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I often wonder why can there not exist some sort of algorithmic shortcut or compression method that allows us to: a) store the state of our universe inside our

• breuleux 3y ago
  If you could store the state of the universe using less than 100% of the universe, then you could use the algorithm recursively on the result, over and over again, to compress it infinitely -- which suggests that it contains no information. And if you could, generally speaking, simulate the universe faster than real time, you could simulate the simulator faster than it runs, meaning that you could construct a machine that predicts its own output and then purposefully outputs the exact opposite, leading to a contradiction. Another argument is, imagine that you are building a machine that takes ingredients as an input on a tray, and outputs a baked cake. There's a nearly infinite number of ways to build such a machine. Some of them are faster than some others. Imagine the very fastest cake-baking machine that could physically exist. Any simulator will be slower than real time to simulate that particular machine -- because it is an optimal machine -- and any event that depends on the cakes it makes will have to wait, so it becomes a bottleneck of the system.