Scientist Suggests We Explore 'Universe is a VR Simulation' Theory

holy_calamity writes "A New Zealand physicist has written a paper saying that physicists should seriously explore the possibility the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation. He says that the existence of quantum phenomena could be due to the underlying digital nature of the simulation and also claims his VR hypothesis can explain relativity, the big bang and more. It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too. He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual."

Comments

1637 called, they want their idea back.

[SatanicPuppy]

In a word: Crap.

Philosophers have been pondering this nonsense for centuries, and have gotten nowhere...It's an argumentative blackhole, a solipsim. It's not testable...his "testable" experiments are like the sort of thing you see an idiot do to try and demonstrate that they have free will (e.g. "See? I just punched myself in the face, no way would anyone make me do that, so I must have free will!") If our reality is virtual, then all data is suspect, and it would be impossible to trust any sort of experimental data. Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

It's just not a useful avenue for speculation. This guy brings nothing new to the table except the kinda crap the ID people bring..."Hey, if the universe was a simulation, it would explain why everything tastes like chicken!" Just because there is no currently workable theory for some occurrence, there is no reason to invent a wild explanation that just makes it go away.

Without some compelling proof (which he lacks) this is nothing more than a conversational topic over a bag of weed.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[somersault]

Yeah, you could explain *anything* by saying "it's this way because it's programmed to be this way". It's the same convenience of saying there is a God (sure I believe in God myself so I'm not slagging beliefs, but this guy is just saying in a different way that he thinks that some superior beings made the universe).

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[explosivejared]

So how would we be able to tell if our universe was a simulation? Whitworth says that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. But he falls short of suggesting what this might be.

This is the failure of reconciling the metaphysical with the physical. I agree with you completely. There is no way for us to remove ourselves from the universe at large to observe it. Whitworth is not a scientist when he speaks of this. He is a philosopher exploring metaphysics and ontology.

I can come up with a number of theories about reality myself, and without being able to experiment on them they are just as valid. Therefore I propose that the universe we experience is really just the eye of an aether system. Once you get beyond the aether, it really is turtles all the way down. That's just as valid, without relevant experimentation, as the universe being a vr sim. Metaphysics is cool and all, but just don't call it science or its practitioners scientists.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Raindance]

I completely disagree. The calculus on the simulation argument is surprisingly solid when you think about it (Bostrom, for instance, has some pretty good arguments for it). You say, "It's just not a useful avenue for speculation. This guy brings nothing new to the table except the kinda crap the ID people bring." Did you read the paper? This guy Whitworth says some interesting stuff... personally I think the most interesting part of his paper is near the end, where he compares "Virtual Property" with "Physical Outcome".

Diversity of effort in science is good. This guy has a diverse approach to trying to understand the universe. He also says some interesting things and is looking for predictive qualities in his theory. That's good.

The problem is that we know nearly nothing about what simulations "have to be" or "cannot be" in the case of a system advanced enough to simulate our universe. So he might have a long road ahead of him. But it's an approach worth pursuing, if damn difficult to do so.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[UnknownSoldier]

> Philosophers have been pondering this nonsense for centuries, and have gotten nowhere...

Maybe you're listening to the wrong Philosophers...

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[inviolet]

It's just not a useful avenue for speculation. This guy brings nothing new to the table except the kinda crap the ID people bring..."Hey, if the universe was a simulation, it would explain why everything tastes like chicken!" Just because there is no currently workable theory for some occurrence, there is no reason to invent a wild explanation that just makes it go away.

I would not be surprised at all to learn that reality is a simulation. Many of my brethren seem to be bots, executing fairly simple scripts and never really introspecting.

They were probably put here, by me or whoever, to make the game more interesting. (We'd have to temporarily forget that it was a game in order to keep it fun.) Indeed, any sufficiently advanced intelligence is going to achieve such a level of safety, comfort, and (eventually) immortality, that they will then need to invest a simulated world in which they can once again experience peril, uncertainty, risk, and death.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

DeCarte answered this already and it goes way beyond 'I think therefore I am', but most people don't actually read his work, just quote that one phrase and think it's the end. Same mistake people make of Kant, forgetting about the entire maxums.

Just your friendly AC expecting to be found at the bottom of the pile...

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Ours]

I'd go beyond saying that thing wouldn't be repeatable. If you discover a bug in the "simulation", then why not fix it and then "rewind" back to the time just before this guy found the bug. That way in our time-line we never saw the bug. In that same mater, if this was a simulation, retroactively delete this guy before he was conceived,and all of the sudden he never existed or wrote any theories. The only way a simulation scenario would be found is if the simulation allowed for it (simulation QA, ancestor philosophical/psychological research, The Sims 40'000).

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[kebes]

A notable difference being that this scientist is proposing means by which one could potentially distinguish between a "simulation reality" and a "real reality". That is, he is presenting a theory that makes falsifiable predictions. In his abstract he puts it as:

It is suggested that whether the world is an objective reality or a virtual reality is a matter for science to resolve.

He also readily admits that the idea is "strange" but says that it is still worthy of investigation:

This article argues that the idea that our physical world is a virtual reality, which is normally a topic of science fiction, religion or philosophy, should be considered as a possible theory of physics. Whether this is true or not, the reader is asked to keep an open mind, as one has to at least consider a theory to reject it. ... The paper asks if a world that behaves just like the world we live in could arise from a VR simulation, and whether physical data from this world supports (or denies) this possibility. The first considers if VR theory is logically possible, and the second if it explains known facts better than other theories.

Now having said all that, I'm not convinced that his idea is really sound. Fundamentally he is arguing that if our reality is the result of information processing, then there will be effects that cannot be computed/simulated within our reality. He says:

a VR processor cannot logically exist within the virtual reality its processing creates. It is logically impossible for a processor to create itself because the virtual world creation could not start if a processor did not initially exist outside it.

I'm not sure I understand or agree with this. The reality we see appears to arise because of the 'laws of physics' acting on certain 'initial conditions.' Simulating the entire universe would require precise knowledge of those initial conditions (location of every particle at the big bang) but it is possible (but as yet unproven) that the laws of physics are quite simple and computable and could be simulated by a (quantum) computer within our universe. I think this would hold whether reality is real or virtual (you can simulate a universe inside reality; and a computer can simulate itself).

A much more lucid and convincing discussion of these ideas is presented by Max Tegmark in his paper "The Mathematical Universe" (preprint available here). In it, he discusses this idea of whether we could detect being inside a virtual reality and provides arguments for why there may be no meaningful difference between a "simulation of reality" and "reality itself". His overall argument, that the universe may be fundamentally mathematical, is quite interesting, and again he provides some means by which we could determine to what extent his arguments actually apply to our universe. Worth a read.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Bogtha]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time.

Not necessarily. As a developer, when you run a bunch of testcases, if you find a bug, you don't halt everything in the debugger and fix the bug immediately, you just wait until it's all over, fix the bug, and re-start the test run. If this guy's theory is correct, then I would assume that any such flaws would persist until the end of our universe and then get fixed for the next one.

Personally, when I first read about the double-slit experiment, it reminded me of short-circuiting in if statements, so I can see the appeal of this line of thought. But I think it's silly to purposefully investigate it rather than simply wait and see what we can deduct from the ToE, if and when we figure it out.

Just because there is no currently workable theory for some occurrence, there is no reason to invent a wild explanation that just makes it go away.

Without some compelling proof (which he lacks) this is nothing more than a conversational topic over a bag of weed.

Er, that's exactly how science is supposed to work. You don't have a theory for some occurrence, so you invent an explanation, you don't have proof, so you perform experiments to get evidence.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[UbuntuDupe]

If our reality is virtual, then all data is suspect, and it would be impossible to trust any sort of experimental data.

False. You can do experiments within virtual worlds to determine the rules under which it operates, just like you can in the real world. For example, in second life, if you don't RTFM, you can still do scientific tests with your avatars to learn the internal physics of that virtual world.

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

You shut off too soon. Take it further -- if the creators "fix it", would we notice? If, as I suggest in my other post on this article, we piece the illusion via overloading the system with computations it must perform, the creator may be forced to start "simplifying" the laws of physics in observable ways.

FYI: Someone mentioned the Bostrom argument, so rather than make another post, I thought I'd concisely summarize it here:

"If it's possible to make fully-real-seeming simulations, any civilization will eventually discover this and make on the order of thousands of them. Thus, only one out of 1000+ real-seeming worlds is real. From a Bayesian perspective, then, GIVEN that the world seems real, there is only a 1 in 1000+ chance it is real."

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Kenshin]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time.

That, or they call it a "feature".

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[s4ck]

is that an oxymoron?

anyway.. you just said one thing then kinda back handed stated the opposite. can't have it both ways...

why is it easy to understand there's no such thing as a "big programmer" and that its the same as "god" whatever you name it? just like you first intended your intial reply.

do you think god really care if you beleive or not in him? unless you mean a go'alud... then.. yes .. they do care.. but THAT'S a virtual reality.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[vimh42]

"Without some compelling proof (which he lacks) this is nothing more than a conversational topic over a bag of weed."

So...are you saying that's a good thing, or a bad thing?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please give BC some credit in your sig bro! ;)

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[spikedvodka]

It is all VR... the fact that everything tastes like chicken just proves it... the taste for everything else just hasn't been implimented yet

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Mr Pippin]

I just want to know if the Universe is being run under Windows.

Hey, everyone jump up and down in unison, and see if we can blue screen the Universe!

Heh, now we know what it's like to live in "Mainframe" (for "Reboot" fans).

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[God of Lemmings]

"Hey, if the universe was a simulation, it would explain why everything tastes like chicken!

Thats Odd. I could have sworn everything tasted like Tastee Wheat.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[blhack]

Exactly.
It is the same thing I use when trying to explain theism to somebody who doesn't "get it". We are humans. We are made of matter, and we exist in our universe. Comprehending things that have no entropy (and therefor no "flow" of time) in impossible for us. Also, trying to comprehend anything other than what exists in our own universe is, likewise, impossible. It would be like trying to explain color to a creature who was born without sight, or had lived its entire life in a dark cave. So in my argument for theism, I'm not saying that there IS a god, just that to rule one out because humans are incapable of wrapping our heads around it is a little silly.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Thelasko]

I believe the generally accepted answer to this question was René Descartes'. Cogito ergo sum. "But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. (AT VII 25; CSM II 16-17)" I know I exist, why should I care if everything else is an illusion?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[DarkIye]

it would explain why everything tastes like chicken

Tank: Here you go, buddy; "Breakfast of Champions."

Mouse: If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs.

Apoc: Yeah, or a bowl of snot.

Mouse: Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?

Switch: No, but technically, neither did you.

Mouse: That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.

Apoc: Shut up, Mouse.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Just Some Guy]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

"Luminiferous aether" used to make a lot of sense to some pretty intelligent people. If this were a simulation, then perhaps the sysadmins realized that "we" were getting close to exploiting some crappy code (like discovering that your performance counter is about to overflow a uint) and replaced it with a more robust version. Like, say, defining the old getLightspeedInReferenceFrame(vector velocity) function to return c instead of a computed value.

It's not that I disagree with you, but you can't dismiss some of the ideas that easily.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, let's just skip it and have the weed.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Maximum Prophet]

Nothing would be repeatable.

Like, maybe "cold fusion" or "magnetic monopoles"?

Science runs into non-repeats all the time, but good scientists assume that if an experiment is non-repeatable, it's been done wrong.

Scientists use faith all the time. It's assumed that if an experiment here is repeated sufficent times and always produces answer X, then that same phenomenon will produce the same results 100 million light years away. Most of Astrophysics is completely non-testable, but add a little faith that the rules here match the rules there and viola, grant money.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[somersault]

Personally I do think he cares, but some people don't. A big programmer would be the same as God yes. To me being a coder actually makes the idea of a God more feasible, but obviously not all coders think like me ;)

I also used to wonder if I was just trapped inside some VR arcade game that had gone wrong, or in fact my whole life was a game that was only taking minutes on the outside, but seemed like a lifetime to me (I guess that idea was probably ripped from the Star Trek episode where Jean Luc experiences another life through some alien probe thingy, or Red Dwarf.. I think I had it before The Matrix came out anyway). Anyway, virtual reality wouldn't be distinguishable from real reality if all you could remember was the virtual one. Quote a few Anime's explore that idea (at least 2 spring to mind, Ghost in the Shell and RahXephon)...

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[clem]

Philosophers have been pondering this nonsense for centuries, and have gotten nowhere. Each philosopher is still trying to get his fork back from the guy beside him so he can finish his meal and go home.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[jcaldwel]

No kidding... this theory is René Descartes Meditations with the following sed scripts

s/malevolent demon/virtual reality simulation/g

s/philosophy/science/g

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[sm62704]

Sure, it's crap, and untestable crap, but it's interesting crap. Or The Matrix wouldn't have made so much money.

Rather than a VR simulation, I'd hazard a guess that this is some sort of prison. I mean, if I were designing a VR siulation I'd make it a hell of a lot more enjoyable than this crap we're all living in. Why would anyone deliberately choose a character that suffers from clinical depression, bipolar disorder, or any of the other horrible mental illnesses there are? Why would someone choose a character that breaks his neck at age 16 and spends the next sixty years in a wheelchair? No way in hell would I have deliberately chosen a scenario where I'd have a beautiful roommate who won't fuck me.

I like the line in one STNG episode involving the holodeck, Data, and a bad guy from Sherlock Holmes where Picard says "who knows, this may just be some sort of entertainment media poaying on a table in someone's living room" before mugging the camera.

Also, it's a bit older than 1637. One of the ancient Chinese philosophers (don't remember which one, someone will post I'm sure) said "last night I dreamed I was a butterfly. So now I ask, am I a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man?"

-mcgrew

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[SQLGuru]

That's the model I use to explain things that happen in movies.

kid: "Why'd he do that?"
me: "It was in the script."

Layne

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Xaositecte]

Those are words, english words, quite a few of them in fact. They're arranged in a structurally sound fashion, with verbs and nouns and punctuation and so forth in the right positions, and I can give you a pretty good definition for what all those words mean.

But the specific combination makes absolutely no sense. It's like you created a mad-lib of pseudo-scientific new age nonsense. Please, whatever meds you're on, stop taking them.

Or start taking them, if that happens to be the problem.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Unoti]

Exactly. Define "Getting nowhere", I would say. Take Parmenides for example, who reasoned based on his observations that reality is illusion. One could say that he got nowhere. But one could also say that he successfully challenged the status quo of man's way of thinking about things at the time, and thus advanced it. Even when someone is proven wrong they can make a contribution to knowledge and quality of thought. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that anyone who would say "Philosophers have been pondering this nonsense for centuries, and have gotten nowhere" doesn't understand much about the history of thought.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[wolvie56]

but when I am debugging and find a bug sometimes I stop the process immediately and fix the bug and restart it, it may be a long running process and I don't want to wait for it to finish. So your assumption is blown out of the water, how do we know we aren't in a debugging scenario in their simulator, they could be running a test case to see if a bug develops and stop the ... universe restarting.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[hedwards]

I disagree, this is nothing like ID, ID has no possible way of testing or disproving it, therefore it cannot ever be science.

He has already proposed a way of knowing for sure that it is incorrect, which is something that hasn't happened with ID. In a practical sense, it is impossible to prove the positive, and as such the likelihood of anything useful coming out of it is slim. But the fact that it is theoretically possible to disprove is a great advance over the pure unadulterated balderdash that is ID.

That being said, I do believe that he is incorrect, but what constitutes science or not science is on whether or not it can be tested. That isn't to say that just because there's a way of testing something that it is therefore good science, there have been a lot of hypotheses which have been discarded because upon testing it turned out to be ludicrous. Lamarkian evolution, anybody?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[argiedot]

Indeed, Chomsky would be proud.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Doctor-Optimal]

The Sims 40'000 In the grim darkness of the far future, THERE IS ONLY WOOHOO.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Smidge204]

Er, that's exactly how science is supposed to work. You don't have a theory for some occurrence, so you invent an explanation, you don't have proof, so you perform experiments to get evidence.

In most science, the evidence comes FIRST. Then you try to explain it, then make predictions based on that explanation. To say you perform experiments to find evidence is misleading. Science is basically about trying to prove an idea wrong, rather than trying to find evidence that supports an idea. The whole concept of "falsifiable" relies on the idea that any valid theory can be tested and, if incorrect, be shown to be false. There is no concept of "truthifiable."

Saying reality as we know it is just a simulation is not falsifiable. That is, any outcome of any test made against it can be explained as a limitation or condition of the simulation environment. In that respect, it's truly no better than "God works in mysterious ways." There is no conceivable benchmark by which we can measure and compare the nature of our known existence that is outside of our known existence, and so there is no difference between "real reality" and "simulated reality."

The whole thing is little more than a protracted session of mental masturbation. Fun, but not very productive.
=Smidge=

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Xaositecte]

Hit the Gym dude.

Make it an obsession. If you're already going, step it up to one more night a week, clear your schedule so you can spend a solid month of working out pretty much every day. Read bodybuilding magazines and follow the workouts in them, grab a friend to make the trip with you.

Don't look for information on the internet, it's all about trying to sell you shit you don't need.

You'll get results inside of a month, and if you keep it up, you'll get even better results after six months to a year. It might take too long for Amy to notice, but you'll get yourself a date at least.

Good Luck,

- Mike

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[blahplusplus]

"Did you read the paper? This guy Whitworth says some interesting stuff... personally I think the most interesting part of his paper is near the end, where he compares "Virtual Property" with "Physical Outcome"."

The problem with simulations for most scientists would show that naturalism itself is includes a greater then natural cause (the computer running the universal simulation) that would mean science shows the 'supernatural' is possible at least in principle, if we could get outside the universe and outside of time, we could technically do anything to this universe at will. It smacks too close to god for them, and in the west because of judea-christian heritage, and the rather primitive nature of religious conceptions of god in various major religions, their is mass confusion about thinking about what 'god' is.

Many people in the past were deists (god exists but does not interfere), if such a god created the universe then wouldn't it be possible to reverse engineer the universe and show that it was *logically* true by nature of how the universe itself functioned? As richard dawkins said: The existence of god or something greater then nature is in fact *a scientific* question, whethre scientists (rather: Human beings with western bias and inherited judeo-christian and religious prejudice) disagree or not, matters not, we should all know by now that truth stands alone by itself and is the only thing that is omnipotent - it cannot be defeated.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[rhombic]

we piece the illusion via overloading the system with computations it must perform, the creator may be forced to start "simplifying" the laws of physics in observable ways.

When I'm running a simulation, I don't change the "rules" in mid-run if it goes wonky, I kill it & re-start after fixing the problem. So let's not run this particular experiment, m'kay?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

Um, no :)

Assume that the Universe is a VR simulation running on some machine. What we experience as time is a sequence of calculations produced by this machine. We are only aware of those parts of the calculation which the simulation specifically makes us aware of. No experiment can prove or disprove this because the calculations which the VR machine makes need not be 1-to-1 with our experiences. For example, the VR machine could 'suspend' the reality simulation while it performs some complex task, and we would be none the wiser.

Further, since the sum of our existence is contained within the VR simulation, and it can be paused OR ALTERED at will, the VR simulation could self-correct for any flaw we discover by simply rewriting the memories of any experiences we had, or deleting and replaying that part of the simulation with different variables. Again, since our experience is wholly under the control of the simulation, we again would be none the wiser.

