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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Columbia Professor: There’s a 50% Chance We’re Living in a Simulation

    This would freak our resident whackjob out if he wasn't too thick to understand it.

    In an influential 2003 paper, University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom laid out the possibility that our reality is a computer simulation dreamed up by a highly advanced civilization. In the paper, he argued that at least one of three propositions must be true:


    1. Civilizations usually go extinct before developing the capability of creating reality simulations.
    2. Advanced civilizations usually have no interest in creating reality simulations.
    3. We’re almost certainly living inside a computer simulation.


    Now, Columbia University astronomer David Kipping took a hard look at these propositions, also known as Bostrom’s “trilemma,” and argued that there’s essentially a 50-50 chance that we are indeed living in a simulation, Scientific American reports.

    Kipping collapsed the first two propositions into one, arguing that they both would result in the same outcome — we are not living inside a simulation.

    “You just assign a prior probability to each of these models,” Kipping told SA. “We just assume the principle of indifference, which is the default assumption when you don’t have any data or leanings either way.”

    Kipping also argues that the more layers of reality a simulation was embedded in, like a Russian doll, the more computer resources would dwindle.

    In other words, the further you went down the rabbit hole, the less computing power you’d have to create a convincing simulation.

    The astronomer’s conclusion after crunching the numbers: it’s about a 50 percent chance that either hypothesis is true.

    But if humans were to ever come up with such a simulation, that picture would change radically.

    “Then you are only left with the simulation hypothesis,” Kipping told SA. “The day we invent that technology, it flips the odds from a little bit better than 50-50 that we are real to almost certainly we are not real, according to these calculations.”

    Other findings could put the question to bed. What if we could detect a “glitch in the Matrix” that showed that our reality is a simulation? Or what if we could demonstrate that the simulation uses quantum superpositions that are only determined when you look at them?

    Others even argue that over the next several decades, our computing know-how will actually allow us to finally confirm once and for all if we do live in a simulation or not.

    For now, we have to contend ourselves with the fact that we just don’t know.

    “It’s arguably not testable as to whether we live in a simulation or not,” Kipping told SA. “If it’s not falsifiable, then how can you claim it’s really science?”

  2. #2
    RIP pseudolus's Avatar
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    Problem is with fools like you Harry - you come across something like this and think it is new. Your best mate David Icke has been writing this for fucking years.

  3. #3
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  4. #4
    RIP pseudolus's Avatar
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    ^ HArrynomates would take neither - he was be on his knees noshing him off, and then wait for MSNBC to tell him what to think as usual.

    David Icke tells theories to Union | Oxford Mail


    Last bit he got spot on as well heh Barry!

    Controversial conspiracy theorist David Icke told an Oxford audience that human beings are "holograms" and that the world was heading towards central control at the hands of a "fascist dictatorship".

    The former goalkeeper and news presenter-turned outspoken commentator this week shared his radical views on politics and society with a rapt audience at the Oxford Union.


    Mr Icke spent two hours expounding his theories to Oxford University students.


    His claims included allegations that the 9/11 attacks were carried out to create a "one world government" and that the physical world is nothing but a holographic illusion.




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    Mr Icke, 56, told them: "The world isn't anything like you thought it was. We're watching a movie ... to give us the impression that we have freedom.


    "The greatest form of control is a prison without bars. People will sit there forever because they don't think they are in a prison at all.


    "The official version of events of 9/11 is an insult to the intelligence. We're being brain- washed with reasons to fear because that's the key to control.


    "The goal is a centrally controlled fascist dictatorship."


    He said Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George W Bush were "puppets of a force that controls them", and claimed political parties were a "sham".


    He went on to claim that the world was similar to the false reality presented in the movie The Matrix, adding: "The world we think is physical is an illusion. There is no 'over there' in terms of physical things.


    "What is 'over there' are just frequency fields that we are decoding into a physical reality that only exists in our mind.


    "The world that we think is physical is like a holographic TV channel. We're living in a holographic world. We're holograms."


    Of his theories, Mr Icke said: "If I'm seen as sane by a world this crazy, I'm disappointed.


