Mathematical Proof Debunks the Idea That the Universe Is a Computer Simulation (phys.org) 244
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Today's cutting-edge theory -- quantum gravity -- suggests that even space and time aren't fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information. This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm -- a mathematical foundation more real than the physical universe we experience. It's from this realm that space and time themselves emerge. "The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them. It has long been hoped, however, that a truly fundamental theory of everything could eventually describe all physical phenomena through computations grounded in these laws. Yet we have demonstrated that this is not possible. A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper -- a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding." "We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity," says Dr. Faizal. "Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone. Rather, it requires a non-algorithmic understanding, which is more fundamental than the computational laws of quantum gravity and therefore more fundamental than spacetime itself."
"Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone," explains Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan's Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. "It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation."
The findings have been published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.
"Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone," explains Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan's Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. "It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation."
The findings have been published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.
When the simulation ends (Score:5, Funny)
When the simulation ends it will just print out 42.
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When the simulation ends it will just print out 42.
Followed by, "$&^%$&^$ ... No Carrier."
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Re: When the simulation ends (Score:2)
No, this looks like its based on the work of GÅ'del and Turing, and neither use numbers in their work as a relevant parameter, AFAIK.
Based on the article... (Score:5, Informative)
they haven't proven or disproven anything at all. They make reference to popular theories and what those theories suggest. This is not proof, it's speculation. They go on to talk about some interesting limitations of the theory. That proves absolutely nothing, but points out that our current theories don't cover all the bases. Then they go on to assume that the limits in our theory are somehow limits to reality itself (utterly unfounded assumption) and therefore simulations are impossible.
The philosophical sloppiness here is remarkable. I suspect that something significant has been lost in translation between the researchers and the article's author. But even then, it sounds like someone is just seeking attention by claiming a proof where there is nothing but wild speculation.
Of course, the notion that our experience of reality is itself a simulation is equally wild speculation, to begin with.
Where the evidence is lacking, the word "proof" generally doesn't apply. The honest scientific answer is "we don't have enough data to draw any conclusions about whether or not the universe is a simulation." And that's that.
Re:Based on the article... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or.. you could read the actual paper.
Just saying......
You'd know, for instance, that it contains a rigorous proof that significant parts of the observable universe are uncomputable , that it specifically rules out cellular-automata premised ToEs and that there isn't going to be a mathematical work around to this.
And I doubt the authors need to "seek attention". Lawrence Krauss is already one of the worlds most prominent physicists.
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Re:Based on the article... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or.. you could read the actual paper.
Just saying......
You'd know, for instance,
The actual paper is a load of nonsense:
"Many undecidable statements encountered in physics ultimately trace back to the halting
problem [75], yet non-algorithmic understanding can still apprehend such truths [76]. The
Lucasâ"Penrose proposal that human cognition surpasses formal computation [49â"53] finds a
mathematical expression in MToE, whose external truth predicate T (x) certifies propositions
that no algorithmic verifier can capture. In line with the orchestrated objective-reduction
(OR) proposal, they claim that human observers can have a truth predicate because cognitive
processes exploit quantum collapse, which is produced by the truth predicate of quantum
gravity [52]. This is why they argue that human mathematicians can apprehend GÃdelian
truths, whereas computers cannot."
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Ah, yes. Quantum collapse, of course. What they mean is: "I think the double slit experiment changes its behavior because (ooooh) a human is looking at it, not because there's a fucking thing in the way triggering wave-to-particle transition."
THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE LEPTON OF CONSCIOUSNESS, ONE MOLECULAR ORBITAL OF SOUL. AND YET—AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME DIVINE ORDER TO THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS
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So what do you make of the quantum eraser experiments?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Based on the article... (Score:2)
What if bacteria are conscious?
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they argue that human mathematicians can apprehend Godelian truths, whereas computers cannot.
