8 ms·

He did the monster math and calculated that the frame rate of the universe is 18 septillion FPS. Let's assume we are already in a game running with this FPS. C

He did the monster math and calculated that the frame rate of the universe is 18 septillion FPS. Let's assume we are already in a game running with this FPS. Could we somehow prove that it's actually a simulation or disprove in the case it's not?

kempbellt 6y ago
Depends... Are we running in a simulation that has a specific FPS target cap, or is that the "hardware limit"? Maybe the universe will discretely lower the resolution of rocks on Mars to increase FPS for localized users on Earth that it knows are testing such theories.
- alexvoda 6y ago
  What if the reason we have not received alien signals is because the universe outside of the solar system has a much lower resolution. If we are living in a simulation and the goal of the experiment is to study a living civilization it may be unecesary for the experiment to simulate other civilizations if travel between the two is impossible.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
I think a more interesting question is: would it matter if it were?
- joshualedbetter 6y ago
  Imagine a robot trying to argue that it doesn't if they live in Westworld; I mean, the robot bar tender still has to tend bar. Imagine Truman trying to convince himself that it doesn't matter if he's in a TV show or not. Their arguments, no matter how clever, would be absurd when looking in from the outside. If there's a high probability that the simulation hypothesis is true, it seems clinically insane to believe that it doesn't matter.
  - industriousthou 6y ago
    The thing is Truman and the characters in Westworld (I think, haven't seen it) are being manipulated to create a narrative. I we were in a simulation where the creator(s) were hands off, just letting it run its course, then I don't think it really matters. If, on the other hand, they're pulling strings and manipulating outcomes for whatever reason, then it seems like it matters a lot more. At least that's my intuition.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Let's assume the simulation hypothesis is true: our universe is a computer program. Now what? Do our lives suddenly cease to have meaning?
    - Teever 6y ago
      It's not a judgement on he meaning of your life it's a judgement on the authenticity of your life and the accuracy of your view of the world. Which view point is better -- one that believes in a flat earth or one that sees the world as spherical and all that this fact entails? A flat Earther can't put a rover on Mars but someone who knows that the world is round can. Imagine what a person who comes to understand that the world is a simulation could do.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        What you're really arguing for is a deeper understanding of the universe. Whether the universe is a simulation or not is irrelevant.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  It depends on who you ask. I personally would like to have an answer to that question if it exists, but if it doesn't well that's okay too.
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  Absolutely. If we are in a simulation, then I want our species to eventually learn how to grab control of the developer console, use that to get information on the physics of the developer's world, use that to learn how to perform the equivalent of Drexlerian nanotech, wet-print ouselves out into the developer's world, and bootstrap into becoming "real", or finding out how far the turtles go from the developer's world. If it is a simulation, then I want to alter the damn rules to eliminate the scarcity we currently labor under.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    > Absolutely. If we are in a simulation, then I want our species to [...] bootstrap into becoming "real" Why? Undoubtedly the world outside our own has its own problems, all of which are possibly utterly alien to us. > or finding out how far the turtles go from the developer's world. To what end? Why is the top-most reality more valuable? If it is merely a matter of having more to explore, well, there's still plenty of this universe left. > If it is a simulation, then I want to alter the damn rules to eliminate the scarcity we currently labor under. Fair enough, but if there's a way to do that it hardly matters if we're in a simulation or not. Any exploit we pull off may as well just be some quirk of physics from our perspective.
    - yourapostasy 6y ago
      > Why? Selfishly, I don't want our reality to be turned off. All other motivations follow from that, as intermediate steps to figure out how to break out and become more permanent. Even if I'm a consciousness inside a Boltzmann Brain near the heat death of the reality-actual, a hundred Sol years passing for every "second" of simulation "tick", I want help in whatever way I can on a solution to beat entropy. Not going gentle and all that...
  - Cpoll 6y ago
    I remember reading a story about this: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/166938/story-about-humanity-realizing-they-are-in-a-simulation https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/166938/story-about...
TrainedMonkey 6y ago
This is called simulation theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis AFAIK whether we are in a simulation is undecidable as long as the simulation rules are self consistent... Philosophy had been dealing with similar problems for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism . The best they come up with is: "I think therefore I am."
