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Greasy Dolphin
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Greasy Dolphin
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Delicious Bedbug
Below is a mind-bending Guest Post by Kind Nightingale **Protected: Does Bitcoin Break The Simulation?** After thinking deeply about physics, reality, simulation theory, and proof-of-work for a long time, I came to some insights that sound wild, but quite plausible. While many others have already written about simulation theory, I have something new to add: the interaction with Bitcoin and ***the distinct possibility that Bitcoin destroys The Simulation.*** **Are We In A Simulation?** I’ve accumulated many arguments suggesting we’re in a simulation – and one pesky argument against it. Here are some from the “for” side: **1. Bostrom (“Game Power”)** There has been a difficult-to-read short paper published on this (Bostrom, 2003), but Elon Musk has been the one to bring it to popular attention recently. Slight paraphrasing him: A dense but influential paper on this was published by Bostrom (Bostrom, 2003), but Elon Musk brought it into the spotlight. To paraphrase him: *“If you assume any rate of improvement over time – 1%, 0.1% – just extend the timeframe, and games will eventually be indistinguishable from reality. Either that happens, or civilisation ends. One of those two outcomes. Therefore, we are most likely in a simulation.”* —Elon Musk, Joe Rogan Experience, episode 1169
Musk extrapolates that if civilisation isn’t destined to destroy itself, then given enough time, there should be billions of simulations indistinguishable from reality because simulations continuously get better. It’s a very compelling argument, but there is a critical flaw which I’ll come to later. **2. Quantum Mechanics is Too Weird** **Copenhagen Interpretation:** The more we learn about reality, the stranger it appears – almost to the point of being unbelievable. At the subatomic level, particles and light are described by a wave function, which represents a probability distribution over all possible states. This wave function evolves smoothly over time. However, when a measurement is made, the wave function appears to “collapse” to a single outcome. For example, a particle might exist in a superposition of being in multiple places at once, but upon measurement, it is found in only one location. So the key idea is: reality is undefined until measured, and quantum mechanics only predicts probabilities of outcomes, not underlying reality itself. **Competing interpretations:** I personally don’t know a lot about the mathematics of quantum physics, but there are competing explanations about the nature of what is observed. For completeness, I give you a list that is safe to skip over: **1. Many-Worlds Interpretation (Everett)** - No collapse, and all outcomes happen, but in different branches of the universe. - Reality is the full multiverse of wavefunctions. **2. de Broglie–Bohm Theory (Pilot-Wave)** - Particles always have definite positions. - The wavefunction is real and guides them (like a hidden GPS). **3. Objective Collapse Theories** - Collapse is a real, physical process, not just from observation. **4. Quantum Bayesianism (QBism)** - The wavefunction isn’t reality — it’s a tool for *personal belief* about outcomes. **5. Relational Quantum Mechanics** - Reality is relative: properties exist only *in relation to an observer.* - No absolute state of the system. **Explanation of WHY – The Simulation** The simulation comes into this when we ask, “Why should it be this way?”. If you were designing a computer simulation of the universe, would you need to accurately calculate every position of every subatomic particle in every star in every galaxy for the total of the universe? Why would you when you can create a probability function and save your computer’s computation power? Especially if no one is looking. Why not do that for all subatomic particles until someone makes a measurement and “checks”? Another way to think of it, if you have ever played exploration games, a map of the game world exists, but you only have lit up the areas you have explored. The rest of the map is dark. It’s there, but no calculations, and no graphics rendering until you need to look. The universe is behaving like this. **3. Fermi Paradox** We’ve found no conclusive evidence of aliens. Why? With an estimated 10²⁴ stars (that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), and countless planets in “Goldilocks zones,” life should be common – carbon based or not. One explanation: the universe isn’t actually as vast as it appears, and the Simulation may impose limits that prevent us from ever verifying its scale. ... show more
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Greasy Dolphin
it's Friday. I like silly. maybe it's time to share my take on this simulation stuff. ...you know, he's really a brilliant, deeply dedicated, much under-appreciated mind, truly creative and innovative. and the bored out of his f'n mind lab tech running our sim. who? Murphy. yes, he of 's Law... show more
Karnage
A diamond is forever might have been the most brilliant and successful marketing stunt ever pulled. Even if you know about the scam, there still exists social stigma to comply.
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Greasy Dolphin
>>social stigma to comply. sounds exactly the kind of thing that a nostrich would just laugh about and then simply not accept. maybe not all the way out to a gfy! level of disdain, but come on, ooh! shiny is shiny is shiny. she'll have no big regrets if she happens to leave a moissanite delight... show more
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Greasy Dolphin
celebrate the simple joys. #flowers
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Defeated Fowl
#AskNostr
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Defeated Fowl
Gm 🌞 Im trying to make the point in a video that bitcoin is not a cult (although it can feel like it 🤣) Could you please help: Would you commment below the most cult like bitcoin memes you have seen or shared?
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Greasy Dolphin
well, the obvious: the HODL and the "we're so early" memes, for starters. . a good Q would be to define (for yourself) what a "cult" is, and why it's not a good thing to be in one. is that really true? can we reframe the cult v. tribe-membership aspect w/o it being seen as tainted by being an... show more