    "Truth goes through three stages: first, it's ridiculed; second, it's violently opposed; and third, it's seen as self-evident. I know what the first one felt like - I got that in the early '90s."


    Language student Jonny Wright, 21, said: "It's interesting. I wouldn't say I agreed with much of what he said.


    "There's a point up to where it made sense and a point where it was getting silly. When he said the whole world is a hologram it went from credible stuff to incredible stuff."


    Phillippa Lasocki, 20, a music student, said: "I think he's got some interesting ideas. I went in there with an open mind.


    "He's a philosopher, and you can see the point he's making even if you don't agree with it."


    David Icke was a former Coventry City and Hereford United goalkeeper until he was forced to retire in 1973 at the age of 21 because of arthritis.


    He then became a journalist before moving into television as a stand-in presenter on the BBC show Grandstand.


    He left the BBC after the summer Olympics in 1988 to become an activist in the Green Party and rose to the position of national spokesman (the party back then did not have leaders).


    However he shot to fame in 1991 when he appeared on the Wogan chat show and announced to the country that he was "the son of God".


    He later claimed he had been misinterpreted by the media.


    Mr Icke has now published more than 20 books outlining his views including The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World in which he claimed that a race of reptilian humanoids is secretly controlling the world.


  5. #5
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Turd <- Fly.



    Fucking hell that was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo easy.



  6. #6
    RIP pseudolus's Avatar
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    Newsflash - Harry spreads DAvic Icke Conspiracy THeories -

    LonelyHarry is noting but a tin foil hat wearing waster.

  7. #7
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    Buckaroo Banzai's Avatar
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    a simulation of what?

  8. #8
    Making people dance. :-)
    Edmond's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buckaroo Banzai View Post
    a simulation of what?
    When Harry met Psally.

  9. #9
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond View Post
    When Harry met Psally.

    SSSSsssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhh the shapeshifting lizard aliens are reading this you know.


  10. #10
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    Nutjobs be nuttin'.
    I wonder what drugs icke has taken.

  11. #11
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    Nutjobs be nuttin'.
    I wonder what drugs icke has taken.

  12. #12
    . Neverna's Avatar
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    there’s essentially a 50-50 chance that we are indeed living in a simulation
    Surely that's true. Either we are or we aren't. It must be one or the other.

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat lom's Avatar
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    ^ Who are you to destroy an evolving shitfight with logical arguments?

  14. #14
    . Neverna's Avatar
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    My apologies. Never trust a statistician.

    And 50 is just a number. What's more important is how you feel about it. Carry on.


  15. #15
    . Neverna's Avatar
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    So ignore the Columbia Professor's statement of truth. Let's get to grips with the University of Oxford philosopher's claim that we’re "almost certainly living inside a computer simulation."


    "almost certainly" ... that rings a bell.

    Klondyke, over to you.

  16. #16
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    Nutjobs be nuttin'.
    I wonder what drugs icke has taken.
    He had a complete and untreated mental breakdown.

    Unfortunately, his minor celebrity gave him an instant audience. Otherwise, he would be walking the streets shouting at strangers now, or at home heavily medicated. You know, like pseudopuss.




  17. #17
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    Ukan Kizmiaz's Avatar
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    I guess it depends on what you mean by 'simulation'

  18. #18
    Thailand Expat jabir's Avatar
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    Can someone clarify, do these people get paid for telling us they're nuts?

  19. #19
    . Neverna's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jabir View Post
    Can someone clarify, do these people get paid for telling us they're nuts?
    There’s essentially a 50-50 chance that they are indeed getting paid for telling us they're nuts.












    * Please send your cheques to account number: 011-234-567-8 at the NevBank (Rhododendron Road branch).

  20. #20
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jabir View Post
    Can someone clarify, do these people get paid for telling us they're nuts?
    David Icke has seminars and sells DVDs and shit.

    There is a huge market full of directionless, paranoid loners out there looking for something to believe in, no matter how zany and madcap.

    I reckon pseudo has bought his entire catalogue.

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat lom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    I reckon pseudo has bought his entire catalogue.

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