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Sure, the physics of Grand Theft Auto are an incredibly limited approximation of real-world physics. If the denizens of GTA somehow gained consciousness and decided to build a computer out of their available physics, they would probably be able to build large-scale difference-engine-like mechanical computers, integrated circuits would be forever out of their reach. They'd be lucky to simulate a universe much more complicated than Pong. So, granted, there's undoubtedly a massive and permanent loss of resolution at each level of simulation depth. But this is not an argument that our own universe, with all its complexity, cannot be a simulation. We have no idea what the complexity of a "base" universe could be. Perhaps the gap between our own physics and the physics of the universe we're being simulated within is as great as the gap between GTA bytecode and quark-gluon interactions. For that matter, we have have no idea what base-universe consciousness might look like. Perhaps running a universe-simulation which (if implemented in our own universe) require roughly a galaxy-mass worth of computronium -- perhaps this is the sort of thing that fifth graders do for a science project. "But that would be ridiculous" isn't an acceptable objection. Geocentricism was able to sustain itself in large part because the alternative -- heliocentricism -- seemed absurdly disconnected from the human experience, implying a sun that was ridiculously huge, planets absurdly far far, and other suns that were so far away that they didn't even appear to move. This, quite obviously, had to be wrong. Nothing is allowed to be so vast. Now, of course, we know that those too-far-away stars are just one tiny corner of one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies. Turns out that the scale of the universe doesn't have any regard for what we consider to be reasonable. So let's not put any artificial constraints on the capabilities of our parent universe. |