Odds of winning the lottery given implications of potentially living in a computer sim
I made a post in a not-so-intellectual communitity. This community group is titled something akin to "We Live in a Computer Simulation", but most members don't really seem to accept that possibility. It's just a clickbait-join for them or something. So I can't adequately discuss.
Said community doesn't generally agree with a statement I made and I'm thirsty for a deeper dive.
My statement:
"Since we're living in a simulation, my odds of winning the lottery are significantly higher than the stated odds (odds implied by a random roll)"
Agree? Disagree? Please discuss.
Feel free to approach the scenario from "living in a simulation" being an accepted reality or just a possibility (or both).
3 Replies
II love the tack of including the ultimate nature of our experienced reality in your gambling theory. Seems the answer has to be "Who knows?" But a slight tweaking of the question would be in which system would I like to be in order to win the lottery, given that it's 300,000,000-to-1 or whatever in the general probability realm, and hypothetically, it might be wired in for you to win it in a simulation (of course we have no idea what the odds of that are, and it might be wired in for you to never win it).
A big, big point seemingly nearly universally overlooked in simulation theory speculation is that the simulation would be the product of some intelligent civilization taking computer technology to awesome levels. My take is that it is rather a natural simulation of the quantum field, which itself is a giant quantum supercomputer. From there, some bizarrely unfeasible results are indeed possible when perceived only from conventional probability perspectives. There's a quantum mathematician of some sort named Seth Lloyd who has a quote: "If the universe is acting like a giant quantum supercomputer, and lets' face it, it is ...." I love that quote more than life itself.
Interesting question.
If I'm in a simulation, anything could happen. The odds to win if truly random (we'll simplify to say 300,000,000:1) wouldn't necessarily be hardwired into the programming. Everyone *could* start winning, but that would seem to break the logic of the simulation. It's kind of game over for my understanding of reality if 100,000 people all come up with winning numbers.
But I will probably argue that even this scenario has odds >0 of occurring.
However, I was thinking more a
You're assuming it's the Truman Show
The simulation doesn't have to be that
You would be an NPC, just like the rest of us. Your odds will be the same.
