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You don't need to simulate the entire universe, just the tiny bit where interesting things are happening (read surface of earth), places farther away can be sim
by chr1 9y ago
You don't need to simulate the entire universe, just the tiny bit where interesting things are happening (read surface of earth), places farther away can be simulated with much lower precision as long as they look plausible.
In that sense the universe is indeed highly compressible as it is mostly empty/uninteresting.
The question is how large computing device is needed to simulate a brain, and whether that device can be digital or analog. If the size of such device can be comparable to the size of human body, then we can create a useful simulation.
- danbruc 9y agoThe part of the universe that is empty also provides nothing you can use for a computer to run a simulation on, i.e. you don't have to simulate it but it doesn't help running the simulation either. And given that we probe the entire visible universe looking at gravitational waves from across the galaxy, spectral lines in the light of galaxies at the other end of the universe, and the decay products of Higgs particles, you still need a quite good simulation or good heuristic approximations for a lot of stuff in order to not produce inconsistencies. Or you have to limit what your simulated humans can do and keep them actively away from discovering your speed optimizations. Faking parts of something as complex as our universe without it becoming obvious would probably not be a small feat.