Lich Depression

OP is proof that our universe is not simulated.

Why would anyone want to simulate such a shit thread?

Just because it's a simulation doesn't make it any less real.

>How would you even test the hypothesis that our universe is a simulation?
Do some research on the subject. You can be sure many scientists are testing this as we speak.

>Our universe has an arbitrary universal speed limit
>The Universe breaks down into simple math
>Particles have distinct energy levels
>If you were to take a computer game and study it long enough, you would find that it's made up of basic math, and the same goes for the universe
>It's almost as if someone said "Let's make a universe, but cap the universal speed limit to 299,792,458 m/s so our computers can run it without a problem

There are plenty of reasons pointing to why our universe is a simulation, and scientists are doing research on it.

It's not that they're pursuing a goal for their existence. It's that they refuse to accept the inevitability of their death and that's what keeps them going. A lich can't be bored because he's in a never-ending fear of his own demise.

Pray tell how they are using the scientific method to determine if we are in a virtual reality

Lich are drive by obsessions. They have given up on everything else. There is no such thing as a depress lich unless that is their oppression. Also And the 50% is that God is real. 0% chance of any of this being real. 100% op is shit. 99.99% this thread hurt my head. 0.01% believe what you believe user. Ganbatte. Faito. There are people who are so bored that they would watch people be boring for entertainment.

My current character is slowly heading down the path to lichdom, because he feels he's not strong enough to help people currently.
Road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

>I am depressed, the post
Just get over it already you pussy. You won't find any help on a Peruvian underwater basket-weaving forum.

That's when you get demiliches.

This reminds me of that episode of black mirror where the AI takes on the personality of the person it's implanted in to basically run the house

>Neil deGrasse Tyson (and many others) give us a 50% chance that our universe is a computer simulation.

lol the fuck

>“We are asleep. Our life is like a dream. But in our better hours we wake up just enough to realise that we are dreaming.”

-Count von Wittgenstein

>Neil deGrasse Tyson

ahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>Sometimes I think about how pointless existence is.
Don't you have better stuff you really should be doing, or thinking about?

>How does a Lich not spiral into crippling depression?
The same way, that normal humans do. By realizing that even if existence is pointless, you still have to get through it, and why not find or do something to make yourself happy while you do so. Sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself, or getting all depressed for no good reason is the actual pointless thing, regardless if you are gonna live to 70, or have been around for 7000 years.

In short, suck it up pal and find your bliss. Otherwise it will all really be pointless.

>>If you were to take a computer game and study it long enough, you would find that it's made up of basic math, and the same goes for the universe
This analogy is flawed. If we do exist inside a simulated universe, then we cannot draw any inferences about it based on computer programs that also exist inside the simulated universe. We have no reason to assume that the outside reality bears any resemblance to our simulated universe; indeed, why would someone want to simulate a universe that resembled their own? Isn't it more likely that someone with the technology to simulate a universe would simulate one with different rules in order to study it?

Liches are immune to the human frailties of mortal hearts.

There are around 10 billion galaxies that are observable universe alone, there are practically infinite possibilities.

Why would you want to study a simulation with different rules than your own universe? The whole point of creating and studying a simulation is to try to better understand your own universe. Creating something totally different in a simulation would beat the entire point unless it's purely recreational.

But then it means that their own universe runs on similar formulism to be simulation.

Why do you think liches hang out in forgoten tombs? Or are asleep until woken by dark magic?

They're literally too depressed to interact with reality. And put themselves to sleep for centuries at a time to escape their depression.

I'd honestly say most of them at this point don't really care. They have thousands of years to do whatever they enjoy the most and there is always more magical and other forms of knowledge.

I think the biggest issue with the simulation theory is why the fuck would someone simulating a universe allow the things inside the sim to realize? All it would take is some basic parameters to add in a "If attempt to see if a simulation then delete and redirect thoughts."

If I was a Lich, I'd probably invest in a 'Charm of Non-Overthinking'

Lich: "Ten centuries. One Thousand Years. I have seen no point to it all. No hope. No reason. The empire of today will be the ruins of tomorrow. The newlywed lovers will be nothing in a blink of an eye. All it is... is a cold, empty cycle."

Cleric: "If you were hoping to find the meaning of life, you could have done much better than to hang around in places of *death*."

And that's how our cleric convinced the lich to go on a world tour, using his magic to fix problems, ending with him destroying his phylactery, redeemed, and moving onto the lawful good afterlife of Ilmater in peace.

Fireballs and Holy Swords have nothing on the power of redemption.