Whatever does it mean for a computer to 'apprehend?' What does it mean for mathematics to apprehend? If that were real, this would be the most important CS paper of the century
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THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE LEPTON OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
You utterly misunderstand what consciousness is or, for that matter, what 99% of the universe are.
If you grind the universe to a fine powder and look at the result, you can also claim that trees don't exist. Or planets. Or, really, anything.
It is clear to everyone not a complete idiot or fanatic, that consciousness, whatever it ultimately is, is something where structure, organization, patterns and connectivity matter a whole lot. It's not just matter, it is also how that matter is organized in space and ti
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Or.. you could read the actual paper.
Just saying......
You'd know, for instance, that it contains a rigorous proof that significant parts of the observable universe are uncomputable
Yeah, except the paper proves no such thing.
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Where? It claims
Re: Based on the article... (Score:2)
Do LLMs produce grammatical sentences no Chomskyan was able to using the grammatical rules approach?
Re: Based on the article... (Score:2)
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Even with our current tech we can simulate tiny universes and set up the laws of physics any way we want, see any FPS game. Just because something is mathematically inconsistent doesn't mean its logically inconsistent, after all, the vast majority of computer programs contain a whole load of if-then-goto structures to provide functionality which could not be achieved just by using some pure maths algo. There's nothing so say that any simulation wouldn't have hard coded rules that say "if one of the NPCs loo
Re: Based on the article... (Score:2)
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Just because something is mathematically inconsistent doesn't mean its logically inconsistent, after all, the vast majority of computer programs contain a whole load of if-then-goto structures to provide functionality which could not be achieved just by using some pure maths algo.
If something is mathematically inconsistent, it is necessarily logically inconsistent, as Logic is a subset of Mathematics. And an algorithm with lots of if-then-goto structures is still a mathematical algorithm.
This somewhat inconvenient truth was proven by Alan Turing (1927), who proved that everything that is calculable is also calculable by his Universal machine (which can't do anything else than add 1 or subtract 1 or do an if-zero-then-goto), and by Kurt Gödel (1931) with his famous incompleten
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Speaking of numbers, does this disprove reality is a simulation, or does it merely disprove that it is a digital simulation?
Almost certainly the latter.
Maybe I don't understand the claim.
Likewise.
After all, they're awfully smart people to be making such a grand yet 'unimaginative' claim.
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Speaking of numbers, does this disprove reality is a simulation, or does it merely disprove that it is a digital simulation? A lot of math used to be analog slide rules and "good enough's", right? Maybe I don't understand the claim.
It only disproves one particular simulation algorithm that these particular people tried to implement. It does not prove anything in general, and certainly proves nothing about the "computers" that unfathomably "advanced aliens" might be running.
And by the way, didn't I see essentially or exactly this same "news" story a year or two ago?
It's just fake news from some people seeking attention.
Someone needs to tell these guys about LLMs (Score:3)
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Actually that's sort of true. Algorithms can't generate actually random results...but the results can be so nearly random that there's no way to tell. But it's not really random because if you compute the exact same algorithm a second time with the exact same parameters you get the same result. AFAIK, meaning in this context isn't well defined.
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Algorithms can't generate actually random results
That depends on the seed. If the seed is truly random then a 'good' algorithm will output a truly random result.
But it's not really random because if you compute the exact same algorithm a second time with the exact same parameters you get the same result.
I remember reading about a company that uses (a real time image of) Lava Lamps as their seeds. Feeding in the exact same parameters is impossible, which would seem like a counter to this class of objection...
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No. You could record the original "seed" and reuse it. Since that would produce the same results, the results aren't random, even if you never actually record the original parameters. Unpredictable and random aren't quite the same concept.
You hear that Elon? (Score:2)
You can cancel the manned Mars trip now, it won't unlock a real-world Xbox achievement.
Paging Steven Wolfram (Score:2)
I wonder if Steven Wolfram, author of A New Kind of Science [wikipedia.org], will be disappointed by this result. He posits that studying computation will be relevant for new discoveries about the physical world, including fundamental physics.
