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from the that's-what-we-want-you-to-think dept.
Physicists have "confirmed" that we "aren't" "living" in a computer "simulation":
Scientists have discovered that it's impossible to model the physics of our universe on even the biggest computer.
What that means is that we're probably not living in a computer simulation.
Theoretical physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin from the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University in Israel applied Monte Carlo simulations (computations used to generate probabilities) to quantum objects moving through various dimensions and found that classical systems cannot create the mathematics necessary to describe quantum systems. They showed this by proving that classical physics can't erase the sign problem, a particular quirk of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of gravitational anomalies (like warped spacetime, except in this case the researchers used an analogue from condensed matter physics).
Therefore, according to Ringel and Kovrizhin, classical computers most certainly aren't controlling our universe.
Which type of computers are we being simulated on?
Also at Newsweek.
Quantized gravitational responses, the sign problem, and quantum complexity (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1701758) (DX)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:13AM (16 children)
Either that or it doesn't work because there is no grand unified theory yet.
I'm with GP. I don't get WTF is up with this "universe is a simulation!" crap. Let's say for the sake of argument that, fine, it is a fucking computer simulation.
So. What.
Seriously? So what? How does that help? Are these jokers all thinking that once they determine that the universe is a simulation, they're all going to become Neo and magically self-substantiate from the Matrix, just by uttering the magic words "it's a simulation!"?
There. I just said "It's a simulation!" I said it really loud, too. I still do not have access to magic.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:09AM (10 children)
the reason people want to know if its a simulation or not is mostly about religion.
no religion (that I'm aware of) has ever proposed such a thing.
if we 'find out' that we really are in a simulation, there goes the whole 'god idea'.
there goes, also, the whole idea of natural laws. you could create simulations that have lots of random exceptions in them. there could be NO rules, just a lot of instances of 'if this, do that'.
for me, I think its 2 choices: either we are in a simulation (and there is someone who is not exactly a Good Person running it), or there simply is no concept of justice and Right/Wrong; its all random, good people get punished like bad ones; and bad ones get rewards like good ones sometimes do. all random, no one running anything, no afterlife, no 'suffer now to get a big reward later'. none of that. just no on in charge at all.
I find the question very interesting; but I can't understand how we could ever know.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:24AM
The religious can simply quibble about what "simulation" means, or what a "computer" means.
It's dumb people with intellectual/science pretension that keep on harping on bullshit like this. And the phds with no chops to do any real research, churning out garbage papers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by rylyeh on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:43AM
Huh? The universe of human experience in every religion is a planned, created, executed at will 'Simulation'. Constructed. Made.
A mechanical universe is the only other answer, so, I agree this is about religion is a philosophical sense - but the simulation freaks are closer to the side of religion whether that is apparent or not.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arslan on Thursday October 05 2017, @05:30AM
Umm... why does the whole 'god idea' have to go away if we do prove it is a simulation.
It could just mean that whoever created that simulation is god (are the gods). It could mean a different religion or a change in how one interprets their religion - of course in some conservative ones their head explodes. Maybe the scientologists will tweak their narrative to have Xenu fit the owner of the simulator.
From a scientific point of view it is interesting as it could mean we're not a random by-product of the environment or we could still be random in that the simulation creator(s) never really planned for us but the broader universe simulation - and at this point we might not have been noticed given the relative size of the universe to us, maybe if we start destroying a few galaxies maybe we can get some attention or not if we think that kind of attention isn't necessarily healthy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Thursday October 05 2017, @05:33AM (4 children)
Couldn't God just be a programmer?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @05:53AM
Or more likely, a brogrammer.
(Score: 4, Funny) by linuxrocks123 on Thursday October 05 2017, @11:10AM (2 children)
"What if God was ... one of us?"
;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
Just a slob like one of us?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @10:03PM
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to grope some tight asssssssss?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:48AM
> no religion (that I'm aware of) has ever proposed such a thing.
you did not read Genesis 1:1?
What atheism says the creator is a mere mechanical (even if operating with quantum randomness) machine or not present at all, religions says it is aware and loving/judging/dominating, masons and sects say the architect is some kind of butler at your service.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @01:56PM
I disagree. If anything it would prove the existence of God. The theory of simulated universe is probably the thing that has brought me back to faith personally.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmorris on Thursday October 05 2017, @06:06AM (1 child)
If we live in a simulation, odds are it isn't perfectly emulating every particle. It is likely to be approximating things to cut costs. Understand the system, find flaws. Might not be able to break out to the outside but perhaps can hack it? It would mean there are the official laws of physics and the actual ones, only operating where "the system" isn't paying proper attention to detail. Magic?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 05 2017, @05:54PM
> odds are it isn't perfectly emulating every particle
Heisenberg's principle is just the symptom of a neat simulation optimization trick: perceptibly lossless compression, with the noise set at the Planck level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @06:11AM (2 children)
It would expand our universe, as there would/should? be something outside the simulation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @02:43PM (1 child)
Ok, I state again. I'm conceding the point. The universe is a simulation! It's a simulation!!!
So, how do I find out what's "outside" the simulation now that I have established beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's a simulation?
How do we know that what's "outside" the simulation even resembles this simulated reality? We just expect it to be similar from the perspective of sheer human arrogance and chauvinism.
So we can talk to the User somehow, even if we can't go shake her hand. What profound philosophical insights do you suppose the User will give that will bring us world peace and prosperity?
Ok, so I'm talking to the User now. She's ok. I've got her convinced that we can solve this world hunger thing if she just nudge things ever so. So now she's wielding power over our reality, something she hadn't done before. In the book series Malazan Book of the Fallen, there are many, many times a new god wields their power (or sometimes an elder god with renewed interest in the world exercises power for the first time in thousands of years), and everything gets fucked up, especially for the god.
Well, the User doesn't live in here, since her reality is incomprehensibly different from ours (quite a bit of non-Euclidean geometry and all that), so if it does go fucked up, she can just roll back to last night's backup. But then she'll know not to listen to me this time around, and we're right back where we fucking started!
(Yeah, I know, me and my big mouth, going and talking to eldritch beings that exist beyond the veil of reality.)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @02:46PM
Oh, and I also forgot to tell you that the User told me that she's starting to think that she's in a simulation!!! What the fuck do we do now?!
I'll give a hint. This thought experiment does not conclude the same way that Thirteenth Floor did, where you break through to the realest reality and retire on a beach with a beautiful wife and 2.5 kids that you stole from the being in realest reality that was foolish enough to dive down to this level of simulations within simulations!