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Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
31–40 of 211 posts
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unlikely to work unless the button is so reliable that you have a better chance of winning the lottery than the button/mechanism failing in some (possibly undetectable) way. It's the same argument against trying to use quantum immortality to force a miracle by killing yourself, or constructing a machine to kill you, unless some desirable event occurs. It's much more likely that your machine will fail, or you'll…
We could imagine that the simulation naturally backtracks given a paradox or dead end. So if the lottery is rigged, I would never get rich, and the simulation would just backtrack to where I would never decide to try this.
The mechanism by which you construct that paradox would still be a mechanism that can fail, just (presumably) not a mechanical one.
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#33Well, this explains all the bugs and glitches in life like disease, death, assbutts, war, famine, broken hearts...
Do we know if this is in test or prod?
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#34“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#35I think it's a bit silly to try to infer things about the computer that could be simulating our universe based on things internal to the simulation. Many of our fictions don't have the same laws of physics as we do.
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#36"The alternative - that we're the first civilisation, in the first universe - is virtually (no pun intended) absurd." As opposed to us simply being some other civilization on one of the other billions of habitable planets in that same "first" universe?
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Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#37If the universe was a computer program, it would have crashed by now.
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#38If you're interested in going a bit deeper on this, Nick Bostrom ( http://nickbostrom.com/ ) has pulled together an intriguing case: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html A provoking question: if we found evidence that convinced us, beyond a reasonable doubt, that we were living in a computer simulation, would you change your behavior?
Could you?
Are they using a pseudo-random number generator with a set seed, or is there a better source of randomness? ;)
I treat free will as an assumption:
- If we are, in fact, predestined, assuming I have free will doesn't hurt or matter.
- If we do have free will, I'm applying that free will to make decisions based on a correct assumption
- If we do have free will and I had assumed we were predestined, this could have worse results. At the very least, it is unlikely to improve outcomes
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#39If you're interested in going a bit deeper on this, Nick Bostrom ( http://nickbostrom.com/ ) has pulled together an intriguing case: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html A provoking question: if we found evidence that convinced us, beyond a reasonable doubt, that we were living in a computer simulation, would you change your behavior?
For starters I'd re-classify The Matrix as a documentary.
Re: Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
#40If someone is running our universe as a simulation they still don't necessarily know of our existence. I have a hard time figuring out how you'd detect intelligent life or its byproducts in your simulation. Even if you do detect something alive, how do you interact with it in a non-destructive way? Also not trivial at all :) That "long-distance phone call" might be far less likely than us ever figuring out if we're indeed a simulation.