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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: 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!