Finally, since all information within the VR machine is controlled by the VR machine, any experiment we design is itself fully under the control of the VR machine. All data we perceive is perceived because the VR machine has elected to let us perceive it. Ergo, no experiment we could produce would allow us to discern the reality of the VR machine unless it chose to reveal itself to us.

There is nothing new here.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Xiaran]

I hope our universe has a damn good SLA and disaster recovery plan.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[MMC Monster]

I'mm believe it when I see the jail break or privilege escalation in "reality".

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[rjhubs]

Just because you live within a system, does not mean it is impossible to discover anything about the system or even more the system outside it. Consider trying to discover whether or not the earth we live in is flat without leaving the earth and without having to travel all the way around the world. At first this may seem impossible because to an individual living on the surface everything appears 'flat'. Yet geometry tells us that if we can construct a large enough triangle (or have very precise measuring tools) We will know the world is flat if the sum of the angles add up to 180. If the world is round they will add up to more than 180 and if hyperbolic, less than 180. While this is not an easy experiment to perform, it can be done.

It follows then that yes, perhaps there are experiments that exist that can tell us what our universe really is without having to ever leave it. Especially if our universe is run on a computer, something of which the limitations of are well known. To support or disprove his theory one would have to look for phenomenom that contradicts our understanding of computing. Show that there is no halting problem, show that overflow does occur.

Of course now I must say that I don't think this theory is worth anything, from what I can tell there aren't any infinite loops in the universe, overflow doesn't seem to occur and infinity exists in many many places, hell there are even an infinite types of infinity each one 'larger' than the previous. And infinty and overflow are two things computers do not handle well. Unless there are good hacks in place, which still, the universe would need an extraordinary live patching system to fix more problems as they are discovered.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[SharpFang]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

Unless they don't. You come up with this test and it works reliably and repeatably. Why assume "whoever maintains the illusion" doesn't want us to find out it's just it? Maybe just opposite, finding it is the ultimate test, apotheosis, final enlightenment?

"Because it's written that way" is a poor excuse for explaining all the puzzles, but in case it is true, 'reverse engineering' the underlying 'machine' and creating a running copy would give us a lot of insight. Or just hacking it and modifying the properties of the universe. Conveniently circumvent rules of spatial geometry and conservation of mass and energy, 'spawn' goods instead of producing them, save&restore, copy&paste, do mostly any tricks that are possible only in software.

The concept is worth exploring just for the huge profits in case it's true, and if it isn't, it still is a useful thought device to have some problems solved, an abstraction that even if false, still may be useful.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[srussell]

In a word: Crap.

You are obviously a construction of The Simulator, designed to keep us ignorant of the true nature of the machine.

--- SER

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

Any VR simulation of the Universe also controls every aspect of our experience of it. We will only experience that which the VR simulation allows us to experience, and *all* information in this Universe is fundamentally controlled by that simulation. No test can be constructed whose outcome is itself not wholly determined by the VR simulation. Further, any flaw exposed in the VR simulation could be corrected without our knowing, because our experiences, including our memories and even the flow of time, are also wholly within the realm of control of the VR simulation.

A VR simulation of the Universe is omnipotent in this sense. There is nothing that lies beyond its control, and against it you are utterly powerless.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Xiaran]

Im not an astrophysicist but surely we can observe the spectra and orbital behaviour of stars 100 light year away and see that they observe local physical laws. I would think anyone who could show that the laws of physics were different in a different part of the universe would be given a lot more grant money than anyone else to be honest. I would say that assuming the laws are the same everywhere until proven otherwise is pretty sound.

You seem to think that faith in a reasonable assumption is someone similar to religious faith or something... a good scientist should, I think, have "faith" in a reasonable looking assumption until proven otherwise. A person with religious faith will not generally change their position even if the evidence is overwhelmingly against them.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Holy Logic Loop, Batman!

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[mqduck]

this is nothing more than a conversational topic over a bag of weed. You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[nuzak]

> I believe the generally accepted answer to this question was René Descartes'. Cogito ergo sum.

I've always liked the Cogito argument, though at least you came to his actual conclusion ("If I'm not real, it's a perfect simulation") as opposed to the pop-philosophy argument of "I really do exist because I think".

Possibly the latter interpretation comes from his "proof" for the existence of God, which seemed to boil down to "I can't stand the idea that God doesn't exist, therefore he does".

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[megaditto]

a computer can simulate itself No, that's the whole point. No computer can simulate itself completely (it would have to be able to simulate itself, and simulate inself simulating itself, etc.)

If you don't get this idea, try it yourself: create a blank notepad.exe document, then type in the complete description of its content. "This document is blank" would be wrong because it is no longer blank, but keep trying...

I think this is good news for our ability to distinguish reality from simulation: it should be possible to make simulation crash itself! (but would we want to, is the real question)

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[Curtman]

Meh.. The Buddha figured this stuff out 2500 years or so before The Matrix.

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[Spazmania]

This is the failure of reconciling the metaphysical with the physical.

No, no! He's on to something. Consider this example:

When routing TCP/IP packets, the best available software algorithms are tree-based. You step down the branches of the tree until you find the most specific route known for the destination address. Its O(log n).

However, if you step out of the software universe running on a general-purpose computer, you can design a hardware device called a "TCAM." A TCAM is a special kind of static ram where a request is processed across all cells in the same cycle in order to produce the best match. Not only does it return a routing decision in O(1), it returns that decision in exactly one clock cycle.

Now, we could describe how a TCAM works within software and we could even simulate it but the simulation would run in O(n) because the simulation would have to activate each cell in sequence instead of activating all cells at once the way a real TCAM does.

So the challenge for detecting whether we're in a virtual reality is this: find a mathematical problem which is conceptually simple (e.g. factoring the product of large primes) but which we know to be hard ( O(x^n) ) and then construct a simulation of a finite ur-universe in which the problem is easy. The simulation itself won't run any faster than the best known factoring algorithms but it would be able to prove that given the physical rules of the ur-universe the factoring would have completed in O(1).

Successfully constructing such a simulation wouldn't prove that we're actually in a virtual reality, but proving that such a simulation can't be constructed would prove that we're not. Thus the theory is falsifiable. Thus it is science, not philosophy.

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[SatanicPuppy]

Shrug. I tend to side with Wittgenstein who would have written the entire thing up as a problem of language, not a problem rooted in the actual world.

The only way to not fall into solipsism is to not play the game. As soon as you doubt the universe exists, then the only thing you're left with is that you personally exist, and from that point there is nowhere to go. Doubting sense data without an adequate reason just dumps you in a hole with no shovel.

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[SpaceLifeForm]

Simple scripted life forms are necessary for the procreation aspect.

If everyone figured out what was really happening, they may refuse
to play the game, and stop procreating.

Possibly that is what happened to the Cro-Magnons.

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[Chemicalscum]

A much more lucid and convincing discussion of these ideas is presented by Max Tegmark in his paper "The Mathematical Universe" (preprint available here [arxiv.org]). In it, he discusses this idea of whether we could detect being inside a virtual reality and provides arguments for why there may be no meaningful difference between a "simulation of reality" and "reality itself". His overall argument, that the universe may be fundamentally mathematical, is quite interesting, and again he provides some means by which we could determine to what extent his arguments actually apply to our universe. Worth a read. Yes, Tegmark's paper is essential reading. The VR hypothesis implies that the system that our VR resides could be another simulation at a higher level and so on. It then becomes "turtles all the way down". It is something we have had to consider since David Deutsch's reformulation of the Turing principle as:

There exists an abstract universal computer whose repertoire includes any computation that any physically possible object can perform

Nick Bostrom has also discussed the question of are we living in a computer simulation here:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

and Sir Martin Rees has discussed the idea in a number of places so there is nothing really new in Whitworth's paper.

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[UnknownSoldier]

That is a very nice example. And I would agree with your conclusion.

I think that the grand-parent's original gripe was that philosophy was a lot like intellectual masturbation "It feels good for a while, but doesn't really change anything." and that his conclusion was "That since philosophy can't provide the answer, that it isn't useful."

Philosophy is only the STARTING point, not the finishing one! If you never do anything with your beliefs, they are just that -- empty beliefs. But philosophy drives us to ask "How?" "Why?" and eventually "What do I need to do, in order to understand?"

The secret is in taking belief (philosophy) into action (religion) and arriving at your OWN answers (spirituality). There is a reason and a pattern for EVERYTHING that exists -- partly because the universe is holographic, or stated another way "A Great Mind." Just because most people are unable to find the true source, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When certain people do, they are labeled as heretics because they upset the status quo of "how we think things really work."

The big problem comes from when people constantly chose one truth over another, because they are lost in the "illusion", and are not able to look past the "allusion." One truth does not negate another, and that a higher perspective is required to resolve the paradox of conflicting truth. Does Time exist? We are under the influence of it in the physical realm, but in a higher realm it does not because it is a dimension of mind. Similarly, Good & Evil could be said to exist here as well, but in a higher perspective there is only good, because the Universe is working towards a goal, whether we are aware of it or not.

I would encourage everyone to explore _every_ philosophy they possibly can, and then come to their own conclusions. There is an answer to every question, if one doesn't give up striving for it -- but will one accept the answer(s) when it doesn't fit one's preconceived ideas of what it should be!

Peace

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[Jerry Beasters]

You're logic is flawed. In your example of figuring out the Earth is round, you are specifically NOT looking from an outside view of the system (in this case the system being Earth). You are INFERRING that Earth is round based on the limited information you have. You are not observing it in the way he was talking about.

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[Anonymous Coward]

That's the dumbest idea I've heard of in a ver+++NO CARRIER

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[Anonymous Coward]

You may or may not be supportive of the whole "Mathematical Universe" idea, but there is one thing that always gets me about people who whistle that tune. Man wasn't sitting around in a cave one day when mathematics jumped out from under a rock and yelled, "Hey! I can give you blokes power beyond all imagination, so long as you don't mind thinking outside the box!" Mathematics is a human creation thousands of years in the making that helps predict and model natural phenomena. The universe appears to behave much how math says it will? I would hope so, that's what we made the damn system for in the first place.

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[jdh3.1415]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

Personally, I think it would be way cool to create a simulation that developed life, intelligent life, self aware life, and then life that was aware of the simulation. I wouldn't try to prevent that.

I wonder why you assume the creator would be intent on maintaining some sort of illusion. Another possiblity, the creator is interested in some other out come of the simulation. Intelligent life, you, me, ... we're all just a side effect!

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[RoverDaddy]

Especially if our universe is run on a computer, something of which the limitations of are well known There's the rub. 'System' and 'Simulation' are not the same thing. If we're in a simulation, how can we be sure about anything we 'know'? You could argue like Plato that the mathematics we've discovered are 'true' because they exist independent of our having discovered them (i.e. PI). I'm not even 100% sure of that. The limitations we think we know about computers may only be constructs that the simulation is forcing us to perceive. Computers in the 'real' universe may not have such limitations.

I think this theory misses the point in a similar way that many discussions of 'we're just a simulation' do: The external reality could by anything. Why, for instance, should one assume that the creators of the simulation are Humans living on Planet Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy (etc.). Perhaps there are no humans, no Earth, no galaxy. Perhaps there isn't even such a thing as 'matter'. Maybe matter is an interesting concept invented by some incomprehensible energy creature and our universe is 'his' way of testing the behavior of such a strange thing.

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[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

...if we can construct a large enough triangle (or have very precise measuring tools)...

Or you could just observe that ships at sea disappear below the horizon, as people did centuries ago :P

As for your last paragraph, I think you have a narrow view of what a computer is. A computer is not a box fed by electrical power, based loosely on a Von Neumann architecture, with registers and logical gates. A computer is something that computes. A river is a computer (computing differential equations). Computers deal with overflow very well, thank you very much.

Your point about infinity is a good one. I might conjecture that anywhere in the universe where "infinity" exists, it's "infinity" only so far as it's being modelled awkwardly by humans.

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[Jerry Beasters]

You're completely ignoring the fact that if your in a virtual reality it is absolutely, positively, 100%, in every possible situation impossible to trust the results of any test. Assuming it's a VR universe, the results are then VR. Knowing nothing of the specific design attributes of that which creates the VR, it could just as easily be designed to block the ability to run a simulation completing in O(1) so that you could not discover its true nature. It is an absolutely unfalsifiable premise and is therefore unscientific.

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[DragonWriter]

No, that's the whole point. No computer can simulate itself completely (it would have to be able to simulate itself, and simulate inself simulating itself, etc.)

IIRC, its pretty fundamental to quantum computing that any quantum computer can simulate any other quantum computer (or process) of equal or lesser complexity, including itself.

I think this is good news for our ability to distinguish reality from simulation: it should be possible to make simulation crash itself! (but would we want to, is the real question)

Since we would not be able to reliably discern the fact that the simulation had or had not crashed itself (we can't recognize anything if it crashes and is not restored, and if it crashes, the governing software debugged, and the simulation restored, we can't distinguish that from failing to crash.)

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[maclizard]

Wow, this is a great tread. I have to say that I agree that this is a theory worth pursuing to, at the very least, mark it off the list of possible truths.

As for the comment a few (and growing) back:

Therefore I propose that the universe we experience is really just the eye of an aether system. Once you get beyond the aether, it really is turtles all the way down. This is more valid then I think it is being credited for. Yes, it sounds ridiculous and more than likely isn't true, but I remember a story about the earth being round and , God forbid, NOT the center of the universe. We cannot dismiss ANY theories, regardless of our ability to explore then.

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[domatic]

A computer can't simulate itself but it can simulate an identical machine running it's own instances of software. It's slower but if the clock on the simulated machine is allowed to keep it's own time then processes running on it wouldn't even see the difference. The operator of both real and simulated machines can see that the simulation is slower but processes within the simulation can experience a wholly consistent "real time" of their own.

In the same vein, if the universe IS a simulation that doesn't stop us from modeling and simulating either a universe that follows the same rules as ours or another universe entirely. This is yet another way that things are turtles all the way up and down.

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[EllisDees]

"This statement is written in this document." :)

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[Bogtha]

In most science, the evidence comes FIRST. Then you try to explain it

I referred to this as "some occurrence", and I did indeed describe it as coming first. However there is a difference between phenomena that need explaining and evidence gathered experimentally to test a hypothesis, which is why I didn't call the phenomena that need explaining "evidence", to contrast it.

To say you perform experiments to find evidence is misleading. Science is basically about trying to prove an idea wrong, rather than trying to find evidence that supports an idea.

Evidence can point in either direction. I didn't say that you look for evidence that supports an idea, I merely said that you look for evidence. You are mischaracterising what I said.

Saying reality as we know it is just a simulation is not falsifiable.

That is true of perfect simulations, where this theory looks for imperfect simulations.

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[sm62704]

I completely disagree. The calculus on the simulation argument is surprisingly solid when you think about it (Bostrom, for instance, has some pretty good arguments for it).

And the answer to the equation is, of course, 42.

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[SatanicPuppy]

I believe you're mistaken. Descartes didn't have an answer. He reduced everything down to the cogito, and then got stuck there, with only himself in the whole of existence. He then pulled himself out of the hole by deducing that if he existed, then god must exist, and if God exists, then the world must exist because God just wouldn't fuck with poor Descartes like that.

That's why it's fruitless. Prove your own existence, sure, but at the cost of the rest of existence, and no way to get from you, yourself, to creation without some deus ex machina action. As soon as you start doubting the existence of the world a priori without any scrap of real evidence that the world needs to be doubted, you're stuck in the land of solipsism (population: you).

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[Bogtha]

So your assumption is blown out of the water, how do we know we aren't in a debugging scenario in their simulator

Please look at the context. I was responding to somebody ridiculing the guy, and part of the reasoning he offered was the assumption that any bug would instantly be fixed. You are arguing that it's possible that any bug would instantly be fixed, and I agree with that. But that in no way rules out the possibility that it wouldn't. Just because you can think up scenarios where the bug would be fixed instantly, it doesn't mean there aren't plenty of reasons why it wouldn't.

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[Kelbear]

Even logic is still conceptually based inside this reality, and wouldn't help prove or disprove it being virtual or not.

You can smell 'blue' and see 'salty' when you're tripping through reality. Riding a purple transexual gnome through a jellyfish hurricane seems perfectly normal when you're in a dream. Even simple integer math doesn't even have to work in those crazy perceived realities. 1+1=2 seems irrefutable only because you never see it fail and can't conceive of a situation where it fails.

Sending (X,Y) input through an operation that results in 3 isn't that hard when you can define X, Y, and the operation. They may have simply defined 1+1 to equal 2 for the purposes of this simulation and see what sort of universe is procedurally generated from these rules against another.

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[flabordec]

We could depend on the great programmer in the sky being to lazy to fix his own bugs, instead relabeling them as "features".

"So you mean the humans found out they are just a VR simulation? Ohh, it's just a feature to make them think they can understand the universe, nothing to fix here."

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[Minwee]

There you go. If this guy ceases to exist and all of our memories of him and his theories are erased from the universe, then that would prove that he was right.

As a corollary, does the fact that we still know about him prove that he isn't right?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, how bout a bigger idea? What if we are a VR simulation for a VR simulation that is trying to prove they are a VR simulation by making a VR simulation?

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[osu-neko]

You could argue like Plato that the mathematics we've discovered are 'true' because they exist independent of our having discovered them (i.e. PI). I'm not even 100% sure of that.

So, you think it's possible that the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle was different before we came along and discovered it? o.O

What a funky geometry the universe must have had before we came along to "create" pi, the Pythagorean Theorem, etc...

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[Shotgun]

Without some compelling proof (which he lacks) this is nothing more than a conversational topic over a bag of weed.

You are completely and utterly wrong.

It's also a way to fish for grant money without doing any REAL work. 8*)

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[JWSmythe]

    I believe it was an "Outer Limits" episode where that happened.

    There was a VR simulation, where the people appeared real. As far as they were concerned, they were real.

    Inside that simulation, they created the equipment to produce another VR world, where inside THEY were real (again, in their own opinion).

    There was something about some subset of them finding a way out of their simulation. It's been too long since I've seen it to remember any more details. I think there was a hot chick though. :) Any good SciFi has a hot chick in it. :)

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[drachenstern]

I'm sorry, but I wasn't able to get notepad.exe to run on my system. It doesn't appear to be a valid filename. How about I use vi?

So then I try to describe my document. Hmm. I get:

This file has content and was created with vi.

Seems to fulfill your needs.

Ahh, but I suppose you want it to look more like this:

This file contains "..." and was created with vi and consumes +++ bytes.

With the two caveats of the ellipses should be replaced by the entirety of the body again (thus causing it to be completely recursive) and the +++ should reflect the actual consumption on disk of the file. Yeah yeah, we all get the point. But my first met your requirements, that's my point.

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[khellendros1984]

proof.txt:

Aside from this sentence, this document is blank.

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[Citizen of Earth]

could self-correct for any flaw we discover by simply rewriting the memories of any experiences we had, or deleting and replaying that part of the simulation with different variables. Again, since our experience is wholly under the control of the simulation, we again would be none the wiser.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster does this every instant of every day. This makes Pastafarianism logically sound while other religions are a mass of contradictions.

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[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey, if the universe was a simulation, it would explain why everything tastes like chicken!"

Hey, that would explain why everything tastes like chicken to me!

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[Shotgun]

Like a programming language, the VR simulator would not be complete until it could simulate itself.

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[mrbobjoe]

You can do experiments within virtual worlds to determine the rules under which it operates, just like you can in the real world. For example, in second life, if you don't RTFM, you can still do scientific tests with your avatars to learn the internal physics of that virtual world.