- tshaddox 6y ago
  What's the actual "problem" that solipsism deals with? Solipsism is simply a poor explanation of all phenomena, since when one says "nothing exists except my own mind," one could just as easily say "nothing exists except my own mind, that table over there, and the piece of bubblegum stuck under that table." Both explanations account for precisely the same set of phenomena (all observed phenomena), and both can have a multitude of variations applied to them without losing any explaining power. That makes them poor explanations for phenomena, just like "God did it" or "a magician did it" are poor explanations for phenomena.
  - TrainedMonkey 6y ago
    I welcome a better explanation for the phenomena. AFAIK we've been trying to come up with one for a long time. A brain floating in a nutrient tube and experiencing extremely high fidelity VR you would also claim that table and bubble gum exist. But from perspective of outside observer the only thing that is real is brain in a vat belief that table and bubble gum are real. You are right that solipsism is not the best example, I should have used Descartes Demon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon The overarching point, is that I think it does not matter if we are in simulation as long as it is self-consistent. For the sake of argument, let's assume the world is deterministic. This will allow us to construct two scenarios. One is a real person living and dying in a 'real world'... the other one is a brain in a vat living the same simulated life. Both of their subjective experiences are identical, even if you randomly swapped them they would not notice. Based on the above thought experiment, I think it does not really matter if we are in simulation. Some counter arguments: * But the world is not deterministic! What if things are better in the 'real' world. Sure, but what if they are worse? There is already a wide disparity in this world. Some people live in post-scarcity society and others don't know if they will eat tomorrow. Even if we are in simulation, I would argue average external world experience would fall somewhere on the spectrum we have. * But what if whoever runs the simulation decides to shut down the simulation. This is honestly one of the most benign rapid ending of the world I can imagine. Other events that could cause termination of human species would cause far more suffering. This would be global pandemic wiping out everyone, all out nuclear war, massive meteor or other white sky event... Just as well as shutting down the simulation beings that run it could choose to prevent one of other world ending event from happening. So I think this one is also a wash.
alasdair_ 6y ago
I think it's possible to detect if we're in a simulation or not. I think of it in a similar way to detecting whether or not a system is running in a virtual machine or on the hardware machine itself. Even if the VM is really, really good, there may be sidechannel tests that can be done, like measuring the amount of heat generated for a given computation, or weird timing attacks, or edge conditions that affect the underlying hardware. For every action taken inside the simulation, there will be things that happen on the "hardware" outside of the simulation and since it's simulated, not real, the "hardware" won't respond in precisely the same way as it would if it were actually real in every possible circumstance. The only simulation that would respond in exactly the same way as a "real" universe under all circumstances has to be a perfect 1:1 mapping in terms of "universe hardware", which is exactly the same as running on "real" bare metal.
- zamadatix 6y ago
  You can only tell it's a VM via sidechannel because you know what not-a-VM would do already. In the case of the universe we have nothing to compare to, no way to say "that's an effect of running on the underlying hardware" vs "that's a special case of how the hardware runs". E.g. one could take speculative execution rollback after certain workloads as timing jitter from being in a VM if they didn't know that's just how things work on a CPU and the instructions recently ran have an impact on how the next ones will predict.
  - ericb 6y ago
    The difference is that there's an underlying assumption that base reality is analog and perhaps continuous rather than discrete, and definitely not CPU or memory constrained. In the scenario you mention, reality would be a program because it is still run on a computer in either case. If reality isn't a simulation, then we shouldn't be able to DDOS it, or overflow it, crash it, access a memory buffer, get root access, or execute timing attacks as those things are artifacts of computation.
    - tutfbhuf 6y ago
      Let's assume mankind could create a machine that could crash the universe. Should we ever press the button to test it? And if the button is successful (the universe terminates), how would we get to know the result of the experiment?
lamacase 6y ago
The monster math was "1/(planck time value from Wikipedia)"
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  Enough qualification for /r/theydidthemonstermath
  - alexvoda 6y ago
    Did it caught on in a flash?
redrobein 6y ago
The simplest I answer I could come up with is to try to record video of light moving at over that framerate. If there's still smoth movement across frames we're probably real. If it looks like a crappy gif we're a simulation.