> give us a 50% chance that our universe is a computer simulation.

That doesn't make sense at all. We have very little opacity of what another coherent universe would operate like. We have little information about a set "S" containing the infinity of possible coherent universal mechanics.

Saying 50% is literally worthless and useless because it's a bullshit number drawn from bullshit understanding of probability.

Universes are large systems that can include galaxies. The set of infinite coherent universal systems treats galaxies as a subset of a type, with endless number, of universe which produces observable galaxies.

You have a very anthrocentric view of the psychology, or lack thereof, of simulation generators.

The entire edifice of intelligence, in our universe, might be discarded for observing how different starting conditions affect the creation of obsidian in a particular chain of islands.

We might just be a procedurally generated simulation in a chain of endless numeration of simulations.

>The whole point of creating and studying a simulation is to try to better understand your own universe.

The whole point might be to satisfy some system of hedonics. Like aging wine. Age a simulation so that one can jack in and engage in war and rapine on a universal scale. Or so that one can jack in and get aroused by magma flows.

You fool, if the universe, and life is pointless and meaningless, then it is up to us beings that can perceive the universe to make one. Instead of an empty void, think of it as a blank canvas.

Now Liches, if they have enough WIS, would have arrived at this conclusion, and filled the meaninglessness with their own meaning. Whether it be spreading undeath so that everyone could see his point of view, or teaching magic to rural kids for the hell of it, or saving the world when it needs saving - that's up for the individual to make.
Have you made your life meaningful?

You have to understand that just becoming a good enough spellcaster takes a lot of work, which in turn requires an ambitious or driven character. Becoming a lich is a means to an end, the same way you use a car: sure, you probably like driving, but you really just want to move around the world more freely.

Beyond that? It depends on the character.

Another thing to note that freedom at its core is about having a spark of inspiration within you and living with it within the void of the cosmos, full of possibilities. That's why couch philosophers like you will always be miserable, you're looking for an external source of irrefutable reason and morality while there is none. Everything is temporary, you are the only constant in your life, and at some point you're gonna have to get off your ass and do what you want. Just don't blame the cops later on if you swing that way.

>They probably have thousands of years to think about these things far greater than I have
And thousands of years to come to terms with it. At worst they end up like Camus, who believed the only philosophical question worth asking and answering was "why not kill yourself?".

>How would you even test the hypothesis that our universe is a simulation?
I can't say I know for sure what OP is talking about, but I think it's based on an extrapolation of the observer effect (whether or not something is observed dictates whether or not certain things happen on a quantum level (like in the Schrödinger's Cat example)), which has led some to believe that the entire universe is some kind of simulation observed by a "super observer" who observes everything that happens in the universe and is a neccessity for certain things to happen.

>might be discarded for observing how different starting conditions affect the creation of obsidian in a particular chain of islands.

That would be far easier done in another way. Pretty much in general any civilization with a ability to simulate a universe is likely working on all kinds of shit. Testing how the past could have went or seeing the theoreticals of the formation of the universe is far more likely then planetary scale stuff. My main point is trying to prove you are in a sim or not is pointless. Because the people who control it are effectively god and capable of manipulating the results you get. Making pretty much any proof unreliable.

>Have you made your life meaningful?

The better question is Can you make your life meaningful? People can bullshit that they have a meaningful life all they want but objectively can they prove it?

>but I think it's based on an extrapolation of the observer effect

It's more based around the idea that in billions of years would one group ever have the ability to do so? And if so given how many simulations we run what is the probability that that any simulation over billions of years wouldn't include a group of humans? theoretically speaking there is only a few true universe for every couple billion simulations. So the odds aren't very good.

>That would be far easier done in another way.

You're making assumptions about energy based on our system of universal mechanics.

What is "easy" might be far different in a higher-order universe.

>Pretty much in general any civilization with a ability to simulate a universe is likely working on all kinds of shit

You're assuming simulation generators need a "civilization". Of humans.

Hell, there's a set of universes with infinite range of starting conditions and "purposes" created solely by Boltzmann Brains. Or by the sensible analogy of such brains in the higher level system.

>Can you make your life meaningful?
Well yeah, of course you can. Plenty of people had. Stuff like advancing science, helping others, spreading terror, getting more cash money, sticking it up to The Man, sitting around enjoying all the experiences of life, plain old survival, just to state a few. Your life's meaning can only be found by you, and if you deem it be full of nothing, then so be it. But remember that it's because you chose to fill it with nothing.

Life's a sandbox game where you type in your achievements, and they work.