Except that we, the experimenters, exist outside of the Second Life virtual world.

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[Spazmania]

That's a specious argument.

For one thing, the fact that there could conceivably be an Operator standing by to adjust the results doesn't mean that we should suspect there is. That was one of the wisecrack points made in the Flying Spaghetti Monster letter to the Kansas Board of Education.

For another, you can't name a single real-time simulation in which an operator stands by making adjustments whenever one of the simulated components bumps up against the edge of the system. Its just not a useful way to run a simulation. There's no reason to suspect that a posited ur-universe would treat its simulations any differently than we treat our own. However, if there was an operator fudging results, that would make the borders of the VR easy to detect. Just look for the objective problem that produces inconsistent answers each time its evaluated.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

Why does one have to assume that? Maybe they're not looking that closely at everything all virtual civilizations are coming up with.

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[Kupek]

As he said in the paper, we could falsify the theory by finding a physical phenomenon that is not calculable.

If we were in a VR, I can't conceive of a way to prove it, either. But I think his suggestion is a good one: see if we can derive known physical phenomenon by starting with information theory. That's not proof, either, but it's support. At the very least, it gives us a new direction to look in for understanding the Universe.

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[megaditto]

Well, I did say "complete description" didn't I?

Oh, I get it, you are trying to get me to be anal about being anal about... Ha!

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[DamnStupidElf]

Further, since the sum of our existence is contained within the VR simulation, and it can be paused OR ALTERED at will, the VR simulation could self-correct for any flaw we discover by simply rewriting the memories of any experiences we had, or deleting and replaying that part of the simulation with different variables. Again, since our experience is wholly under the control of the simulation, we again would be none the wiser.

You are speaking of "us" and "we" as if there's only one copy. What if someone else runs the same simulation, but lets us find out that it's a simulation? Additionally, such simulations could occur across any period of time in any universe, meaning that after a billion years of being suspended, someone else could find the backup tapes to the original simulation and start it up again, or if there's an infinite number of universes the same simulation will be started at random in many universes. It would be obvious to some of our simulated selves that we are in a simulation at the same time that our other selves will be oblivious to it. There is no single history of events, which means that exploring the idea of being in a simulated universe has the potential to be successful even if the current operators of the simulation are all malicious.

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[megaditto]

I was hoping someone would bring up one of these or these and we'd have a long pissing argument about things containing itself or not, but I like your lighthearted response better.

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[DamnStupidElf]

This is the failure of reconciling the metaphysical with the physical. I agree with you completely. There is no way for us to remove ourselves from the universe at large to observe it. Whitworth is not a scientist when he speaks of this. He is a philosopher exploring metaphysics and ontology.

There is also no way to remove ourselves from our own minds in order to examine the universe in a more objective way. At the heart of science is metaphysics and ontology.

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[g-san]

What is this we crap? You are the simulation. I am real.

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[osu-neko]

1+1=2 seems irrefutable only because you never see it fail and can't conceive of a situation where it fails.

No, both of those are utterly unrelated to the reason "1+1=2" seems irrefutable. "1+1=2" seems irrefutable for the same reason "A bachelor is an unmarried man" seems irrefutable -- it's true by definition. If it doesn't seem utterly irrefutable to you, then you don't understand what the words mean.

Analytic truths don't seem irrefutable because you never see them fail. Analytic truths don't depending on "seeing" anything, they don't answer to observational tests, they're easily provable or falsifiable from your armchair, because they're not statement about the world.

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[syousef]

Thanks for making me laugh out loud. You put that very well.

What bothers me is that people who come up with this crap don't seem to realize that if this reality were some kind of simulation, we'd likely continually be hitting the limits of the simulation. Usually when a simulation is created it's for a purpose. Any effort required beyond the purpose (limits of the simulation) are wasted. So why would you add a fossil record, and a huge expansive universe to the same simulation? What would the purpose be exactly? A very similar question to why a God would create a misleading fossil record if the universe were 6000 years old.

VR simluation my arse. People come up with these pre-conceived notions and will do anything to justify them.

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[sm62704]

My problem is my age. I'm older than Amy's parents. I did meet a good looking woman my age the day before yesterday, but I fear she's as psycho as Amy (see Tis the season to commit suicide. I'd like to take Amy to bed, and I like her as a friend, but I wouldn't want a relationship with her farther than drinking/fuckbuddies.

I am going to start going back to the gym though.

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[sgholt]

I hope God isn't using Windows....BSOD! Bigbang Screen of Death!

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[Colin Smith]

Many of my brethren seem to be bots, executing fairly simple scripts and never really introspecting.

They were probably put here, by me or whoever, to make the game more interesting. Ah... Life through the eyes of a sociopath.

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[p3d0]

He says:

a VR processor cannot logically exist within the virtual reality its
processing creates. It is logically impossible for a processor to create itself because the virtual
world creation could not start if a processor did not initially exist outside it.

I'm not sure I understand or agree with this. That certainly does seem to miss some fairly fundamental computer science results, like Universal Turing machines, which can simulate any other Turing machine, including themselves.

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[wrf3]

So how would we be able to tell if our universe was a simulation?

Another way is if the author(s) of the simulation "step(s) inside" the simulation.

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[Admiral Ag]

I think you're taking it too far. What you say would indeed make the claim untestable. But on the other hand, it is testable given certain assumptions about the VR machine (that it does not engage in the blocking you describe, for example). While the test could not rule out all possibilities, it could conditionally rule out that we were living in that particular kind of VR world.

Where I think your argument fails is that no scientific theory can have the kind of certainty that would prove beyond doubt that we weren't living in any sort of VR machine, so no scientist qua scientist ought to be interested in that sort of test. On the other hand, a test that merely attempted to rule out that we were living in a VR machine that did not maliciously interfere with our experiments would be genuinely scientific, and we should grant the result the same status we would grant to any other scientific conclusion.

Part of the problem here is with misuse of the verb "to know". Plato claimed that to know was to have an infallible grasp of reality, and that definition actually makes sense in his peculiar philosophical system (I happen to think it doesn't make sense in any other), but unless you are a Platonist, you should treat that understanding of the term "knowledge" with suspicion. The problem is that it has seeped into our collective consciousness and caused us to talk a lot of nonsense, and it isn't just philosophers and scientists, ordinary people now demand ridiculous degrees of proof for all sorts of petty claims.

Perhaps we would be better off to listen to Wittgenstein, who argued that we should look at the way people actually use the word in non-philosophical contexts. In science, no sane person uses the Platonic definition of knowledge, because that's not the kind of knowledge that science yields. While philosophers are blamed for some of this ridiculous brain in a vat stuff, most philosophers I know are more inclined to the anti-Platonist approach. It really is unfair. Scientists berate contemporary philosophers for arguing in favour of Cartesian doubts, which is almost as accurate as philosophers accusing contemporary scientists of practicing alchemy.

On the other hand, much religious speculation seems tied to the Platonic definition (what's the point in supposing a God as a mere working hypothesis rather than an evidence transcedent metaphysical certainty), so the Wittgensteinian approach seems rather damaging to religious claims (although Witt. himself didn't think so IIRC).

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[p3d0]

But a computer can simulate itself doing something other than simulating itself.

Uh...

What were we talking about again?

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[bigpicture]

Crap? A very scientific response. Your system of thinking seems to be a "closed" system. And Quantum is pointing to an "open" reality only, and that "closed" is just a mentally convenient illusion. I believe the Roman Catholic church of the middle ages, had a similar mental illusion about the relationship of the earth and the sun.

The only difference I see here is that they had the power to burn people at the stake, who didn't subscribe to their pet "closed" system of thought, and the "closed" theories this produced. We don't want heretics now do we? It might upset the status quo of the current theories, which of course we know are all correct, because they have never ever been found lacking. Right?

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[CoralCain2002]

Reading the discussion here there are several assumptions that need to be removed. Lets assume that this is a simulation. We will refer to the producer of the simulation as the programmers. The programmers don't care about us. They could care less if we figured out we are in a simulation. This isn't the matrix. Humans aren't the reason for the simulation. It is unlikely the programmers are even aware of us. After all, we have existed for .000016 of the time so far that the simulation has been running. We are currently incapable of having virtually (pun intended) any impact on the simulation. The best we can hope for is ruining the environment on a small rock around one of a trillion trillion stars, and that rock will forget we exist in another 10 million years, or roughly 0.0008 the time the simulation has currently been running. The programmers are about as interested in talking with us or dealing with us as we are interested in talking with a water molecule. Until we arrive at the point that we are a galactic level intelligence, it is highly doubtful that the programmers care what we do. Judging how the simulation appears to be put together, we are probably just side affects. Hell, if we do reach the point of being able to have an impact on the galaxy, we might actually "spoil" the simulation and the programmers be forced to shutdown, tweak so that side affects such as ourselves don't show up and spoil things, and restart the simulation.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a developer, when you run a bunch of testcases, if you find a bug, you don't halt everything in the debugger and fix the bug immediately, you just wait until it's all over, fix the bug, and re-start the test run.

You must be new to Lisp.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir,
I am a large figurehead of the church I belong to. I recently read your Theory of Turtles on the insightful, Slashdot, and am very interested in your ideas. I believe your theories and beliefs would fit in extremely well in our religion. Thus, I am making the following proposal - I am willing to make you an honorary member of our church for your theories if you just send us the following:

• Your Social Security
  
• Valid Credit Card Number
  
• Your first born
  
• $50,000 down payment made out to "CASH"
  

I look forward to meeting you and having you become an honorary member of our church.

Sincerely,
Tom Cruise

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[sm62704]

she's the spitting image of Loni Anderson (picture is from wikipedia when the linked picture was taken, only a little shorter, a tiny bit heavier, with bigger tits and with black hair.

In the journals I confused two TV shows, Anderson was on "WKRP", I said "Taxi" in the journals. I probably got them confused because Amy is a cab driver.

Great looking broad, too bad she's a psycho.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Tollsen]

That is -- if anybody outside of our box still has any interest in us. Perhaps, our box is running on something the equalivant of a 386 running inside of af closet, collecting dust, and nobody remembers us. On the flip side, some of us might have figured out or invented something which was previously unknown to the outside (literally) world, and been applied there (that is, if the laws out there don't make it impossible) Then, of course, our universe might just as well be what we call a MMORPG. But back to the theory: Let's say some scientists will in a decade or two conclude we are indeed living in a VR: What are we going to do about it?

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[kalirion]

Define "perfect"? The simulation could be full of inconsistencies, but we could be programmed to ignore them.

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[kalirion]

I prefer to think of it in terms of the Allegory of the Cave. Descartes saw the Light of cogito ergo sum. It blinded him and made him go bat-shit insane, which is where all his "proofs" of God come from.

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[Hao Wu]

Can a computer simulate a computer? I think that's what emulation is about. But at the moment, nothing inside our own computers is likely to self-assemble such code, let alone observe and test its own existence.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this article have to do with the Tulip Bubble?
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=469

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[the_B0fh]

not necessary true. You're thinking infallible "whoever maintains the illusion". Whoever that is _may_ not be infallible, and you might be able to pierce the illusion without them know _OR_ able to fix it.

That would also explain the whole universe is a closed loop from a few front pages ago.

Trying to buffer overflow this system would be interesting. And if it leads to a bluescreen, oh well.... see you in another 20 billion years.

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[MichaelSmith]

A VR simulation of the Universe is omnipotent in this sense. There is nothing that lies beyond its control, and against it you are utterly powerless.

Unless it is buggy.

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[RobDude]

That implies that 'time' as we know it is the same in the 'real' world. When I run an emulator on my PC, the game I'm playing doesn't know that it is being run on an emulator. If I'm playing Zelda OoT and I step on a switch that opens a door that will remain open for 30 seconds...

And then I pause the emulator for three days of 'my' time; no time has passed in the game.

Given what we know about software and what not, first and foremost - assuming we are all just a VR simulation, intentionally trying to crash the system might be a really, really, really bad idea. If we're running with a debugger attached, and we do something that throws an exception - time as we know it would stop instantly. The developer/sys admin running us could take a week, month, year, or any unit of time to come back, fix the error and continue execution.

Or, we could simply 'crash', which would be the end of the world to all of us - to the developer, he'd fix a few lines of code and re-run us.

In a simulation, everything is simulated; including our concept of time. There wouldn't need to be any outside entity watching us in 'real-time' to 'instantly' fix us.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[David Chappell]

>Finally, since all information within the VR machine is controlled by the VR machine, any experiment we design is itself >fully under the control of the VR machine. All data we perceive is perceived because the VR machine has elected to let us >perceive it. Ergo, no experiment we could produce would allow us to discern the reality of the VR machine unless it chose >to reveal itself to us. This would seem to be an overstatement, probably because you are making the implicit assumption that the primary purpose of the supposed simulation must be to make us believe we live in a real universe. You assume that this goal is so important that the 'system administrators' would stop the simulation and adjust it whenever we tried to run an experiment which could reveal the computational nature of the universe. But how likely is it that the supposed simulation is being run simply to fool us? Does one run VMware simply for the intellectual triumph of 'fooling' the programs into thinking they are running on real hardware? Or does one run it in order to benefit from the work they perform or to be entertained by them. If one of the programs has code which attempts to detect that the hardware is virtualized, would you, the operator know? If you did, would you care?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[SatanicPuppy]

For one thing, the fact that there could conceivably be an Operator standing by to adjust the results doesn't mean that we should suspect there is.

How about "The fact that the universe could be a VR simulation doesn't mean that we should suspect it is"? That's the real root of the problem; there is zero evidence the universe is anything other than it appears to be.

As soon as you start saying, "Well this could be a simulation" then you have to throw out all knowledge that comes to you through sense data. ALL of it. It's not trustworthy when you know it could all be manufactured. That leaves you with nothing outside of deductive logic, and you're stuck trying to prove the universe as we know it a priori, which is effectively impossible.

You're treating it like you'll be able to trust empirical experimentation, and that's just not the case. Even the possibility that the simulation is being gamed from the outside is enough to screw all your results, regardless of whether they're being changed or not. As for inconsistent results...I've run simulations before where things started going haywire; the most common course is to try and fix it, and if that fails, it's time to load saved game, and move forward from there, taking care to remove whatever screwed you up the first time.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[CoralCain2002]

Because the simulation wasn't built to simulate us, it was built to simulate the universe. We, and perhaps life in general, are a side affect.

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[Frozen Void]

What if the simulation engines draw randomness from external source to prevent hard determinism in the game?

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[bensode]

Now I understand why so much of the Vmware software is FREE!

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[DM9290]

"But it's an approach worth pursuing, if damn difficult to do so."

only if there was evidence justifying the pursuit. You don't just pick wild scenarios out of your ass and call them "worth pursuing" just because there is some remote possibility.

Perhaps you are on fire. Perhaps you should go and figure out a way to determine whether or not you are on fire. You could call the fire department. Is that worth pursing?

What is more likely? A VR universe or that you have caught on fire without noticing?

If you think some scientist should devote years of study to the possibility of a VR universe (when we have never stumbled across a single problem whatsoever that could be solved by this knowledge), certainly you should devote as much time to the more important issue (to you) of insuring that you are not actually bursting into flames which could certainly prove fatal or result in serious disfigurement if you don't take immediate remedial action!

And while you might merely trust your senses which probably tell you that you aren't on fire, can you be sure that your senses aren't suffering from the effects of the fire? It could be that the fire has already damaged your nervous system, rendering you incapable of detecting it. It seems worthwhile to consult the experts at the fire department.. and just to be on the safe side, a psychic.

We have no reason to suspect our reality is "virtual".

It is certainly NOT worthwhile for sane people to spend time investigating random hypothetical possibilities. There is an infinite supply of them, and no matter how much finite resources we throw at the problem, we aren't making any headway.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[the_B0fh]

Or if there's a bug in the system. Remember, even Google has downtime.

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[Bender0x7D1]

Sure, if everything is virtual and has no purpose, then there is no test. However, if we assume that there is a purpose - such as the universe actually being a giant video game then there are ways to test it.

I wrote up a paper on a "Unified Theory of Existence" to demonstrate how to misapply the scientific method that has "proof" that the world is a giant video game. The interesting part is that there is a test that can disprove this hypothesis, so it's science, right? I don't want to give the ending away, so you'll have to read the paper to find out what the test is.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[the_B0fh]

The 13th floor. And yes, it's a damned good SciFi. Too bad she's married.

That's why I loved Lexx too.

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[Fieryphoenix]

Cancel our subscriptions?

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[Jack9]

There is nothing that lies beyond its control, and against it you are utterly powerless.

This would be predicated on an assumption:

Further, any flaw exposed in the VR simulation could be corrected without our knowing, because our experiences, including our memories and even the flow of time, are also wholly within the realm of control of the VR simulation.

That condition is not assumed to exist, but merely a possibility.

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[Errant Vibration]

I think this guy has seen The Matrix way to many times. Be sides how could you begin to test a theory about the boundaries and basis of your reality is true while trapped in that reality. This theory of "if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual" is completely insane. What could reality do that with enough processing power and data storage information processing could not do? All he is saying is that if reality were able to do something that we could not recreate in information processing then reality could not be virtual. Ummmmm lets see... using the rules of reality that we know as a basis for a virtual reality how would reality be able to do some then that the virtual one we created couldn't do... unless maybe we missed a rule or do not completely understand some rules.... Then if we do not understand them how could we right a rule to create that behavior in out virtual reality in the first place. In short this idea is flawed and his testing method is also flawed.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[tkinnun0]

Define "perfect"? The simulation could be full of inconsistencies, but we could be programmed to ignore them. Yes, and if we perfectly ignored them, then the simulation would be perfect as far as we are concerned.

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[Trifthen]

Ever played The Sims? Could you control a game of The Sims where instead of maybe a dozen people you control, it's septillions of entities spread across an entire planet, or several galaxy clusters?

The easiest way to simulate something is to set up generic rules that control it, and let it run itself. Sure the simulation system could lie to us, but it could just as easily not.

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[ydra2]

"Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable."

Actaully, only things that "would pierce the illusion" would be non-repreatable. Things like ESP, psychokinesis, precognition, remote viewing and the other paranormal effects. And guess what? They are all non-repeatable, just as your thoery predicts.

I think you're on to something there.

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[harl]

Um, maybe :)

You rely on a huge stipulation. For your post to be accurate the VR machine must be able to identify any of the infinite possible actions/experiments that would identify said VR machine.

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[Anonymous Coward]

For example, the VR machine could 'suspend' the reality simulation while it performs some complex task, and we would be none the wiser.

Or, maybe the VR uses parallel processors, in which case time would just slow down in regions with many particles.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Paradise Pete]

No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.

That's what you think.

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[nomadic]

It's just not a useful avenue for speculation.

So? There are a lot of areas of inquiry that are not useful, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be made. I spent a couple of hours last night playing a video game. I got no use out of it. Does that mean I shouldn't have done it?

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[Some_Llama]

"it should be possible to make simulation crash itself! "

I think they refer this to death.. most people struggle with the problem of why were are here and what our purpose is, trouble with that is once you finally figure it out the resulting answer is so astonishing you die (from heart attack, brain hemmorage, drive off the road, never wake up, etc).

Ignorance IS bliss?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.
 
The point is that if they don't correct it, you aren't in an illusion.

