[iahwrites]

In response to your second point, at a high level I believe the calculation device would exist inside _one_ universe but calculate another one... the idea that you could calculate your own universe and use that to predict future events does seem covered in paradoxes. For one, the universe you're predicting would (recursively) have to include the computer you're using to predict it.

... but that's different to what I've argued here. I'm not claiming the states are physical objects, but just the existing of the pattern, even if temporary or intangible, would feel real to the humans/actors inside it.

[smokel]

My premise was that the universe was universal, i.e. there is no other universe. Again, I'm not saying that this is the case, or that there is any reason to believe that it is so, but I don't see a good reason why there would be more than one universe. (Note that all of this depends a bit on the definition of a universe -- for the sake of argument, I'm assuming our universe to be a system closed under physical interactions. Happy to argue about other universes, but perhaps it's best to save that for another time.)

If you are trying to prove the existence of this universe by requiring the existence of another universe, then it's turtles all the way down.

How do you define "existing" of a pattern? Does it exist inside a physical thing? If so, then how does that physical container come into existence? And if it exists only conceptually, then how is it possible for concepts to exist? In the universe that I know, concepts only exist in the minds of human beings, and perhaps in some other animals. To me, it seems rather unlikely (and a bit anthropocentric or egocentric) that concepts are something truly universal.

For me, it helped to meditate a lot on what it'd be like to be a rock. The rock does not have memory, no sensory input, and therefore most likely no concept of time, space, logic, nor mathematics. It makes you wonder whether the rock exists at all. In any case, it probably doesn't care as much about it as we humans do. There might be a hint there.

[paulrudy]

[Wyslawa Szymborska's "Coversation With a Stone"](https://web.archive.org/web/20201127013535/https://www.tweet...)

And also

> Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones: But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.

-- Richard Wilbur, from ["Epistemology"](https://web.archive.org/web/20211109141828/https://www.poetr...)

[mannykannot]

> The calculation device would exist inside one universe but calculate another one...

Hmm... calculation device? I thought the premise here is that actually doing the calculation is not necessary - a tenet you invoke in order to say say elsewhere [1] that the computational complexity does not matter, as the notionally simulated universe exists anyway.

But if that were so, would it not do away with the distinction between simulating and simulated universes, creating the situation where every possible universe exists in every extant universe?

That's a lot of universes.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37449804