# We are NOT a computer simulation, say scientists



## Jeffbert (Oct 23, 2017)

O.k., this is over two weeks old, but here it is: According to this article, scientists say that our existence is just too complex for it to be a computer simulation. So, there is no hope of finding the cheat code that turns you or me into Superman. 

Quantum physicists conclude that existence cannot possibly be a computer simulation


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## mosaix (Oct 23, 2017)

I've written simulators. Programs to simulate telephone exchanges so that billing systems can test
collecting call data. Then they wanted to expand it to collect calls from call-generating systems so that the timing (processing calls _and_ transferring data at the same time) was realistic. Then they wanted to add dumping call data to magnetic media if it got overloaded so that it could be read back in and collected later. And then they wanted more and more...

In the end the simulator was more or less a telephone exchange. Once you have an advanced simulator that simulates everything - you have _reality. _That's what we've got - simulator or not.


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## Overread (Oct 23, 2017)

Yes but surely that's what the system wants you to think is the truth!


Also lets not forget less than 100 years ago computers didn't really exist! And when they did come around basic calculators were vast in size! Now we've got all that power on a finger - give it another few hundred years and who knows.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 23, 2017)

Thing is, if we are a simulation, why is the computer that is running this simulation in a universe that is the same as ours? Perhaps the rules and resources of the simulator universe make running a universe like ours a piece of cake.

The rules of the simulation could, surely, be anything. Or at least something that could be simulated.

(Although why anyone would want to run a universe using Quantum Monte Carlo is beyond me - I've had experience of said technique )


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## DelActivisto (Oct 23, 2017)

I don't think we're a computer simulation. There's no evidence for it and a lot against it.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 23, 2017)

DelActivisto said:


> There's no evidence for it and a lot against it.



And you leave it hanging there ?!?! 

Continue please!


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## DelActivisto (Oct 23, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> And you leave it hanging there ?!?!
> 
> Continue please!



All right, so I can actually go both ways. On the one hand, the easiest way to set up a universe would be to have brains do the hard work. We fill in all the details - we are known to do this anyway, as we really only see about 10% of what we look at. The problem is, there's always something unknown which we and others can examine. The behaviors and expressions of others are simply too complex for one mind to fill in that many blank spots. 

Now let's say the computers can fill in those blank spots. It's still too complicated, because there are so many things that can and do happen, that it would take a computer of massive proportions to construct such scenarios. So the scenario then becomes that, in order for the simulation to work, it has to in effect become NOT a simulation. For the complexity of the life experienced is so great, we must surely be interacting with other sentience.

But there is no evidence to suggest such a thing is occurring, none whatsoever. It is completely hypothetical and metaphysical. The objective reality is measurable by many different means, and we're impacted by all sorts of things constantly - things which arise that are so bizarre and beyond our control, the notion that they were created becomes absurd. And despite the fact that we hear less than 1% of sounds, see less than 1% of the light spectrum, and live on a speck of dust, relatively speaking, we know the outside world exists because we can measure it in a wide variety of manners - which all leads evidence _to _the idea that the objective reality exists, physically, and _away _from the idea that it doesn't. 

It's not matter of solid proof one way or the other, but certainly the evidence goes one direction.


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## Ursa major (Oct 23, 2017)

From the linked article in post#1:





> According to their work, the amount of computing power needed to simulate our universe at the quantum level exceeds what is even theoretically possible.


Doesn't this conclusion rather depend on a number of things, such as:

How deep the simulation is, i.e. does it add extra depth when simulated beings are exploring those depths, otherwise not bothering to do so, but merely simulating the gross effects of the supposed fine grain world? Indeed, one could argue that some of "us" inside the simulation were only "inspired" to explore those extra depths once the necessary simulations of those extra depths were available.

