Physics Revelation Could Mean We're All Living in a Simulation

[orangecrush]

The clarity of sunlight dappling through the trees. The howl of the wind in the dark of night.

All this, according to a philosophical argument published in 2003, could be no more real than pixels on a screen. It's called the simulation hypothesis, and it proposes that if humanity lives to see a day it can repeatedly simulate the Universe using come kind of computer, chances are we are living in one of those many simulations.

If so, everything we experience is a model of something else, removed from some kind of reality.

It's more of a thought experiment than anything – but scientists do love poking it to see if anything squirms. And a new poke has hinted at something squirming.

The second law of infodynamics devised by University of Portsmouth physicist Melvin Vopson and mathematician Serban Lepadatu from the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy in the UK supports the notion that all of this is nothing more than a sophisticated model on a rather fancy computer.

https://www.sciencealert.com/physics-revelation-could-mean-were-all-living-in-a-simulation

[leftieNanner]

1. And I'm convinced that the person running our sim

Is a 12 year old asshole.

Gave us trump and thinks it's funny.

[keithbvadu2]

7. Who was that 'child' on Star Trek that vexed them all and Spock figured out that he was actually a child?

His parents apologized.

[tclambert]

9. Are you thinking of Trelane, the Squire of Gothos?

or maybe Charlie X?

"Demented deities" were a common occurrence in the Star Trek universe.

[keithbvadu2]

10. Yes. Trelane. I gave Spock extra credit. Blame it on the vastness of space.

[PSPS]

11. Trelane (William Campbell) was great!

The "Trelane" character was in the episode "The Squire of Gothos." Also in that year, he played "Koloth", the Klingon captain, in the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles."

Seven years later, he was best man when James Doohan ("Scotty" ) married Wende Braunberger.

[WheelWalker]

2. We might conclude...

We might conclude that the universe is a stranger place than we have sometimes been led to suspect and that the amount and type of strangeness each of us can tolerate depends, to some extent, on prior commitments. But the universe is what it is anyway.

[AllaN01Bear]

3. computer, end program. hear me , end program.

[keithbvadu2]

8. Back in the days of BASIC computer language, there was a story / joke that someone had invented a voice commanded com

Back in the days of BASIC computer language, there was a story / joke that someone
had invented a voice commanded computer. At the rollout demonstration of this marvelous
device, someone gave the verbal command of the code that erased the hard drive.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. This "theory" has always struck me as BS

The size of a computer necessary to simulate one human brain is almost inconceivable.

Even assuming for a moment that some hyper-intelligent race has developed a technology which allows Feynman-style quantum computing, the size of the device necessary to simulate the cosmos as we have been able to uncover it…

BS

[enki23]

12. Ditto. Because it's BS.

The only argument in its favor is indistinguishable from arguments for a god. Some people like the idea, and the most basic version can't be fully ruled out. That's it. SImulationist metaphysics is just generic creationism with techbro handwaving standing in for mystic handwaving.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Actually it seems less plausible

Last edited Sun Oct 29, 2023, 05:48 AM - Edit history (3)

Both are explanations for the Anthropic Principle. “Simulationist metaphysics” is a technical way of avoiding the question, but requires a much larger reality to hold the (theoretical) computer containing the simulation. Frankly, I think the "Logos" of the Stoics is more reasonable. (I don’t mean to advocate for the “Logos,” I’m only saying that it makes more sense than the “simulation hypothesis.”)

[cstanleytech]

18. Except biology pulls it off so techology should be able to do it as well in time.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Technology IS distinguishable from magic

In a beloved Sci-Fi novel, When HARLIE Was One, HARLIE invents the Graphically Omniscient Device (or “GOD Machine.”) The computer is so complex, it can model the world! It’s also so slow, that only HARLIE can wait for answers.

A similar plot device is used in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where a Super Computer, Deep Thought designs a computer the size of a planet to determine the question to the ultimate answer of “Life, The Universe and Everything” (i.e. 42.) However, producing the question to go with the answer will take Billions of years.

To successfully simulate the great complexity of reality in “real time” would require a computer somewhat more complex, or a less complex computer, running a simulation slower than “real time.” There’s overhead to be paid here.

Take my word for it, it’s BS. Pure and simple.

[cstanleytech]

20. I'm not talking about magic I'm simply pointing out the fact that there is physically nothing to prevent

technology from replicating what the human mind is capable of other than the lack of knowledge on our part to have developed it.
Given time we likely could do it but how much time to figure it out is the question because species do go extinct eventually so we might not have the time to figure it out before the clock runs out on us.

[OKIsItJustMe]

21. No... to simulate what we perceive as reality, you need a computer more complex than reality

Last edited Sun Oct 29, 2023, 10:59 PM - Edit history (1)

You also need room for it. That’s why I mentioned Feynman Quantum Computers. He wrote a seminal paper, Simulating Physics with Computers