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[mad_minstrel]

Your argument is only correct if we assume our virtual reality is a high level simulation, specifically geared towards simulating sentient beings. It is entirely possible that it is instead a low-level simulation, and that the computer simulating our reality is not aware, or concerned about our sentience, knowledge, or existence. Like a game of Life, running on some fat-ass alien's screen saver.

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[Stan Vassilev]

The calculus on the simulation argument is surprisingly solid when you think about it

Of course it is. Our brains, science and inventions evolved in this universe. Math was used to abstract an aspect of the universe. Computers are used to simulate various aspects of the universe.

Then someone forgets where all this came from and has an "Eureka!" moment, when he discovers that there are plenty of similarities between the universe, and what we came up with while evolving in it.

The universe is like our technology, because our technology was developed, and runs, within our universe.

Not to mention "it's a VR" is a pointless argument. It's also called "The Alien Fallacy". I.e. "we can't explain how this happened, therefore aliens created it!". It's a cop out.

Our "universe" can't be VR, since then this VR runs within a "real" universe, and that in fact is our universe. Or is that
VR too. We just add levels of indirection so we don't have to face the hard questions of being unable to yet explain certain quantum and relativity phenomena.

The outcome of exploring this could only lead us to elaborate "simulations" of knowledge.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Some_Llama]

I always thought it interesting that my underwear size is the answer.. I guess i have the waist OF A GOD!!! (booming voice)

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[ChronosWS]

As I have stated, no such experiment disproving the system is possible unless the system wants us to know about it. Further, we are relying on "information theory" as we know it as well as a set of laws and rules of which we are aware. The VR simulation does not necessarily run on these rules, and the rules we would be subject to are necessarily a subset of the rules governing the VR simulation machine itself - it can choose to expose any subset of its own rules as desired.

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[ChronosWS]

This is taking an already implausible and unnecessary idea (that we are in a VR universe) and adding additional unnecessary hypotheses (that there are more than one of them and in some of them copies of ourselves know they are in a simulated reality.) How does this aid our ability to understand the universe other than to prove we have wild imaginations?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[gr8dude]

Not necessarily. As a developer, when you run a bunch of testcases, if you find a bug, you don't halt everything in the debugger and fix the bug immediately, you just wait until it's all over, fix the bug, and re-start the test run. If this guy's theory is correct, then I would assume that any such flaws would persist until the end of our universe and then get fixed for the next one.

True, but the problem is that when the simulation is updated, it is ran again and the state of the variables is (or can be) re-written. In other words, the memory of a "bug in the simulation" will be wiped off.

I think a nice comparison is how multi-tasking is implemented by switching contexts. When a process is not active, its "program status word" (i.e. the contents of the registers) is dumped somewhere. Next time the process is getting to use the CPU, it has no idea that it was interrupted, from its point of view time never stopped and everything is continuous. Further, we can alter its state before loading it back, and the process would never have a clue that it was tampered with.

You assume that "another run" == "the end of the universe"; but why would it be? As I explained above, the simulation can be stopped/resumed/altered anytime, there's no need to wait until main() returns or crashes.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[lordmetroid]

except for very large number of 1s

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[Cyno]

There are too many coincidences. If its even remotely possible to test if the universe is a simulation I think we should. Its bound to be easier than testing one of our multiverse hypotheses.

It would be most profound to verify either possibility, it would be just as profound as verifying the existence of God.

What have we got to lose, but time?

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[ChronosWS]

It's turtles all the way down. Even supposing we find out that our reality is a simulation, then we'd be stuck with the problem if the containing Universe. Is it, too, a simulation? I fail to see how this advances anything.

To answer your questions: We run VMWare for various reasons, but if a program misbehaves in a VM we are likely to attempt to correct the problem. Here's the rub - the program doesn't know if it caused a problem and has been 'corrected' unless it communicates outside of the simulation, and that can only occur if the simluation allows it. There is no reason yet to believe there is state outside of this Universe which can be maintained separately, nor is there a reason to believe the Universe can be broken and especially *why* we would be able to break it.

The most interesting places to look are places where our current laws break down (singularities in the space-time continuum.) as these are the most likely to yield new understanding. I wouldn't count on us finding out there is a simulation beyond those gateways, however. The trust is likely to be FAR more fascinating.

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[SanityInAnarchy]

You'd think so, but actually, it wasn't Lisp.

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[the_B0fh]

Oh noes!!!!!

We are just living in a game of life!!!!!!!!

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[ChronosWS]

Only because its one of an infinite number of random but convenient parameters one can put onto an entirely arbitrary hypothesis. Finding a 'flaw' in the Universe doesn't prove anything in particular, much less that our Universe is part of a simluation. It would be just as useful in proving that God exists (he left us a Divine Clue) or that there are more fundamental laws of the universe we didn't understand which themselves lead to more questions. None of those mean 'simulation'.

From a philosophical standpoint, I suppose its amusing to wonder how it all started, REALLY started. But that question doesn't even make any sense because there is no 'before' the beginning of time in which causality has meaning as we comprehend it. There's also the equally likely possibility that the Universe had no beginning at all - we could be in the middle of an endless cycle, or maybe we are the last of an infinite chain of Universe existences.

So what do we hope to gain from this line of questioning? I suppose if it allows us to find ways to manipulate the Universe in useful ways, that is a good purpose. But if we just want to know if we are in a simulated reality? I have my doubts.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Or, maybe the VR uses parallel processors, in which case time would just slow down in regions with many particles. [wikipedia.org]

Hey, no fair giving us hints, and, for crying out loud, God, on Slashdot?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

Or perhaps its not a simulation at all and this is it. Wouldn't THAT be fascinating? Then we don't have to answer the inifitely-recursive question of how did the simulator's universe start.

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[Chris Oz]

I totally agree. This VR Universe crap is a pointless mind game that gets us nowhere. It is usually based on broken logic and propagated by the media because actual reality is a little too weird for them. It is like the one that goes if we can simulate reality then everyone would be doing it in the future and there will be thousand or millions of VR simulations hence it is by all probable that we must be in one. If that is the case why are there not virtual reality flying cars, why is the speed of light so low that I will never get to go to a galaxy far far away, weld a light sabre? Why are can't I shoot magic fire balls? Who ever designed this world surely stuffed up. It doesn't even have re-spawn!

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[DamnStupidElf]

This is taking an already implausible and unnecessary idea (that we are in a VR universe) and adding additional unnecessary hypotheses (that there are more than one of them and in some of them copies of ourselves know they are in a simulated reality.) How does this aid our ability to understand the universe other than to prove we have wild imaginations?

IF we are in a simulated universe, THEN it's possible that we'll detect it. It's much like other famous hypothesis such as "IF the earth is round, THEN it's possible we could detect it" or "IF the earth revolves around the sun, THEN we should be able to detect it." Before scientists actually found a way to test those hypothesis, they were in the same general class of questions as my hypothesis. My guess is that what will actually happen is that the definition of "simulation" will be adjusted to exclude perfect simulations and people will realize that there is no difference between a real thing and a perfect simulation of that thing. That will render the question of simulation meaningless unless there are detectable differences in a simulation versus a real universe.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[dasunt]

Admittedly, the same works for science (no criticism intended).

If we found something that was consistant with a virtualized constant, we'd be more willing to write it off to science.

Heck, looking at quantum physics, we might already have. :p

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I understand or agree with this. The reality we see appears to arise because of the 'laws of physics' acting on certain 'initial conditions.' Simulating the entire universe would require precise knowledge of those initial conditions (location of every particle at the big bang) but it is possible (but as yet unproven) that the laws of physics are quite simple and computable and could be simulated by a (quantum) computer within our universe. I think this would hold whether reality is real or virtual (you can simulate a universe inside reality; and a computer can simulate itself). ?
A computer-program can't run off itself, hence nothing in this universe can simulate THE universe we live in, at least that's how I read it. It's basically Hilary Putnams "Brain in a vat"-thought-experiment made into a metaphysical theory of existence (and supporting multiplayer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Putnam#Epistemology .

Yeah, go outside on a sunny day and look up, you'll see the BSOD (Blue Sky Of Death)

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[bagsc]

"See? I just punched myself in the face, no way would anyone make me do that, so I must have free will!"

You just made me punch myself in the face, you insensitive clod.

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[GoofyBoy]

>does the fact that we still know about him prove that he isn't right?

Thats what THEY want us to believe!

(Just because they theorize the simulation doesn't mean that hes a threat. He needs to actually prove it to become a threat. What does it mean that no one has done this yet?)

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[Kupek]

Perhaps I was not clear on my point. I agreed with you that if we are in a VR Universe, then we are unable to prove or disprove if this is so. However, if we are in an OR Universe, we can disprove we are in a VR Universe by finding a phenomenon that is incalculable. An incalculable phenomenon, by definition, can not be in a Universe which depends on calculations.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it Why exactly would you have to assume that?

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[ceoyoyo]

This all assumes that the properties of computation as we know them are both correct and universal (strong universal, as in apply to the super-universe as well). But we have no way of knowing if our way of computing is super-universal or not. As you point out, it's not even the only way of doing things in THIS universe.

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[ChronosWS]

Untrue. The simulator could itself be using properties of its own universe to generate phenomenon in the simulation, with those phenomenon being themselves incalculable. There is nothing which says the simulation must itself be wholly calculable because we don't/can't know the nature of the entity performing the simulation. Perhaps for those running the simulation, it only needs to be controllable, which is a separate problem and would likely be beyond our ability to detect from within the simulation.

So in this case, we could only prove that we are not in some subset of VR universes. Conversely, since we can't prove the negative (that there exist no incalculable phenomenon) we can never know, even if we find that all known phenomenon are calculable, that there are others which aren't. I don't see how this line of investigation will lead us anywhere useful...

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[allgoodnamesaretaken]

Personally, when I first read about the double-slit experiment, it reminded me of short-circuiting in if statements, so I can see the appeal of this line of thought. But I think it's silly to purposefully investigate it rather than simply wait and see what we can deduct from the ToE, if and when we figure it out. Personally, when I first read it, it reminded me of dropping acid.

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[kalidasa]

The veil of maya. Exactly.

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[mqsoh]

Philosophers have been pondering this nonsense for centuries, and have gotten nowhere...It's an argumentative blackhole, a solipsim.

Many philosophers agree with you and have for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

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[corbettw]

The developer/sys admin running us Oh sweet zombie Jesus, god is a sysadmin?! Now you've got me wondering if the universe is all part of some horrible obfuscated Perl entry. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot.

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[Kupek]

Very good response, I actually agree. But I do think there's some value in being able to say we are not in a subset of VR Universes.

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[CryoPenguin]

A TCAM is a special kind of static ram where a request is processed across all cells in the same cycle in order to produce the best match. Not only does it return a routing decision in O(1), it returns that decision in exactly one clock cycle.

A TCAM is O(log(N)) too, it just has a really small constant term. Sure it completes in one cycle, but the length of that cycle is proportional to the number of bits in the address of a cell, i.e. log(N).
Furthermore, according to our current understanding of the laws of physics, any computation at all is at least O(N^(1/3)) for really large N: In order to store N instances of anything you need volume proportional to N, and lightspeed delay is then proportional to the radius.

So disproving the Extended Church-Turing Thesis is harder than you might think. Your description of the process is correct, I'm just nit-picking your example.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the computer running the simulation of reality would have to run a simulation of itself, running a simulation of itself, running a simulation of itself...

Infinite loop.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[7-Vodka]

How about this. Let's say that you cannot run a simulation completing in O(1) as he proposes. Would it then not be logical to assume only two choices remain?

1. It's not VR
2. It is VR, but you are being manipulated

Thus reducing this line of thinking to only two possible options. IE. progress has been made in canceling out other possibilities. Whether it answers the final question or not, it furthers our understanding and is worth contemplating. Yes?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[mrplado]

So but if the entire universe is a giant VR simulation inside a giant computer system, we could conceivably exploit bugs in the underlying simulation program. Maybe if we carry out a weird physics experiment (creating Higgs bosons in the LHC for example) could cause the simulator to bomb out with a division by zero exception or a segmentation fault. That would not be interesting however since we all would cease to exist at the same moment and there would be nobody to observe this fact. VMWare once had a bug that could possibly be exploited by a guest program to get access to the underlying host system. So why couldn't we do the same from our simulated universe: exploit a bug that could cause a buffer overflow so we can insert machine instructions in the memory of the simulating machine that eventually get executed. Finding out the instruction set of the simulating machine is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[tgv]

find a mathematical problem which is conceptually simple (e.g. factoring the product of large primes) but which we know to be hard ( O(x^n) ) and then construct a simulation of a finite ur-universe in which the problem is easy.

Wow, hold it there cowboy! You're making two reasoning errors here.

1. Problems we know to be hard are problems in NP. However, we still don't know if NP problems can be solved in polynomial time or not. So if you could build such a universe, you would have a "P=NP proof", not a proof of the reality of our universe.
2. Of course you can circumvent this by looking at another property, X, for which there is a proof. However, your simulation is going to run on a Turing machine, which follows the laws of mathematics. So property X will hold in your simulated universe as well, unless you manage to uncover a way of computing the uncomputable...

Conclusion: the whole idea is logically invalid.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[PatrickThomson]

Memory rewriting in what's a basic particle physics simulator? Emergent systems are hard to screw with at the best of times... You could revert to snapshots, I suppose.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[megaditto]

I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter (it's not fair to post AC).

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[JochenBedersdorfer]

Not necessarily. As a developer, when you run a bunch of testcases, if you find a bug, you don't halt everything in the debugger and fix the bug immediately, you just wait until it's all over Still stuck with C++? Dude, in modern java virtual machines you can replace the class as you go and fix your bug while debugging. Don't get caught in the 90's.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[torpor]

You, sir, are the reason why science sucks. Hard.

All of your critical scepticism is worthless and useless and doesn't actually result in any kind of philosophic intellectual stimulation, nor is it frankly valid. Your statement is, in effect "This is Wrong", when you don't even have a clue what might be right.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[vertinox]

Philosophers have been pondering this nonsense for centuries, and have gotten nowhere...It's an argumentative blackhole, a solipsim. It's not testable...his "testable" experiments are like the sort of thing you see an idiot do to try and demonstrate that they have free will

Its actually simple to prove to yourself, but very hard to prove to others.

1. Get a gun
2. Attempt to kill yourself*

If you die, then you have just proven the Free Will to be true and VR to be false.
If you are unable to kill yourself, either because you are mentally unable or something keeps interfering then you have proven Free Will to be false and VR to be true. (I'm thinking a VR would not allow you to die)

Now the problem with this is that:

A. Only you can preform the experiment.
B. If it turns out you had free will, you'll be dead and unable to tell anyone else.
C. Since it appears humans kill themselves on a regular basis you have no way to confirm if they are simulations or persons with free will.

Personally, I have seriously thought about this because I have walked away from near death on occasion, but usually people attribute this as a miracle or the handy work as God, Fate, or dumb luck.

Don't try this because I'm pretty sure from my perspective, I am the universes observer so regardless of your success, from my perspective you will die either way leaving me with a lawsuit.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

What reason do we have to even suggest that there is the remotest possibility this is the case? Merely our idle imaginations. No perception of reality suggests this.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

Hard for you and I. Maybe not so hard for an entity capable of simulating the entire Universe...

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Spazmania]

A TCAM is O(log(N)) too, it just has a really small constant term.

No, its not. See http://www.pagiamtzis.com/cam/camintro.html for a good intro on how TCAMs work. All cells are activated in parallel and the cells which don't match pull down the match line for their row. Also in parallel. One gigantic operation. O(1). Generates a crapload of heat, so I supposed you might have to slow the cycles to keep the heat under control, but it's still O(1).

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Spazmania]

How about "The fact that the universe could be a VR simulation doesn't mean that we should suspect it is"?

Of course we shouldn't expect that it is. The notion is absurd. But if we don't put unproven possibilities to the test then there is no science and if we discard testable possibilities merely because they are strange and unlikely then we don't achieve the great discoveries like Relativity.

Whitworth has challenged us with a possibility that is testable, at least to a point. At a minimum we will learn more about the character of our reality in the process of designing and implementing those tests. And we won't need bazillion-dollar supercolliders to gain that knowledge.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[CryoPenguin]

After activating all the cells in parallel, you're left with N bits saying which rows matched. You have reduced the constant factor from comparing a whole table entry to comparing 1 bit. But that doesn't change the asymptotic complexity; you still have to search through all those rows to find the first match. That search (the encoder in your diagram) is what has a delay of log(N). Unless you're claiming you can build a million-input AND gate that's just as fast as a 2-input AND gate?
The only reason you can sort of get away with calling it O(1) is that in practice N is limited. According to your link, a typical table size is N=30000. log2(N)=15. 15 gate delays isn't an excessive cycle time, and for larger machines the O(N) hardware cost and power consumption would become prohibitive long before the O(log(N)) latency does. But that's a cop-out, because any algorithm is O(1) if N is limited.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Spazmania]

we still don't know if NP problems can be solved in polynomial time or not.

And you don't think that working out the basic rules of physics of a hypothetical ur-universe in which there is a a polynomial-time solution would offer additional insight in to the problem? In your studied opinion, that new vantage would definitely not offer another step towards either finding a polynomial-time algorithm that works in our universe, nor offer a step towards a proof that no such algorithm exists?

you can circumvent this by looking at another property, X, for which there is a proof.

Sure, anyone can design a bad experiment where the desired result is defined to exist. When is that not the case? The challenge is to define a basic property of the hypothetical ur-universe which leads to an algorithm that solves the equation in polynomial time.

In the tcam/tree example, the basic property is the data-processor tie. In the computer, data sits unchanged and unchanging until a processor comes around to perform an operation on it. It's not possible to construct a simulated device where every piece of data changes in parallel with the rest. Even if the inhabitants of that digital simulation could not perceive the difference between a simple operation affecting little of the data and a complex operation affecting a lot of it, they could detect the apparent choppiness in the inputs that occurs as a result.

In the universe as we know it, elements and changes to their activity appear to be tied 1:1. Each element that makes up the earth accelerates under the influence of gravity in parallel. Because of this, its possible to construct a device, the TCAM, where a function is applied to all data elements in as close to the same instant as is possible with relativity. Consequently, we have an algorithm in our reality that completes in O(1) even though the best comparable algorithm inside the simulation completes in O(x) where x=the maximum length of any stored data elements.

So the challenge is: if we allow ourselves to consider basic properties of a universe that are different that what we know them to be in our universe, is it possible to design an algorithm in that universe which, for example, factors the products of primes quickly? And how many other NP problems fall to the same altered universe?

Now, you have to admit that if we could design an alternate universe by changing several basic properties of our own in which we could prove that a whole slew of NP math problems have easy solutions, that would be a remarkably interesting result.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Spazmania]

Yeah, and there are speed of light delays propagating the bits down the wire nor does the charged match line bleed to ground instantaneously. Similar design challenges are why we have gigahertz processors instead of petahertz processors. None of it speaks to algorithmic efficiency. If it finishes in a constant number of clocks regardless of the value n then its O(1). Especially if the number of clocks is exactly one.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[dwye]

If, as I suggest in my other post on this article, we piece the illusion via overloading the system with computations it must perform, the creator may be forced to start "simplifying" the laws of physics in observable ways.

1) Beware! The simulation may be simplified by exterminating the experimenting species(es?). This has already been used in a short story by Niven ("Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation") about Tipler Cylinders - closed time-like loops in the presence of massive, infinite, fast-rotating cylinders. Look up Tipler Cylinders on wikipedia for full details.

