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I think it's a bit silly to try to infer things about the computer that could be simulating our universe based on things internal to the simulation. Many of ou

by endtime 14y ago

I think it's a bit silly to try to infer things about the computer that could be simulating our universe based on things internal to the simulation. Many of our fictions don't have the same laws of physics as we do.

aswanson 14y ago
Exactly.
XorNot 14y ago
It's a hypothesis - namely, that the entities running the simulation are trying to simulate their own universe to make deductions and discoveries about it. Therefore, our universe would be a reasonable facsimile of there's in most respects. Which has the implication that their may be limitations on their computational substrates which required workarounds or optimizations, or as the lattice QCD case points out - which require representing phenomenoma as discrete computational steps, rather then continuous analytical functions. It's a well known problem in all the computational disciplines, that changing the time-step of your simulation frequently leads to wildly different results then you expect. Think about the speed of light and tell me how it makes _any_ sense that time slows down due to velocity. Yet that's exactly what EVE Online does to stop nodes crashing during heavy gameplay.
- marblar 14y ago
  It makes perfect sense, if you require the speed of light to be the same in all frames of reference.
- tantalor 14y ago
  Yet our universe is quite good at solving the three body problem. Would you take that as evidence that it does not computate discretely?
  - XorNot 14y ago
    To the best of our knowledge, but that's kind of the point of this work isn't it? Look at something blown up on a large enough scale and see if the results show that it's actually continuous or if there's evidence that (in this case) there's a "real" lattice QCD grid size affecting things.
- endtime 14y ago
  I understand the hypothesis. I am even aware of acausal game-theoretic arguments that people at our stage of technological development may be disproportionately likely to be simulated. I didn't mean to say that this isn't an interesting line of inquiry, just that I don't think we can possibly consider the result conclusive either way. I think it's reasonable to re-weight one's beliefs to an extent based on the outcome, but not so far as to adopt one possibility as "a belief" and discard the other.
- aswanson 14y ago
  'Sense' is from the perspective of your limited (human) viewpoint. It makes no 'sense' to me that a civilization advanced enough to simulate a whole universe for the purpose of study would be stupid enough to expose such a bug/limitation that would expose their (possible) existence before we even built the first transistor.

by endtime 14y ago

aswanson 14y ago

Exactly.

XorNot 14y ago

It's a hypothesis - namely, that the entities running the simulation are trying to simulate their own universe to make deductions and discoveries about it. Therefore, our universe would be a reasonable facsimile of there's in most respects. Which has the implication that their may be limitations on their computational substrates which required workarounds or optimizations, or as the lattice QCD case points out - which require representing phenomenoma as discrete computational steps, rather then continuous analytical functions. It's a well known problem in all the computational disciplines, that changing the time-step of your simulation frequently leads to wildly different results then you expect. Think about the speed of light and tell me how it makes _any_ sense that time slows down due to velocity. Yet that's exactly what EVE Online does to stop nodes crashing during heavy gameplay.

marblar 14y ago
It makes perfect sense, if you require the speed of light to be the same in all frames of reference.
tantalor 14y ago
Yet our universe is quite good at solving the three body problem. Would you take that as evidence that it does not computate discretely?
- XorNot 14y ago
  To the best of our knowledge, but that's kind of the point of this work isn't it? Look at something blown up on a large enough scale and see if the results show that it's actually continuous or if there's evidence that (in this case) there's a "real" lattice QCD grid size affecting things.
endtime 14y ago
I understand the hypothesis. I am even aware of acausal game-theoretic arguments that people at our stage of technological development may be disproportionately likely to be simulated. I didn't mean to say that this isn't an interesting line of inquiry, just that I don't think we can possibly consider the result conclusive either way. I think it's reasonable to re-weight one's beliefs to an extent based on the outcome, but not so far as to adopt one possibility as "a belief" and discard the other.
aswanson 14y ago
'Sense' is from the perspective of your limited (human) viewpoint. It makes no 'sense' to me that a civilization advanced enough to simulate a whole universe for the purpose of study would be stupid enough to expose such a bug/limitation that would expose their (possible) existence before we even built the first transistor.