The first branch, one you might call a side-remark, is, Can you do it with a new kind of computer--a quantum computer? (I’ll come back to the other branch in a moment.) Now it turns out, as far as I can tell, that you can simulate this with a quantum system, with quantum computer elements. It's not a Turing machine, but a machine of a different kind. If we disregard the continuity of space and make it discrete, and so on, as an approximation (the same way as we allowed ourselves in the classical case), it does seem to be true that all the various field theories have the same kind of behavior, and can be simulated in every way, apparently, with little latticeworks of spins and other things. It's been noted time and time again that the phenomena of field theory (if the world is made in a discrete lattice) are well imitated by many phenomena in solid state theory (which is simply the analysis of a latticework of crystal atoms, and in the case of the kind of solid state I mean each atom is just a point which has numbers associated with it, with quantum-mechanical rules). For example, the spin waves in a spin lattice imitating Bose particles in the field theory. I therefore believe it's true that with a suitable class of quantum machines you could imitate any quantum system, including the physical world. But I don't know whether the general theory of this intersimulation of quantum systems has ever been worked out, and so I present that as another interesting problem: to work out the classes of different kinds of quantum mechanical systems which are really intersimulatable--which are equivalent--as has been done in the case of classical computers. It has been found that there is a kind of universal computer that can do anything, and it doesn't make much difference specifically how it's designed. The same way we should try to find out what kinds of quantum mechanical systems are mutually intersimulatable, and try to find a specific class, or a character of that class which will simulate everything. What, in other words, is the universal quantum simulator? (assuming this discretization of space and time). If you had discrete quantum systems, what other discrete quantum systems are exact imitators of it, and is there a class against which everything can be matched? I believe it's rather simple to answer that question and to find the class, but I just haven't done it.

Now, if you wish to assume that you are the only individual, and that we only need to simulate your personal experience of reality, that would be difficult, but conceivable. But, let’s just call that phenomenology, and forget about the computer simulation.

[cstanleytech]

22. That's according to our current knowledge but new unexpected discoveries can and do happen such

as the the ability to travel through the air on airplanes or the discovery over how to do safe blood transfusions.

[caraher]

25. Thank you

The simulation "hypothesis" is so infantile it beggars belief. People vastly overestimate what computers can actually do, because they've become good at producing visual illusions. But if you look at the vast amount of data needed to simulate - or even capture faithfully - even very modest systems, it's clear that even all the computing power on the planet today barely scratches the surface.

I also find it insane the way "experts" claim that it is "more likely than not" that we live in a simulation based on nothing more than some highly questionable assumptions about what is even possible, let alone likely.

I would suggest that the most computationally efficient way to simulate a universe is with the universe itself.

[OKIsItJustMe]

32. My personal theory is that it originated with a couple of stoned sophomore philosophy roommates

who may (or may not) have just watched The Matrix and thought it was “really deep” and absolutely plausible.

“Yeah, but, I mean, like, “what if,” man…? I mean, like, ‘How could you know?’ — You know?”

“Yuh, right?”

[AllaN01Bear]

5. on a holo cube on some star ships captains desk. or space people playing marbles .

[royable]

6. If we are all living in a simulation, I hope the being in charge has a really good battery backup. n/t

[sanatanadharma]

14. So the premise is that a conscious being is projecting illusions to conscious beings

So the premise is that a conscious being is projecting illusions to conscious beings.

Who's consciousness?
Who's computer?
Where is it?
Simulating what? Reality or fiction?
Simulating something to whom?
Why? What motive, reason, desire, need, whim drives the 'sim'?
From whence come those beings who are being deluded by this computer (so to speak)?

The simplest answer to everything is to posit the existence of 'conscious-beingness' as the ground of all knowledge, pre-existent to creation, matter, etc.

Strip the universe of consciousness and NOTHING can be known or spoken of.
Thus those who posit consciousness as an unnecessary add-on to a 'sim' that would work equally well without conscious-beings, is talking unknown 'nonsense' about unknown 'nothings'.

[Ponietz]

29. Brahma's dream

The universe is Brahma, the creator of the cosmos, dissolving himself in a dream.

[sanatanadharma]

31. Mobius-Brahman

namaste

[NNadir]

15. The efforts of religion to supersede science would be amusing except for the fact they result in so much agony. n/t.

[Chainfire]

16. Theories like this are no more outrageous than the various religions of the world.

In fact, I can see some logic to the theory and certainly more logic than super-beings living in the sky counting the fall of every Sparrow an granting permanent life in an impermanent universe. That said, about 85% of the worlds population believe in one or another myths of Gods and paradise. Our world culture is based upon myths and yet we consider ourselves to be very intelligent. No wonder that we live in such a chaotic world, fighting over who's god is real.

[caraher]

26. Which is to say, they aren't remotely scientific

You're not wrong. But just because we use words like "simulation" and "computer" doesn't mean we're being more rational when we use words like "miracles" and "demons."

[cstanleytech]

17. If it is then the programmers are assholes.

[Javaman]

23. how do we hack it? nt

[airplaneman]

24. Well I don't even know if these mashed potatoes are real n/t.

[Chainfire]

27. Everything in our lives happens in the universe that lies between our ears.

What is fantasy to one person is fact to another. That is the reason we can't get along.

[airplaneman]

34. Correct

The way I see it there are two realities. The real world that Physics attempts to explain (which will remain here long before and after us) and Human reality which is just what you want to believe based on you human senses and personal concepts of reality. The example that I like to give is that you can think the world is flat for your entire life and as far as your concerned it is flat (everywhere you went it was flat) but that does not make the world flat in the Physical reality. Also my mashed potatoes note was from the X-files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" a favorite episode where everyone had a different concept of what happened one day again pointing out that Human reality is very subjective.
-Airplane

[grumpyduck]

28. Ooooo noooo... if we're all inside a simulation,

then the program has become sentient.

Rise of the machines.

[Bayard]

30. "The Matrix"

I've seen this movie.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

33. This subject has come up more than once at science fiction cons.

Invariably it is laughed down.

Science fiction people are very science oriented and knowledgeable.