The processing power required depends on the speed at which the simulation is being run (e.g. there is no need for the simulation to be run "at the speed" that "we inside" the simulation "experience" it.
The simulation is not a "one person exister", i.e. only _one_ entity within the simulation is getting the full experience, the others being there (in some much reduced form) merely to provide the full rich experience to that one entity. This means that, if the entity was me -- and who else could it be, given I'm experienceing the "real life", honest... -- there'd be no need for any simulation of the quantum world, as I'm quite happy to let others "explore "it on my behalf.
One might argue -- I might do so -- that no software runs perfectly, but again, the simulation may not be running as linearly as we "experience", so that when it goes noticeably (to us) off the rails, the simulation is stopped, the bugs fixed and the simulation restarted at a point before the bug's (or bugs') effect appeared.


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## Foxbat (Oct 24, 2017)

Ursa major said:


> From the linked article in post#1oesn't this conclusion rather depend on a number of things, such as:
> 
> How deep the simulation is, i.e. does it add extra depth when simulated beings are exploring those depths, otherwise not bothering to do so, but merely simulating the gross effects of the supposed fine grain world? Indeed, one could argue that some of "us" inside the simulation were only "inspired" to explore those extra depths once the necessary simulations of those extra depths were available.
> 
> ...



There is software being used primarily in the film industry nowadays that runs on two levels. On the first, it's working on a macro scale (creating vast crowds of people for example). On the second level, it's modelling a set of characteristics that it applies randomly to a number of entities within the crowd. It's enough to make it look like these characters are acting independently but, seen from the macro level, they're not really and are following pre-set patterns. I think this might cover some of your points here (but I'm no programmer so what the hell do I know).


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## Ursa major (Oct 24, 2017)

I sincerely hope we're not being simulated by some cast-off SFX software....


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## Luiglin (Oct 24, 2017)

If reality is a simulation then I bet it's being run on a cosmic version of Windows Vista.

Edited: edited because of stupid phone auto correct


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## Ursa major (Oct 24, 2017)

Luiglin said:


> on a cosmic version of Windows Visa


Let's hope the money doesn't run out...!


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## tinkerdan (Oct 24, 2017)

Money has not run out: however they did end support  

When I asked my friend Mary she wouldn't answer and kept singing.
sim siminey
sim siminey
sim sim surreal


Seriously though if this were a sim then the last person I'd trust is a quantum physicist.

However it is a good argument that we aren't anywhere near the technological level to gain control of the present simulation.


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## Overread (Oct 24, 2017)

I still hold the view that quantum physics is broken into two camps. Those actually generating real science and those generating answers to things so vastly beyond our current data sets and understanding that its not real science but more educated guesswork. When we have trouble just going back a few thousand years for faithful proxy data recreation of climates the mind boggles at how wildly inaccurate our understanding of the beginning of all time must be.


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## Foxbat (Oct 24, 2017)

Maybe the quantum physicists will find the Reality Particle a few Mega-electronvolts down from the God Particle


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## tinkerdan (Oct 24, 2017)

Well I've maintained theoretical physicists are of the philosophy of science.

And you have:what is real and what is theoretical.
Real Physicists and Theoretical Physicists.

So, in the words of Travis Lucia Hamilton-McQueen "After all do 'theoretical physicists' really exist?"


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## Ursa major (Oct 24, 2017)

They do...


...in theory....


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## Jeffbert (Oct 25, 2017)

Ursa major said:


> From the linked article in post#1oesn't this conclusion rather depend on a number of things, such as:
> 
> How deep the simulation is, i.e. does it add extra depth when simulated beings are exploring those depths, otherwise not bothering to do so, but merely simulating the gross effects of the supposed fine grain world? Indeed, one could argue that some of "us" inside the simulation were only "inspired" to explore those extra depths once the necessary simulations of those extra depths were available.
> 
> ...


 You have some very disturbing points, Ursa major! 

On your 1st point, suppose the beings running the simulation live in a universe with only one solar system. They might be expected to create a simulation that features a vast universe, just to satisfy their wishes for something beyond what they had already completely explored. 

How would we even know that we are simulations instead of player-controlled guys?  Just because we don't have HUDs, etc., does not mean that some jerk kid is not playing us, controlling our guys, making us mess up, etc. But the others are controlled by players who want to win, not to see just how much trouble they can make for their guys.

About your 2nd point, true, if we *are* simulated, there is no need for the program to run at any given speed, as it would make no difference to us, either way.