Oh and also if you want to say that it's not objectively proven, well, it can't. Regarding the meaning of life, it's fully subjective.

Then they found their own plane somewhere or play weird tricks on adventurers.

Because only children and their mental equivalents are seriously depressed about the fundamentally purposeless nature of existence.

Hedonism and self-satisfaction are the true patrician choices.

>if they have enough WIS
Ugh, DnD is so fucking disgusting, to both mechanically abstract that in such a vulgar way and to convince its players to think in those terms. Really does mimic some kind of brain damage.

I mean, you don't have choices, but sure, whatever you say, champ.

Math is an abstraction of the world, not the other way around.
Math not accurately describing the world would require the world not be internally consistent.

And maybe I'm inexperienced, but I've /never/ seen evidence to that effect.

You could worry about shit and be unhappy about everything. Stewing in one's own ideological shit is a choice, not a predetermined outcome.

Nah, it's either totally determined by a mechanistic cosmos or it's totally arbitrary. Either way it's out of your hands. All your thoughts are as dependent on causality as your actions and the world around you.

>Either way it's out of your hands.
Regardless of whether that's correct, believing that drastically reduces your chances of being successful or productive.

Listen up you dumb cunt, you can't objectively prove anything as objectivism is from outside interference. The only people who can objectively prove something or people who have outlived you and whom you cannot give any subjective experience toward.

Anything other than something that takes place when you were long fucking dead cannot be objectively Quantified as you yourself are a subjective being, you automatically poison any fucking choices ever made.

This is why the death of the author is a very real thing.

Joke's on you tho, I have never played DnD whatsoever
>tfw want to play ttrpgs but no group in your area

That makes you even worse.

Play online you fucking NARPfag swine.

I had the concept of a Lich who created a spell that would transport his mind into a random human when his body was destroyed, taking it over and slowly changing it into his old self.
The problem was that he himself couldn't undo the spell, and when he decided he wanted to end gis unlife (tired of dieing over and over again) the only conceivable method to end it all was to make sure there was not a single body left he could be transported into.
Would make one hell of a reoccurring villain.

>Neil deGrasse Tyson
Literally who gives a crap about opinions of some PR`d """"scientist""""

He couldn't just go to the Plane of Positive Energy and be instantly annihilated?

>How does a Lich not spiral into crippling depression?

i prefer to think of undead as so far removed from normal living existence that things like emotions and psychological problems just don't apply to them anymore

Real answer, if you read Van Richtens guide to liches, he notes that liches are generally immune to the mental degradation and insanity that vampires and other forms of intelligent undead gradually undergo over the centuries. Something inherent in their creation fixes them in place, mentally and spiritually speaking, so they never perish or diminish unless destroyed.

If I could actually pick what I found meaningful in life, I think I'd pick something really easy, like chewing gum or lying down. (As meaning is subjective, there is no sensible way to claim that these choices are inferior to any others.) That way, I would be nearly guaranteed to lead a fulfilling life.

However, I can't seem to do this. And I don't see anyone else doing it, either. The people who spend their lives doing trivial stuff don't seem to have chosen to find meaning in it; often, they don't seem to find meaning in trivial stuff at all.

I believe this casts some doubt on the notion that we decide what is meaningful in our lives. But if we reject that assertion, and also reject the idea that meaning exists in some extrinsic capacity-- that it's an attribute of the universe-- what then? We could assume that humans make some choices, but are barred, neurologically or otherwise, from making other choices; in this case, we'd get to decide what we do about something we think is meaningful, but don't get to decide what is meaningful in the first place. Of course, in this case, the allocation of meaning isn't much different from a food craving.

D&D has gone out of it's way to explain this recently but it's always been implied; Liches are irrevocably insane, one and all, with varying levels of mental stability.
This is a person who had to go to increasingly deranged lengths; the intelligence or faith or dedication and focus needed to become a Wizard or other potent spellcaster, the desire to prolong your existence so strongly that you are willing to commit multiple moral taboos just to continue existing even though most of the joys of existence would be denied to you utterly, and then the dedication needed to maintain that undead state over long periods of time.

Liches are all insane, with this madness simply taking different forms of mania among different liches with varying levels of emotional stability among them.

Moreover, it looks as if we are actually barred from making choices at all: the whole thing is illusory. Ultimately, you don't have a say in what happens to you or how you feel about it. Perhaps that renders the whole question moot: some people are going to feel "meaning" and some people aren't, and the concept is more or less void.