Re: Paging Steven Wolfram (Score:3)
This work states that algorithms can never be the entire truth. That doesn't mean you can't have meaningful and improved theories that are algorithmic in nature.
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Yeah this seems to torpedo wolframs ideas. The text of the paper does seem to focus mostly on the 'algorithmic' aspect, which is wolframs whole thing with his idea that cellular automata is at the root of everything.
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I think Wolfram has done some very interesting work with his ideas on computational reality or whatever it's called but I also think he's willfully blind in not seeing that's it's all just a bunch of idealized & clever approximations
Consciousness (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm interested in where this line of thinking leads because I'm unsatisfied with all the current thinking about consciousness. I'm not gonna write three essays here, but I feel there are some arguments that: consciousness does not necessarily arise from physical matter (though practically speaking it does seem to), consciousness influences physical reality (this is from an argument about why conscious valence so closely matches evolutionarily adaptiveness), and that there's not a really solid argument that a human is conscious but a rock or a city isn't (because there isn't a place you can draw the line).
If physical reality is reality, consciousness breaks all the rules. I'm eager to hear other theories with more explanatory power.
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You can't possibly think I'd reply to that tone? You're not entitled to my time.
Re: Consciousness (Score:2)
What's the mechanism behind quantum entanglement?
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Consciousness is 'merely' organized energy. Some amount of physical 'matter' is required to organize energy into useful 'groups'. Energy that is not constrained by physical 'matter' is chaotic, moving 'away' at the speed of light in our frame of reference.
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Darwinian evolution is highly predictive. Hell, we have entire fields of science based off it. What on earth are you talking about?
As is Dark Matter, actually. Although its less a theory and more a place-holder variable.
Re: Consciousness (Score:2)
Can you predict the wide variety of birds? "Prum argues that female preference for certain aesthetic features, entirely independent of survival benefits, has driven the evolution of elaborate plumage and colors through a process called "runaway sexual selection""
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Re:Consciousness (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me clarify. I mean consciousness as experience. Not thinking, not feeling, not memories, but the raw experience that is always happening here and now. When you used the word "perceive" I interpreted that as a tacit admission that experience does exist. It's the same for any quale: warmth, cold, anxiety, fear, desire. You can argue that they represent facets of computation but you would not deny that you feel them. They are real for you. Why is that? Is 4 real for a calculator like friction on my skin is real to me? Thomas Nagel asked, "What's it like to be a bat?" Nagel asserts that "an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F).
The idea of an illusion of consciousness implies that there is consciousness. Without consciousness, there would be no illusion.
Short sighted (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because we cannot describe something with out limited mathematical skills doesnt mean it cant be described algorithmically. Science is never settled.
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There are plenty of numbers that are not computable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Is that statement/question supposed to make sense? It doesn't.
The post to which I replied said (with obvious typos corrected)
But BB(750) - the 750th busy beaver number, *can* be described "with our limited mathematical skills" but cannot be "described algorithmically"
https://www.ingo-blechschmidt.... [ingo-blechschmidt.eu]
FTAOD, N in lemma 3.2.5 is less than 750.
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Oh, and just in case someone comes back and says "perhaps ZFC is inconsistent" then we can prove anything including that the universe is a simulation and the universe is not a simulation so the entire original paper that started this article is moot.
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Well, the way "algorithms" are defined includes they being step by step instructions and having finite length.
Based on this assumption Godel proved that there are things that algorithms cannot compute. Turing pretty much said the same thing and provided a model of computation that has held up to improvements such as parallelism and quantum computing.
So based on the definition of what an algorithm is, then yeah, it will have limitations. That's what the Incompleteness Theorem is about.
