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a good enough simulation is indistinguishable from the real thing. So that question doesn't actually parse for me.
by barkingcat 13y ago
a good enough simulation is indistinguishable from the real thing. So that question doesn't actually parse for me.
- barkingcat 13y agoUnless the question is to ask whether the universe is a poorly written simulation with edge cases that differ from the real thing. In that case, the question is very interesting.
- hansjorg 13y agoHow would you know what the real thing was from inside the simulation?
- pjscott 13y agoOne approach: you look at what the physical laws appear to be, and then ask "What weird edge cases would we expect to see if and only if this were running in a particular type of simulation?" That's what the paper linked to does. It's not perfect, but it's something.
- angersock 13y agoSo...how do we detect we're running in Perl instead of Ruby?
- eCa 13y agoThe answer is obvious [0]. [0] http://xkcd.com/224/ http://xkcd.com/224/
- jblow 13y agoThe main objection is that the way edge cases would "differ from the real thing" depends on what their "computers" are like which may not be anything like our computers. In fact there is no reason to believe they are similar at all.
- solipsism 13y agoTo take that point further, not only may their computers be nothing like our computers, the whole point of the article is that our natural laws and the basis of our mathematics is part of the simulation. That implies that the host (to borrow virtualization jargon) world's computers may work according to rules nothing like our own. Certainly you can't make statements like quantum effects between particles would otherwise require an infinite amount of memory. You can't make any statements about the host world, any more than we can make statements about the nature of a god, if one existed.
- evanb 13y agoWhat is the real thing? Is there a grid at the bottom of the real universe or not? We can calculate what a world with no grid at the bottom would be like. Is our world like that world? See my top-level comment for more detail.
- lutusp 13y ago> Is there a grid at the bottom of the real universe or not? Wait -- we don't get to specify what criteria can be used to detect a simulation, from within the simulation. This is a classic case where Gödel's incompleteness theorems rule out any such determination. Very briefly, Gödel's incompleteness theorems say that, for any sufficiently complex system, there are true statements that cannot be proven from within that system, i.e. using the system's methods. This has obvious applicability to the question of a simulated universe and our ability to detect this fact from within the simulated universe. In short, this entire conversation is pointless except to say that it's pointless. Because of what Gödel proved, we cannot ever determine that we're in a simulation, from a perspective inside the simulation.
- tutufan 13y agoActually, an unspeakably crappy simulation may be indistinguishable from the real thing if it doesn't "fight fair". Just have the simulation delete any thoughts by the participant(s) that they have convincingly observed anything amiss. The simulation might not quite fit in 640KB, but we might be rather disturbed at just how trivial a sneaky simulation of our world would be.