kempbellt 6y ago

Depends... Are we running in a simulation that has a specific FPS target cap, or is that the "hardware limit"? Maybe the universe will discretely lower the resolution of rocks on Mars to increase FPS for localized users on Earth that it knows are testing such theories.

alexvoda 6y ago
What if the reason we have not received alien signals is because the universe outside of the solar system has a much lower resolution. If we are living in a simulation and the goal of the experiment is to study a living civilization it may be unecesary for the experiment to simulate other civilizations if travel between the two is impossible.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

I think a more interesting question is: would it matter if it were?

joshualedbetter 6y ago
Imagine a robot trying to argue that it doesn't if they live in Westworld; I mean, the robot bar tender still has to tend bar. Imagine Truman trying to convince himself that it doesn't matter if he's in a TV show or not. Their arguments, no matter how clever, would be absurd when looking in from the outside. If there's a high probability that the simulation hypothesis is true, it seems clinically insane to believe that it doesn't matter.
- industriousthou 6y ago
  The thing is Truman and the characters in Westworld (I think, haven't seen it) are being manipulated to create a narrative. I we were in a simulation where the creator(s) were hands off, just letting it run its course, then I don't think it really matters. If, on the other hand, they're pulling strings and manipulating outcomes for whatever reason, then it seems like it matters a lot more. At least that's my intuition.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Let's assume the simulation hypothesis is true: our universe is a computer program. Now what? Do our lives suddenly cease to have meaning?
  - Teever 6y ago
    It's not a judgement on he meaning of your life it's a judgement on the authenticity of your life and the accuracy of your view of the world. Which view point is better -- one that believes in a flat earth or one that sees the world as spherical and all that this fact entails? A flat Earther can't put a rover on Mars but someone who knows that the world is round can. Imagine what a person who comes to understand that the world is a simulation could do.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      What you're really arguing for is a deeper understanding of the universe. Whether the universe is a simulation or not is irrelevant.
tutfbhuf 6y ago
It depends on who you ask. I personally would like to have an answer to that question if it exists, but if it doesn't well that's okay too.
yourapostasy 6y ago
Absolutely. If we are in a simulation, then I want our species to eventually learn how to grab control of the developer console, use that to get information on the physics of the developer's world, use that to learn how to perform the equivalent of Drexlerian nanotech, wet-print ouselves out into the developer's world, and bootstrap into becoming "real", or finding out how far the turtles go from the developer's world. If it is a simulation, then I want to alter the damn rules to eliminate the scarcity we currently labor under.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > Absolutely. If we are in a simulation, then I want our species to [...] bootstrap into becoming "real" Why? Undoubtedly the world outside our own has its own problems, all of which are possibly utterly alien to us. > or finding out how far the turtles go from the developer's world. To what end? Why is the top-most reality more valuable? If it is merely a matter of having more to explore, well, there's still plenty of this universe left. > If it is a simulation, then I want to alter the damn rules to eliminate the scarcity we currently labor under. Fair enough, but if there's a way to do that it hardly matters if we're in a simulation or not. Any exploit we pull off may as well just be some quirk of physics from our perspective.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
    > Why? Selfishly, I don't want our reality to be turned off. All other motivations follow from that, as intermediate steps to figure out how to break out and become more permanent. Even if I'm a consciousness inside a Boltzmann Brain near the heat death of the reality-actual, a hundred Sol years passing for every "second" of simulation "tick", I want help in whatever way I can on a solution to beat entropy. Not going gentle and all that...
- Cpoll 6y ago
  I remember reading a story about this: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/166938/story-about-humanity-realizing-they-are-in-a-simulation https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/166938/story-about...

