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The Universe Is Not a Simulation, but We Can Now Simulate It
- comboy 8y agoI'm so disappointed by quanta lately. Clickbaits and worsening quality. > The Universe Is Not a Simulation That's based on what? Author of the article opinion? That's cool but then it should be "In my opinion.." and "here's my reasoning".
- saas_sam 8y agoThank you. I observe the same sentiment of unjustifiable certainty with so many deep issues among popular journalists and scientists. Simulation theory, the potential disaster(s) of AI, not to mention political topics. When even smart people are blind to weaknesses in their position, I despair, and go back to funny gifs.
- contravariant 8y agoArguably it would've been better to say "The universe may not be a simulation" but calling this clickbait and evidence of a decline in quality because of such a minor detail seems an overreaction. Unless there's more you object to than the first 6 words of the article.
- oldcynic 8y agoThere's no mention at all of the "universe is a simulation" theory in the article, unless I managed to skip a paragraph. So title is entirely clickbait, surely? It's not "We're Getting Better at Universe Simulations" that is the content given. I was hoping to find some discussion of the simulation theory and perhaps reasons found that it may not be possible. That's why I clicked and read.
- contravariant 8y agoThe title is just poking fun at the "The Universe is a Simulation" articles that keep popping up, I mean sure it technically makes an irrelevant claim, but in context it's clear that the main part of the article is supposed to be about how we can simulate the universe. I agree it's kind of weird to raise something in the title and not address it at all in the main article, but that's a minor flaw in what's clearly intended as a joke.
- g_st_lt 8y ago"in context" just means "after reading the entire article and discovering that the headline is clickbait"
- yayana 8y agoThere is a essentially a proof by induction that if several properties hold (such as the 2nd half of this headline) then our odds of being in the unsimulated universe are approaching 0, making the first half of the sentence a remarkable finding given the 2nd half. I.e. that one of the other prerequisites has been proved false.
- eanzenberg 8y ago"The universe may not sit on top of a giant turtle." I'm so sick of these bullshit theorists coming up with unverifiable imaginations out of thin air. Produces lots of clicks and laymen books but doesn't do jackshit to help move science forward.
- nothis 8y agoIs the "Universe is a Simulation" more than a dreamy internet theory, though? Like, are astronomers and physicists taking it seriously? I don't know either way, I just assumed the headline was basically saying "no, this isn't some sensational new post about how we're all in a simulation, this is hard data leading to realistic results". Kinda defensive more so than click-bait-y.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sandworm101 8y agoIt is the internet misinterpreting some perfectly valid scientific investigations. A rational discussion of quanta and quantization, how observable information is coded in our universe, morphs into talk of whether that universe actually exists inside a big computer. To correct such rants one must explain quantum physics, something nobody wants to do anytime soon. It made for a half-decent Doctor Who episode.
- olavk 8y agoI don't think any scientist should take it seriously. It is at the level of "maybe this is all just a dream". Well perhaps, but we have no way of knowing. It is an unfalsifiable hypothesis so it is outside the scope of science.
- strange_quark 8y agoIt's basically religion but with none of the morality attached to it. No wonder so many SV billionaires like the idea.
- olavk 8y agoSo like "the singularity" and "transhumanism" - millennia-old religious ideas, repackaged for a technological age.
- beefield 8y ago> Is the "Universe is a Simulation" more than a dreamy internet theory, though? Like, are astronomers and physicists taking it seriously? There is no practical way to falsify that so yes, it is just a dreamy theory. Unlike some other dreamy theories (creationism and astrology come to my mind) nobody has come up with any practical uses for the dreamy theory either, so that would be a second reason why nobody takes this dreamy theory that seriously. But if this is a simulated game, I would be keen to know how this is scored and how many lifes I have left before game over...
