# simulation: my answer to the meaning life
when i was a little kid, i always wondered where the christmas gifts come from. people told me that jesus puts all the presents under the christmas tree. since the gifts were there and i was not a particularly bright person (still not), i accepted this explanation. they also told me that a god created the world and that i will live forever in the heaven or hell after i die. but then i noticed that one of toys i got was not new. so i pestered my parents about it and they admitted that the gifts do not come from jesus but from them. so then i questioned people about the rest of the story and most of them admitted that it is just a story, it is not something that i can verify with my own eyes. i have to "believe". ummm. right. i think i will look around first, thanks.
so then i read about the people who claim that there is absolutely nothing after death. there are no supernatural beings, there are no souls. we are just simple biological meatbags that completely vanish after their expiration. there is not much point to life other than just to "experience" and "enjoy" it while it lasts. i will not get another chance. there is nothing happening after death, just like nothing happened before birth.
i found this quite an agreeable position. it is quite practical, its explanation does not seem to require concepts that we cannot experience. however since i went through one big disillusion before, i was trying to be more open minded just in case i see even more convincing newer theories. however as i was reading discussions around the topic, this biological-only camp seemed just as convinced about their truth as their religious counterparts. i understand that believing in mystical entities is not practical but flat out stating that things cannot possibly exist seemed presumptuous. so i kept a "i do not know" stance instead.
later i came across the simulation argument. it says that assuming a civilization can reach the technological point where it can run complex simulations, it is possible that it has already happened. if one civilization can reach it then probably many others can too. if that is the case then there are many simulations running in the world. in fact it is quite likely that most living organisms are in a simulation, including us.
i quite liked this train of thought. it does not try to explain what the world is, it just a shows one possibility. it just says there we cannot be sure but there is a chance that this is happening. at this point this did not look any more practical than the complete denial of supernaturalism but the idea was nevertheless interesting.
so i began thinking about simulations in general. how would i implement them? how would i play in them? thinking like this opened my eyes. this simulation assumption actually gives me practical ways on how to approach the "what is the meaning of life", "what is the point", "how should i live my life" sort of questions. all i need to do is just to apply my thoughts about the implementation and simulation playing to this simulation (my life). so true or not, it is practical for me.
one could argue that religion is also practical and beneficial. in fact it is quite likely if we consider it from evolutionary standpoint. there are many religions in the world. the ones that are overly harmful probably died out and the ones that survived probably contain many beneficial practices. the problem is that to pick up a religion's practices, one also has to pick up its way of thinking which is usually "stop thinking". but i quite like some of the ideas religion has like
and probably more. however i think all this is achievable without the need to stop thinking and blindly believing in mystical stories.
my foray into the simulation hypothesis will not rise to as mature way of life as a religion but at least it is based on logic that i agree with. and eventually little by little i can build up a similarly practical life based on the observations from this hypothesis. so let me talk aobut what implications i found from this.
the first way i think about the simulation hypothesis is how would i implement it. there are two main ways to do it: i can make it static or i can make it interactive.
by static simulation i mean something like a movie. the story is given, i can replay it many times, the same thing happens every time. perhaps i can replay the same events from a different person's perspective. i write a story i like then i can "join and live through" the characters. this assumption leads to observations like "there is no free will", "everybody has an importance" or "there will be a grand ending".
by interactive simulation i mean something like a video game. there is no real story given. all i have is this big sandbox where everybody is to themselves. this leads to observations like "there is not much meaning to all of this" or "just have fun while it lasts".
my personal take on this is that we live in an interactive simulation. i take this view solely from practical point of view. if the simulation is like a movie then it does not matter what i do so i might become unmotivated. however if it is interactive then what i do matters in the long haul.
then i also have to think about how complex the simulation can be. if i had to implement it, i would probably go with the simplest implementation. this means earth is the only planet in the entire universe with life on it. i would also make arbitrary constants that make my implementation simpler like limiting the maximum speed matter or effects can travel so that the supercomputers simulating all this have an easier time chomping through all the data.