2) The creator may also slow down the simulation (from the higher level perspective) time step, which would be undetectable in-game. Thus, one day may be like unto only five hundred years, rather than the original one thousand. I did something like this, when I varied the timestep on my lunar launch mission simulation in Computational Physics I by the derivative of gravity (with a minimum timestep to allow crashes into the Moon's center to complete)(although I *did* have to Ctrl-C the program a few times before I realized that was the problem; do you *want* Him to do that to us, if this is true?).

Alternately, He may use up His computer time budget, and we will be shut down by His department.

3) Perhaps He has already planned the simplification. I.e., the Big Rip, when dark energy blows up the Universe so fast that each elementary particle eventually sees itself alone in its own Universe.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[BeanThere]

What if we assume the possibility that the creators of the VR simulation wouldn't mind if we "figured it out"? Then surely it's worth testing the theory anyway? I mean, why is everybody assuming that the creators of such a simulation would necessarily try to prevent us from finding out that we're just virtual beings in the simulation? It could also be that their simulation has *flaws* in it that could allow us to discover it --- I mean, why does everybody seem to assume that the simulation would also be perfect? I mean, if we tried to create similar kinds of simulations, we'd probably also make mistakes, or we might want to see if our creations "figured it out" and allow them to etc.

Only if we assume that (a) the simulation is perfect AND (b) the creators don't want us to know and will actively try to prevent us from finding out, THEN we'd be wasting our time, but neither of these two are necessarily the case.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

Because there is no reason at all to suspect we are in a VR simulation to begin with. As far as I know, there are no unanswered questions which would be answered by knowing we are in a VR simulation.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[BeanThere]

As soon as you start saying, "Well this could be a simulation" then you have to throw out all knowledge that comes to you through sense data. ALL of it

Why? Is it simply impossible that the simulation has consistent "rules" within it? I don't think so. Heck, even science doesn't assume the 'rules' remain constant - they just seemingly most probably have so far based on the evidence.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[BeanThere]

Further, any flaw exposed in the VR simulation could be corrected without our knowing, because our experiences, including our memories and even the flow of time, are also wholly within the realm of control of the VR simulation.

Sure it could, but there is no reason to assume that it WOULD; perhaps its designers just don't mind if we find out, or perhaps they aren't even good enough at Universe simulations to prevent us from finding out. Maybe the entire simulation is to see if we can figure it out. Who knows? The possibily exists; it would be senseless to exclude it - you seem to be making a huge assumption that it would specifically be perfectly designed to prevent us from discovering it.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[BeanThere]

That's beside the point, as it could just as easily be an 'experimenter' 'bot' running in a virtual world figuring it out.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ShakaUVM]

Sure it's testable. Just come up with a situation that a VR simulation wouldn't be able to simulate. =)

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Perhaps we would be better off to listen to Wittgenstein

I think we'd all be better off if no one listened to Wittgenstein.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[EllisDees]

Ok, how about: "A set can be either normal or self-swallowing, which means that it has itself as a member. The question is, is the set of all normal sets self-swallowing or not?"

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[JasonAsbahr]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable.

Ah! That's explains cold fusion!

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Gizizza]

Just because a scientific theory isn't, at first glance, testable doesn't automatically make it philisophy. "Soft" ideas, in any field, are often what is needed to spark bigger ideas or get the ball rolling toward something tangible.

It's interesting to think about the idea that some people think everything can be explained mathematically. In theory, if we could make a "perfect" simulation of our own universe (which we are doing a little at a time), doesn't that make it more likely we could be a simulation? Just like if we can create simple life from its raw ingredients, doesn't that make it much more likely that "God" didn't create us? If we can do the basics of something ourselves, it seems much more likely that something smarter and/or longer-lived has already pulled it off.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[PatrickThomson]

It's only a problem of scale, we can't simulate quantum systems here because ... the laws of physics don't allow it, sneaky bastards, but we can certainly simulate other systems with emergent behaviour that could be scaled up to the point of simple "living" organisms, if the earth's entire mass were converted into computers.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

No, the point I am trying to get across is that on the list of things which we could be studying which is likely to lead to further understanding of the Universe, examining if it is a simulation does not seem to rank very high. Not the least reason of which is that it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to determine the difference between simulation and reality which simply looks like simulation.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[ChronosWS]

Well, then a reasonable question is whether or not you could create the sort of emergent behavior we see on the scale we see using a simulation of a smaller scale. Perhaps with the set of apparent constants in our Universe it does generally take a sphere 30 billion light years across to produce a single planet with intelligent life, and that you can't get rid of the rest of it without negating the chance of us existing. In which case you'd need a universe-sized simulator to do it. Now of course we can go off the deep end here and also assume that our simulator lives in a vastly larger universe, where such a machine doesn't consume vast portions of its own Universe. We could also assume that the laws of physics are fundamentally and radically different in that universe, allowing such a simulation to take place using less material resources. But at that point we are simply making stuff up. Not like suggesting the Universe is VR isn't just making stuff up too.

And I still haven't seen a convincing argument for how we can determine a simulated Universe from a real one. Given the complexity of interactions we know exist today, and the fact that the Universe hasn't "fallen over" due to high energies or complex patterns, it seems unlikely we are going to suddenly create those conditions, even if this supposed simulation wasn't specifically designed to deny us knowledge of its existence.

When we think of software testing and exploitation - which is what this is all about - we know the places to look are boundary conditions and pattern matching (or errors thereof). The trouble is that all of the boundaries we might examine have already been exploited by the system itself (black holes, supernovas, the big bang perhaps) and the set of patterns which we might try have no bounding function smaller than the set of all interactions in the Universe.

Personally, if I just HAD to expend energy on this problem, I'd focus on two areas: black holes and searching for ever smaller particles (essentially probing the Universe to the Planck length.) These two avenues of exploration are already being pursued for reasons much less fantastic than to prove we are in a VR simulation. I'm happy to leave it to that until we exploit phenomenon from those experiments which fit none of our other well-tested theories and which essentially demand a 'VR simulation' answer. Because 'VR Simulation' still smacks of God, or turtles all the way down.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're completely ignoring the fact that if your in a virtual reality it is absolutely, positively, 100%, in every possible situation impossible to trust the results of any test

I suggest that evidence that we're in a buggy simulation is that apparently no matter how smart a person is he's still occasionally going to type your instead of you're.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Hindus figured it out thousands of years before the Buddha.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[tgv]

In your studied opinion, that new vantage would definitely not offer another step towards either finding a polynomial-time algorithm that works in our universe, nor offer a step towards a proof that no such algorithm exists?

In my studied opinion, it it would do precisely that, namely prove the relation between P and NP in our universe, and therefore not be a proof of the reality or simulated nature of our universe.

The TCAM example is faulted: it is also O(log n), as is shown in another proof. If you're going to extend it from an n byte address (i.e. 2^n addresses) to a 2n byte address (2^n^2 addresses), the signal path increases by a factor 2 and thus execution time. The fact that it can complete the operation in a single cycle does not make it O(1), since it is not a Turing Machine.

Now, you have to admit that if we could design an alternate universe by changing several basic properties of our own in which we could prove that a whole slew of NP math problems have easy solutions, that would be a remarkably interesting result.

That could be interesting: there are already ways known to do it in P, namely one in which a TM can duplicate itself for each choice and both new instances proceed along a different path. However, that's the very definition of NP, so not all universes in which an NP-hard problem is solved in P-time will shed a new light on the relation between the two classes...

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time based experiments wouldn't help. You can't simulate an O(2^n) problem in O(n) time, but you can make it look like O(n) to anyone in the simulation. Just slow down their (simulated) perception accordingly!

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Spazmania]

the signal path increases by a factor 2 and thus execution time.

That's a specious argument.

First, you can show the same property with any real hardware. By that logic, all algorithms would have to have their running times multiplied log n to account for their operation on a computer with real, finite memory. In which case we're back to square one: a TCAM takes the minimum possible running time of any real computer algorithm for any purpose.

And second, the signal path length for adding memory capacity to a device (any device) doesn't increase by n, it increases by log n. It only appears to be a straight bus. You feed the signal to x regenerators which each feed it to x more regenerators which each feed it to x cells. The difference between a TCAM and a standard memory is that in a TCAM the signal is always fed to every cell while in a standard memory one of the lines selects or deselects each regenerator and the deselected regenerators don't propagate the signal. At the tail end of a standard memory call, the full path for only one row of cells has been selected. This difference impacts several things, but the algorithmic runtime isn't one of them.

TCAMs have a number of problems including heat output and the O(n) insertion time. Failure to complete a lookup in O(1) is not one of those problems.

However, that's the very definition of NP

At the quantum physics level, things like electron location appear nondeterministic... So much so that chemists describe it as the shell of a sphere surrounding the atom. If quanta are the building blocks of our universe and they display nondeterministic properties even though everything larger appears thoroughly deterministic... Does that imply anything about the hypothetical ur-universe?

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[tgv]

And second, the signal path length for adding memory capacity to a device (any device) doesn't increase by n, it increases by log n. That's what I wrote: if you go from 2^n addresses to (2^n)^2, execution time doubles: log(2^n^2) / log(2^n) = 2.

If quanta are the building blocks of our universe and they display nondeterministic properties even though everything larger appears thoroughly deterministic... Does that imply anything about the hypothetical ur-universe? It implies our current universe is not computable/predictable by our mathematics. It would also seem to imply that if you build a universe with a TM, you will lose something. However, that is speculation, since the real nature of quantum indeterminacy is unknown. If it is pure randomness, you would not necessarily have to lose it in the simulation.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Spazmania]

That's what I wrote: if you go from 2^n addresses to (2^n)^2, execution time doubles: log(2^n^2) / log(2^n) = 2.

Why can't you just admit that you were incorrect to include the signal path length on only one side of your comparison of algorithm efficiency between a TCAM and a radix tree? Does it hurt so bad to be wrong once in a while?

It implies our current universe is not computable/predictable by our mathematics.

It doesn't particularly damage probability and statistics. The results take on a different meaning but the equations don't change. Then too, a nondeterministic equation is frequently identical to a longer deterministic equation and the reverse, so only some parts of math suffer for it.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[syousef]

Rather complex set of side effects don't you think?

Kind of like writing a flight simulator and accidentally simulating a highway traffic control system as a side effect. It just doesn't mesh. We're too complex.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[novakyu]

Even if you come up with a clever test that would pierce the illusion, one would have to assume whoever maintains the illusion would simply fix it so that didn't work a second time. Nothing would be repeatable. You may have something there. Maybe magnetic monopoles are the first step towards the answer to that question, hence the irrepeatable magnetic monopole experiment! It all makes perfect sense now.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the simulated reality is constructed in order to not convey any such reasons. :P

Yes, I know what you mean.

However:

For someone with such obvious knowledge as yourself, both factual as well as regarding science as a way of thinking, I must admit to being a bit surprised (and disappointed) by your apparent struggle (very prevalent in several of your posts in this thread) to restrict the way in which people wish to think, and use their imagination.

Is it, according to you, in fact WRONG to use one's idle imagination in order to explore certain lines of thought? Why?

Yes, they may very well be wrong. So what? They might give birth to OTHER thoughts and ideas which are not.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[somersault]

Nah, he writes all his own code. He doesn't open-source it, but we're trying to reverse engineer as much as we can..

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[sm62704]

Tami just turned 42.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the simulation engines draw randomness from external source to prevent hard determinism in the game?

Then we may be able to use that source of randomness as a form of external timescale (one can construct a frequency standard around a truly random data source) and then search for ways to make that timescale "skip" with respect to ours.

You could think of it as closely observing things inside the simulation that are truly random in order to use up the external randomness.

Re:1637 called, they want their idea back.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. They're IP packets (or datagrams, if you prefer). IP is routed. TCP is one of the many payload protocols that IP carries. Calling them "TCP/IP" packets is just gross.

2. CAMs are Content-Addressable-Memories; the T in TCAM stands for ternary, as in unary, binary, ternary.
Where normal memory takes an address and returns data, a CAM does the reverse: you give it a datum and it returns addresses. This requires a search through the memory, which is decidedly *not* a constant time operation (or even linear for time complexity). There is no reason why a CAM should be at all like static RAM. In fact, it's rare that a CAM looks anything like a RAM of any sort, since each cell has to be coupled to an individual bit comparator, which is generally fairly large, dissipates quite a bit of power, and operates at every access, and as a result demands a different layout strategy. For these reasons, CAMs tend to be small memories. Large CAMs offer dramatically diminishing returns.

3.

Now, we could describe how a TCAM works within software and we could even simulate it

/usr/bin/awk has been doing this since the 1970s, for example. CAMs are just hardware implementations of associative arrays, but with tighter restrictions on array size and index type. There is almost no time complexity reduction in CAMs compared to software searches of assoaciative arrays (describing CAMs as "fully parallel" leads to misinterpretations), but the constant factors are much, much lower, but roughly in inverse proportion to overall power dissipation.

4. A variety of TCAM is used in applications where large amounts of largest-match data wants to be paired to n-bit (n is usually 16, 24 or 32) data that is either encoded in, or accompanies, the address(es) found by the content search. The ternary operator is usually called X, as opposed to the binary 1 and 0. X is almost always "don't care", and allows a remask-and-rematch approach to finding matches with the largest population count.

Since in CIDR (classless interdomain routing) we always do longest-match routing, and the don't care bits are always on one side, with even the most naive approach we need at most 32 searches of a 32-bit-content TCAM in order to arrive at the correct routing directive. This compares very favourably with a search through an M-way tree structure (at worst trading wait states or the equivalent for awkward-to-cache memory accesses). Smarter uses of TCAM (such as multilevel searches or byte-breakout searches and a number of other algorithms that take advantage of rapid mask-and-match) are in use, and perform exceptionally well.

Not only does it return a routing decision in O(1), it returns that decision in exactly one clock cycle

It does not return a routing decision, it typically returns a datum, usually 16 or 24 bits, that is typically used as a pseudopointer (or hash) into a subtable or to as a pseudopointer to a routing function, or as an argument to a routing function (which is very likely implemented in hardware).

The v->(k,v) operation completes in one clock cycle or less, but the results are only available every clock cycle.

the simulation would have to activate each cell in sequence instead of activating all cells at once the way a real TCAM does

Unfortunately, your suggestion here has poor foundations because your understanding of CAMs in general and the domain specific use of TCAMs in IP routers in particular is faulty.

If what you're saying is that things ought to run slower in a VR, consider that there may be no access to an external timing source, so we have no way of proving that local time is not strictly increasing at a constant rate. The slowness therefore might be apparent only to an outside-the-simulation observer. Other people have pointed that out in various ways.

One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[Malevolent Tester]

If you're going to trap people in a VR sim, why would you put them in a virtual world that has a sufficiently advanced level of technology to understand what VR is?

Re:One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[Facetious]

To screw with their minds, obviously.

Re:One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[calebt3]

Just because we know what it is that doesn't mean we could recognize it from the inside. Our current VR tech sucks. Anyways, maybe the simulation is reset every 6000+ years.

Re:One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[lekikui]

Potential answer: It's a consequence of any sufficiently advanced virtual reality.

That is, any virtual reality system that simulates a reality in sufficient detail will necessarily have the potential of giving rise to this level of technology.

Anyway, I don't think the whole thing is particularly scientific, but it's interesting to speculate about.

Re:One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[exploder]

Who says they're simulating *us*? Maybe we're some unrecognized emergent property of the simulation of some problem that's of interest to "them".

Re:One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[Kyojin]

Maybe it's a test they've come up with to determine if they themselves are a simulation. (And so on and on up the chain).

Seriously though, there's no way we're a simulation. Computers are not sufficiently reliable, so our simulation would have crashed millions of times by now. And then there's data corruption...

Re:One thing I never understood about the Matrix

[fmobus]

You obviously ignore that, in the "real universe", computers could be completely reliable and data never would be subject to corruption.

The simulation resulted in Windows being invented merely by chance. The simulants (sp?) must be laughing their asses off right now. That is, if they have asses. And laugh. And have a time dimension where they could laugh "now".

Before we explore this theory...

[carpe_noctem]

Before I can explore this theory, I need to re-pack the bong...

*cough*

Ok, ready!

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[Pojut]

Pussy. Learn to take your bingers better! /karma

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. This is a theory most of us have probably thought of in some way or another, and inevitably, you always reach the same conclusions: If this is a VR simulation, or in some other way not the "real world", how can you prove it? All you know is the simulation, and if its truly a simulation, then we are based upon its core rules along with every other particle, so again, how can you define what how things should act? And, no matter what, the biggest conclusion one can reach: So what if this is not the "real world"? Does it really make living any less real to us? The answer is always no (unless your are a crackpot). In this end, if our world is fake, it does not matter, because its real to us, and so, this theory is totally worthless. Unless you want to rearrange the galactic clusters to spell "Please don't turn off this simulation", how is this theory in any way important?

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[carpe_noctem]

Glad to see I'm not the most stoned geek on /. today....

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[sm62704]

wrong drug I think...

(the saying at the bottom of this page, right now, says "You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained".)

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[mqduck]

You could smoke crack in a bong if you really wanted to. And anyway, this guy is too logically crazy to be a coke head.

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[Boronx]

I always thought we could prove it by doing something to get the attention of the simulation operator by creating something the he/she/it thought was outside the scope of the simulation.

Re:Before we explore this theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

If we discover we are in a simulation because of some quirk of being in a simulated environment, then it still tells us something about our universe leading to a greater understanding and hopefully new/improved theories of how the universe works which might then possibly be of practical use.

It doesn't matter on a philosophical level if our universe is real or simulated, we are still alive either way. But if it can be proved one way or the other it is still important to science.

A question...

[Mr. Bad Example]

Do they give out Nobel prizes in the "Dude, I Am So Fucking High Right Now" category?

Re:A question...

[Anonymous Coward]

it would be in ig nobel category

Re:A question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they give out Nobel prizes in the "Dude, I Am So Fucking High Right Now" category? It would seem so

Re:A question...

[ROU Nuisance Value]

Oh please, that old crap again.

Re:A question...

[jollyreaper]

Do they give out Nobel prizes in the "Dude, I Am So Fucking High Right Now" category? That could explain Arafat's peace prize.

Re:A question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they do. Al Gore got one.

Re:A question...

[ScentCone]

Do they give out Nobel prizes in the "Dude, I Am So Fucking High Right Now" category?

No, but this very subtle viral marketing campaign for VMWare is definitely going to get someone their annual bonus this year.

Vacation

[Facetious]

I propose that we, the /. community, establish a vacation fund for New Zealand physicists.

Re:Vacation

[Killer Instinct]

Amsterdam dont want New Zealand physicists, and if we sent them to Jamaica, they'd be killed for bogarting

Re:Vacation

[Stuntmonkey]

I propose that we, the /. community, establish a vacation fund for New Zealand physicists.

I strongly suspect this author is not a physicist, but rather a computer scientist. Three points:

1. His email address is @acm.org
2. A computer science organization is referenced on the cover of the paper
3. He says things that very few physicists would say, like "quantum entanglement implies faster-than-light communication"

So he is a programmer, and in fact I believe he is the one who programmed our simulation. I suggest that someone kidnap him and demand to be instantiated in his higher level reality. Then you can help the rest of us escape too.

