If you're talking about a VR-type simulation where observable reality is simulated, but our consciousness resides in a 'higher' level, then yes, something like what you describe could be an example of falsifiable evidence of simulated reality.

But in the case where we, ourselves reside entirely within a simulation (or whatever) then we're tied, lock-step, with the universe's time, and any jitters or pauses (even outright simulation termination) would be completely unobservable to observers within: the ants in SimAnt don't recognise when I pause the process in Task Manager.

your second paragraph is exactly my point: which is why it's an absurd claim that anyone is saying "we're almost certainly" living in a simulated environment. there's no way to know.

> The blank one will fall to the ground smoothly. But the one that has a lot of image information will tax the Universe's GPU, because it isn't able to compress it easily, so it'll fall slowly and in a jerky motion. it's really easy to see. OH WAIT NO IT ISN'T.

What an absurd "test". A trivial counterargument: your sense of time is also computed by the simulation, so no matter how much "real world time" might pass to compute some outcome, "logical world time" can march on at the same pace.

But this has nothing to do with the simulation argument anyway. I suggest you read it:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

> Who is saying that?

Very few are arguing that we're almost certainly in one. Philosphers like Nicholas Bostrom are arguing that either something will prevent most simulations from reaching a stage where we can or will simulate the past, or we most likely live in a simulation, but you'll note it's very possible that the answer is that we can't or won't too.

The problem is that we don't have the faintest clue what the probabilities of each of the propositions are.

Another big problem for these theories is the amount of memory needed to represent our simulation. We can easily estimate the lower bound on the number of bytes needed for this simulation, being the number of atoms in the Earth (assuming they can "fake" the rest of the universe by exploiting the low speed of light), which you would need to all know a number of properties off (at the very least position and momentum). That's at least 10^50, i.e. "frickin enormous". Where would they even put a computer of this size? How would they power it?

There's no reason to assume they'd need to retain all this data. You'd "only" need to be able to reconstitute representations of details that are actually observed. Other than that you only need to be able to reconstitute a believable representation.

Some have floated the idea that this could be behind some of the peculiarities of physics. E.g. quantum effects, wave/particle duality etc. Of course that is purse speculation.

> That's at least 10^50, i.e. "frickin enormous". Where would they even put a computer of this size? How would they power it?

It's "frickin enormous" by our standards. If we are in a simulation we don't know the properties of the outside universe. E.g. for what we know it fits in some kids PDA.

The problem with even thinking about this is that we don't have any kind of references to go by at all for what is or could be possible.

You only think this because the universe you inhabit is small. What if the universe the simulator is running in is far larger than this one?

> Philosphers like Nicholas Bostrom are arguing that either something will prevent most simulations from reaching a stage where we can or will simulate the past, or we most likely live in a simulation

What do they mean by "simulate the past"? If we're talking actual true-to-history simulations, that is going to require an unprecedented amount of inital data on how the world was in the past. An there's no way for the system to collect all that data, seeing as it's in the past before the omnipotent simulator was created.

On the other hand, if they mean "simulations of some hypothetical past with loose connections to the actual past, Matrix-style", i.e. "they" have the freedom to generate the scenario we're in, why on earth would they choose this one with all the troubles and suffering in the world? Why not make one where everyone's a pony and we all eat rainbows and poop butterflies?

They are running into exactly the same debates that Christian philosophers have been struggling with for millenniae - why is there evil in the world created by God / our hyperintelligent great^{n}grandchildren? Which indicates to me they are much closer to religion than science.

> What do they mean by "simulate the past"?

It's a simplification of the argument for the sake of making the first two prepositions easier to swallow as possibilities.

Consider that if we can simulate consciousness, then we could conceivably simulate a near infinite set of variations of consciousness.

This would still affect our likelihood of being in a simulation, as we don't have any outside knowledge that lets us know which type of entities we "should" be. It doesn't need to be human-type civilizations simulating their ancestors, it could just as well be some aliens playing a hyper-advanced version of Spore and making disgusting aliens to creep out their friends.

But it is easier to get people to picture e.g. Sim2,000,000 simulating full brains based on actual humans, set in a world based on "our" earth as having relevance to our existence, and it makes it more relevant to speculate on proposition #1 and #2. E.g. is there anything in human type society that will prevent us from getting there or wanting to do it?

> On the other hand, if they mean "simulations of some hypothetical past with loose connections to the actual past, Matrix-style", i.e. "they" have the freedom to generate the scenario we're in, why on earth would they choose this one with all the troubles and suffering in the world? Why not make one where everyone's a pony and we all eat rainbows and poop butterflies?

I don't know about you, but most of my Civilization/FreeCiv/Civ:CTP games ends up with things like nuclear war or brutal conquest - it's a lot more interesting to play the games in extreme directions. It's a good question, and one reason to explore this problem space.

Even so, in some sense it's not quite the right question: The point is that with high values for propositions #1 and #2, we could just happen to be in one of a potentially nearly infinite number of simulated realities. Perhaps they're running vast quantities of them to figure out of different choices would have different outcomes, for example. Or perhaps we're some kids afternoon entertainment.

We don't have a way of telling.

Unless we know that the possible set of "realities" is low, however, it makes little sense to speculate in whether there is anything "special" about "just this" simulation, because we have no basis for determining whether or not there is anything special or if the number of simulations is just so great that "ours" is just one tiny variation in a near endless sequence.

> They are running into exactly the same debates that Christian philosophers have been struggling with for millenniae - why is there evil in the world created by God / our hyperintelligent great^{n}grandchildren? Which indicates to me they are much closer to religion than science.

I'll repeat myself: It's not meant to be science. It's a philosophical argument. Nicholas Bostrom is a philosopher. It's his job to be a philosopher, not to set out scientific theories. Scientific theories could arise from speculation around the choices in question, such as e.g. whether or not there could be possible ways of determining if we're in a simulation, that might yield hypotheses that could be tested and potentially falsified.

But until that time, what separates this argument from religion is that the argument is not making any claims for either possible outcome - it is setting out a set of possibilities and asking questions around what we can learn from it.

As I've said elsewhere, if someone picks one on belief and sticks to it in the face of contradictory evidence, that'd be akin to religion. But asking questions and seeking ways of refining those into testable hypotheses is not religion.

Elon Musk thinks it's probably that we're in a simulation.

Odds are we're living in a simulation, says Elon Musk

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11837874/elon-musk-says-odd...

Drop two pieces of paper towards two high information constructs (massive bodies), and time will pass more slowly for the one approaching the more massive body. Oh, and for someone flying with the rotation of the earth, time passes more quickly than flying against it.

Physics is pretty weird.

Large mass -> Time dilation.

What now smarty pants.

For anyone who didn't get it, the first half of my comment was sarcasm.

"leading technologists agree that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality" is false.