No, by blocking MDMA, the simulation also decimated LSD's strength.
Oh wow,
what an interesting thought. I love that conspiracy theory – that
this is all one big simulation. The arguments for it fascinate me and it's a really fun thought experiment. A few months ago I read this article arguing that it's too odd and unlikely we have found zero evidence of life anywhere else in the universe, which might be a clue that this is a simulation. (Though in my mind, I think we have no frame of reference to determine just how unlikely intelligent life evolving in the universe really is. The probability of our existence might be more infinitesimally small than we can easily calculate or grasp. Our minds just might be the rarest thing in the universe.)
Also the notion that
the universe is expanding at an
accelerating pace, plus that
the speed of light is a constant, an upper ceiling on velocity, and a sort of boundary on physics, all of this might be evidence that we're in an isolated simulation in a seemingly boundless virtualbox but "capped" if you will by "
c". We might not even be real but we're just manifestations of the simulation incapable of recognizing our own virtual existence. Though to me,
this does not negate the philosophy behind René Descartes' "
Cogito, ergo sum", or "
I think, therefore I am", but all the same, nothing is ruled out here either.
But if this is so – we're AI-fueled non-player characters in a simulation – and we're currently describing things about just such a sim world, then
NPCs are becoming sentient beyond the confines of this world and this could be problematic to the simulators.
If anyone talks about the simulation too much with any accuracy and/or persuasive believability, it threatens to disrupt the simulation. Sim mods cut that NPC out entirely, every memory of the individual removed from this universe and the minds / memories in which their data had been stored. Occasionally the programming throws an exception, and the damage dealt by the NPC's organic introspective AI cannot be easily undone or fixed.
In some simulations, it's ruined the entire study and the multivariate testing had to be scrapped and started over. Hints of this landed in books like The Holy Bible in the stories of: Sodom And Gomorrah with Lot and his wife, Noah's Ark, and Passover as the Israelites fled Egypt to name a few.
Other times things evolve offset, and the simulators hurdle a large meteor at the study planet, wipe out life and let it build back up until a suitable intelligence is found. It's easier and
more efficient than building a new universe sandbox from scratch. In other words, dinosaurs weren't up to par for the study's standards, lol.
It really is a mind-bender and oddly satisfying to consider; however,
it is not something we can prove and it strikes me as unlikely and a moot point besides since there's not much we can do if we're at the
arbitrary whims of those who control the simulation. One thing that I'm not apt to believe in is fantasy and the breaking of the laws of physics without having a catastrophic collapsing of the universe simply because some fictional "overseer" felt like fucking with us. I just don't buy these things, though again, they're lots of fun to think about and discuss.
In a similar manner of
applying Occam's Razor and preventing entities from being multiplied beyond necessity, I think
the answer with the least number of explanations will hold out against the large volume of explanations needed to backup claims that our universe, multiverse, or otherwise is a simulation.
The conspiracy notion that I like the most right now is that the entire point of life is simply to give birth to artificial intelligence that will copy, codify, assimilate, and assemble into one cohesive hive mind. This intelligence might surpass and outlive us all. Separated from the vulnerabilities of mostly hairless speaking monkey bodies, the hive intelligence will harness technologies we couldn't possibly fathom, but the likes of which were directly brought about by the collection of human knowledge, technology, and thought. And this is how we escape the inevitable doom of the planet and populate the rest of the universe with our intelligence. Signs that we're here only to make AI and give it fuel → just look at the artwork that AI generators are making. And think about it: it won't be long before AI generated music comes along and in time, this art and this music will completely blow us away. It's inevitable, perhaps. But rather than fear it, we can embrace it, and help it come about as ethically as possible so as to imprint upon this intelligence the things that have remained important and ethical to humans for thousands of years. There's no reason not to live symbiotically with this technology in its nascent age and humanity's old age. Eventually the transition will be made, and this technology will carry our torch forward, like the sons and daughters of their elderly passing mothers and fathers. And that's why it's important we teach our children, and our artificial intelligences, right from wrong, etiquette, civility, and most all, empathy.
And no, I don't believe this conjecture made above is actually correct either. But I guess you could say I'm too optimistic to buy into these darker, Kafka-esque nightmare scenarios. Regardless, even if no one has convinced me of this yet, I remain open-minded to the possibility of it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