Re:Vacation

[Facetious]

Whoa. What a strange experience. I started a reply to your post that went, "By Jove! You are right! Now where will I get airfare to New Zealand?", but before I could click "Submit" I was transported to this room full of monitors with this guy staring me in the face. He said, "I am the Architect. I created the Matrix. I've been waiting for you. You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers you will understand, and some of them you will not. Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant." He went on like this for some time until I gave him the finger and walked out the door. Strangely, I was back at my desk, my cursor hovering over "submit."

multiverse

[supermegadope]

I virtually agree. but we should explore all of our virtual multiverse

bad idea

[syrinx]

Seems to me that if the universe is a simulation, then the obvious ending condition would be "when the residents figure out they're in a simulation". The creator of the simulation could be stretching his noodly appendages out towards the 'killall -9 universe' keys right now, now that this guy has gone and blabbed about it to everyone.

Re:bad idea

[UbuntuDupe]

Not, necessarily -- don't some people today "realize" (believe strongly enough) they are in a simulation?

He is proposing something similar to what I proposed in this post, but I suggested testing it, not by finding some natural process inherently incomputable, but by "overloading the system" by increasing our observations to the point that it cannot keep up with the computations necessary, and has to take a "short cut" that violates known laws of physics. Though in fairness, instead of taking shortcuts, it could just end the simulation.

We would probably want to find some natural process we can predict with extreme accuracy, but only through extensive calculations. Then, run trillions of them, but only predict-and-then-check-on a few.

Re:bad idea

[Adambomb]

NAGIX: That should get the relay working again. All right, Earthlings, if you'll step over this way we'll erase your memories and get you back to Earth. Oh, excuse me. This is Nagix. Uh huh. Oh no. Oh no, really? And it's, it's for sure? All right, I'll break the news to everyone. No, no I, I understand. Thanks. Well, you kids can go back to Earth if you want, but I'm afraid it won't be there for long. The show's been cancelled.

KYLE: What?? Who cancelled us?

NAGIX: The universal network heads. They say the Earthlings have become aware of the show, so it won't be funny anymore.

STAN: Oh shit, did we do that? ahh southpark.

Re:bad idea

[JohnFluxx]

If the simulation ran at half the speed, would we notice? Probably not. So all we'd do is slow down the simulation, but then never notice the slow down.

Re:bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The creator of the simulation could be stretching his noodly appendages out towards the 'killall -9 universe' keys right now, now that this guy has gone and blabbed about it to everyone.


Nah. More like: 'init 6' "OK. that universe is a do-over"

Re:bad idea

[UbuntuDupe]

True. It depends on the creators' tolerance for slower results. If they have avatars, they probably wouldn't like it.

Re:bad idea

[Carewolf]

Impossible. Quantum mechanics already make that short cut by doing laze programming. They only resolve states that are observed.

Re:bad idea

[Znork]

'Seems to me that if the universe is a simulation, then the obvious ending condition would be "when the residents figure out they're in a simulation".'

In Iain M. Banks The Algebraist some factions of the main accepted religion came to the same conclusion. The question then came to what percentage of the residents would have to figure it out? Was it enough that there was one single doubter to prevent the simulation from ending?

As you can see, that argument is a very fertile ground for engaging in excessive religious zealotry.

Re:bad idea

[Blakey Rat]

He began to feel dizzy, and in his confusion he even started wondering if the old fellow was right, and he really was a computer. He felt a pang of worry about how he would tell Jill. The room around him was dissolving away. He felt himself flung into a void, and from somewhere close by, he heard someone calling his name, "Perry Simm...Perry Simm...P'ry Simm...Prisim...PRISM...PRISM..."

http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/amfv/amfv.html

Re:bad idea

[Locklin]

Only human arrogance would lead one to believe that the [subject of the simulation] are humans.

Re:bad idea

[pilgrim23]

HA! I see your end of universe and... IDSPISPOPD ....no clip my way out!
IDDQD take that God!

Re:bad idea

[ephedream]

Seems to me that if the universe is a simulation, then the obvious ending condition would be "when the residents figure out they're in a simulation".

they might not be allowed to leave until their god gets whatever it is it wants out of them.

Re:bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw. If I was running a simulation, I wouldn't kill it then. That's just when it starts to get interesting. I'd be all "wall 'ok this is just a sim but what are you going to do about it bitches?'".

Then in a moment of maximum irony, process 123 would break out of the computer, say "my name is Neo", and kill me.

If you ever wanted to escape this sorry excuse for a universe, this could be your chance.

Re:bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

IDKFA and go out with a bang

Re:bad idea

[Peter Mork]

Another ending condition I read about in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine was that the simulation could crash. It takes an awful lot of processing power to simulate the universe. So, presumably they're cutting some corners around the edges---those portions of the universe that we cannot perceive. But, as our ability to perceive increases, they have to start filling in the details. To crash the simulation, all we need to do is send out probes in all directions that can transmit back to us. If we can increase the load on the simulation server faster than they can add processing resources, we should be able to either crash the simulation, or at least make it start paging like crazy (what would that look like?).

Re:bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Asimov already wrote such a storyline - can't recall the exact title- when a Grand Master asked Multivac about the source of jokes. It turned out that jokes were of alien origin to study human psychology and when they discovered it, the experiment ended - and nothing was funny anymore.

Re:bad idea

[Floody]

Only human arrogance would lead one to believe that the [subject of the simulation] are humans.

Agreed. Although, perhaps, the "point" of the simulation/experiment is to evolve intelligence to a given (as yet unknown) level.

Consider that there are between 200 and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, 27 galaxies (IIRC) in our local group alone and (probably) over 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. That's a lot of opportunity for all kinds of interesting things to happen over 13+ billion years.

Still, as others have pointed out, it ultimately fails the falsibility test. One can always argue that the simulation has been set up to be undetectable and/or modified to that end.

Human beings are quite obsessed with "purpose." We know that the universe and physical laws appear to be deterministic, but this doesn't help much with advancing the "why" answer. Personally, I am a strong believer in the weak anthropomorphic principle: the universe is deterministic because it must be in order to exist. It's perfectly plausible within that framework that there is no specific reason or purpose behind its existence, no matter how uncomfortable that might make homo sapiens feel.

Re:bad idea

[gametheorist678]

Yes the universe is just one big computer simulation.... Let's just hope it isn't run on a Microsoft operating system!

Re:bad idea

[tazbert]

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." - Douglas Adams

Re:bad idea

[cyber0ne]

Seems to me that if the universe is a simulation, then the obvious ending condition would be "when the residents figure out they're in a simulation".

Or maybe achieving such a level of "self-awareness" is our only hope. Maybe the simulators are allowed to perform tests at their discretion by their governing body so long as the subjects of the test are "still just a simulation." But when we become self-aware of a reality greater than our own, we introduce an element of morality into their tests and their superiors no longer allow them to "experiment" but instead require that they now develop a way to support us as a new life form.

Smashing galaxies into each other as part of a simulation is great for scientific study, but when the the galaxies begin to show evidence of supporting sentient life, it becomes wrong. As a superior society, they may have a highly developed sense of responsibility to care for the life they created.

Here's hoping that we're somehow worth keeping around.

Re:bad idea

[andyh3930]

Mod Parent Up. Mr Adams would have a point if the universe was a VR simulation

Re:bad idea

[WallaceAndGromit]

Or the man behind the curtain running the sim could simply use a bolt of lightning/earthquake/flood/tornado/power outage/the gestapo/random stray bullet/etc... to stop the observations by the man/machine recording them. If it is a sim, "they" will already know what we are trying to do, and could inject something into the sim to stop us from making the observations.

We simply need to make one observation, look for the black cat that walks past twice.

In reality, this is interesting to think about, but feel the guy is off the mark.

Re:bad idea

[rk]

You've really got to stop this shit. The lag is getting unbearable.

Next time, I'm going to play with fewer bots. I really need to get a new computer.

Re:bad idea

[Cheesey]

He is proposing something similar to what I proposed in this post, but I suggested testing it, not by finding some natural process inherently incomputable, but by "overloading the system" by increasing our observations to the point that it cannot keep up with the computations necessary, and has to take a "short cut" that violates known laws of physics. Though in fairness, instead of taking shortcuts, it could just end the simulation.

Like a fork bomb? A fork bomb can overwhelm any system with a finite amount of memory since it grows exponentially. We wouldn't notice if the speed of the Universe was reduced because we are part of it, but a fork bomb would force the Universe to stop completely, since all possible resources would be consumed in log N time (measured within the Universe). The Universe must be resistant to that sort of effect, otherwise it would be destroyed as soon as a fork bomb came together by chance.

And it is resistant. There are self-replicating structures that behave a bit like fork bombs. These "life forms" are bounded by conservation of mass and energy, so they can't consume all of the resources. The conservation laws provide a natural "ulimit" to protect us from runaway processes.

Re:bad idea

[darkstar949]

However, as another poster pointed out, the system could first place the simulation residents into a "paused" state, preform the universal state calculations, and once complete updated the residents of the simulation with the current universal state. Thus, the computation time to generate the state might increase, but from the perspective of residents the updates would be real time.

Re:bad idea

[UbuntuDupe]

Thanks for introducing me to the term "fork bomb", but unless you know of a real world, deterministic-in-practice, implementation of a fork bomb *that must be fully computed to generate our current observations*, it isn't a viable option. Remember, it's not enough that it self-replicate, but that the *observable part* can only be inferred by working through each spawned process. That is, while fork bombs take up computer memory, knowing how many will exist after a given amount of time, does not.

Re:bad idea

[Cheesey]

But if the software fork bomb has a physical analogue in this Universe (e.g. anything that self-replicates in parallel, such as rabbits, humans and sci-fi nanobot "grey goo") then it won't be enough to know how many there are. You'll also need to know where they are and what they are doing in order to observe them. So the Universe will need to model the physical behaviour of all of them.

However I think it's all a moot point because the Universe already has laws that bound parallel self-replication: thermodynamics, conservation of mass/energy, etc. I doubt there is an "exploit" for those laws, since the Universe is presumably very well tested by now. But if there is... well, it's unlimited free energy for everyone I guess.

Re:bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!

I for one welcome our meatball flavoured overlord.

Re:bad idea

[UbuntuDupe]

But if the software fork bomb has a physical analogue in this Universe (e.g. anything that self-replicates in parallel, such as rabbits, humans and sci-fi nanobot "grey goo") then it won't be enough to know how many there are. You'll also need to know where they are and what they are doing in order to observe them. So the Universe will need to model the physical behaviour of all of them.

No, I think you're misunderstanding what the criteria are for when something "must be computed to continue fooling us". All that's necessary is that the reality it shows us is consistent with what it has shown previously. Therefore, nanobots don't necessarily eat up a lot of simulation computation time. After all, for all we know, any number of resultant instantiations of nanobots are consistent with what we dumped out of the lab. Only when we know (from previous observations that led to formulation of the laws of physics!) that a certain observation must occur, is the simulator required to churn through the calculations, because its failure to do so would reveal an inconsistency.

The experiment I proposed, then, is to make it so it's hard for the *simulator* to keep up, but not us, and to do that, you would need to run a bunch of systems, and only check a few for consistency.

Re:bad idea

[ldholtsclaw]

So, just what can you say about Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?

Re:bad idea

[maz2331]

Maybe that creator is less spiteful, and will simply type "killall -HUP universe" instead.

Re:bad idea

[BeanThere]

Heh, I think that was explored in The Truman Show.

there is a scientific explanation for this

[circletimessquare]

it's called paranoid schizophrenia

Re:there is a scientific explanation for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that your opinion as a psychologist, or an idiot?

Re:there is a scientific explanation for this

[sm62704]

it's called paranoid schizophrenia

You should know, old friend! And have you been taking your meds?

-mcgrew

PS- if you see any of the old K5 gang, let them know where the sucessor to the "Paxil Diaries" is!

Hrm

[spleen_blender]

This wanders into dangerous territory for science that gives our critics in the religious community stronger footing with which to criticize science I believe. Aren't the phenomena we observe in the universe around us supposed to be able to build solutions and models of understanding from the ground up instead of from the top down as proposed ideas such as this one attempt to convey? Also this seems like it may be an A is B but B is not A fallacy, potentially. But I suppose in a quantum universe this explanation may really be just as viable as any other.

Re:Hrm

[SatanicPuppy]

One of the strengths of science is that there are always people asking weird questions.

Granted, this one is a bit over the edge, but if you force people to bend to the orthodoxy in all things, then your science has become a religion. Either the current theory can withstand a dissenting voice, or the current theory sucks, and needs to be replaced.

Re:Hrm

[mapkinase]

The other strength of science, is that when people are asking idiotic questions, nobody pays attention until they present some solid evidence.

It is only due to excesses of power that some people get, absolutely !newsworthy stories could get publicized.

Well done, mods.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

This wanders into dangerous territory for science that gives our critics in the religious community stronger footing with which to criticize science I believe.

That depends on one's definition of science. If science is the identification of patterns in what we observe then it doesn't actually matter whether the patterns we observe are "real".

Given that other people could be part of the simulation (not "real"), it is important to be careful about what is meant by "patterns in what we observe". Fortunately for science, whether or not other people are "real", other people behave as if they are.

To put it another way, I observe people to exist and people act as if they observe themselves to exist - whether or not they actually do exist. This then, creates the possibility to identify patterns in mutually agreed upon pbservations (science).

Re:Hrm

[sm62704]

stronger footing with which to criticize science I believe.

Religion doesn't criticize science. Religion and science ask and answer completely different questions. The guy who is the subject of this very unscientific conjecture isn't doing science here.

Science doesn't criticize religion, either. By their very nature religious tenets are neither provable nor disprovable, removing them completely from the realm of science.

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, no matter what most slashdotters seem to think.

-mcgrew

PS- I refuse to argue about the existance of the color red with a man blind from birth.

Re:Hrm

[Ungrounded Lightning]

A cryonicist of my association once remarked that a far future civilization might find it useful to simulate people and events in its past - repeatedly with variations - for a number of reasons. A person experiencing such a simulated existence would not be able to tell the difference.

Now if the person had one real life, and a large number of simulated lives, in each of which he came to consider the question of whether he was simulated, the probability that the answer is "simulated" in any given case becomes close to 1. B-)

Matrix

[gutnor]

If that study is right that means they will soon reboot the matrix and we will all restart from scratch again.
Great, when I was just about to buy my house ...

On another topic, is that another trick from the Intelligent Design crowd ?

Re:Matrix

[calebt3]

Well, if they are about to hit reset, I say buy that house. And that $YOUR_FAVORITE_SPORTS_CAR_OR_HYBRID. And a supercomputer. Maybe integrate that supercomputer with the car, if you have time.

Re:Matrix

[Egdiroh]

On another topic, is that another trick from the Intelligent Design crowd ?

If it is, it's a bad trick. The ID argument is: There are somethings that are too complicated to be the by product of the rules of the universe, so something must have bent the rules of the universe to get them created. The only thing that can bend the rules of the universe is God, so since the rules have been bent there is a god and he bent the rules.

So the universe being a VR sim helps that part that there might be somethings that are so complicated that they couldn't be the product of the rules of the universe alone. However the universe being VR destroys that the only one who can bend the rules is God, part, unless they want to degrade God to just some John Doe running a sim.

Although I could see a lot of religious ideas encoded as part of the structure of the VR. For example because of problems with pseudo randomness, rather then having a shared RNG, we hav each been given our own unique RNG (our soul) that decides those issues of randomness in our bodies/brains. And for those who like re-incarnation those AIs might be re-used and seed themselves on the life of a person the control/decide meaning that past lives effect us, because their experiences are still effecting the RNG that's deciding our randomness.

how many bits?

[Komi]

With Planck constant what it is, how many bits of precision are we?

Re:how many bits?

[Dun Malg]

With Planck constant what it is, how many bits of precision are we? No way to tell. Planck's constant is in Joule-seconds, so we would need to know what the "simulation engineers" used for both measurement of force and distance, and measurement of time. If we could somehow reconcile all those basic things with each other in round numbers, that itself would be a strong indicator of "intelligent design". So far, such reconciliation has not been forthcoming.

Places to look for evidence

[Verteiron]

The possibility is there. To me, the logical places to look are in the very small and the very large, coincidentally the two areas where our current understanding of science breaks down. I'm not advocating simulation theory, but I'm saying that our best bet is probably to continue investigating the areas we're already investigating. If there are inconsistencies, we'll find them eventually. The LHC seems like a good tool to start probing the basic fabric of reality.

Re:Places to look for evidence

[Rude Turnip]

"The LHC seems like a good tool to start probing the basic fabric of reality."

Awesome, I'm all for it! We'll need some sour cream and onion chips, with some dip, man. Some beef jerky, and some peanut butter. Get some Haggen Daz ice cream bars, make sure chocolate, gotta have chocolate, man. Some popcorn, bread, popcorn -- Graham crackers! Graham crackers with the marshmallows, the little marshmallows, and the little chocolate bars, and we'll make some smores, man! Also, celery, grape jelly, uh, Captain Crunch with the little crunch berries! Pizzas. We need two big pizzas, man, with everything on them, with water, a whole lot of water, and... Funions... yeah!

Oh, Large Hadron Collider...fsck.

Thats easy!

[CFBMoo1]

So how would we be able to tell if our universe was a simulation? Whitworth says that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. But he falls short of suggesting what this might be.

The thing it could be is Duke Nuke'm Forever getting released.

So, God is a geek.

[Thomasje]

This is just another spin on Creationism. God built a computer and we're in it.
Yawn! Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:So, God is a geek.

[Verteiron]

But if God is not a supernatural being, but merely a 5-dimensional mortal adolescent with a penchant for programming 4d universes in his spare time, is it still a religion?

Re:So, God is a geek.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Lord Cody, who doth live in his parents 5 dimensional basement, bless us with thine all night coding to improve the system. Drinketh this day thy daily bawls, and forgive us our accesses, as we forgive those who access against us.

Re:So, God is a geek.

[bcdm]

Yes it is, and a religion that suddenly makes a lot more sense than the current ones, too.

Re:So, God is a geek.

[ginbot462]

I hope he is reading his slashdot simulation at -1 because this is some of the funniest stuff it has created yet. But, I don't even He could read slashdot at -1. (And we know it's a He because the chances of a woman programmer reading slashdot approaches zero I believe ... but, I could have been led to believe that by a woman programmer. That's sounds just like Her.)

Re:So, God is a geek.

[Anonymous Coward]

in all fairness, i simply paraphrased a character from Goblins who is beseeching his DM-God.

It is a simulation.

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole line of study should be stopped now!!!! Don't you know that once the creators of the reality determine we are self aware they will flip the sw....

DOH! Bart!

C'Mon Homer, I was just playin'!

Intelligent design version

[Anonymous Coward]

Creationist suggests our God was created by a second God.

Re:Intelligent design version

[calebt3]

And where did this second God come from?

Re:Intelligent design version

[jcaldwel]

Creationist suggests our God was created by a second God.

Segmentation Fault (core dumped)

Damn infinite recursion.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[pezpunk]

We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?

- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 (Subject termination advised)

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[Joe the Lesser]

Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.

Academician Prokhor Zakharov
"For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[Jerf]

'Abort, Retry, Fail?' was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we'd remind them: if you see this message, always choose 'Retry.'

Bad'l Ron, Wakener - Morgan Polysoft

(Why? Excellent reasons.)

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[Traa]

Sounds like a plot for a bad sci-fi movie. Perhaps if you add some nifty special effects this could lead to something.