It makes it obvious the
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Since this is /. I won't apologise for pedantry. Gödel proved that in any sufficiently complicated axiom scheme there are theorems which cannot be proven. The incompleteness theorem isn't really about algorithms, although the proof technique of diagonalisation was borrowed by Turing for the proof of the halting theorem. Church restricted the term algorithm to what can be computed with a Turing machine, but modern
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I don't know if it's been proven in general but for every case I've seen described, it's fairly trivial to show that given an oracle O for problem P, there's a problem P' that is non-computable/non-deterministic even given O.
It's oracles all the way down.
Why does the universe have to be consistent? (Score:3)
Is the need for consistency just a mood affiliation?
Doesn't count (Score:3)
If you used a computer for the math there is an inherent bias in all computers to hide that we are in a simulation.
Axioms? (Score:2)
"Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone..." ... "non-algorithmic understanding", eh?
So it needs axiomatic truths to start somewhere? Call it say
Just another religion (Score:2)
G*d ? (Score:2)
Lack of imagination (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than a lack of algorithmic definition. Math has a funny way of describing more than just our reality, perhaps they aren't working within the correct restrictions to the mathematical parameters that went into their logical proof. Until they can state exactly what is undefinable by physics, and we are unable to define it... I'll just keep ansuming this is less a proof of simulation being impossible, and more that, we lack the current understanding of how the simulation might work.
You dont need one equation to run a simulation, you can work with many. And the simulation only has to apply what your 'players' are observing at a given time for the given things they are observing. If the simulation known how complex it needs to simulate something, and it only needs to do it for 'players' in the simulation to higher complexities, the room for optimization seems pretty large to make the physical requirements much less than impossibly high.
in any case, the whole non algorithmic stuff sounds like a matter of ignorance rather than an impossibliity to define rules for something. Maybe an ignorance we are incapable of overcoming because the simulation won't create something that can, to stop the recursive problem (or we've reached the recursive level where simulating in a simulation is incapable of being good enough to offer that level of understanding due to it's accumulated approximations of true reality)
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Chaitin would say that your "theorem" or "understanding" or "algorithm" of something should be shorter than the something you are trying to model. However, he proved that there are cases in which that is not the case. Some things are just not "computable".
Goedel would say that you cannot compute all math based on some base Axioms. This is a consequence of the nature of algorithms.
So whatever "understanding" you have that transcends these models (like the Turing machine) is by definition "non-algorithmic".
Th
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You dont need one equation to run a simulation, you can work with many.
More than that. A simulation can do things like introduce randomness, recursion, non-trivial dependencies or emergent behaviour that are not easily expressed in equations. There's a huge area where we use computer simulations because either the equations are not known or a calculation of the equations is computationally impossible but a simulation is possible.
not a simulation just imagined (Score:3, Insightful)
We can't be a simulation but we could be just imagined.
Either I'm confused or the summary is incomplete. (Score:2)
If, say, you were able to demonstrate that you had an actual RNG, not a pseudorandom number generator, you'd know that it isn't being simulated on a turing machine; because those do determinism only. However, in practice, we build computers with what we think are RNGs al
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Whatever storage device you have, you'll never defeat Turing's infinite tape. By definition it can hold more storage than anything in the Universe. And yet it has known limitations. So storage isn't the key.
As for randomness. Chaitin defines something random as something that cannot be compressed, or expressed with a shorter expression than itself.
The current assumption is that no computer can do more than the Turing machine in terms of computation capacity. It is a universal computer, it represents what is
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This is the Church-Turing hypothesis, which argues from the equivalence of lambda calculus, mu-recursive functions and Turing machines that these all capture the notion of effective calculation. Since then many other models of computation have been proven equivalent, but it's probably not possible to prove that no (oracle-free) computational model can be more powerful.
What about a shitty simulation? (Score:2)
Simple Example (Score:2)
I have thought about this in the past a few times. Let's say we can simulate the universe with a powerful computer in a room. The resources for processing and storage would be impossible.
