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posted by mrpg on Thursday October 05 2017, @02:26AM   Printer-friendly
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)


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Thursday October 05 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)

    by TheLink (332) on Thursday October 05 2017, @06:15PM (#577556) Journal
    I've pointed a similar thing out before - you can't fully simulate our universe with a classical computer because the math our classical computers use have nothing for our subjective experiences - e.g. the experience of tasting chocolate.

    There's classical math for the physics for the movement of the atoms etc, but nothing for those subjective experiences that at least some of us know exist because we experience them personally.

    A normal binary computer can do 1+1 =10 etc for representing all the particles etc. But what sequence of addition and subtraction will produce those subjective experiences? If I do that math on a piece of paper where will that experience be created?
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @02:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @02:25AM (#579072)

    > If I do that math on a piece of paper where will that experience be created?

    If you do a great deal of math on a piece of paper, and then step back, and the formulae happen to be ASCII art of a cat...

    Or to be clearer: if you put enough molecules together with the arrangements and charges of a human braid, at what point does that brain start to think and feel?

    Your post's logic fails because you seem to be assuming a nonphysical but physically-interactive reality of "subjectiveness." Subjective experience is an effect within a mind. Minds are either physical or non. If physical, they can be built and destroyed. If non, perhaps otherwise, but the burden of proof is upon you.

    Please think harder before you post. Don't be a slashdolt, this is a better place.