81–90 of 211 posts
>"Essentially, Savage said that computers used to build simulations perform "lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations" - dividing space into a four-dimensional grid." I thought current quantum physics determined the universe had 13 dimensions? (two time version of M-theory)
That and the Finely Tuned Universe Paradox (the Goldilocks Enigma) is why I can't easily consider myself an atheist. I mean, chances are, this universe is "intelligently designed", in the most literal sense. I call it the "Alien God Hypothesis". It's probable that a race of aliens has mastered the "world creation mechanism", either by simulation or by physical hacking (who knows, maybe they can control black holes an…
I really hope they don't accidentally trigger a divide by zero error and we have to start over again.
>"Essentially, Savage said that computers used to build simulations perform "lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations" - dividing space into a four-dimensional grid." I thought current quantum physics determined the universe had 13 dimensions? (two time version of M-theory)
Very curious to see if we are all really living within Simcity or The Matrix.
"The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened." That sounds distinctly like Anselm's ontological proof for the existence of God, and thus likely…
Well the most interesting part of the Matrix trilogy was when Neo used his powers in the 'real' world; specifically stopping the drones and being able to see despite losing his eyesight.
My favorite theory was that all the humans were passengers on a generational seed ship traveling to the next star, kept in near stasis to keep them alive and mostly sane during the millennial transit.
That would have played nicely with The Architect's explanation that in the perfect simulated world, humans went insane. So The Architect devised worlds with struggles. But the iteration we observed got out of hand, due to The Oracle's meddling.
Such a wasted opportunity.
"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?
The odds are statistically equal that we're the first civilization and that we're the 5 millionth (in this iteration of the universe).
"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?
The odds are statistically equal that we're the first civilization and that we're the 5 millionth (in this iteration of the universe).
So with no other knowledge, it's slightly more likely that we are the first civilization than the 5 millionth.
Of course it's tricky to talk about the "first" civilization in the face of relativistic time, but I'm assuming that there is some way to have an ordering of all civilizations.
And if it has? Well, then the statistical likelihood is that we're located somewhere in that chain of simulations within simulations. The alternative - that we're the first civilisation, in the first universe - is virtually (no pun intended) absurd. wrong. there are multiple alternatives; we are the nth civilization in a real universe, we are the nth to the nth civilization in the multiverse, etc. Sloppy sensationali…
It's almost like saying "we're probably characters in a novel," since for every universe there are many novels. Or like that old proof that God exists because he has every desirable quality, including existence -- as if a hypothetical entity could be forced into being by sheer burden of how it is described.
When we talk and reason, we call something a universe to invoke all the general properties our universe has -- except existence, of course, because it would be silly if we could only talk about things that exist. Various things like books and simulations are physical representations of universes that don't exist. By virtue of our interpretation, they are universes nonetheless. When reading a book, we fill in assumptions and details from real life if the author gives us no reason to think otherwise. Tautologically, the world of the book is different from the real world in some limited and structured way, but not in any way that keeps it from being a world at all.
Physics seeks to explain the world exhaustively and reductionistically in terms of mechanisms, models, and mathematics -- basically, to boil it all down to the consequences that emerge from laws and equations that we can completely conceptualize. If the universe consisted just of electromagnetism, for example, then Maxwell's equations would be a "complete" description of the universe, and any simulation of them could be considered a universe. Everything about the universe, every general description that's true of it without reference to specific places, times, and things, would be reflected in the simulated universe as well, because science allows us to subsume it all into the more fundamental description given by the equations.
The problem is that a model of the universe is stil a model. Humans invented the notion that a thing and a description of a thing are equivalent.