the other way to think about all this is to think about why and how would i participate in the simulation. similarly i can ask why would i want to watch a movie or why would i want to play a video game. there are usually two primary reasons to do either of those. i play because i am bored. it is entirely possible that the outside world is so boring that i am looking for more fulfillment in the simulation. if i look at it this way, then i am in this for the fun. just make sure the fun lasts long. alternatively i might be playing the game or watching the movie because i want to feel challenged and want to feel that i overcame the challenges. the world is full of challenges. it is up to me take a chunk of it and complete them.
my take is on that i play this because i am bored in the outside world. compare single and multiplayer games. in single player games there is a challenge i have to overcome. however if i do not follow the game's campaign, the game does not progress. also note that the characters in the game have usually different roles, each helping me towards the goal or being the challenge i have to overcome. the single player games usually have a beginning and end. once i overcome the challenge, the game loses its appeal. on the other hand in multiplayer games i usually play with other players. most challenges in multiplayer games would be meaningless without the other players. i play the game with others, me playing the game makes the game in some sense. most players have the same roles and the game does not lose its appeal over time as long as the player base is good. i play this game because it is fun, which means not playing the game is a more boring activity.
the world i observe feels more like the multiplayer game where each player plays for themselves rather than the single player game where each other entity is there only for me. this is why i think that i am here out of boredom.
my biggest epiphany came when i considered to look at how i watch movies or play video games. would it be a fun movie if the movie consisted of just other people watching movies? or would it be fun if the video game consisted of playing other video games? let me phrase it this way. suppose i want to play a shooter game. in the shooter game i find an arcade machine on which i can play, say, pacman. would i play pacman on it? for a few minutes, sure. but would i invest a lot of time into playing pacman? if i like pacman so much, why not play a game that is pacman and therefore is probably better designed? why would i invest a large chunk of resources into a complex simulation in which i play a simpler simulation?
this led me to my first practical observation: watching movies or playing videogames is silly! to play now and then is fine but i must avoid sinking hours daily into these activities.
and then many other observations started pouring in.
if this is a multiplayer game for fun, i should not ruin the game for others. in fact, it is best if i can improve it for others. i should make the world a better place to live in. ugh, tough order. but not ruining the game is a good start.
if i am playing a multiplayer game then it is the other players that make the game fun. it means that i am meant to live among others. i am meant to interact with others.
if i am in this complex simulation with all these rich sensors in my body, i am probably meant to use them. for instance in person interaction and communication always feels richer thanks to all these sensors than the low bandwidth messaging or videochat solutions. messaging is very good for coordination but i should not use it to maintain long distance relationships. i should build new ones so that i can the use the rich communication channel again.
players come and go. i should not stress too much about particular players. if a player goes away forever, i shall seek other players to have fun with.
i should not stress too much about the past or lost opportunities. i can probably always respawn and play again if i did not feel fully satisfied.
there is no end goal other than being happy. once i reach the point where we can sustain ourselves with little work indefinitely, i should free up any unneeded resources we use (e.g. a job) and help others achieve a similar state. with this hypothesis, it is the other people rather than one's material possessions that makes one happy.
and i could probably go on. but the general gist is that based on that the meaning of life for me is to be happy, achieve happiness through personal relationships, and help others be happy. this is a generally well accepted meaning to life. but the nice thing about this is that i do not need to blindly accept this because people in authority told me so. i devised this conclusion from concepts i am familiar with via reasoning that i agree with. it does not really matter if simulation hypothesis is true or not, it is a mental tool for me that helps me make sense of the world. if i cannot understand something in the world, i can use this tool to ask myself how and why would i implement such a thing. sometimes things make a little more sense when looked that way. so therefore my current stance about world is "we probably live in a simulation" just because it is a practical assumption.
published on 2017-12-03