- sbuttgereit 8y agoOK, I'll bite. If the Universe is a simulation (or might be) what is it simulating and who's simulating it? I'd be more interested to know about -that- than the arbitrary details of some measly little simulation itself. You might say something hand-wavy like, "it's simulating itself"... but OK, when I look at our "simulations" they are always highly referential to the external real... er... possibly real... world. Dwarf Fortress could be called a simulation (perhaps one of the better ones!) ... and while I'd be hard pressed to point to the outside world and say it's simulating any one thing with high fidelity, I can point to trees, mountains, water animals, etc. where the creative element is really just tweaking the attributes of these otherwise externally real things. It's hard to simulate what you're you're completely unaware of, unconscious of ... in fact to be conscious at all is to be conscious "of something" and insofar as simulations are conscious efforts at creation, it's difficult to not have some concrete reference that exists outside of a "simulation". Of course, perhaps, it's the great mystery of God which I'm always told is beyond mere human understanding. Or maybe its simulations all the way down. Or maybe any explanation talking about simulations requires greater leaps of faith and greater acceptance of more and more unlikely scenarios of reality than just saying the Universe is perhaps a metaphysically real place that doesn't require an appeal to "simulation" for explanation. I think I'll just stick to the simple minded idea of the Universe is a real place and not a simulation. That part of the title is so likely to be true that the author need not feel bad about the assumption.
- delinka 8y agoI can't help but think the two options (we're in a simulation vs. we're not in a simulation) are equally likely without any information from outside our own universe. That said, it doesn't matter either way - we're not going to escape the simulation (certainly not anytime soon, probably not ever); knowing whether we're in a simulation has little bearing on individual lives (as far as we can tell, attempting to interact with the being running our simulation has no effect - or there is none, and this is indeed "reality.") The fidelity of the simulation is not an argument for or against: assume we're simulated and it seems likely to me that perceptions by beings within simply wouldn't have the ability to notice a lack of fidelity; or whomever owns this simulation has the computational power to simulate sufficient fidelity to convince inhabitants that their universe is "real." Because we don't yet have evidence either way, I'd go with 50/50 odds.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- harshalizee 8y agoIs there any of the code for the simulation or similar available in the public domain? Would love to be able to take a look.
- psetq 8y agoGoogling the names given in the article turns up some interesting links: http://gasoline-code.com/ http://gasoline-code.com/ http://bluetides-project.org/ http://bluetides-project.org/
- supermdguy 8y agoI was thinking the same thing. Surprisingly, it's all on github: https://github.com/bluetides-project/MP-Gadget https://github.com/bluetides-project/MP-Gadget
- quickoats 8y agofor which simulation?
- rococode 8y agoCould someone elaborate on how accurate the results of these simulations are generally considered to be by the broader scientific community? It seems to me that the universe is so insanely complex that any simulations we can currently make would be fairly inaccurate because of lack of knowledge. Couldn't that cause a problem of building a whole base of theory on unproven guesses? I guess the researchers all know that but I'm just curious what the actual attitude towards this kind of work is.
- decebalus1 8y agoSkimmed through the article and couldn't find any mention of the first part of the title which was the initial reason for reading it as it's a subject of great interest to me. I wasn't expecting this from quanta. Very disappointed.
- psetq 8y agoIt's still an extremely interesting article imo. I sometimes read hn as the discussions here can add to articles on topics I find interesting but have limited knowledge on, but the 3+ top comment threads (so far) discussing the title and not content of this article is somewhat disappointing.
- decebalus1 8y agoI'm sorry you feel disappointed. But do you also feel like you've been bamboozled? Because this is how I feel after reading the whole article thinking that somebody managed to refute the 'simulation hypotheses'. Interesting article, of course, but I would have not read it at all if the titles was accurate. So I feel bamboozled.
- bpicolo 8y ago> The Universe Is Not a Simulation Proof left as exercise for the reader?
- gojomo 8y agoThere is nothing in the article to refute the conjecture that our universe is a simulation – and in fact the rapid progress it reports in simulating simplified universes could be seen as further support for the idea that universes like ours may be simulated.
- stillbourne 8y agoNot down to the planck level. Simulating the universe at the planck level would require at least 10^157 bytes of storage.
- ctb9 8y agoHow does one come to that figure?
- fnrslvr 8y agoSome combination of the holographic principle and the the information overhead of classically representing a quantum state? (I don't know, I'm not a physicist.) Surprised that the currently exponential overhead for simulating a quantum system is a distant second in commenter objections here. "Simulating the universe" in the holistic manner that I feel such a phrase entails would require at least clearing that bar (say, with a quantum computer? Or at a longer shot, showing BQP = P?), and that's before thinking about the status of quantum gravity.
- zanmat0 8y agoDo you have any sources or further reading for this?
