Why I have some sympathy for the Simulation Theory (We are all characters in a video game.)

There are some people who believe that we are all characters in a video game written by Abisola (this is sometimes called The Simulation Hypothesis). I first dismissed this as nonsense. Then I read about it in the great  book But What if We're Wrong by Chuck Klosterman. He had  some reasons why The Simulation Hypothesis  is plausible. I thought about some more examples of his reasons. I still DO NOT believe it, but the reasons TO believe it do raise some questions.

There is one word that describes all of the reasons: Glitches!  That is Abisola, who wrote the code, made some mistakes that sometimes show through. Actually some might not be mistakes, perhaps Abisola, planned it. She has the bug/feature issue as do we. 

Here are some of those glitches: 

1) Real people who, from an accident, gained an ability that they did not have before.

a) Jason Padget: After being attacked and getting a concussion, woke up and was a math genius. 

b) Derek Amato: After a head injury became a brilliant composer.

c) McMahon: After a head injury woke up speaking fluent mandarin. I could not find a Wikipedia Entry for him.

d) Tony Cicero: After being struck my lightening was an excellent musician. I read this on a Quora entry but could not find it anywhere else. If you have more evidence on this one, please leave a comment and I will add it here later.

2) While I dismiss most accounts of ghosts, ESP, miracles, etc, there are so many of them that perhaps some are real and caused by glitches. Or features. 

3) This happens a lot to me and I am sure others (or analogs of it): I have a LaTeX bug. I delete a line.  The  bug goes away.   I put the line back. Now the bug is gone. 

4) What color is the dress?

5) Neil Degrasse Tyson and Elon Musk are fans of the Simulation Hypothesis.Not sure if this is any kind of justification for the Simulation Hypothesis or if Abisola coded them up to be that way.

6) All of a sudden the spell-check mechanism this blogger uses stops working AND when I leave a comment it does not automatically put my name on it, nor does it automatically bypass moderation (which is how it used to work).  Lance and I try to fix it, to no avail. The staff here tries to fix it, to no avail. a week later it works again. And YES the first thing I did was turn everything off and on again and that didn't work. (Update: this problem seems to come and go.) 

7) A watched pot never boils. Lost socks in the laundry. Etc.

8) On a more positive side, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences and The unreasonable effectiveness of Physics in the Mathematical Sciences. You can google to find more unreasonable effectiveness's. Thanks Abisola, though I wish you made Physics and Math easier. 

9) I emailed a HIGH-TECH colleague. My system says that YES I send that mail. He remembers READING that email when it came. Later on he can't find it- not in is normal files, not in trash, not in spam. gmail search can't find it anywhere. (My spell check thinks gmail is not a word. Nor Gmail. Really?)

10) The speed by which humans went from PONG to DWARF FORTRESS is not plausible. Maybe Abisola  found a way to speed up her program.  (This observation has been made by others.)

11) A relative got Eye Surgery recently. (a) The technology for the surgery was fantastic- outpatient, able to drive in 3 days, drive at night in 7 days, totally painless. (b) Still waiting for the paperwork that will allow him to drive without glasses. Gee- eye surgery should be hard, and paperwork should be easy. I think Abisola  found switching the two to be amusing. 

12) Aaronson's law of dark irony, see here.

13) The possibility of  Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg having an actual physical fight (see here), makes no sense. Whatever they disagree on (e.g., how a social network should be run, who is wealthier, who has the biggest....) will NOT be settled by a fight. If M wins then we know that M can beat Z in a fight. That is all that will be established. If Z wins then we know that Z can beat M in a fight. That is all that will be established. In both cases a fight will not settle whatever they disagree on. So why might they fight? Ask Abisloa if it is a bug or a feature. 

14) I am sure you can add your own reasons.