Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 12:28 PM
Context : In Doctor Who episode Extremis, a way to know whether you are part of a computer simulation is mentioned : If two people choose a "random" number at the same time, the numbers will be the same. Supposedly, this is because when computers generate pseudorandom numbers with the same seed, the sequence of numbers is the same. I do not agree.
If you are making a computer simulation of the world (say, at atomic level), the simulation of a brain has no use for a PRNG (pseudorandom number generator). When you are choosing a "random" number, there is nothing random in your brain. When saying "three", there is no "three" in your brain. Therefore, there is no need for a PRNG. So there is none. So, if you are part of a computer simulation and two people choose "random" numbers, they should often be different.
Another thing that annoys me, is that they also say that you can escape the simulation by suicide. Even if you die, the simulation continues, your body is still there and is still interacting with the environment. You cannot escape the simulation.
Another thing that annoys me, is that they also say that every person is a separate program in the simulation. This is ridiculous, to me there is no separation between the body and the environment. It therefore does not make sense to separate the body and environment by making the bodies programs. To me, the entire simulation should be a single program. You can read one of my older blog post : http://log.philippe97.ca/2023-10.html#1698436761