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The Computational Requirements for the Matrix
goombah99 writes "Nick Bostrom discusses the computational requirements needed to simulate human existence. He offers a proof based on the anthropic principle, that you are almost certainly a computer simulation and not "real". The idea is that given that humans don't go extinct in geologically short time then eventually computer capability will allow complete simulation of the human cortex. Consequently, there must be far more simulations running in future millennia than seconds since you were born. Thus its astronomically more likely you are a simulation than real ... if humans don't go extinct shortly. Recalling the 13th floor, Robin Hanson discusses how one should try to live in a simulation. David Wolpert also weighs in on the physical limits of Turing machines for simulation of the universe. This also may explain why time travel seems impossible: we dont meet visitors from the future since only the present is being simulated."
Slashdot linked to what Dr. Bostrom called a "Brief, popular synopsis. But read the original paper instead if you can."
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Here is the original paper:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.h
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
A conniving character from Sherlock Holmes takes control of a holodeck fantasy and traps the senior staff inside of it.
While enjoying a Sherlock Holmes mystery fantasy on the holodeck, Geordi and Data request that Barclay investigate some anomalies in the program. While doing so, Professor Moriarty appears and informs Barclay that the computer system has created him so well in the fantasy that he has come alive! According to Moriarty, Picard has held him hostage in the fantasy for over four years.
Startrek.com's Synopsis and multimedia for this EP... I'm a nerd too.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Descartes tried to answer the first question.
Descartes tried to answer all three.
We get to self-existence. Since everything has a cause, there must be a root cause, and this must be God. God, as we all know, created the world, therefore that exists too. And since God is good, he wouldn't lie, therefore the senses must provide an accurate picture.
Thre's a reason everybody stops after Cogito ergo sum, and that's because the rest of the reasoning was a bit, well, dodgy.
I'm sure I've misprepresented it a bit, but Rene can always speak up if he feels slighted. No? Well, then.
Actually we do know the Universe's smallest "pixel size": the Plank Scale. Who's to say whether this is a computational limit imposed upon our simulation by external beings or a true physical limit?
Also, it isn't actually true that a computer cannot simulate soomething more complex than itself. If time is no object, it can simulate something a million times more complex than itself in a very long period of time. Who's to say that maybe a single second in our simulated world takes a million, maybe even a billion years to compute in "real time"?
"Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
It is true that either Dr. Bostrom or you has a faulty understanding of the anthropic principle. Dr. Bostrom has written a book about it: Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. I'm not saying that makes him right necessarily, but others may want to take that into account before assuming he has committed such an elementary error.