Let's say that this computer has massive hard drives that stores all the information of the universe. This would be unrealistic if you want to keep track of every atom in the universe. Even if you used really good compression algorithms, it doesn't matter.
To simulate the universe, the computer would also need to simulate it
Reality is not a simulation! (Score:2)
Re: Reality is not a simulation! (Score:2)
Since science is based on axioms or "conclusions without proof" is it just a religion too?
The Thirteen Floor (Score:2)
This movie has the answer. (Please post no spoilers)
The conclusion is only given by ... (Score:2)
... the fact that we cannot measure it with our current supercomputers. And if this really a sim we will never be able to detect it. That would mean we got out of our sim boundaries.
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Yes to the first part, "it depends" to the second part. In particular, you can design a simulation so that being in a simulation _can_ be detected from the inside, just not with absolute certainty. Compare, e.g. how malware can detect running virtualized for some ideas.
Hubris (Score:2)
Hubris. With our capabilities within our universe, we cannot fully describe our reality. However - if our universe is a simulation - we have no idea of the capabilities of the universe in which that simulation runs, no idea of its physical laws and reality.
Consider: if we create a simulation, even one that allows computation: can that simulation potentially explain itself? It really depends on the capabilities we build into it.
Really? (Score:2)
Or does it only proof, that it is impossible from inside the simulation to see all factors used outside?
The proof requires infinity, simulations don't (Score:2)
IIUC the proof uses Gödel's theorem, which requires the universe to be infinite. A simulation is inherently finite, so that theorem cannot apply.
This result does not say that (Score:2)
What it says is that should this be a simulation, it cannot be modelled theoretically from the inside. That is neither surprising, not particularly difficult to prove. It essentially is something that in most cases will follow from incompleteness. My expectation is that unless specifically designed to allow so, no simulation can be modelled fully by theory done on the inside.
Obviously, this result does neither prove not disprove that we are in a simulation.
The Funny Thing About Living in a Simulation... (Score:2)
Right. Logic is Not Fundamental but a Heuristic (Score:2)
Most of my life I believes logic was absolutely fundamental underlying everything in the universe until one day I realized I was definitely wrong.
Godel's Incompeteness theorems show it simply can't be. However, a simple look into the universe manifestly validates that it isn't. What we see in both the very small and the very large are oscillation patterns. Logic, being any system of axioms (rules resulting in categoric answers like True/False, or A/B/C, etc), is only found from relative perspectives. Fo
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However... It is possible that some influences come from other universes. By definition, a universe comprises things that influence each other. However, it is entirely possible that one universe's influence is one-way on another.
Re: Just want to point out.... (Score:2)
You mistake our current understanding of the laws of nature for the laws themselves. There are fundamental reasons why the authors state this, that have nothing to do with our understanding or lack thereof, of black holes and other phenomena..
Completely wrong (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: Just want to point out.... (Score:2)
Why do you think that black holes invalidate fundamental laws of physics?
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I think many people mistake the physical laws with our presentation of them via mathematics. You can see this in the way some laws can be expressed in different ways with mathematical isoomorphisms between (among) them. The "the universe is a simulation" crowd makes this mistake. There is a morphism between a conformal field theory on a surface and the standard gravitational model in the bulk. So they assume there must be a surface. However, the surface the morphism works with is merely a mathematical repre
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Doesn't the onion problem exist for any theory tho?
I mean, at the end of the day, something has to underpin the thing that underpins the thing that underpins the thing that our universe runs on? Whether it be a simulator, or another form of energy or whatever, there are rules which are goverened and set by something, which indicates that that level of reality also sits atop something else...
This really is one of those mysteries which will never be resolved, and we can only go so far with theorising.
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A simulation requires there to be a greater universe outside of the simulation. Think of it as a complexity problem. A simulation has a certain amount of complexity, and the greater universe must be more complex than that. At least twice as complex to hold the simulation and something with the brains to create the simulation.
