The actual problem with simulation hypotheses in the most general case is that they are maximally non-predictive, in the sense that they’d always be right, no matter what evidence you get, especially for people who want to rescue theism, and thus by conservation of expected evidence, cannot actually be a valid hypothesis for a Bayesian to have (which as a corollary of what’s proven forbids hypotheses that can never be made less probable, no matter what evidence you have gotten)
And I think the theist in the conversation is likely trying to violate conservation of expected evidence, so they’re making a mistake of reasoning.
Similar points apply to the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, which with a broad enough definition of mathematics can be made into a trivially right hypothesis.
The actual problem with simulation hypotheses in the most general case is that they are maximally non-predictive, in the sense that they’d always be right, no matter what evidence you get, especially for people who want to rescue theism, and thus by conservation of expected evidence, cannot actually be a valid hypothesis for a Bayesian to have (which as a corollary of what’s proven forbids hypotheses that can never be made less probable, no matter what evidence you have gotten)
And I think the theist in the conversation is likely trying to violate conservation of expected evidence, so they’re making a mistake of reasoning.
Similar points apply to the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, which with a broad enough definition of mathematics can be made into a trivially right hypothesis.