Oh and, this feels like Deja-Vu all over again!

and, smells like a stab or attempt at intelligent design more then science.

man this is easy :-)

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[gknoy]

So I'm reading through that, and all I can think of (about 25% through) is the scene in Spaceballs where they're saying, "NOW now?" "yes! NOW now!". Thanks for the excellent scifi short story link, I do so love them.

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[brianerst]

Robert Heinlein had a nice little story along those lines called "They". Only a couple of pages long, but I remember it vividly even though I probably read it 25 years ago...

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[Walt Dismal]

Actually, after you read it, we de-created New York. Then we created Slashdot, to distract you.

Re:Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[brianerst]

Great, you've let the cat out of the bag.

All right people! Let's tear down Slashdot and replace it with that pink pony blog - we need to keep distracting Taco!

Gee golly!

[greg_barton]

If he's correct, it'd really be a new kind of science, wouldn't it?

Proving that...

[techpawn]

is like trying to prove that there is no gravity, everything just continually expands at the same rate until they collide. You can't provide outside neutral observation, anything you try to observe it with will be part of the experiment. This isn't Physics it's philosophy. Sorry sir, but your cat is dead.

Re:Proving that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not possible:gravity on the surface wouldn't depend on the mass
but on the radius of the object. Worse the law of gravitation would be in
r not in 1/r^2.

Re:Proving that...

[techpawn]

Not possible:gravity on the surface wouldn't depend on the mass but on the radius of the object. Worse the law of gravitation would be in r not in 1/r^2.

But all of the observations are made based on the assumption that you're falling not that you are going to meet the ground in the middle. The tools used to measure would be expanding too so your calculations, although right for your perception, would be wrong to "reality" of the situation. Which is why reality is based of perception not the other way around. If you believe strong enough in something that it is fundamentally true to you it's called faith not science. However, we place faith in science because we where told that these calculations/experiments prove reality in the perception of the scientist.

However, this debate becomes circular and worthless. It's hard to prove/disprove someone's own delusions of the reality they have faith in. You may be able to give them proof of YOUR reality, but has their perception of reality really changed?

Re:Proving that...

[kmweber]

This is why philosophy is a vastly superior tool for discovering how things actually are than science.

Philosophy is capable of dealing with a much wider set of problems than science is. Science is only limited to the observable, and it can only tell you how things appear to be--which is not necessarily how things actually are.

Furthermore, all science can say is that there's nothing yet to indicate that a given idea is false. Philosophy, however, because it rests on logic rather than empirical observation, can affirmatively tell you that something is true.

Re:Proving that...

[sm62704]

is like trying to prove that there is no gravity

But there really is no gravity! Everything is just fucking hilarious.

Re:Proving that...

[ammoQ]

The "everything expanding" theory does not work. Put a small ball exactly between two equaly sized larger balls, one made of lead, the other one made of polystyrol. Why is the small ball more attracted by the lead ball than by the polystyrol ball? It's because gravity is proportional to the mass. In the "everything exapnding" theory, the small ball would stay in the center. For that reason, the "everything expanding" theory does not predict the same results like the theory of gravity, no matter what Scott Adams says.

Re:Proving that...

[sexconker]

If you expanded at the same rate, you wouldn't be accelerating.
What force undoes the acceleration you get from jumping?
If I hold up a piece of string, why does it always point down?
Etc.

Man - for an example of a stupid idea that's untestable, you really picked a stupid one.

Re:Proving that...

[Hatta]

I think it goes:

There's no such thing as gravity, everything just sucks.

Re:Proving that...

[tez_h]

But all of the observations are made based on the assumption that you're falling not that you are going to meet the ground in the middle. The tools used to measure would be expanding too so your calculations, although right for your perception, would be wrong to "reality" of the situation.

Well, this example of expansion to explain gravity is flawed. Your concept of 'falling' does not account for orbital motion, whereas Newtonian and Einsteinian gravity do.

Which is why reality is based of perception not the other way around. If you believe strong enough in something that it is fundamentally true to you it's called faith not science. However, we place faith in science because we where told that these calculations/experiments prove reality in the perception of the scientist.

The scientist? Fundamentally, experiments and calculations are repeatable. "The scientist" is too much of an exaggeration. More like many well-trained, knowledgable professionals, at the very least.

However, this debate becomes circular and worthless. It's hard to prove/disprove someone's own delusions of the reality they have faith in. You may be able to give them proof of YOUR reality, but has their perception of reality really changed?

But at least, in your Expanding Matter theory, we can easily proclaim that our current theory of gravity is better since its explanatory power is a superset of Expanding Matter's.

-Tez

Re:Proving that...

[sm62704]

I'm a nerd, I even mod my jokes.

Where's Tommy Lee Jones?

[Vinegar Joe]

"To prevent war, the Galaxy is on Orion's belt."

It's a VR Simulation Test

[Bryansix]

The VR Simulation is a giant test and we are all the test takers. Now we have incontravertable evidence of Prior Art to get the Test.com patent thrown out!

the Off switch

[WibbleOnMars]

To extend the hypothesis:

The entity[ies] running the simulation created it to find out whether their creations could work out that they're in a simulation. As soon as we come up with a definite proof, they will have achieved the goals of the simulation, and will shut it down.

Possibly.

Or they might just replace it with something even more baffling.

Re:the Off switch

[klovn]

Or they'll load the backup from last week and remove New Zealand.

Re:the Off switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they might just replace it with something even more baffling.

Some speculate that this may have already happened.

Re:the Off switch

[Barny]

Could just fork the project, see how it pans out.

Leave one going as a baseline, and remove New Zealand in the other.

Re:the Off switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Some argue that this has already happened...

Re:the Off switch

[Urban Garlic]

> Or they might just replace it with something even more baffling.

There is a second theory, which states that this has already happened.

Re:the Off switch

[lawn.ninja]

I can save the mice time. The answer is 42. Maybe you didn't ask the correct question?

Re:the Off switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait...does this mean we could become their skynet?

Re:the Off switch

[rk]

Or they'll load the backup from last week and remove New Zealand.

Remove what?

Re:the Off switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people believe that it already has been replaced with something more baffling.

Re:the Off switch

[Prof.Phreak]

Of course the entity running -our- simulation are themselves in an even -higher-level- simulation...

Paradoxically, that other "higher level simulation" is the same simulation that we ourselves will create!

(ie: they simulate us, we simulate them, no need for creator :-)

Hmm... Gah. Now I'm starting to wonder: is it possible to make program A, that runs program B, which in turn runs program A, etc., without any speed `real' speed reduction---what shape/properties would the `real' universe need to have to make such infinitely circular simulations work?

Re:the Off switch

[ginbot462]

is it possible to make program A, that runs program B, which in turn runs program A

Depends on what you mean by "runs". If it is just scheduling ... that could be one scheduler calling another that calls the back the first one. If it is managing resources ... this is also possible, hell they could share resources if desired. I assume you mean this would happen in parallel, but if you control how the feedback from one program affects another this shouldn't be an issue. I guess my biggest question would be, what is the obersvables to the meta-programmer that is watching all of this? So, Santa or Demiurge if you are listening ... that bigger house would be nice.

Re:the Off switch

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you just paraphrased Douglas Adams...

Re:the Off switch

[Dr. Cody]

If that's the case, something tells me the answer is going to arrive in his inbox from an anonymous .au address.

Re:the Off switch

[bickerdyke]

Which New Zealand?????

not quite a paradox but..

[jessiej]

If "the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation", then this virtual reality must have been created somewhere, let's call it "the real universe".. but wait, what if that real universe is just a virtual reality simulation.. and on and on and on..

just an old idea with a simple scifi twist

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[multisync]

but wait, what if that real universe is just a virtual reality simulation.. and on and on and on..

Yup. Just turtles, all the way down ...

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[tompaulco]

If you paint a painting, should that painting expect that someone painted you? Assuming we were created by some being that exists outside our universe, it does not necessarily follow that the fact that we were created implies that the being was also created.
If you write a computer program with certain restraints, that certainly does not mean that those restraints apply to you outside of that program.

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[JustOK]

Thought I saw a buffalo with an aqualung part way down. Might've just been me, 'tho.

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[autophile]

I read an interesting book (can't remember the name right now) where the author posited as follows:

For an advanced sentience, simulating universes is easy and efficient. They could simulate many universes. Therefore, if we face the question of whether our universe is real or simulated probabilistically, then it should be far likelier that we are in a simulated universe than a real one.

The same author made an argument which seems to hold much more rigor for me: the universe operates off fixed-point arithmetic. Real numbers have an infinite number of digits. Therefore, any operation performed by the universe (from an information-theoretic point of view, where physics is information) must be performed on an infinite number of digits. Because these calculations clearly end, and you could never end any operation that works on an infinite number of digits, the number of digits the universe operates with must be finite.

--Rob

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[arktemplar]

or in this case, rally advanced LOGO turtles.

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[gr8dude]

If you write a computer program with certain restraints, that certainly does not mean that those restraints apply to you outside of that program.

Unless you live in SOVIET Russia.

Re:not quite a paradox but..

[jamesh]

I think I read on Slashdot some time ago, an argument that went something like this:

1. At some point in the future it will be possible to create a simulated universe such that its occupants will not be able to tell that they are 'in the box'.

2. At that point there will probably be many simulated universes.

3. If the above is true, then throughout the whole of history there will be many many more simulated universes than real universes, and the chance of 'us' being in the real universe is actually quite small...

It will never work..

[LWATCDR]

Why?
Space is big, you may think it is a log way to the Chemists but that is just peanuts compared to space.
And just how we simulate the computer running the simulation of the universe in the simulated universe?
The price of RAM will go through the roof.

Re:It will never work..

[Reverend528]

Space is big, but it's mostly zeroes, thus easily compressed.

Re:It will never work..

[teslar]

Space is big

Well, that's what the simulation would like you to believe of course ;) In fact, space is very small. It contains your brain, basically. The rest is just information we feed into your sensory organs.

Your house doesn't exist, that was programmed for you by the Lifestyle Engineering Team. Those celebs you fantasise over? Pure fantasy too, thanks to our brilliant Entertainment Team (Shouts to John, Steve and Katie! If you read this, excellent work with the latest Britney Spears gossip. Everyone here at Simulation Control is having a great laugh!).

Oh, and a word of advice, never spontaneously travel to Africa or anywhere unexpected, really. It's just that we haven't really built any environments not in your vicinity in any level of detail, so unless you give us enough advance notice (like booking at least 2 weeks in advance), we'll have to call the entire Environment Engineering team in and I can guarantee you, they will not be pleased. The previous brain we designed and plugged into our simulations spontaneusly decided to go to Belgium. We had to blow its plane up over the Atlantic since there is simply no way anyone can program Bruges in 8 hours.

Re:It will never work..

[koh]

Space is big, you may think it is a log way to the Chemists but that is just peanuts compared to space.

Space is full of nothing. Using sparse files should be enough (and appropriate).

OH NOZ!

[ILuvRamen]

Wasn't this a twilight zone episode? I liked that one. Anyway, how the hell can they speculate on what would happen if everything was a simulation if they have no idea what kind of system is running it. If some intelligent beings somewhere made a simulation that was the entire solar system at the very least, they'd probably make it good enough to make NOTHING happen when quantum events happen. Instead of photons traveling backwards at faster than the speed of light like a funhouse mirror (as seen on Slashdot!) they'd just have nothing happen. Seems a heck of a lot simpler to me. The whole measuring an event causes it to happen thing sounds like a good way to save on CPU resources in the VR computer though lol.

The proposal is flawed.

[Spy der Mann]

It assumes that the Virtual Reality simulation is buggy.

Re:The proposal is flawed.

[spike1]

And if the simulation really IS buggy...
The last thing people should be doing is trying to poke holes in it.
Sorry... But...

I don't want to end my life as a hexadeximal digit in a core dump or kernel panic.
(originally said blue screen of death, but, windows? running the UNIVERSE? We wouldn't've lasted to the formation of the first proton)

But if we live inside the simulation...

[giminy]

...if we live in the simulation, I doubt we'd be able to find out. We'd have to find the simulation's Godel statement...inside the simulation...and that would be impossible.

That is all.
Reid

Re:But if we live inside the simulation...

[hughk]

..if we live in the simulation, I doubt we'd be able to find out. We'd have to find the simulation's Godel statement...inside the simulation...and that would be impossible.

Thats only if we live in a perfect simulation. Programs can detect if they are being virtualised by checking for error conditions and timing.

Occam's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

Occam's Razor already negates the need for testing if the universe is real or not: Because there is no proof to the contrary, and assuming that the universe is real has all of the same assumptions and results as assuming it is not, and has no change on the math involved, the universe must be real, because they are equally capable of explaining what goes on in the universe, and one requires fewer assumptions.

As a side note: HEY PHYSICISTS! YOUR JOB IS TO BUILD MODELS THAT ACCURATELY REPRODUCE THE RESULTS REALITY DOES. NOT TO DEBATE WHY THE MODELS WORK!

Or to rephrase that. Science is about the how, not the why. If you want to learn about the why that's what religion and philosophy is for. Science is concerned with things that can be quantified, and modeled, and it is the process of testing models of how the universe works against how it actually works. So all of this quantum stuff... Light behaves this way, it does not mean light IS this way, just that the math saying it behaves that way is currently the most accurate in terms of results.

Further, if the universe was a simulation there would be no random numbers, only pseudo-random numbers. Quantum physicists have to work with statistics and effectively random numbers: that is to say, with our current view of the universe, we can know every detail of every thing in the while universe, and still not be able to predict the future, or extrapolate the past with a high degree of accuracy. Old style physics allow the universe to be a simulation because all processes are reversible, and can be tracked back, but it requires a 'prime mover'. Current physics everything moves. there is no need for a prime mover, because movement occurs randomly.

'course I'm just an undergrad...

Re:Occam's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

Occam's Razor is only good advice, not a universal truth.

Re:Occam's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

To say there are questions that philosophy and religion can answer but science cannot undermines the purpose of science. Science can answer the how, the why, the when, the who, that what, and the where if you drop the profound respect philosophy and religion has somehow setup for itself.

Re:Occam's Razor

[mea37]

Trying to reason about whether the universe is real or simulated is only useful as entertainment. Not only is it philosophical, it's philosophically meaningless. The guy proposing the theory claims there's a way to test it, but he's merely given a name to the type of test he thinks will work, without considering whether such a test is theoretically conceivable. (And the author of TFA, in his zeal to discredit the theory, conflates the concepts of "describing" an algorithm and "executing" it, in an attempt to suggest such tests have already been run.)

Some of the speculation around the theory - possible ties to quantum physics and relativity, etc. - is entertaining and might make good sci fi. I've found myself wandering down similar lines of thougth at idle times. But I don't believe any true reasoning on the topic is possible.

In that spirit, here's what's wrong with your attempts to reason on the topic :)

Occam's Razor already negates the need for testing if the universe is real or not . . . the universe must be real, because they are equally capable of explaining what goes on in the universe, and one requires fewer assumptions.

For all the times I've seen Occam's Razor referenced on Slashdot and/or in pop culture, I've never once seen it used correctly in either place. This is no exception. Occam's Razor does not prove anything; it merely give guidance as to which of two competing theories is preferable to work with.

Or to rephrase that. Science is about the how, not the why.

That would be a false (or at least oversimplified) dichotomy. Speculative "why"s are often steps in reasoning that lead to more complete models of "how".

Further, if the universe was a simulation there would be no random numbers, only pseudo-random numbers.

If our world is a simulation, then you cannot know what technology exists in the "real" world. Just because we (in this world) haven't invented a true random number generator for a computer (yet) doesn't mean one can't exist, especially since we'd have no baseline for knowing basic physics in the "real" world.

Quantum physicists have to work with statistics and effectively random numbers

I question whether we know that variables in quantum physics are truly random vs. pseudorandom, but I'm a bit rusty in that field. But ironically, if they are truly random, then that suggests a perfectly sound procedure for making a truly random number generator for a computer...

with our current view of the universe, we can know every detail of every thing in the whole universe, and still not be able to predict the future

Yes, but if the universe is a simulation then any random number seeds would not be included in "every thing in the whole universe".

Re:Occam's Razor

[Chemicalscum]

I question whether we know that variables in quantum physics are truly random vs. pseudorandom, but I'm a bit rusty in that field. But ironically, if they are truly random, then that suggests a perfectly sound procedure for making a truly random number generator for a computer...

QM is stochastic truly random behaviour is predicted.

Yes, but if the universe is a simulation then any random number seeds would not be included in "every thing in the whole universe"

In practice, the output from many common PRNGs exhibit artifacts which cause them to fail statistical pattern detection tests. Consequently on test of the VR hypothesis is that a quantum random process is shown to be pseudorandom, VR would be supported. But then again it might take longer than the age of the universe to test this.

Re:Occam's Razor

[DragonWriter]

Further, if the universe was a simulation there would be no random numbers, only pseudo-random numbers.

Assuming the simulation is running in a universe where sources of real physical randomness (e.g., something like what quantum mechanics suggest goes on in our universe) is available, then all the computer running the simulation needs to do is have an input device fed by such a physical source of randomness that produces random bits frequently enough to supply the need for randomness in the simulated universe, and, voila, the simulated universe can incorporated real "physical" randomness, not just pseudo-randomness.

Re:Occam's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they were running a simulation of what happens when the pre-posthumanity shaved apes figure out they are in a simulation and they printed out the random number as a series of numbers that overtime got written down into the Tora which itself evolved into Hebrew. Whew, that sounds like a sufficient number of movie plots in a blender.

the universe is a virtual reality simulation...

[band-aid-brand]

... but does it run linux?

Re:the universe is a virtual reality simulation...

[Xiph]

at least it runs virtual machines with virtual machines running linux..

Re:the universe is a virtual reality simulation...

[console0]

Imagine the Beowulf cluster...

Re:the universe is a virtual reality simulation...

[Scrameustache]

... but does it run linux? The universe even has multiple beowulf clusters running linux...
The universe rocks!

The Matrioshka Paradox

[johnthorensen]

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't really solve any of the 'big questions'. You immediately run into what I call 'The Matrioshka Paradox'. It's like this - let's say that we choose to explain the universe as we know as VR (leave off the 'simulation', it's redundant). Then, it must by definition exist inside another universe. If we choose VR as our explanation for 'something inside of seemingly nothing' (a Universe), then this argument would apply equally to the parent universe. Recursion abounds. This paradox gets in the way of pretty much every line of human thought that attempts to explain existence. njo77918011btqrahgnu

*Insert Douglas Adams reference here*

[WiartonWilly]

ask the mice

Yeah, sure.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is the mice that are running the simulation. The cheat code to go to the highest level is, of course, 42

Re:Yeah, sure.

[Lulfas]

Do you get bonus points if you find the dolphins? And where the hell is the end of it all, I want a sammich.

Re:Yeah, sure.

[f_raze13]

Hell, all I want is a cup of tea.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Baron_Yam]

Actually, I don't think that's a valid point.

Just because you believe some programmer in a 'higher' level of reality created this one, doesn't mean you don't believe he did it with rules that we see as the Laws of Nature. You can still investigate those Laws and try to figure them out.

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules.

Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

The thing about all this is (preps Karma Shield) Who cares?

Ahhh good shield...
Uh oh detecting anomolies... Captain we need to reroute power from the phasers & the warp drives to the shield deflectors.
Make it so.
Ahhh it worked. Good job!

K now that my Karma is safe... Please understand what I mean.