Hedonism and self-satisfaction are the easy choices. You can make them when things are going well. But what do you do when you have no realistic hope of having fun or achieving anything you would find satisfying? Under those circumstances, most people would feel better with an extrinsic source of meaning-- something beyond their own (unavoidable, inalterable) suffering.

Very large is not the same as infinite. In fact, because there is a finite amount of matter and energy in our universe, there are a finite number of ways in which they can interact, therefore the statement "There are infinite possibilities" is false. Or at least it may be, depending on what you mean by "possibilities".

Point is, you cannot use the conditions of this universe to prove that the universe is a simulation; what could you possibly use as a control sample?

There may be an arbitrarily large number of possible outcomes to any event, but some are so unlikely that they can be safely discarded. For instance, is possible that all of the oxygen on earth could transform into gold in the next six seconds.

I figure they usually find a hobby with which to pass the time, like achieving world domination, or bringing about the extinction of a sapient species they dislike for a petty reason, or painting tiny boats.

>However, I can't seem to do this

That's because you're a product of western society that fetishizes the individual and the accomplishments of the ego over anything else.

This with virulent marketing that pushes the idea you need to be rich, successful, have a model for a girlfriend and drive a sports car to be happy , social media which only shows you the happiest highlight reels of other people's lives and a capitalist economy that demands people constantly spend and blames misfortune on a person's actions rather than circumstance creates an environment where it feels as though life is meaningless unless we all become randian supermen.

If you take a glance towards eastern philosophy meaning is a choice that comes from within, not an external factor.

Tried, timezones are a bitch to follow.

>If life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion.
>And being such, it is real to me.
>I eat, I drink, I fight, I love and I am content.

One of the most powerful liches in my setting is rather benign. He has outlived not only entire civilizations but even cultures and languages. Battling mortals is trivial and beyond pointless for him. He thinks in the spans of days and plans on the scale of centuries.

All he does now is follow the lives of his far off descendants in his bloodline and almost playfully torment a monastic order that swore to destroy him ages ago (he could annhilate them utterly if he could be bothered)

>What is their goal
To watch existence play out
>and WHY?!
Because it's something they don't know

Finally someone who has actually read up on what liches are. So many people on this board think they are just normal dudes who have performed a ritual to stop eating, drinking, sleeping, pissing and shitting, when that is the most superficial take on their insane existence.

When the Lich is made, he dies and his body goes through a very quick form of putrefaction where the flesh is mortified by negative energies, rotting and mummifying. Then his soul is pumped into that dead body, a body whose animus has been warped and corrupted irrevocably.

All liches are insane in some form, being fueled by a mania and obsession with a particular subject. Depression is basically the opposite of this. Their dead bodies lack the inhibitions usually placed upon them such that they eventually lose touch with their humanity, and the corrupted animus that moves their bodies subtly fills their souls with evil thoughts of death and suffering, beyond even what they did to become a lich in the first place.

In addition, in many bits of lore about liches, they must kill and feed on the souls of people, an act reserved for only the most depraved of infernal entities.

I could imagine seeing a lich who's mania came in the form of depression, it would just look nothing like a regular person's depression because unlike a regular person a lich is no longer truly psychologically capable of suicide.

>"Unlife is just so meaningless. I don't even know why people exist."
>"And I'll prove it's meaninglessness by KILLING ALL OF THEM TO MAKE A MOCKERY OF THEIR PATHETIC LIVES, AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

>Schrödinger's Cat
Was Schrödinger pointing out that the entire idea was nonsensical. Kill yourself.

>How would you even test the hypothesis that our universe is a simulation?
Try to generate random numbers. Computers are really bad at it.

>The Universe breaks down into simple math
No it does not.
Math is based on the universe not the other way around.
Math is just a language used to describe universe not some magic shieet that some fags want it to be.

So then don't most Liches commit suicide at some point?

Just because you're dealing with a finite set doesn't mean there aren't infinite possibilities. There's an infinite set of points between any two points you choose, and an even more infinite set of curves which could connect those points - and that's just two variables.

>Maruts
>killing a lich

The toppest of keks. That thing has literally nothing that could be even potentially harmful to any lich that doesn't want to suicide-by-inevitable.

OP, but really, aren't you just quoting those awesome old screencaps about that lich which became owner of the world or something?

No, but I'm interested in seeing those

And that is exactly my point. Take my post in context with the one I was replying to; other used the number of galaxies in the visible universe to argue that "there are infinite possibilities". There may be an infinite number of points along any given line, but the universe is not infinite in space or in time. My point was that you cannot simply say "because infinity" and magically justify any supposition. As you say, there may be an infinite set of decimal values between one and two, but none of them are New Zealand.

