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Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

simulation-argument.com

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Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#41

Post by Panoramix »

danteembermage wrote: post #32
hugh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I really doubt (2). I work in theoretical condensed matter physics, and it's awfully hard to accurately simulate anything with more than a very small number of atoms. Sure, computers will continue to get faster for a while, but these problems scale very badly with the size of the system, and we're not all many orders of magnitude away from the fundamental limits of computation. I suspect that even if you w…

One possible solution is to elongate the time-steps; if we take a million years to simulate one second of simulation time you could get by with a lot less computing power.

The problem is that the scales involved are so ridiculously large that it could easily take 1 billion years to simulate one second. Even with 1 million years per second, simulation of a thousand years would require something like the age of the universe to compute. In that case, these "beings" could not be our descendants since they live in a universe with different laws.

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#42

Post by Panoramix »

jey wrote: post #39
hugh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I really doubt (2). I work in theoretical condensed matter physics, and it's awfully hard to accurately simulate anything with more than a very small number of atoms. Sure, computers will continue to get faster for a while, but these problems scale very badly with the size of the system, and we're not all many orders of magnitude away from the fundamental limits of computation. I suspect that even if you w…

You're assuming that we'll be using the same approaches (e.g. molecular dynamics on classical computers) to do the simulation. We don't know what methods and techniques will be available in the future, so we can't confidently claim that it'll forever be out of reach. I bet there's some room for improvement over the current crude techniques.

But there are still fundamental limits, like the speed of light or the Bekenstein bound that forbid arbitrarily powerful computations.

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#43

Post by jodrellblank »

danteembermage wrote: post #32
hugh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I really doubt (2). I work in theoretical condensed matter physics, and it's awfully hard to accurately simulate anything with more than a very small number of atoms. Sure, computers will continue to get faster for a while, but these problems scale very badly with the size of the system, and we're not all many orders of magnitude away from the fundamental limits of computation. I suspect that even if you w…

One possible solution is to elongate the time-steps; if we take a million years to simulate one second of simulation time you could get by with a lot less computing power.

If you do that, and load some information from a slow storage device (hard disk), calculate on it for a hundred years, then write it back, load some more, repeat, until you have computed "one planck time" accross your entire simulated universe...

... at what point in the loading, crunching, saving, does the information inside feel concious and self aware 'in realtime'?

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#44

Post by jey »

Panoramix wrote: post #42
jey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that we'll be using the same approaches (e.g. molecular dynamics on classical computers) to do the simulation. We don't know what methods and techniques will be available in the future, so we can't confidently claim that it'll forever be out of reach. I bet there's some room for improvement over the current crude techniques.

But there are still fundamental limits, like the speed of light or the Bekenstein bound that forbid arbitrarily powerful computations.

I'm not saying that we'll have arbitrarily powerful computations, but that there's a lot more room for improvement. Like Feynman said, "there's plenty of room at the bottom".

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#45

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

rms wrote: post #40
IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Informational entropy causes a snag. It is impossible for any information system to express all the information about a more complicated system than itself. Ie, the computer capable of simulating the entire universe, down to the smallest of the small would have to be bigger than the universe. (Because, whatever the smallest piece is that it tracks, it'll have to express that in something bigger, that smallest thing b…

What makes you think the entire universe exists?

You know, if you keep up this kind of intellectual exercise, you'll go blind.

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#46

Post by kaos »

immad wrote: post #29
kaos wrote: post #18

It's just another mind trick, enveloping the whole universe in something that we now understand (discret computer simulations). Anyway, reality is an opinion, so any model is a valid model.

"reality is an opinion" I like it. Can you explain further?

Off course immad, is based in the believe that using our brains as measurement tools for experiencing the universe we can only make models of it, partial maps (filtering a lot of information in the meanwhile). In this process we use our senses, experience, conditioning, prior beliefs, and other non-objective factors to create our unique map.

Every brain make his own reality tunnel (or reference frame) to experience the universe, and we may share some of it with other brains around (also called culture).

So if reality depends of the observer there must be more than one.

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#48

Post by kaos »

jacobbijani wrote: post #33
zach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That we are living in a book. Note that the popular plot device of being trapped in one (or more) books survived intact as being trapped in the TV and being trapped in a virtual reality game. If you watch kid's cartoon series, you know that this plot device is as inevitable as the Freaky Friday contrivance.

Yeah, that's precisely the point I was trying to make (I think). It's the same basic mental model, "we ARE the technology we use." As it evolves, so does the theory.

Like McLuhan said, "We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us."

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#49

Post by rms »

IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #45
rms wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think the entire universe exists?

You know, if you keep up this kind of intellectual exercise, you'll go blind.

Not necessarily, but already we're hitting up against the limits of what we we are capable of thinking.

I like the model of a computer universe. It makes sense to my consciousness. That's more than most of the other models, and it has some interesting consequences.

Re: Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

#50

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

rms wrote: post #49
IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, if you keep up this kind of intellectual exercise, you'll go blind.

Not necessarily, but already we're hitting up against the limits of what we we are capable of thinking. I like the model of a computer universe. It makes sense to my consciousness. That's more than most of the other models, and it has some interesting consequences.

It was a joke. I was suggesting that this is mental masturbation.

When the theory can make a risky prediction that can be verified by an appeal to observable evidence, I'll consider it. Anything that starts with you'll never be able to test it, but... is not science or philosophy, but religion.

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