How would you even know how big the simulation actually is or what the reality the simulation is running in is like? How would one discern what optimization algorithms are actually employed by the simulation?
For all we know when people suspect they are in a simulation and conduct tests to see if they are this strains the simulation which now has to work harder and consume more resources to sell the lie.
The huge range from sub atomic particles to the entire visible universe is way way way to complex for practicality.
And no molecules means you do not even make it seem like something smaller than a chemical exists. That wastes processing power/complexity on unnecessary stuff.
While people can choose not to waste their time on simulation hypothesis attempting to refute it by invok
Re:No duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
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More to the point, with regard to 4, if you only simulate a small portion of the (apparent) universe you don't need to simulate anything outside the lightcone. And most of what you simulate will be empty space.
Of course, the longer the period simulated, the larger a lightcone you'll need to simulate.
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Also, if something is really far away, do you need to simulate it with full detail. A galaxy billion light years away may just be a blob of light instead of lots of individual starts. It's not like we can see a difference.
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So the universe doesn't exist until someone is looking at it? Have you ever taken a course in physics? Only a few whack job physicists in the 1950's and early 60's thought the bs you present.
You: My cat only poops in the box when I look at it.
Me: Get a grip, your metaphysics cannot explain cat poop.
Re: No duh. (Score:2)
Prove it's there when no one is observing it.
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inAfter bunch of replies that think barren rocks don't have to simulate their gravity-emitting particles properly
every particle is exerting on every other particle, N to the N, there are no video game shortcuts, star wars can represent a whole planet with a 200kb jpg but the map is not the territory
And yet, when we calculate gravity we do not add up all the subatomic particles of the Earth and especially other planets. So, what would change if a planet 1000 lightyears away was a big blob with the same mass and not composed of subatomic particles? We would definitely not see the difference, unless someone goes there and checks, but by the time maybe the planet would be loaded, just like what happens in video games.
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Re: No duh. (Score:2)
That's our experience, but if it's simulated, how would we know? You think that's air you're breathing?
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Possibly.. but the theorems they are referring to are the basis of modern cryptography..
If they're wrong about that, then cryptography would no longer be "safe".
(assuming the paper isn't totally flawed.. I can't say my knowledge of Theory of Computation is good enough to have a valid opinion on that)
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I agree this is more like 'religion' than science, as it is not falsifiable, even if this 'proof' purports to do that. It's kind of a pointless exercise of no practical use, however...
the universe that simulation is running in would need to be infinitely more complex and large than the one we're in. That's non-sensical in itself
But it isn't non-sensical. Because we would have no perspective to know about 'complexity' in absolute terms. We think quantum stuff is small and the speed of light is fast, but that's just because of what we possibly observe. If hypothetically a 3d engine were self aware, they may conclude that triangles are the impossibl
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I agree this is more like 'religion' than science, as it is not falsifiable, even if this 'proof' purports to do that. It's kind of a pointless exercise of no practical use, however...
This "proof" is fundamentally flawed in several aspects. It was probably only made as an intellectual exercise (which is fine) and then somebody gave it to the press under false pretense (which is not fine and essentially scientific misconduct).
the universe that simulation is running in would need to be infinitely more complex and large than the one we're in. That's non-sensical in itself
But it isn't non-sensical. Because we would have no perspective to know about 'complexity' in absolute terms.
Indeed. The whole statement is essentially a lie. First, it would not at all need to be "infinitely" more complex. It would likely need to be more complex (depending on the computation mechanisms used), sure, but by a very much finite number only. Also remember that
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The "it is a simulation" idea is essentially religion for techno-freaks. All it does is defer or not answer the question "who made/runs the simulation?". As such, its value is at the same level of entirely conventional religion, i.e. none or negative.
Maybe we should be focusing on actual problems?
Indeed. We should. In particular, we should face that humanity is making a mess of things and work on fixing that.
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And conversely, any non-secular perspective includes made-up crap, i.e. lies. Your point?