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## Venusian Broon (Oct 25, 2017)

Jeffbert said:


> You have some very disturbing points, Ursa major!
> 
> About your 2nd point, true, if we *are* simulated, there is no need for the program to run at any given speed, as it would make no difference to us, either way.



There's a lot of this in Greg Egan's _Permutation City_  - a SF book I highly recommend (although it's been a while since I've read it, so I don't know what a re-read would be like!) - he goes one step further (well, it is SF) and:

_"...(the protagonist believes) there is no difference, even in principle, between physics and mathematics, and that all mathematically possible structures exist, among them our physics and therefore our space-time, a belief he refers to as "Dust Theory." The dust theory implies that all possible universes exist and are equally real, emerging spontaneously from their own mathematical self-consistency. Because Copies exist in virtual realities held together by heuristics merely for the sake of their experience, it should be the case that when a Copy is terminated and deleted, its own conscious experience will continue....

...(he) uses the money from his financial backing to simulate a minute or two of a 'Garden of Eden' configuration of an infinitely-expanding, massively complex cellular automaton universe, in which each iteration of the expansion serves to 'manufacture' an extra layer of blocks of a computing configuration. According to his Dust Theory, such a simulation would create a self-consistent 'universe' to persist in its own terms even after its termination and deletion. His and his investors' Copies would therefore persist indefinitely in the simulation."
_
(The above quotes I've hacked from Wikipedia)

Now of course this is fiction and a lot of fun, so it's not something that I would readily proclaim applies to us in reality.

But these sort of views do, I think, chime with a Platonist view of mathematics and there are a few believers of that out there. Deep down there may be something there. Also the number of speculations concerning multiverses has blossomed over the past few decades* and this is connected in some manner to simulation-type arguments.

====================================================

*  But I must admit that the straight-laced physicist part of me, tends to poo-poo such speculations, given that they lack any evidence.
_
_


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## LordOfWizards (Oct 27, 2017)

DelActivisto said:


> ...we hear less than 1% of sounds, see less than 1% of the light spectrum...



I won't go so far as to say "_never! We can't be a simulation!_", but the above quote is where I would start focusing the investigation. Our perception of "reality" is filtered through five somewhat limited senses. Yes, instruments allow us to extend our senses, but still only so far. Science rarely tries to prove anything about the nature of existence. If an experiment or a measurement is repeatable, then it begins to look "real", even if it is only interactions between things we have observed. Science can examine anything, but science is a human activity, and therefore limited to things that  humans can perceive, even if that perception is expandable with the addition of new information. What is beyond our capacity to conceive of may well exist without us ever having imagined such things. I'm suggesting that we may well know a billionth of a percent of what there is to know. Science tries to keep an open mind which tends to open up countless possibilities about the nature of reality.


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## DelActivisto (Oct 27, 2017)

LordOfWizards said:


> I won't go so far as to say "_never! We can't be a simulation!_", but the above quote is where I would start focusing the investigation. Our perception of "reality" is filtered through five somewhat limited senses. Yes, instruments allow us to extend our senses, but still only so far. Science rarely tries to prove anything about the nature of existence. If an experiment or a measurement is repeatable, then it begins to look "real", even if it is only interactions between things we have observed. Science can examine anything, but science is a human activity, and therefore limited to things that  humans can perceive, even if that perception is expandable with the addition of new information. What is beyond our capacity to conceive of may well exist without us ever having imagined such things. I'm suggesting that we may well know a billionth of a percent of what there is to know. Science tries to keep an open mind which tends to open up countless possibilities about the nature of reality.



I know we're science fiction and fantasy fans/writers, and so we like to fantasize and imagine a lot. We've all got this strange world inside our heads that we love to explore and philosophize about. When it comes down to it, however, we have a lot of instruments that promote our understand of the universe far past what we can perceive. We can't perceive radio waves, but we use them for communications and to study Deep Space. And so when we ask questions about existence, I think it's important to restrain the discussion to metaphysical senses, in which case yes, we can imagine reality to be whatever we want it to be. But physically speaking, what we've got is pretty much what we've got.


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