Cosmologic philosophy: our universe a simulation? (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, April 25, 2016, 12:33 (2916 days ago) @ BBella

Dhw: I'm surprised that anyone is surprised by this “dramatic” conclusion. The world as an illusion is as old as philosophy. ... Coincidentally, this ties in with BBella's challenge to find a theory that could explain the (hypothetical) “reality” of psychic experiences. This, she and I have agreed, boils down to the statement: “Reality is whatever the individual thinks it is.”-DAVID: I don't worry about it. I'm simply happy to work with what I have been given.-A good healthy philosophy which I am pleased to share!-DAVID (under “Cosmological philosophy")`: To me this is the height of Sci-Fi foolishness:
http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-thinks-the-universe-might-be-a-simul...
QUOTES: "So at this year's 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History, which addressed the question of whether the universe is a simulation, the answers from some panelists may be more comforting than the responses from others.
"Physicist Lisa Randall, for example, said that she thought the odds that the universe isn't "real" are so low as to be "effectively zero."
"But on the other hand, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was hosting the debate, said that he thinks the likelihood of the universe being a simulation "may be very high."-Same subject, and I'm afraid this made me laugh. All these learned folk gathering together (no doubt at great expense) to discuss whether they are actually there.-Bbella: Along with Tyson, I would be one in the room not surprised as well - since I have imagined this very idea since my earliest memories (way before true technology). But one of my favorite top movies of all time, The Thirteenth Floor, gives another spin more to my own thinking on the whole simulation idea. Yes, our bodies would be a part of the whole created simulation, but unlike Tyson's idea, it would not be "for some entity's" entertainment, but for our own.-As I said earlier, the idea is as old as philosophy, and as always it's Shakespeare who finds the perfect words: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” says Prospero. But I am real to myself in the present, and everything in my world is real to me. My past is a dream. My future holds more realities that will turn into dreams. One day, I may have no more realities, and I shall be somebody else's dream.