Do we live in a self-simulating universe ?

[Guyver]

Ok....so, I found the video I referenced earlier and watched it again.  The presenter, George Smoot, is maybe not the best communicator in the world, and he was running short on time so his summary was not as well explained as it could have been, but it is worth watching....IMO.  The simulation argument begins at 4:48 and the conclusion is presented during the last minute.

I think it’s best if people just watch it for themselves if they are interested.  I’ll try to offer some key points.

1.  Simulations exist and are real because we ourselves are making them now.

2.  Simulations have increased in “realness” over time as computational capability has increased (Moore’s law).

3.  Simulations are quantized or discretized in macro - fuzzy on a small scale.

4. Large scale does not match small scale.

5.  Holographic principle - saves memory and information tracking.

I will post the video next.

[Guyver]

 

[lightly]

I can't watch the video...it would use too much of my skinny (cheap) data allowance.    But.. .another thing I always think of when the simulated universe idea comes up is. . . . . How can a simulation have variables?   From this second on...there are endless variables in reality..   it seems to me that a simulation would have NONE ???   ..like a recording ...or a projection.  ??  

Or maybe I'm not bright enough to understand what a simulator might be capable of creating in a simulation?  

Edited May 5, 2020 by lightly

[zep73]

28 minutes ago, lightly said:

I can't watch the video...it would use too much of my skinny (cheap) data allowance.    But.. .another thing I always think of when the simulated universe idea comes up is. . . . . How can a simulation have variables?   From this second on...there are endless variables in reality..   it seems to me that a simulation would have NONE ???   ..like a recording ...or a projection.  ??  

Or maybe I'm not bright enough to understand what a simulator might be capable of creating in a simulation?  

A simulation is just a visualized unfolding of mathematical rules that is set from the beginning. Scientists are using supercomputers to simulate our universe, as we speak, and have been doing it for years, to test if our understanding of the big bang and the evolution of the universe is correct. Such a simulation doesn't just stop at some point. As long as the simulated universe evolves and expands, it just keeps running (unless of course it is shut down).

[Guyver]

This one is way better.  It’s done by a guy who actually creates simulations....so definitely worth watching.

 

[Guyver]

2 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

A simulation is just a visualized unfolding of mathematical rules that is set from the beginning. Scientists are using supercomputers to simulate our universe, as we speak, and have been doing it for years, to test if our understanding of the big bang and the evolution of the universe is correct. Such a simulation doesn't just stop at some point. As long as the simulated universe evolves and expands, it just keeps running (unless of course it is shut down).

Interesting, I wonder.....if we be in a simulation- if we can prove it....does the simulation end?  Delete file?

[zep73]

2 minutes ago, Guyver said:

if we can prove it

To me, duality is the primary piece of evidence, although I am still looking for a better interpretation of it. I have to, or else it becomes a bias, and unscientific.
If people read these words 1000 years from now, and still haven't found a better interpretation for duality, I would start calling it proof.

Maybe these studies will get more evidence in support of it:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1847.pdf

https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Edge20171230

[spartan max2]

2 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

A simulation is just a visualized unfolding of mathematical rules that is set from the beginning. Scientists are using supercomputers to simulate our universe, as we speak, and have been doing it for years, to test if our understanding of the big bang and the evolution of the universe is correct. Such a simulation doesn't just stop at some point. As long as the simulated universe evolves and expands, it just keeps running (unless of course it is shut down).

It would be a crazy sci-fi story if something in the simulation evolved so much that it transcended the simulation .

[psyche101]

35 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

It would be a crazy sci-fi story if something in the simulation evolved so much that it transcended the simulation .

That's where it falls apart as well. The power demands exceed the entire simulation itself (all energy in the universe) when a team at Oxford tried to accurately model quantum phenomena occurring in metals,they found an exponential problem, as the complexity increases so does the computing power and we end up like dog chasing it's tail. Or like trying to reach the speed of light. That threshold appears. 

Paper on that model...

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1701758

 

Simulation hypothesis is just a secular god idea. I don't see what's particularly interesting about it. I tend to agree with Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, while it cannot be 100% proven either way, there's just no good reason to think it's valid. It's probably easier to think we are hopeless lost cogs in a machine rather than attempt to steer the outcome. 

[Rlyeh]

A scientific hypothesis needs to be falsifiable, this simulation argument isn't.

[lightly]

11 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

A simulation is just a visualized unfolding of mathematical rules that is set from the beginning. Scientists are using supercomputers to simulate our universe, as we speak, and have been doing it for years, to test if our understanding of the big bang and the evolution of the universe is correct. Such a simulation doesn't just stop at some point. As long as the simulated universe evolves and expands, it just keeps running (unless of course it is shut down).

.does   "set from the beginning". .mean the "unfolding"  makes variables, within the unfolding,  impossible ?  That's the main reason I have Trouble with the idea of a simulated universe being possible.....the lack of variables.  ? Because reality is infinitely variable.  ?

