4 ms·

What if the Voyager probes are slowing down our simulation by constantly expanding the map?

gremlinsinc 6y ago
Ha, I had a similar thought, that what we perceive as the 'end' of our solar system, is but the end of the simulation. Why simulate a whole universe when you can just simulate one localized area, what we perceive of as the whole universe could just be 'fed' to us existing, while not really existing. But the voyager probes too could ink out of existence, and the signals they're sending back wouldn't expand the map, they would just be hijacked by the simulation to send back whatver the devs wanted it to.
- detritus 6y ago
  Laterally, I've often wondered if our increasing reliance on digital devices to observe and transmit data from probes and telescopes simplifies the effort required by alien actors concerned with limiting our development. If they can intercept our comms and edit them to their requirement, who knows what sort of 'universe view' they could feed us? Perhaps the Great Silence is simply down to early Black Hat Aliens who've been feeding fictions to all civilisations that develop beyond straight to eye (etc) optical (etc) instruments?
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    Recall Voaygers, we need to patch them with TLS1.3.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    I highly doubt that, I think the most likely 'Great Silence' is the vast energies required to go anywhere, the great filter stopping most civs from getting there (we've almost killed off earth and we're easily 300+ years from warp drives and interstellar travel). I think the silence is just that: silence. We're it (right now). Because of gravity, an entire civilization could live as long as we will on earth but on the right planet it could only take them 30 years per hour (like on interstellar where they were gone an hour on the planet, but off-planet 7 years passed.) They could've started at the same time, but only be 10 years in, while we've transversed millenia. Or could be exactly the same as how we evolved, except they did it 1 billion years ago, and died out 500 million years ago. Top 3 contenders though for me for the fermi silence is: 1. Great Filter wins. 2. Time and Distance scales of space, and 3. We're living in a simulation. Aliens weren't part of the plan. if alien life were out there, I don't think it'd just be content to hide out. I mean, look at our planet and the food chain, EVERY living thing competes for it's place on the food chain, and in the world. Extra-terrestrially I think we'd also compete w/ other races and see expansions. If we lived 1 billion years, it's almost a certainty that we could colonize ALL of the milky way, and maybe other galaxies. Def. Andromeda since it'll merge with us soon enough.
    - detritus 6y ago
      Firstly, I also highly doubt it. Secondly, I also think the Great Silence is down to something entirely mundane like our perhaps being the first out there. That said - My point being - even if there is a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a chance that my speculation is possibly not entirely incorrect, it then becomes of the utmost importance that going forward that we oblige ourselves in having some almost Monasterial-like utterly analogue back up where external input of first principles are wholly questioned; proved as much as possible from outwith the digital realm and then transcribed and stored in flesh, or by hand, or memory and voice. Elsewise, how do we know our ideas have not been interfered with?
    - jcims 6y ago
      I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t send out a bunch of monoliths or something instead of directed energy. Maybe a pyramid of extremely flat faces with prime number ratio areas. If it gets near a star it will glint interestinlgly.
- kevinventullo 6y ago
  > hijacked by the simulation to send back whatver the devs wanted it to Wouldn't that require the devs to simulate whatever code we put on the probe? Did you just discover an attack vector for hacking the simulation?
  - pixl97 6y ago
    They already do in the strict sense.
- lowdose 6y ago
  Like the Truman Show?
- markkat 6y ago
  Reticulating splines...
xwdv 6y ago
There is no “map”. The simulation would be like an entity-component system, basically a universal database. The voyagers coordinates are very far from Earth, but no new entities have to be created for that. Their coordinates can continue rising until they reach whatever the max possible value can be within the simulation, after that it would probably overflow into negative values and the voyagers would be on their way back toward where they started.
- oaiey 6y ago
  That is only accurate if you do not instantiate these particles mentioned in the article. But luckily, the density seems not too high ;)
klmadfejno 6y ago
Voyager's the main character. Once it goes too far, we'll just cease to exist.
- godDLL 6y ago
  Is it Kthulhu that the Voyagers sense?
shantara 6y ago
I've been having similar thoughts ever time I read about the incredible engineering and scientifical achievements of the first decades of Space Age. If we're living in a simulation, have the beings running it accounted for the development of interplanetary probes, people landing on the Moon, moon rocks being studied in the labs on Earth, full spectrum imagery from space telescopes? Or is every piece of data we're getting off-world is an equivalent of peeking into an out-of-bounds area in a game world? And if they have accounted for it, how fast was the insane pace of early Space Race compared to the estimations of outside observers?
- petertodd 6y ago
  Nah, they're just using infinite time to simulate fundamental quantum physics at the most basic level, so it doesn't matter what we do: https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/
hansthehorse 6y ago
The map already exists, it's just increasing the draw distance.
ThePowerOfDirge 6y ago
There will be no more signal once it reaches the PML.

