“The” simulation hypothesis is a range of hypotheses. At one extreme is a hypothesis that can be ruled out: our universe is not a fully detailed simulation running on a parent universe of exactly the same type and size. The laws of computation do not allow it. Something has to give. Either the simulated universe is somehow approximated, or the simulating universe, the parent, is larger than ours...or it’s just different. If we are in a simulation, we could be wrong, even deliberately fooled, about the laws of physics or computation. At the other extreme it might not even be computationally expensive to simulate our universe, because the parent universe is much larger, or it’s physics allow hypercomputation , or computation isn’t even how to it’s being done.
Bostrom style arguments assume a basic similarity between simulated and simulating universes. Computational irreducibility counts against them more than the other kind, where the simulating universe is large or weird. But the kind are less motivated.
“The” simulation hypothesis is a range of hypotheses. At one extreme is a hypothesis that can be ruled out: our universe is not a fully detailed simulation running on a parent universe of exactly the same type and size. The laws of computation do not allow it. Something has to give. Either the simulated universe is somehow approximated, or the simulating universe, the parent, is larger than ours...or it’s just different. If we are in a simulation, we could be wrong, even deliberately fooled, about the laws of physics or computation. At the other extreme it might not even be computationally expensive to simulate our universe, because the parent universe is much larger, or it’s physics allow hypercomputation , or computation isn’t even how to it’s being done.
Bostrom style arguments assume a basic similarity between simulated and simulating universes. Computational irreducibility counts against them more than the other kind, where the simulating universe is large or weird. But the kind are less motivated.