Strange

It isn't. If that black hole were not there it would make no difference at all to the Sun. That is because it is accelerating. When the car is moving at a constant speed, there is no such force. And, importantly for this thread, when the car goes round the corner you are pushed/pulled to the side of the car. But, as with your example of the car, it doesn't work like that. Any force from the Earth going in circles round the Sun acts "sideways" ie. in the direction away from the Sun. This is the wrong way round. A motorcycle can ride around the inside of a cylinder, for example because the centrifugal force (*) pushes it against the surface of the cylinder. However, on the surface of the Earth the centrifugal force (*) is pushing things away from the surface. This is why things weigh less at the equator (ignoring the flattened shape of the Earth). (*) Centrifugal force? Yes, I know it doesn't exist but it is a useful shorthand in these examples.

You haven’t proved anything. You haven’t even explained the relevance of the statements you list. The inverse square laws are good evidence for three spatial dimensions, not two.

There is no doubt that the Earth is orbiting the Sun. But there is no black hole near enough to have any effect on the Earth. But you are right that centripetal force changes the weight of objects at the equator (because of the rotation of the Earth). The centripetal force on the Earth from the Sun is the Sun's gravity. This is pretty small at this distance, but it does cause a tidal effect. However, this is much smaller than the Moon's. The difference in gravitational force (ie weight) from one side of the Earth to another is, I think, about a factor of 1.00017. What is your equation?

Good point.

I misread that as "God's Mercedes" ... which would make about as much sense as anything else you post.

No it didnt

So that sort of simulation cannot exist. I don't agree. So, for example, there are simulations of the way the large scale structure of the universe forms. This produces realistic results: the structures look like what we observe. None the galaxies are our galaxy, though. But it is still a simulation of our universe, rather than a different universe with, for example, different amounts of dark matter or different laws of physics. Similarly, if you could restart our universe and run it again, you would not end up with our galaxy and the Earth.

We don't agree that. I don't see why a universe could not be simulated in that same universe. But, obviously, that simulated universe would not be the universe it was simulated in. So if we were to simulate our universe, for example, it would not necessarily have a planet exactly the same as Earth with people called Ten oz and Strange. Your original argument was different: Which is about the size of the universe being simulated.

You have moved the goalposts again. Obviously, a simulation of a universe is not the same as the universe that it is in. It is a different, simulated universe.

Yes. Your argument is: "anything built within this universe would be limited by this universe" Not relevant. Well, obviously. Energy is only quantised in specific conditions (for example, the energy levels in an atom). But there is no quantisation in general. A single photon is quantised in the sense that it is indivisible. But a photon can have any energy - the possible energies are not quantised.

That is a terrible argument. Especially in science but even in philosophy.

But any such limits don't give you any sort of clue. They can't. Nothing can. For example, the universe is quantised in certain ways. It may turn out that space and time are quantised (pixellated) as well. Does this tell us that it might be a simulation? No. Because that can be just the way the universe is. And, if space and time are not quantised, that could imply it is an analogue computer. That may be an argument against. On the other hand, you can use very simple rules to create something that cannot be predicted for exactly the same reasons. So I don't find it a compelling counter-argument.

Doesn’t tell you anything about whether it is a simulation or not. You can’t know. By definition.

Like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion ?

This is the fallacy of begging the question: "I think this behaviour is not natural so engaging in this behaviour must be unnatural."

You can't ever know. Which is why it is a totally stupid and unscientific idea. I suppose it has some value as an example for philosophy students in the first week of their course. After that, it is no more valuable than "if a tree falls in a forest ..."

One obvious practical use is using the evidence to confirm the theory of evolution. It is also valuable to understand how and where food crops originated. By understanding how they evolved to their current form (eg what they hybridised with) it can help us develop new crops to face the challenge of global warming, for example.

Yes it does. There are a few mentions of it here: https://stuver.blogspot.com/search?q=lensing which might answer your question. I don't think we can pinpoint to location of the source accurately enough yet to detect whether any lensing has taken place.

You said you can't simulate something larger than X inside an X. I gave you an example of simulating something larger than X in an X. I can't make it any clearer.

You said nothing larger than the universe could be simulated in the universe, but we routinely simulate larger computers in computers. So I don't see any basis for your argument.

But that isn’t what you said

Is that true. We use computers to simulate more complex processors when we design them.

I find it remarkable that someone who claims to have studied philosophy shows such a poor grasp of logic.

It is caused by the difference in scale factor between the source and the observer.

That equation is from Special relativity and applies to particles in inertial frames of reference (ie. no gravity) moving relative to one another. This doesn't apply to black holes, where you would need to use the equation for gravitational time dilation; for a Schwarzschild black hole this is: [math]t_0 = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{2GM}{rc^2}} = t_f \sqrt{1 - \frac{r_s}{r}}[/math] (Where rs is the Schwarzschild radius) This would (like the SR equation) imply that time becomes imaginary within the event horizon. But this equation only applies outside the black hole. To understand what happens inside (or better, as you fall through) the event horizon, you need to use different coordinates. For example the Painlevé-Gullstrand coordinates: http://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/insidebh/waterfall.html. In this case, it does appear that something falling in goes faster than the speed of light and approaches infinity near the singularity. But, it never exceeds the speed of light! That is because the coordinate speed of light also increases. Explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullstrand–Painlevé_coordinates (For any local observer, the infalling object will never exceed the speed of light.)