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Even if the universe is simulated, it’s likely that a tree falling in the woods does have some minuscule causal link with humans that would require the simulati
by baddox 6y ago
Even if the universe is simulated, it’s likely that a tree falling in the woods does have some minuscule causal link with humans that would require the simulation to simulate not just the tree falling but also all resulting effects according to the physical laws.
- vidarh 6y agoIt doesn't matter if there is a causal link unless such a simulation aims to be perfect. If the simulation only aims to be convincing, it can take all kinds of shortcuts. In the latter case it only matters if it is directly or indirectly observed. A simulation might choose to resolve that lazily in the case of indirect observations, in which case it'd only need to determine the proximity of entities deemed to be observers. We have plenty of cases of that in games already, where events only take place if a player entity is present.