Product placement: an important kind of advertising in a simulated world?

[Boojatta]

Suppose that the universe we inhabit is actually a simulation. Then the only reason that the plug isn't pulled is that the information is of interest to the beings who created and sustain the simulation in their world.

Now, suppose that in the real world there is a company called "Microsoft" that makes software for computers. If you show up in a time and place of interest to our overlords, and you have something with a very prominent Microsoft logo on it, then the product placement might function as a kind of advertising that benefits the real Microsoft in the real world. Managers at the real Microsoft might then be motivated to help you to encourage you to do more of the same.

[NBachers]

1. Apple logo

[Boojatta]

3. More words, please. For example, how about a verb?

[RC]

2. Now all we have to do is figure out which big corporation is running the simulation.

And hope it exists somehow in the simulation as a clue.

[SecularMotion]

4. Bacon

[Boojatta]

6. What do you think about the multiverse hypothesis?

Why the universe wasn't fine-tuned for life (a book review)

[SecularMotion]

7. Hogwash!

We have evolved to inhabit the universe.

[Boojatta]

9. In physics, some things can be explained, deduced from a small number of simple assumptions.

However, there are physical constants with values that cannot be deduced, and simply have to be measured. Had the physical constants had slightly different values, then life as we know it would quite likely be impossible. Why do the physical constants have values that make life possible?

Some physicists believe that the observable astronomical universe is one of a large finite number or perhaps an infinite number of similar universes. Associated with each universe, there is thought to be some set of values for the physical constants in that universe. In this picture of reality, "universe" can no longer refer to everything, and the word "multiverse" is introduced to refer to the collection of all universes.

This would explain why the physical constants have values that create conditions making life possible. You can consider an analogy with the Earth itself and our Sun. There are many stars in the universe, and recently it has been confirmed that there are many planets outside our solar system. Thus, it's not surprising that there exists a planet like ours, at an appropriate distance from an appropriate star. If there were only one solar system in the universe, then we would face the problem of explaining why the conditions just happen to be appropriate for life. If there were only one solar system in our universe, then perhaps the multiverse hypothesis would be a natural explanation.

[DJ13]

5. I think Keenu did a movie ........

[NMMNG]

8. Take the red pill

[Boojatta]

10. Will you show me how deep the rabbit hole goes?

[LuvNewcastle]

11. What you describe is similar to stories of

gods and angels who use different items and circumstances to bring people together in order to accomplish certain goals. I'm reading some occult books this weekend that attempt to explain how death, transmigration of the soul, and rebirth are used to teach our spirits how to refine themselves in order to make themselves ready to be one with God. God has his angels and other beings, sometimes thought of as gods, to help facilitate man's learning process.

Whether we use your supposition or that of the occultists, the idea seems to be the same. The world exists for the benefit of someone else, whether it be God or a cosmological corporation, so that certain things can be perfected and ends met. Either way, God or the corporation could pull the plug when the experiment has served its purpose.

[Boojatta]

12. "a cosmological corporation"

At post 2 of this thread, RC suggested something along those lines. I would tend to think that it would be a multinational project like CERN. I don't know the legal details of CERN as an organization. However, even if CERN happens to actually be a corporation under the law, I presume that it could have been otherwise.

The institution that owns and controls the simulation itself is not necessarily the same as some for-profit organization that might profit from something that at first glance appears to be a detail within the totality of events that occur in the simulation.

The important point is that if our universe is a simulation, then it may be in a sense completely transparent to some beings who exist outside of the simulation. I suspect that an issue like the "ground zero mosque" would be of no interest whatsoever to such beings, unless they were making bets about whether or not anti-mosque riots were going to erupt as an outcome of the media propaganda efforts. Meanwhile, events that journalists would refuse to cover because they aren't considered newsworthy might be, in the opinion of the beings who can observe the simulation from the outside, of enough real, potential, or symbolic significance to warrant attention.