Are we programs in a machine?

[Atelier]

[Time travelling] is *already possible and has been done*

Nobody has ever travelled through time. Ever. The astronauts are a good point which admittedly I didn't think of, but they did not travel through time. To be truly time travelling, you would have to manipulate time itself Universally, by disjointing it and then reconnecting at a place further along the track, not just visit the moon, or go into a coma. This is what I'm saying, just because they went to the moon and experienced time differently, the train still went through Manchester.

Just because time travel is seemingly impossible from our perspective doesnt mean the computer, or whatever, doesnt have the power to reverse time.

This is true, and what I said earlier. "The Master Computer ... can manipulate space so it would be able to manipulate time."
Plus, this is also exactly what I meant by the Pony Palace Universe.

Remember, if we were in a simulation we would be the NPCs without direct access to the console.

That's also what I said in my own post:

On the other hand, you could argue that only the Original Universe has the power to affect the Master Computer.

I don't wish to be truculent I'm just defending myself when I never explicitly answered the original question.

[Calin Leafshade]

Time is relative to the observer. It makes no sense to say anything about time is 'universal'. How would that even work? You'd have to believe in a fatalistic universe in which the events are fixed regardless of the things that happened before. That simply doesnt make any sense.

I know youre trying to argue that it's impossible anyway but you can't declare some strawman of time travel and then claim that your strawman is impossible.

[Atelier]

Time is relative to the observer. It makes no sense to say anything about time is 'universal'.

No, I don't mean the passage of time is universal, just that time passes throughout the whole universe (as far as we know of course). Thus it is a universal trait. Which is why I said you would have to change time universally to be genuinely travelling in time.

[Snarky]

There is nothing fundamentally impossible (in the sense of leading to logical paradox) about me stepping into a box, waiting five minutes, and coming out to discover that a hundred years have passed. Which is what's generally understood by forward time travel.

[Snake]

I don't think that it's more likely that we're in a simulated universe; my gut tells me that our universe is way to complex to be a product of intelligent beings. Sounds paradoxical, but I think the complexity is evidence for a natural origin.

I would agree naturally, but for the sake of this discussion:

Being a product within a simulated world, we would have no idea how to measure this complexity you speak of. How could we decipher between what is too complex to be a simulated world and what is of natural origin? If this were a simulated world, what we know to be "natural" is simulation. We would be absolutely blind to what is what. What we think to be too complex, could be insignificant in the big picture.

[Monsieur OUXX]

[Time travelling] is *already possible and has been done*

Nobody has ever travelled through time. Ever.

Unnecessary skepticism, I tell you : http://www.motherboard.tv/2010/11/24/mit-is-actually-testing-time-travel-s-grandfather-paradox
(the article is a bit old but since then they actually succeeded in sending the particle back in the past and testing what happens when you make it kill its grandfather).
Yes, in 2010, Humanity masters backward time travel, you'd better get used tot he ideas, guys.

[Nickel]

I just stumbled upon this thread, I didn't read all the posts, so sorry, if I repeat someones points.

First of all, I really doubt your premise, that "mankind" will be able to simulate the world as it is. Assuming that computers will be able to calculate the amount of information which is necessary to simulate the physical world (I already doubt that there will be a computer which is able to calculate all of what's happening in the world it's in), you still would have to provide all of the physical laws, not just the known ones, and to be sure that all of the physical constants really are constants. To simulate the human being/society, you would either have to know the exact physical state of all human beings if you are sure that they are just driven by physical laws (which I also doubt) or run a simulation of evolution itself by knowing all of it's laws.

Anyway, assuming that all of this would be possible, it still would't change the fact, that as a "simulated lifeform" you would be still in this very life and have to ask & answer the same questions.

^{And, as far as I am concerned, they are e.g.:
Do I agree to a society, that wants me to do work for someone else's interests?
Do I agree that competition is necessary to have a good life?
Do I agree that people are divided into "Nations"?}

P.S. "The *whole purpose* we create things is to surpass us." What are you working on? Do you use AGS?

[Calin Leafshade]

My AGS game will surpass me in many ways.

It will be nicer to look at for starters...

[Dualnames]

My AGS game will surpass me in many ways.

It will be nicer to look at for starters...

OMG OMG OMG!!

I think people working on games, me included, have this urge to refer to doing so in every post. I know I do/did.

[Chicky]

A friend of mine tested the psychics engine last week, his cars a write off.

Dual - you get excited far too often, but i guess you would make a cute pet. 

AGS GAME!

[Dualnames]

Dual - you get excited far too often, but i guess you would make a cute pet. 

Awwwww. That's so cute and nice of you to say.

Dualnames curls around Chicky's feet

[Ryan Timothy B]

Dualnames curls around Chicky's feet

Don't get too excited, Chicky's really a man.

[Gilbert]

That's possibly the exact reason that he got excited.

[Dualnames]

That's possibly the exact reason that he got excited.

LOL!

Also, Ryan, I know man. If I don't know that, nobody f@#%&* does!

[Chicky]

Yeah, he's totally seen my downstairs mixer!

[Ryan Timothy B]

He didn't curl around that, did he?

[Dualnames]

Hey! Watch it there!