't disconnect because there is nothing to disconnect into. 

You just had to confuse things with logic. 

[Bill Phil]

If you set up that it can be done in an extremely accurate way, then, assuming it's more likely that we would be born into larger population groups, it's not a great stretch to say we're in a simulation. With a simulation you can have larger populations much easier.

[PB666]

30 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

If you set up that it can be done in an extremely accurate way, then, assuming it's more likely that we would be born into larger population groups, it's not a great stretch to say we're in a simulation. With a simulation you can have larger populations much easier.

Folks what are we 'seriously' talking about here. Where does this conversation get our group?

[Bill Phil]

8 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Folks what are we 'seriously' talking about here. Where does this conversation get our group?

It doesn't really matter in any case. There's not much of an effect, unless we can somehow hack the system.

[PB666]

4 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

It doesn't really matter in any case. There's not much of an effect, unless we can somehow hack the system.

Ok, i grant everyone the power to hack the system, what would you change in the universe program, go back in time and change critical mistakes in your life. Give yourself the ability to predict every market turn and who wins major sporting events.  You pull back the curtain, your lives become nothing, you cant exist outside of the machine and its vanilla sky unvieled, worse than  than that you're tom cruise. 

[Bill Phil]

48 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Ok, i grant everyone the power to hack the system, what would you change in the universe program, go back in time and change critical mistakes in your life. Give yourself the ability to predict every market turn and who wins major sporting events.  You pull back the curtain, your lives become nothing, you cant exist outside of the machine and its vanilla sky unvieled, worse than  than that you're tom cruise. 

I was thinking more along the lines of FTL.

And we could exist outside the system. Just need a vessel.

[NateDaBeast]

I think you have to go a little bit crazy to start believing we are in a computer simulation. Not saying it's impossible but I really doubt it.

[PB666]

43 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

I was thinking more along the lines of FTL.

And we could exist outside the system. Just need a vessel.

Consider that you are a sprite in a pc simulation. You were made from a class and wre objectified at run time. Therefore the machine has to run for you to exists, if i then placed in a sprite autonomous unit and put you in the 'real' world what would be your meaning, would you make sense out of what i was doing, nope. Because the rality of the sprite does not need to parallel the real world. So in the real world the sprites sense of value have no meaning. In fact, unless we specifically program the sprite to be able to visualize the system process, that process would never be visible to the sprite no matter how hard it looked. It could deduce a circuit to it it would be logical relationships, but never visualize the 3-d shape of a circuit in our world because it can never see our elements, etc. 

Edited June 6, 2016 by PB666

[Matuchkin]

So even Musk is potty. After being defiant to so many conspiracy theorists against him, it's quite sad to see this.

[PB666]

3 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

So even Musk is potty. After being defiant to so many conspiracy theorists against him, it's quite sad to see this.

Lesson in this, unless you are a psychoanalyst and get paid for it, don't evedrop on others inner thoughts, you would become very depressed about the world if you did. 

Edited June 6, 2016 by PB666

[SinBad]

This speculation is assuming that the simulation is running on a system that exists in a universe with our physical laws. What if the simulation is a simplified version of the real universe? If we were to create a simulated universe with the sole purpose of evolving virtual life, we would probablry start with a 2 dimensional universe and a handfull of basic rules governing interactions. To the beings inside, it would seem that the universe made sense and they would have a very hard time understanding ours.

[Bill Phil]

42 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Consider that you are a sprite in a pc simulation. You were made from a class and wre objectified at run time. Therefore the machine has to run for you to exists, if i then placed in a sprite autonomous unit and put you in the 'real' world what would be your meaning, would you make sense out of what i was doing, nope. Because the rality of the sprite does not need to parallel the real world. So in the real world the sprites sense of value have no meaning. In fact, unless we specifically program the sprite to be able to visualize the system process, that process would never be visible to the sprite no matter how hard it looked. It could deduce a circuit to it it would be logical relationships, but never visualize the 3-d shape of a circuit in our world because it can never see our elements, etc. 

Meaning? There already is none. What's your point?

Sprites can be moved. So can their files. 