[lightly]

8 hours ago, psyche101 said:

That's where it falls apart as well. The power demands exceed the entire simulation itself (all energy in the universe) when a team at Oxford tried to accurately model quantum phenomena occurring in metals,they found an exponential problem, as the complexity increases so does the computing power and we end up like dog chasing it's tail. Or like trying to reach the speed of light. That threshold appears. 

Paper on that model...

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1701758

 

Simulation hypothesis is just a secular god idea. I don't see what's particularly interesting about it. I tend to agree with Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, while it cannot be 100% proven either way, there's just no good reason to think it's valid. It's probably easier to think we are hopeless lost cogs in a machine rather than attempt to steer the outcome. 

Thanks for posting the link to that paper psyche.   It probably won't surprise you if I told you I read (most of)  it...and was incapable of understanding (nearly all of)  it.  

Edited May 6, 2020 by lightly

[Guyver]

10 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

To me, duality is the primary piece of evidence, although I am still looking for a better interpretation of it. I have to, or else it becomes a bias, and unscientific.
If people read these words 1000 years from now, and still haven't found a better interpretation for duality, I would start calling it proof.

Maybe these studies will get more evidence in support of it:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1847.pdf

https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Edge20171230

I’d say that covers the current science aspect of this topic pretty well.

[zep73]

9 hours ago, psyche101 said:

That's where it falls apart as well. The power demands exceed the entire simulation itself (all energy in the universe) when a team at Oxford tried to accurately model quantum phenomena occurring in metals,they found an exponential problem, as the complexity increases so does the computing power and we end up like dog chasing it's tail. Or like trying to reach the speed of light. That threshold appears. 

Paper on that model...

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1701758

 

Simulation hypothesis is just a secular god idea. I don't see what's particularly interesting about it. I tend to agree with Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, while it cannot be 100% proven either way, there's just no good reason to think it's valid. It's probably easier to think we are hopeless lost cogs in a machine rather than attempt to steer the outcome. 

They're assuming to know a technology they can't possibly know. They're also assuming that an unknown universe has quantum mechanics.
So, you're dismissing a concept, based on assumptions about an unknown universe.

This has nothing to do with any god. It's anti-religious, because it automatically excludes any divinity and the existence of the soul.

[zep73]

51 minutes ago, lightly said:

I read (most of)  it...and was incapable of understanding (nearly all of)  it.

It simply attempts to disqualify the simulation hypothesis, based on our current computer capability.
It's the same as saying that an advanced alien civilisation can't do something, because we can't currently do it.

[zep73]

2 hours ago, lightly said:

.does   "set from the beginning". .mean the "unfolding"  makes variables, within the unfolding,  impossible ?

No, not at all. Any variable is possible, as long as the computer is powerful enough to calculate it, without lagging or crashing.

Edited May 6, 2020 by sci-nerd

[Rlyeh]

11 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

To me, duality is the primary piece of evidence, although I am still looking for a better interpretation of it. I have to, or else it becomes a bias, and unscientific.

"X is true because X has not been proven false".

 

11 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

If people read these words 1000 years from now, and still haven't found a better interpretation for duality, I would start calling it proof.

No you wouldn't because you'd be dead.  Clearly you do have a bias as we don't even call things we can verify as proof. 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Rlyeh

[zep73]

1 minute ago, Rlyeh said:

No you wouldn't because you'd be dead.

"I would" is a phrase used to describe what one would do, if one was in someone else's place. It's short for "if it was me, I would...".

6 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

Clearly you do have a bias as we don't even call things we can verify as proof.

If you have two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together, and, for 1000 years, you can't find any other pieces that fits as well, is it really that wrong to conclude that it is the correct fit?

 

[Guyver]

6 hours ago, Rlyeh said:

A scientific hypothesis needs to be falsifiable, this simulation argument isn't.

Please explain.  In what way is the simulation hypothesis not falsifiable?

[Rlyeh]

1 hour ago, sci-nerd said:

If you have two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together, and, for 1000 years, you can't find any other pieces that fits as well, is it really that wrong to conclude that it is the correct fit?

If you can't even test it, yes it is wrong to say it's correct.  In what way is your reasoning scientific?  It's an argument from ignorance.

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Rlyeh

[Rlyeh]

14 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Please explain.  In what way is the simulation hypothesis not falsifiable?

What experiment would disprove it?

[Guyver]

5 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

What experiment would disprove it?

Any experiment that could demonstrate that what appears to be a function of intentional design is actually the result of natural process based upon matter and energy interaction.  Right?

[Rlyeh]

8 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Any experiment that could demonstrate that what appears to be a function of intentional design is actually the result of natural process based upon matter and energy interaction.  Right?

If the universe is a simulation, what natural processes do you have to compare to?  And why can't a simulation simulate nature?

[zep73]

23 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

If you can't even test it, yes it is wrong to say it's correct.  In what way is your reasoning scientific?  It's an argument from ignorance.

In what way is your reasoning not ignorant?
You're assuming, that future scientists will not figure out ways to make tests, that are currently unthinkable.

Quote

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

- ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

 

[Rlyeh]

1 minute ago, sci-nerd said:

In what way is your reasoning not ignorant?
You're assuming, that future scientists will not figure out ways to make tests, that are currently unthinkable.

But that's not what you said though is it?