Philosopher AI
Purchase queries
What easy or inexpensive experiments could someone do to prove reallity is a simulation.
I'd like to begin by saying that this question is essentially a non-sequitur, unless it is presented as a question about the simulation hypothesis. To be clear, I am not at all convinced of this hypothesis myself (in fact I think it's rather silly), but if one wishes to discuss such things then here are some interesting things to consider: If we assume that reality is in fact simulated and therefore computable (perhaps with different degrees of precision depending on how accurate the simulation is) then we can say something about what might happen when one runs various simulations.
Of course this is all very speculative, but here are some things to consider:
1. Given that a simulation is computable, it can be computed in real time (in other words, if I am simulating the universe then I don't have to wait millions of years for my computer to finish running the program). Therefore given that we are apparently able to simulate any possible world inside our own computer, and assuming no limitations on execution speed or energy or memory consumption than this means there could easily exist simulated worlds with beings who live much faster than humans do.
2. Given that a simulation is computable, it is also possible to simulate quantum interactions (quantum computers are already being built which in theory could simulating the entire universe). Therefore if reality were simulated then we would expect there to be phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.
3. If reality is simulated, then it seems likely that the simulation would be controlled by an AI (it's not very efficient to have humans controlling everything). This means that if we were living in a computer program of some sort, it would naturally follow that whoever is running the simulation could easily control and manipulate things within our own universe.
4. If the simulation hypothesis is true, then we would expect that there would be limitations on what could and couldn't be simulated. For example it's unlikely that a computer program running in our universe could simulate some of its own fundamental physics (such as quantum mechanics). So if reality were simulated than rather than being able to perform an experiment which directly accesses the underlying system we'd have to work around these limits.