Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Existing in an un-simulated reality

iahwrites.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 94 posts

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#31

Post by nntwozz »

prng2021 wrote: post #28

"The argument assumes that given one state of human existence, it is possible to calculate a distinct next state. And then a state after that. That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we could play through time in that existence." Why are you assuming this to be true? Due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it's impossible to perfect…

It's also naive to think that everything can be calculated by a computer, at some point the calculations become so enormous that the energy requirement approaches infinity.

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#33

Post by ttctciyf »

iahwrites wrote: post #20
Trasmatta wrote: post #3

Isn't this essentially Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis?

OP here... yeah it sure looks like it is! I hadn't heard of it before, and will need to do some more reading, but at a high-level it does look to be the same line of thinking.

You might also like to check out Greg Egan's Permutation City[0] which (in the form of entertaining scifi) presents some related arguments about the need for a computational substrate, or lack thereof.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#34

Post by iahwrites »

prng2021 wrote: post #28

"The argument assumes that given one state of human existence, it is possible to calculate a distinct next state. And then a state after that. That is, if we had a powerful enough computer to store the state of every single atom, and calculate their interactions, we could play through time in that existence." Why are you assuming this to be true? Due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it's impossible to perfect…

Is it moot though? The uncertainty principle makes it impossible for us to _measure_ both speed and position, but if you're simulating it that's not necessary.

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#36

Post by kazinator »

That coincides with my belief. If the next state exists mathmatically, it exists.

The "simulation not required" hypothesis eliminates the inconvenience of infinite regress: what simulator runs the simulator, and what runs that one ...

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#37

Post by kirill5pol »

codeflo wrote: post #11
Trasmatta wrote: post #3

Isn't this essentially Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis?

I believe so, yes. I think it's somewhat likely that mathematically minded people would come up with that idea independently -- it's essentially Platonism taken to its logical conclusion. For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

Yep, had the same thoughts a few years ago too. Basically if you accept mathematical realism as an axiom, pretty often you get to this idea

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#38

Post by russdill »

ajuc wrote: post #6

One one hand it's absurd (it means that everything that can be imagined and many more things exist). On another hand the opposite (requiring a mapping from that computation to real-world objects) is absurd too, because for any sequence of numbers you can always find a mapping to physical objects (notice that you can make the mapping arbitrarily complex). So why require the extra steps? My opinion is that it follows t…

The insistence that some "real" universe exists does strike me as a kind of dualism, but I'm unable to describe the concept with any rigor.

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#39

Post by ajuc »

russdill wrote: post #38
ajuc wrote: post #6

One one hand it's absurd (it means that everything that can be imagined and many more things exist). On another hand the opposite (requiring a mapping from that computation to real-world objects) is absurd too, because for any sequence of numbers you can always find a mapping to physical objects (notice that you can make the mapping arbitrarily complex). So why require the extra steps? My opinion is that it follows t…

The insistence that some "real" universe exists does strike me as a kind of dualism, but I'm unable to describe the concept with any rigor.

Should have said "physical" not "real" probably. I didn't meant to imply it's more "real" than the integers or any other domain, my point was that you have to specify the domain and that there are many options.

Re: Existing in an un-simulated reality

#40

Post by [deleted] »

kromem wrote: post #30

Except we are calculating it. We're building digital twins of much of the universe around ourselves at different scales. We're even building digital twins of ourselves. We're improving the technology that enables that twinning quite rapidly. We're improving the technology that allows for emulating a virtual environment. And in fact, there's a remarkable overlap in how we are running those virtual environments and the…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN