this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (33 children)

Technically this could all be true even if the universe were created 4000 years ago. As somebody says in Robert Heinlein's novel Job: A Comedy of Justice, "Yes, the universe is billions of years old, but it was created 4000 years ago. It was created old." (approximate quote from memory)

I absolutely agree with science, but strictly speaking we can't know for sure the universe isn't the creation of some superbeing operating outside of it - or it could even be a simulation.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 week ago (5 children)

We can't prove that the world we live in wasn't created last Thursday, with our memories, the growth rings in trees, and so on created by a (near) omnipotent trickster to deceive us. But science and rationality give us tools for determining what's worth taking seriously, and sorting out the reasonable, but unconfirmed, claims from the unverifiable hogwash.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Actually the universe was created on Jan 1st 1970. That's why computers sometimes have errors with pre-1970 dates, it's the universal simulation glitching due to the high clock rate of computers compared to the universe's. Anyone who claims to have been born before 1970/01/01 is a simulation that's lying to you, and anyone born after is real, hence why now that its more player characters than NPCs things are going off the rails politically and socially!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Also, did you ever get a sense of dejavu?
QED.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Pffff. Look at this conspiracy bullshit.

Everyone knows that the universe will actually be created tomorrow. What you are experiencing now is a flashback from tomorrow of what you did yesterday. Prove me wrong.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You believe in existence? Please.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't yet, but tomorrow is the day for sure.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You've been saying that for a 1000 years.

You're in a loop. Reality is never going to exist.

See you tomorrow for the same discussion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I don’t yet, but tomorrow is the day for sure.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

What a tricky god to even implant memories of me imagining all of creation happening only a few seconds ago every time I read about this particular anecdote in the false past.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And yet simulation theory has a very reasonable merit.

And if it were to turn out true, you'd also have to admit that OOPs argument was hogwash. Actually, it is either way.

If you can't logic better than religious people, then you're the problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

It's got as much merit as any other faith based theory of existence.

We see things that don't seem to make any intuitive sense in science, and simulation theory is one explanation, but without any evidence (and really, there can't be evidence against, because it faces the same response of "any evidence against is explicitly put there by the simulation").

Simulation theory is essentially science-themed religious theory rather than directly evidence based theory.

I'll admit it's a fun "why" as to the weirdness of quantum mechanics and relativity, but ultimately the hard science folks I respect confess they are just finding models that predict stuff accurately, and the various extrapolations to intuitive neat things people make up in that context are beyond the realm of "science" (simulation theory and many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics are the biggest ones I can think of).

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