TrainedMonkey 6y ago

This is called simulation theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis AFAIK whether we are in a simulation is undecidable as long as the simulation rules are self consistent... Philosophy had been dealing with similar problems for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism . The best they come up with is: "I think therefore I am."

tshaddox 6y ago
What's the actual "problem" that solipsism deals with? Solipsism is simply a poor explanation of all phenomena, since when one says "nothing exists except my own mind," one could just as easily say "nothing exists except my own mind, that table over there, and the piece of bubblegum stuck under that table." Both explanations account for precisely the same set of phenomena (all observed phenomena), and both can have a multitude of variations applied to them without losing any explaining power. That makes them poor explanations for phenomena, just like "God did it" or "a magician did it" are poor explanations for phenomena.
- TrainedMonkey 6y ago
  I welcome a better explanation for the phenomena. AFAIK we've been trying to come up with one for a long time. A brain floating in a nutrient tube and experiencing extremely high fidelity VR you would also claim that table and bubble gum exist. But from perspective of outside observer the only thing that is real is brain in a vat belief that table and bubble gum are real. You are right that solipsism is not the best example, I should have used Descartes Demon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon The overarching point, is that I think it does not matter if we are in simulation as long as it is self-consistent. For the sake of argument, let's assume the world is deterministic. This will allow us to construct two scenarios. One is a real person living and dying in a 'real world'... the other one is a brain in a vat living the same simulated life. Both of their subjective experiences are identical, even if you randomly swapped them they would not notice. Based on the above thought experiment, I think it does not really matter if we are in simulation. Some counter arguments: * But the world is not deterministic! What if things are better in the 'real' world. Sure, but what if they are worse? There is already a wide disparity in this world. Some people live in post-scarcity society and others don't know if they will eat tomorrow. Even if we are in simulation, I would argue average external world experience would fall somewhere on the spectrum we have. * But what if whoever runs the simulation decides to shut down the simulation. This is honestly one of the most benign rapid ending of the world I can imagine. Other events that could cause termination of human species would cause far more suffering. This would be global pandemic wiping out everyone, all out nuclear war, massive meteor or other white sky event... Just as well as shutting down the simulation beings that run it could choose to prevent one of other world ending event from happening. So I think this one is also a wash.

alasdair_ 6y ago

I think it's possible to detect if we're in a simulation or not. I think of it in a similar way to detecting whether or not a system is running in a virtual machine or on the hardware machine itself. Even if the VM is really, really good, there may be sidechannel tests that can be done, like measuring the amount of heat generated for a given computation, or weird timing attacks, or edge conditions that affect the underlying hardware. For every action taken inside the simulation, there will be things that happen on the "hardware" outside of the simulation and since it's simulated, not real, the "hardware" won't respond in precisely the same way as it would if it were actually real in every possible circumstance. The only simulation that would respond in exactly the same way as a "real" universe under all circumstances has to be a perfect 1:1 mapping in terms of "universe hardware", which is exactly the same as running on "real" bare metal.

zamadatix 6y ago
You can only tell it's a VM via sidechannel because you know what not-a-VM would do already. In the case of the universe we have nothing to compare to, no way to say "that's an effect of running on the underlying hardware" vs "that's a special case of how the hardware runs". E.g. one could take speculative execution rollback after certain workloads as timing jitter from being in a VM if they didn't know that's just how things work on a CPU and the instructions recently ran have an impact on how the next ones will predict.
- ericb 6y ago
  The difference is that there's an underlying assumption that base reality is analog and perhaps continuous rather than discrete, and definitely not CPU or memory constrained. In the scenario you mention, reality would be a program because it is still run on a computer in either case. If reality isn't a simulation, then we shouldn't be able to DDOS it, or overflow it, crash it, access a memory buffer, get root access, or execute timing attacks as those things are artifacts of computation.
  - tutfbhuf 6y ago
    Let's assume mankind could create a machine that could crash the universe. Should we ever press the button to test it? And if the button is successful (the universe terminates), how would we get to know the result of the experiment?

lamacase 6y ago

The monster math was "1/(planck time value from Wikipedia)"

tutfbhuf 6y ago
Enough qualification for /r/theydidthemonstermath
- alexvoda 6y ago
  Did it caught on in a flash?

redrobein 6y ago

The simplest I answer I could come up with is to try to record video of light moving at over that framerate. If there's still smoth movement across frames we're probably real. If it looks like a crappy gif we're a simulation.