Though, the phenomenon of infinite divisibility is more of an artefact of the way we do math than it is a meaningful statement about the universe. On paper, we can divide a geometric shape in half an infinite number of times; in reality, there is a point at which we can divide an object no further without dividing its constituent particles.

Now that I think about it, I think the simulation hypothesis may stem from a misunderstanding of how math works. Math isn't an inherent property of the universe, it's a thing we invented in order to describe how the universe works - in other words, the universe looks like a simulation because you're looking at it through the math we use to simulate it.

>in other words, the universe looks like a simulation because you're looking at it through the math we use to simulate it

This isn't some neckbeard couch-philosopher theory. This is a major topic in science which has millions of dollars spent on its research.

Please take 5 seconds to do a google search and maybe read an article about research in this field.

>This is a major topic in science which has millions of dollars spent on its research.
So is most bullshit nowadays.

You are probably the best philosopher of this half of the century not even memeing

If money spent on research is what separates quackery from serious scientific inquiry, then let me tell you about Ken Ham.

>Not making the group
All it takes is some friends user

Relevant to simulated universe discussion
youtu.be/RrzmxmU8PxQ

How is the concept of a simulated universe different from the idea of a God?

A famous scientist on Twitter once said that it was plausible.

A simulated universe means you might be able to become God, which is much more fun to fantasize about.

You might already become as god. Whether or not reality is 'simulated', it is just one of many possible realities.

Wouldn't the first of the meta-simulants, who necessarily has to exist, be omnipotent and thus God?

>It's almost as if someone said "Let's make a universe, but cap the universal speed limit to 299,792,458 m/s so our computers can run it without a problem
You don't understand the first thing about physics or cosmology.

>>Our universe has an arbitrary universal speed limit
>>The Universe breaks down into simple math
>>Particles have distinct energy levels
If all of these things are evidence that our universe is a simulation, that implies that none of these things are true about the "real" universe. Namely,

>No universal speed limit means either no causality or no relativity, or both
>The universe does not break down into math, meaning the laws of physics are unknowable
>Particles do not have distinct energy levels, meaning matter and energy as we understand them do not exist

If this is what the universe is like, then how did they build a simulated universe given that everything we understand about computers and indeed simulation relies upon particles with distinct energy levels, math that can describe a universe, and effects always following causes?

Pic related for why the entire theory is a massive waste of time.

Liches don't get sad. They get angry.

>So, after thousands of years, doesn't a Lich just feel like giving up? Realizing how pointless it all is?

>Former Adventurer
>Raided tombs, amassed treasure, toppled world-ending, eldritch horrors
>Retired in wealth and glory
>Sought knowledge and power beyond death itself
>Attained Lich status to continue his work
>Now, with the power of the cosmos at his command, he looks to his peers
>Every loved one, dead. Every destination, changed. Every memory, fading with time
>He wants only to return to the days of wonder and adventure. When his life meant something to him and those around him
>Starts mucking about...
>Draws the attention of Adventurers
>He watches them from afar, learning their traits, mannerisms, hopes, and dreams
>Relives his old life through their experiences
>Despite being completely unnecessary, he shows up in person to "taunt" them
>It's the only way he feels part of a team anymore

To even consider becoming a lich, you would probably need to be capable of self actualisation in spite of such trivialities. To be powerful is to cease such petty things as 'Why?'. 'Why?' is the chain that holds one back from finding his own personal truth and enforcing it upon the universe.

A being like a lich, who willingly delved into amorality and traded his life for power and knowledge, would hardly be held back by a little existential crisis, right?

>mfw he thinks the universe is a simulation
Oh, such a limited imagination.

The dreamer stirs, the world crumbles

Wake up, friends

Wake up and SEE

>the universe breaks down into simple math
You're fucking retarded.
There are incredibly large amounts of the world whose interactions are literally intractable in terms of math, and others whose mathematical expression is so incredibly complicated we have no idea if they even have solutions or not.

We can't even fucking predict a water wheel, much less model all of the universe in terms of simple math.

you're a fucking idiot and I hate popular science and everyone who claims to like science, like you

Stop fucking disgracing my profession

It's not real science. It's fucking stupid and its adherents and researchers are researching literal fucking metaphysics.

t. actual scientist

>I don't understand why anyone would ever research consequences of axioms or use proof by contradiction

That's
not
what
observation
means
you
fucking
philistine