Live data from Hacker News

What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

arxiv.org

111–120 of 215 posts

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#111

Between modern physics suggesting time and space may be illusions, leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality, and many ancient traditions being certain that this is all an illusion, I may have to have to go ahead and take this seriously....

The whole idea that Universe is a simulation vs real is absurd to me. What if the Universe is a simulation running in a computer no one actually built but just fluctuated into existence. Does that make it more real or still a simulation?

>a computer no one actually built but just fluctuated into existence

It's reasonable to argue that all computers are these kinds of computers.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#112
post #62
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of ironic that the non-local behavior of quantum mechanics would defeat the purpose of the speed of light hack

Entanglement is a use after free bug left in for backwards compatibility.

"This couldn't happen with Rust"

Further proof god is an old school C coder

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#113
post #85

Science is by definition incomplete. It only provides a means for proposing theories to test observed phenomenon, test them, and use them to extrapolate and make future predictions, which can invalidate or strengthen the theory. e.g. we don't even know if the physics we have is universal or local to our observable corner, the only evidence we have is we haven't seen any evidence to disprove it, but that's not proof.…

String theory does not currently have any testable predictions. That's one of its major issues.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#114
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think of Bohm's interpretation ?

It's the most obvious counter-interpretation. I think it's become remarkably successful, but also suffers in its embrace of causality. While the Copenhagen interpretation can skirt the issue completely, Bohm's must wrangle with the implications of both relativity and non-locality and no one has been completely successful as such. Also, if it were the leading view, I don't think discussions of a simulated universe wou…

> It's the most obvious counter-interpretation.

More obvious than many worlds?

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#115

Between modern physics suggesting time and space may be illusions, leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality, and many ancient traditions being certain that this is all an illusion, I may have to have to go ahead and take this seriously....

The simulation argument comes from the fact that there a quite a lot of physics effects that are both surprising, and look an awful lot like dirty hacks that a programmer might put it. Quantum physics looks a lot like lazy evaluation (State doesn't exist until "observed"). The speed of light seems like a hack to prevent an n squared problem of everything in the universe effecting everything at the same time.

> Quantum physics looks a lot like lazy evaluation (State doesn't exist until "observed").

This is a common misconception (¿among programmers?).

Let's think about the double slit experiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

In a classical word, you must simulate only one path. In a quantum word, you must simulate both. You don´t need some magical conscious observer to force the collapse of the wave function. A CCD detector of a camera or a simple wall is enough to force that the "wave" collapse into a "particle" and the detector or wall gets a small spot where the "particle" hits it.

A similar experiment is possible with spin, and you can use that to get a qbit. In a classical word, a qbit is simply a bit and you only have to chose between the 0 or 1 state and simulate it. In a quantum word, you must simulate both.

But it's worst with many qbits. Let's say you have a 10 qbits computer. In a classical word you pick a value for each of them and simulate each one, so the total computation is ~10. In a quantum word, you can combine any of the states of the 10 qbits and you must simulate the 1024 states.

So the idea that a quantum computers is better than the classical computer is opposed to the idea that quantum physics is some hack to reduce computational resources.

I think that the main problem is the quantum mechanics is weird, use a lot of linear algebra, but the calculations are somewhat straightforward and well defined. But the popularization explanations try to avoid the algebra and make some simplifications, so the explanation only keeps the weird part.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#116
post #83

Any recommended books on this topic?

Chemistry nobel Ilya Prigogine has defended the idea beautifully in his books embedding the hard science in a wider humanistic context, including biology, ecology, urbanism, societal, entomology and other examples. He kindled my interest in dynamics and makes a huge effort to be understandable.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#117

Between modern physics suggesting time and space may be illusions, leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality, and many ancient traditions being certain that this is all an illusion, I may have to have to go ahead and take this seriously....

>leading technologists agreeing that we're almost certainly in a simulated reality Just to elaborate, this is really easy to show. Just take two pieces of paper, and scribble all over one of them for 10-15 minutes. Then crumple them up and throw them to the ground. The blank one will fall to the ground smoothly. But the one that has a lot of image information will tax the Universe's GPU, because it isn't able to comp…

If you're talking about a VR-type simulation where observable reality is simulated, but our consciousness resides in a 'higher' level, then yes, something like what you describe could be an example of falsifiable evidence of simulated reality.

But in the case where we, ourselves reside entirely within a simulation (or whatever) then we're tied, lock-step, with the universe's time, and any jitters or pauses (even outright simulation termination) would be completely unobservable to observers within: the ants in SimAnt don't recognise when I pause the process in Task Manager.

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very nearly a religion. I'd argue it is a religion. The word religion means to "bind back" or "yoke" [edited], i.e. to seek an understanding of the universe and our place in it. That's what physicists and cosmologists do. These disciplines also fulfill the needs of scientists for meaning and community and ritual, not unlike Christianity or Islam or whatever. Just because you might happen to believe something d…

Arguing based on etymology is a logical fallacy.

says who other than you?

Re: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

#120
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with your definition can be shown when thinking about the absolute zero point (that is, 0°K): as per definition in this state, particles lack any kind of energy. Common tongue would say that it is "frozen". Now if this state lasts, let's say, indefinitely, time would be non-existent. As there is absolutely no change in the state of the particle. PS: Although one could now argue that the act of observation c…

Can that state exist?

As the universe approaches heat death, quantum mechanics dictates that particles jump between states randomly, such that passage of time cannot be measured meaningfully.
Post reply on HN