- stillbourne 8y agohttps://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0110141.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0110141.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20171111160807/http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/862.16/notes/computation/Lloyd-2002.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20171111160807/http://fab.cba.mi... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GCFBP6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GCFBP6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... Also read the references.
- fnrslvr 8y agoAlso, Scott Aaronson gets pulled into speculation on these things a lot, e.g. https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3208 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3208
- ____a 8y agoIs there a good book that covers primarily or at least secondarily the ideas behind the universe being a simulation? I'd like to learn more.
- psetq 8y agoThere's several links in the wikipedia article which can make for good jumping off points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
- ur-whale 8y agoIs it just me or all that talk of "codes" combined with all-uppercase names is exuding a potent whiff of fortran :D ? And if so, I'm wondering if any of that stuff runs on GPUs or if we're still talking about "traditional" supercomputers? Anyone knowledgeable in the field care to share?
- freshhawk 8y agoNot knowledgeable in the field really, but I have a bunch of old school friends who do this for a living. Your ability to detect Fortran is apparently excellent.
- krrishd 8y agothis is highly naive of me to ask, but "in theory" if we could simulate the universe, would familiar stuff like living organisms/'societies'/'humans' potentially just emerge within such simulations? just super cool to think about even if not the case/unrealistic.
- ada1981 8y agoIf we could simulate it past a certain fidelity threshold, it would seem so.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoDepends on how you define living, really. It's a philosophical problem, what makes one collection of matter "alive" and another "not alive"? Since at least Thomas S. Ray's work on Tierra in the 90s we've been creating universes in which things that could be called "life" have developed.
- pouta 8y agoThe 'I Am A Strange Loop' covers this beautifully.
- rotexo 8y agoMy understanding of Tierra and its successors like Avida are that the "digital organisms" are written beforehand and then systematically (pseudorandomly) mutated. Because the initial "organisms" are written, it would be a stretch to say that "life" developed in these systems. A statement like "the process of evolution by natural selection was simulated in an artificial system" would seem to be more accurate.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoYes, this is true, however I think the distinction is irrelevant. The initial VM was created with the intention of encouraging this evolution, had the original intent included spontaneous emergence of a-life as a goal I'm pretty confident that would have happened.
- NVRM 8y agoBecause you can chroot doesn't mean that you are not in a virtualized container. Actually this tend to say the opposite...
- rbanffy 8y agoActually, when you found out it was a simulation, we scrapped the current data, we had to restore it to the last valid snapshot and adjust local simulation parameters so that you wouldn't find it out. It's all reported in the post-mortem of the incident. Service levels are now fully restored.
- stabbles 8y agoThere is another theory which states that this has already happened
- rbanffy 8y agoYes. We have some guard code in place for when this happens and it's getting really good at catching it before or right after it happens and doing all the rollbacks automatically, but they can't catch every possible situation. It's now down to one minor outage every couple years. We are aiming at five nines on the next major release.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kjeetgill 8y agoThat explains the slack outage.
- earenndil 8y agoIn the beginning, the universe was simulated. This has made a lot of people very unhappy and is widely regarded as a bad move.
- joeldg 8y agowell.. the guys who figured out that we are not in a simulation had a caveat that is was "with classical computers" meaning, we are not being simulated in some version of AWS somewhere. It specifically does not rule out other forms of computers.
- gattr 8y agoIn Charles Stross's "Accelerando" (strongly recommended!) astronomers suspect that the inhabitants of Andromeda Galaxy converted all its baryonic matter to computronium (here: configuration of matter capable of the most efficient computation as per the laws of physics) and are using it to run a massive side-channel attack, trying to verify if the Universe runs on a virtual machine (and I guess maybe break out of it). On a different note, here's a sobering thought for the Universe-as-simulation optimists: while it's possible the simulation's Creators wish us well, e.g. will store your soul/mind and let you live carefree in a Paradise... it might rather work like our current massive simulations (e.g. the Millennium Run [0]). It generates enormous amounts of data, but only some small amount (like a state snapshot every 100M years) is actually captured and analyzed. I.e. the "dumb" computing power at the Creators' disposal is far greater than their mental capacity. The whole existence of humanity might go unnoticed, just a side-effects of the simulation's fidelity. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Run https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Run