Ha, I had a similar thought, that what we perceive as the 'end' of our solar system, is but the end of the simulation. Why simulate a whole universe when you can just simulate one localized area, what we perceive of as the whole universe could just be 'fed' to us existing, while not really existing. But the voyager probes too could ink out of existence, and the signals they're sending back wouldn't expand the map, they would just be hijacked by the simulation to send back whatver the devs wanted it to.

detritus 6y ago
Laterally, I've often wondered if our increasing reliance on digital devices to observe and transmit data from probes and telescopes simplifies the effort required by alien actors concerned with limiting our development. If they can intercept our comms and edit them to their requirement, who knows what sort of 'universe view' they could feed us? Perhaps the Great Silence is simply down to early Black Hat Aliens who've been feeding fictions to all civilisations that develop beyond straight to eye (etc) optical (etc) instruments?
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  Recall Voaygers, we need to patch them with TLS1.3.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  I highly doubt that, I think the most likely 'Great Silence' is the vast energies required to go anywhere, the great filter stopping most civs from getting there (we've almost killed off earth and we're easily 300+ years from warp drives and interstellar travel). I think the silence is just that: silence. We're it (right now). Because of gravity, an entire civilization could live as long as we will on earth but on the right planet it could only take them 30 years per hour (like on interstellar where they were gone an hour on the planet, but off-planet 7 years passed.) They could've started at the same time, but only be 10 years in, while we've transversed millenia. Or could be exactly the same as how we evolved, except they did it 1 billion years ago, and died out 500 million years ago. Top 3 contenders though for me for the fermi silence is: 1. Great Filter wins. 2. Time and Distance scales of space, and 3. We're living in a simulation. Aliens weren't part of the plan. if alien life were out there, I don't think it'd just be content to hide out. I mean, look at our planet and the food chain, EVERY living thing competes for it's place on the food chain, and in the world. Extra-terrestrially I think we'd also compete w/ other races and see expansions. If we lived 1 billion years, it's almost a certainty that we could colonize ALL of the milky way, and maybe other galaxies. Def. Andromeda since it'll merge with us soon enough.
  - detritus 6y ago
    Firstly, I also highly doubt it. Secondly, I also think the Great Silence is down to something entirely mundane like our perhaps being the first out there. That said - My point being - even if there is a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a chance that my speculation is possibly not entirely incorrect, it then becomes of the utmost importance that going forward that we oblige ourselves in having some almost Monasterial-like utterly analogue back up where external input of first principles are wholly questioned; proved as much as possible from outwith the digital realm and then transcribed and stored in flesh, or by hand, or memory and voice. Elsewise, how do we know our ideas have not been interfered with?
  - jcims 6y ago
    I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t send out a bunch of monoliths or something instead of directed energy. Maybe a pyramid of extremely flat faces with prime number ratio areas. If it gets near a star it will glint interestinlgly.
kevinventullo 6y ago
> hijacked by the simulation to send back whatver the devs wanted it to Wouldn't that require the devs to simulate whatever code we put on the probe? Did you just discover an attack vector for hacking the simulation?
- pixl97 6y ago
  They already do in the strict sense.
lowdose 6y ago
Like the Truman Show?
markkat 6y ago
Reticulating splines...

xwdv 6y ago

There is no “map”. The simulation would be like an entity-component system, basically a universal database. The voyagers coordinates are very far from Earth, but no new entities have to be created for that. Their coordinates can continue rising until they reach whatever the max possible value can be within the simulation, after that it would probably overflow into negative values and the voyagers would be on their way back toward where they started.

oaiey 6y ago
That is only accurate if you do not instantiate these particles mentioned in the article. But luckily, the density seems not too high ;)

klmadfejno 6y ago

Voyager's the main character. Once it goes too far, we'll just cease to exist.

godDLL 6y ago
Is it Kthulhu that the Voyagers sense?

shantara 6y ago

I've been having similar thoughts ever time I read about the incredible engineering and scientifical achievements of the first decades of Space Age. If we're living in a simulation, have the beings running it accounted for the development of interplanetary probes, people landing on the Moon, moon rocks being studied in the labs on Earth, full spectrum imagery from space telescopes? Or is every piece of data we're getting off-world is an equivalent of peeking into an out-of-bounds area in a game world? And if they have accounted for it, how fast was the insane pace of early Space Race compared to the estimations of outside observers?

petertodd 6y ago
Nah, they're just using infinite time to simulate fundamental quantum physics at the most basic level, so it doesn't matter what we do: https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/

hansthehorse 6y ago

The map already exists, it's just increasing the draw distance.

ThePowerOfDirge 6y ago

There will be no more signal once it reaches the PML.