 

[Just Jim]

OK... chew on this...

If... and this is big, most likely fictional "if"... but if we did live in the matrix, and we're more or less just characters in a computer simulation, and we all play KSP inside the matrix, which is also a computer simulation..... then what does that make the kerbals themselves???  

Are they real and trapped inside a matrix squared???

Edited June 6, 2016 by Just Jim

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

Ive never seen the matrix

You should. It's a pretty good movie and if you ignore the "science" for the philosophy of it, it's pretty intriguing. Just don't watch the sequels because they're hot garbage.

This discussion though has as much to do with the movie as the suffix "-ception" has to do with things within copies of themselves. i.e.: Nothing, but hey movie title yay read our article!

The Matrix had a computer simulation of Earth in it. Musk was talking about living in a computer simulation of Earth. That's all.

[Nibb31]

8 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

Dang. You really don't like Musk. 

Nah, he's probably a pretty ok human being. He just has a bit of a reality distortion field around him.

What does annoy me are the fanboys who drink up every drop of kool aid that he distills.

An interesting point is this though: if he want's to live on Mars, AND he believes that in a couple of years we will have VR simulations that are indistinguishable from reality, then the easiest way for him to die on Mars is to do it in VR. At least it will be much easier to bend the rules of physics to get everything working.

Quote

People get simulation theory and the Matrix confused. IIRC (I've only seen snippets of the Matrix) you can disconnect from the Matrix, whereas in simulation theory you can't disconnect because there is nothing to disconnect into. 

That's only because the plot of the movie would have been a bit dull if there was no way to get viewers to see what the reality of the Matrix was. The ability to disconnect from the simulation is irrelevant when someone is talking about the theoretical model.

The whole idea of simulated reality is fun to ponder, but it's just as irrelevant as afterlife or multiverse theories. There is no way to prove or disprove them, and it really doesn't matter because there is no way of ever perceiving or controlling anything outside of our reality. We have a set of rules to work with, so let's work with them.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Nibb31

[Scotius]

I suspect it is a philosophical thing. We humans want a purpose to our existence. Earlier it was easy: God(s) created us for some reason. Now, as science is digging deeper and deeper into laws of, well - everything, space left for Creator is shrinking. So, searching for rhyme and reason for our existence, people start looking beyond what science can explain and prove. Beyond Big Bang and our current reality. And computers and simulations running on them are currently best things our imagination can latch to - "Hey! If we can simulate a village full of peasants, or fortress of dwarfs, or island filled with dinosaurs - maybe some super-advanced aliens are simulating us!"

[DBowman]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

The ability to disconnect from the simulation is irrelevant when someone is talking about the theoretical model.

Well the Matrix 'happens' in your organic brain, you experience the Matrix because it has some MMO style server that 'tickles' your sensory (etc) neurons. It's a human in reality experiencing a multiplayer simulation.

In simulation theory the entities doing the experiencing have no existence independent of the simulation. For simulation theory to 'work' consciousness would have to be an epiphenomenon, and then the simulated  consciousnesses would be as much a part of our reality as we were - they'd just have some (more?) layers of 'indirection' between them and 'base reality'. But if we cannot make consciousness (strong AI) then 'simulation theory' cannot be so, but even with we made AI that looked strong & claimed to be strong how would we ever know for sure?

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

There is no way to prove or disprove them, and it really doesn't matter because there is no way of ever perceiving or controlling anything outside of our reality.

If you think about the kinds of simulations we do you can tell they are simulations; they are quantized, finite (either with closed loops, edges, or bounded computation), & often have aliasing artifacts for example. You could imagine using ideas about these kinds of 'signatures' as evidence in favour or not of 'this' being a simulation. It seems reasonable that the simulators could interpret the simulation, if so then the simulators and the simulatees could communicate  (it's just a really inefficient AI). If you can communicate then you can 'control' to some extent... In practice I think we'll never know, but I don't think it's in principle unknowable. 

[p1t1o]

My two pence:

Ssssshhhhh, Elon, sssshhhhhh its ok, we still want your rockets.