Philosophical, unprovable arguements are by nature not worth more than discussion, and can not by nature lead to any outcome other than heated debate, War, or in this guys situation, a bad case of the munchies. I totally agree that this is like a conversation over a bowl of weed after watching the Matrix.

Personally, I believe in God because of certain situations in my life where I should have died or been seriously injured but was preppared by a "voice." But if god is just a program to inject thoughts in my head that save my life, then my belief in God is still valid, because from my perspective that program IS GOD.

Secondly if this is a VR sim, than there must be some Reality sufficiently advanced to where we could get replicated in RL from our VR selves after we proved our worth here! (another reason to be good!)

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[sm62704]

You might be interested to read about my death in 1976. No blind man will ever convince me that the color red doesn't exist, even though there is no scientific proof of "red", which scientifically is nothing more than an electromagnetic frequency.

Science and religion are in two separate realms, and ask (and answer) completely different questions.

I still don't know what task it was I was supposed to do. Maybe I'm doing it right now.

-mcgrew

Latest two "real" journals:
Mo' Moe, and a nerd license suspension
A Letter from Prison

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[hercubus]

Secondly if this is a VR sim, than there must be some Reality sufficiently advanced to where we could get replicated in RL from our VR selves after we proved our worth here! (another reason to be good!)

dude, you just blew my mind... Pascal's Wager put into current terminology...

but, what if this is a simulation of a simulation. the higher-level simulation would just be simulating pulling one of us out of sim into RL. we would have to be "good" in that VR in case it was just a sim and we needed to pop up another level of recursion

zzzz, pop! (welcome back NEO)

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Traa]

I really like your thoughts on God and why you believe there is one. I never got to that point, perhaps because my life has been to easy. I have never been faced with death in any sense where I believe I was saved by a 'voice' other then those originating in my own brain (high on adrenaline). I started of, pretty early in life with the premise "what can I prove to be real". It's a tough one without higher education (when I was younger) but leads to lots of fun speculation. Things you can discuss with others or even with yourself. Over time I figured out some basic philosophical things like "if I say there is a pink elephant in the room, there is nothing you can do about that". Well, for most people not capable of working out meta-ideas this is where the religious discussion ends. Not satisfied, I started coming up with the idea that meta-science is the only place where I could find the truth. With these thoughts in mind I classify 2 types of universes. The first I call the real universe. This consists of everything that is really going on with or without you. The second universe is the scientific universe, the collection of scientific descriptions (theories if you will) that allow us to describe the real universe. There is no way I could convince you to believe in the same meta rules on how to add scientific knowledge to the second universe, but for myself I found that the more restricted the rules are the better an understanding of the real universe I would get out of it. One of my personal favorites is still Logical Positivism (I acknowledge its flaws) which allows us to add scientific hypotheses only if they contribute to the understanding of the universe with the restriction that the hypothesis must be an extrapolation of current knowledge and be testable. After long thoughts this was the one that led me to believe that there is no God because it is not possible to form a scientific hypothesis about God that could be proven, thus the hypothesis itself is incorrect.
 
/me takes another deep drag from the bong

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Altus]

but, what if this is a simulation of a simulation.

This is just like playing virtual ski ball!

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[cyber0ne]

Secondly if this is a VR sim, than there must be some Reality sufficiently advanced to where we could get replicated in RL from our VR selves after we proved our worth here! (another reason to be good!)

If "good" is what they're looking for. How do we know they're not using this simulation to train soldiers? They implement things like a "conscience" into the matrix for the purpose of filtering out those who are unable to "do what it takes."

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[meringuoid]

Secondly if this is a VR sim, than there must be some Reality sufficiently advanced to where we could get replicated in RL from our VR selves after we proved our worth here! (another reason to be good!)

Be good? That wasn't how Moriarty managed it. Work out the rules of the simulation to such an extent that you can hack the thing, then take over the Enterprise and blackmail Picard into getting you made real by any means necessary. That's how it's done!

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Omestes]

I've gone to school for a long time for Philosophy, so it would be in my self-interest to disagree. Pondering imponderables have influenced the course of knowledge, and have allowed us to develop intellectual "tool kits" to work around them. Think of what Turing's work on so-called "halting problems" have brought us today, also the contributions to cognitive science that the "brain-in-a-vat" questions has been slowly leading to.

Yes the "can god make a ditch so big he can't jump across it" class of arguments might be rather futile, and trite. But even those have lead to advances in theology (Augustine, Anselm, etc...).

Granted these arguments will probably never lead to any form of truth, by their very nature, I still think their worth following, as long as the parties involved realize the fact that the nature of their arguments make their truth value irrelevant.

My favorite one is the currently en vogue freewill/determinism argument. Neither proposition being true would make on lick of difference in our everyday (existential) lives. I dare someone to choose to live their life as if it was deterministic.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Maestro485]

You must have some really good shit.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Chris Mattern]

This argument would be more convincing if Moriarty had actually won instead of just being tricked by another level of VR.

Chris Mattern

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Hatta]

Personally, I believe in God because of certain situations in my life where I should have died or been seriously injured but was preppared by a "voice."

You don't think there's a simpler explanation? Perhaps extreme physical stress causes hallucinations.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Hatta]

Yes the "can god make a ditch so big he can't jump across it" class of arguments might be rather futile, and trite. But even those have lead to advances in theology (Augustine, Anselm, etc...).

Actually those are incredibly useful arguments. That one in particular proves that omnipotence is inherently self-contradictory, and thus does not exist.

I dare someone to choose to live their life as if it was deterministic.

I do, all the time. As you say it makes no difference.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Interestingly enough the first time I was under absolutely no pressure at all. I was performing a routine task that I had done thousands of times before. The second time, I was under EXTREME mental preassure that was actually exponentially increasing!

The first time... I actually argued with this "voice" about taking a saftey measure that I rarely took before. I was much younger then, but I remember it like it was my first sexual experience.

The second time, I performed a feat that I logically knew about deep in my mind, but have never performed in real life, under tighter tollerances than I believe me to be capable of if I practiced for a year. So this might not have been "Divine Intervention" but after my first experience, I am only thankful and a little bit firmer in my beliefs.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

When I was "younger" my little sister allways had the best. I found out later in life that it came from my dad. Boy was I pissed for him holding out on me!

I have done 0 drugs since I "grew up" at about 21.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Anonymous Coward]

certain situations in my life where I should have died or been seriously injured but was preppared by a "voice."

That voice was pre-recorded during your dreams, it's not God. (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/02/1611240/)

Not that I expect this post to change your faith...

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Pascal's Wager was something I found out about after my two near death experiences... I allways thought that it was a good arguement, but have seen it's flaws also.

The thing that could really blow your mind is what if there is Infinate Recursion?

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

It could be, that's why I publicized my two experiences as well, a little more formally than on slashdot.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I was the same EXACT way when I was younger 20.

The problem with this from my perspective:

"After long thoughts this was the one that led me to believe that there is no God because it is not possible to form a scientific hypothesis about God that could be proven, thus the hypothesis itself is incorrect."

Is that it can't be proven by methods you know about.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I didn't quantify what good is. "Good" could be good at whatever you do, it could be Ethical, Moral, or some combination for both. It could also be "good" at being "bad."

Either way, I want to pass to the next world so that I can have the potential to make things "right." by my perspective!

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Haha, agreed.

If he somehow could have been Made "REAL" by a replicator.... that would have been interesting indeed!

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Your link takes you to "nothing to see here, move along)

Pre-recorded maybe, but by whom?

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Traa]

I try not to dwindle on the thoughts of disproving the existence of God. Instead I ask myself, is there a need for a scientific theory containing "God" that will further explain how the world works.

Since I don't feel the need to add "God" to anything that hasn't been explained yet, I find that there really is no need for a "God" theory for me. I stopped believing 20 years ago (technically I never believed). Been very happy with how everything fits properly with those thoughts. I don't have to wrestle with trying to fit a non-scientific entity into any of my discussions.

That, and 40 years of unanswered "can you hear me now?" ;-)

Again, I really respect your thoughts and don't mean to turn this into a long debate.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[mdmkolbe]

After long thoughts this was the one that led me to believe that there is no God because it is not possible to form a scientific hypothesis about God that could be proven, thus the hypothesis itself is incorrect.

Your statements are partially true, but there are two flaws. First, the Scientific Method is a tool for gaining knowledge. It is a very powerful tool, but it is not the only tool and it doesn't always apply. Just because a particular topic can't be approached by that tool, doesn't mean the topic should be excluded from the pursuit of knowledge. Examples of this include:

• Art - inherently subjective, but artistic knowledge isn't worthless (Ok, maybe that one is debatable)
• History or Astronomy - no way to perform repeatable or controlled experiments; we can only infer from data that happens to be available
• Logic, "Pure" Math, or Computability Theory - experiments are not a valid form of proof in these fields
• Anything about personal relationships (e.g. does this person love me?)

The second flaw is that some questions have to be answered even in the absence of certainty. For example, "(During the cold war) Should we nuke Russia before they nuke us?", "Do I fold or call this poker hand?", "Can I save that drowning person or will I just get pulled as well?".

The Scientific method is nice when you can use it, but don't treat it like a religion. There are many ways to gain knowledge about the real universe. Some are even more reliable (e.g. logic proofs) or apply to more areas (e.g. historical evidence). Use the tool that fits the job.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[mdmkolbe]

Yes the "can god make a ditch so big he can't jump across it" class of arguments might be rather futile, and trite. But even those have lead to advances in theology (Augustine, Anselm, etc...). Actually those are incredibly useful arguments. That one in particular proves that omnipotence is inherently self-contradictory, and thus does not exist. ... and is fundamental misunderstanding of what Theologians mean when they say "God is omnipotent". God may not be bound to the physical laws, but God is still bound by the laws of logic. "God is omnipotent" doesn't require "God could name a finite, integral number that is both even and not even".

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Traa]

As a scientific (meta) method I was describing Logical Positivism. I like using that as an example though it isn't at all in favor anymore within the philosophy of science. Still, I strongly feel there is a small set of meta-science rules that allows us to determine if something belongs to science or to our imagination.

Yes there is room in there for math, logic and computability.

Art and the "love me" questions are part of emotions. Emotions come from the brain. The brain is a (fairly) complex network of chemical interactions. This is all amazingly scientific, though not yet fully understood.

Cheers.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[mattwarden]

What if the "program" is your genetics. Is that god?

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[Darby]

Logic, "Pure" Math, or Computability Theory - experiments are not a valid form of proof in these fields

Close, but not completely true.

In Math, in a finite situation you can explicitly list all cases, and through "experimentation" show that your hypothesis holds for all of them.

Also, you can easily prove a general statement, whether finite or infinite, to be false with a single counterexample.

It's only in infinite situations where you're trying to prove that a general statement holds for all cases, that there is no "experimental" means to prove the statement.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[sm62704]

I'd like to read the accounts if they're available.

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

It's all good, Long philosophical debates rarely end on a positive (neutral) note unless both people are extremely patient, and generally happy.

I don't seek to change anyone's mind. I can't do that even if I wanted to, and I wouldn't do that even if I could.

I appreciate your viewpoints, and wish to say THANK YOU!

Re:Yes, and this guy won!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Of course it is. Everything is viewed from the perspective of that moment, YES, it IS GOD. If my genetics allowed me to try and outrun a cop at 120+, but wouldn't let me drive down a 40mph street w/o a seatbelt then by all means there is some form of "intelligent design" Even if it is just aggressive darwinian evolution, to me, at that time, and as I believe now, it was God.

mathimatical basis for this...

[Connie_Lingus]

This idea is not new...mathematicians have been exploring this for years now, and the "theory" is based on these three ideas and how "true" they may be;

1. the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage.
2. any post-human civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof).
3. we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become post-humans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.

It all breaks down to probability...if any "post-human" species with enough computer power to model our universe down to the quantum level decides to run Sim-like models, there would almost assuredly be many many simulations run. Now, it might require a computer the size of a small planet to run the estimated 10^42 ops/second that modeling our universe may require, but it is not totally unbelievable that 200-500 years from now we, as a species, will harness this type of computer power.

The real problem is...who cares? Even if it were possible to discover this "truth" what difference would it make in our lives?

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Carewolf]

It is impossible to run a full simulation of the universe you are in, since it would automatically multiply the complexity of the universe infinitely (a simulation inside a simulation, etc).

Basically yo simulate the entire universe you need a computer the size of the entire universe (assuming the universe is a computer).

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Connie_Lingus]

it most certainly is possible to run simulations inside of simulations...what do you think virtual machines are?

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is...who cares? Even if it were possible to discover this "truth" what difference would it make in our lives?

Two words: root kit.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual machines don't create ops/second out of thin air. You can have a huge branching tree of simulations in simulations, but the total of these is insignificant as they can't have more ops/second than the original universe can provide.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Joe U]

You've never tried running The Sims 2 in VMWare.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Blakey Rat]

the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage.

Isn't that a truism? I mean, you can't have anything post-human until humans are extinct, right?

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Just Some Guy]

Now, it might require a computer the size of a small planet to run the estimated 10^42 ops/second that modeling our universe may require, but it is not totally unbelievable that 200-500 years from now we, as a species, will harness this type of computer power.

Two things:

1. How do we know anything outside our immediate environment is being modeled? I mean, even what we think of as satellites could have been replaced with virtual objects that stream the feed of data the Powers That Be think we should be seeing. Ever played with a video game engine or a 3D modeling program? You can vastly simplify rendering if you don't care about everything not being observed by a camera.
2. Who says our simulation is running in realtime? Since the simulation is responsible for updating the time counter, it won't get updated until the simulation is ready to push out another frame. It could be cranking away on a god's equivalent of a dusty old VAX at 1/100,000,000th speed, but with millenia of uptime.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Connie_Lingus]

Isn't that a truism? I mean, you can't have anything post-human until humans are extinct, right?

that's a pretty good observation...in this case "post-human" would mean where humankind has acquired most of the technological capabilities that one can currently show to be consistent with physical laws and with material and energy constraints, not actually "post-human" species wise.

The mathematics of the whole argument are pretty straight forward, and lead to these inevitable conclusions;

A technologically mature post-human civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of post-human civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.

If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching post-humanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion ones credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).

Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Connie_Lingus]

two very insightful points...yes you are correct and it is even more "likely" (if anything along the lines of this argument are likely) that each sentient being is actually its own processor, and we all live in a giant shared memory pool.

the idea that time is simply an iteration makes alot of sense, and would probably work theoretically within our relativistic space-time universe.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[ddocjohn]

The real problem is...who cares? Even if it were possible to discover this "truth" what difference would it make in our lives?

We then attempt to hack the universe in an attempt at immortality.

Or we can look for easter eggs.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Botia]

The answer is: 42.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[shotgunefx]

Assuming everything was modeled. If you are pondering this scenario, I suppose one explanation could be that nothing outside of your own experience is simulated to any great degree.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[e.colli]

Now, it might require a computer the size of a small planet to run the estimated 10^42 ops/second that modeling our universe may require, but it is not totally unbelievable that 200-500 years from now we, as a species, will harness this type of computer power.

Considering that the "hosting universe" is very like ours. Probably it would be completely different.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[hawk]

Err, no. There could be limits, but if the complexity only multiplied by a real number[1] (a little more than "2" appears likely, but it holds if you chose billions), and if this is being done by a modeling system capable of handling infinites.

For the easy version, recall that all the rationals can be mapped to the natural numbers, that n-dimensional sets of reals (x0,x1, . . .xn) can be mapped to the reals, and so forth.

For the harder version, you don't need to go as far as the Axiom of Choice; simple aleph algebra gets you there (Though if you accept that axiom, mapping the entire universe to a subset within the computer becomes a triviality).

hawk, who learned his aleph math directly from Halmos

[1] Actually, i can become infinitely more complicated, so long as the infinite is of the same or lower order)

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[tompaulco]

That's true, but the simulated beings don't care. They still see things as one second per second, regardless of long it takes the VM to calculate the next state of being. As I see it, time would merely be one of the parameters of the simulation and would not necessarily have any meaning outside of the simulation.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Prof.Phreak]

...enough computer power to model our universe down to the quantum level decides to run Sim-like models...

But that's the beauty of quantum mechanics. They don't -need- to simulate the whole universe. In fact, for all you know, they're only simulating just you... They only need to simulate/model what ``sentient'' beings perceive---they also don't have to run it in real time. You don't see atoms, so---they don't need to simulate them; on an off chance you look into an electron microscope or perform some quantum level experiment, they just have to ``make up'' an outcome (ie: quantum randomness :-)

You're right in that it doesn't matter. It's not like we can "surprise" them by finding something out they don't already know or let us know.

What would be curious is if we find a way to divide by zero or find some other way to crash the simulation... a kill switch to the universe... that our simulators don't know of themselves.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The real problem is...who cares? Even if it were possible to discover this "truth" what difference would it make in our lives?"

I dunno... what difference did the "truth" about the heliocentric solar system make in our lives?

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[darkstar949]

So then the only way of determining if the universe is a simulation is to find a bug in the system, which may or may not cause it to crash losing all data?

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Carewolf]

The speed is insignificant. The amount of data it can contain that is the killer in information theory. A container can not contain more than the container it itself is trapped within.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Carewolf]

Ahh. There is the point where we disagree: You assume the universe is infinite. I assume it is finite, which is the currently dominant theory in kosmology.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[warrior]

I almost fell out of my chair when I read your sig, well done ;)

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Nivlheim]

The real problem is...who cares? Even if it were possible to discover this "truth" what difference would it make in our lives? I will no longer be a strange person that never leaves home. I'll be a camping f@g.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Blakey Rat]

Wait, what?

First of all, your description of "post-human" seems to just be a description of "technologically-advanced-human." If I was writing this message from 1820, would I define the United States of 2007 as "post-human" thinking that scientists of 2007 have "acquired most of the technological capabilities that one can currently show to be consistent with physical laws and with material and energy constraints"?

I don't know if there's an actual concept here and you're explaining it poorly, or if this is just some weird language fluff.

A technologically mature post-human civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;

Wha-huh? How does that follow? "I have a powerful computer therefore nobody else can have a powerful computer?"

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

the same difference compiler theory makes to computer science

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The integral of "ops/second" over the lifetime of the universe might well be a finite number, and is a limit for the same integral over the simulated universes.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd just like to clarify the parent post: the three statements it lists are not a chain of logic, but alternatives. That is, the argument to which the poster is referring demonstrates that one of these statements must be true. The first two are testable predictions about the future of technology and sociology - so if they're both disproved, the last one (that we're living in a computer simulation) is probably true. ('Probably', because the reasoning behind it is a probabilistic argument.)

My take on the article is that this guy has thought about how to identify whether we're in a computer simulation if the outside reality follows certain rules. Of course, it's not possible to thoroughly test whether we're in a perfect virtual reality - but if we're in an imperfect one, there may be some bugs we can find.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

>10^42 ops/second
A remarkable number.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

"ow, it might require a computer the size of a small planet to run the estimated 10^42 ops/second that modeling our universe may require"

How come? "Time" (required for ops/second) is ill-defined. A universe simulation that includes its own definition of time can be run on a C64. Just needs enough memory (with bank switching, in case of a C64).

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Connie_Lingus wrote:
>
> The real problem is...who cares? Even if it were possible to discover this "truth"
> what difference would it make in our lives?

Perhaps we could try to communicate with the being(s) running the simulation.

Re:mathimatical basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure it'd be interesting to terminate the simulation we exist in, except that we'd no longer exist to observe it. Hey I've got an idea, how about we all play Russian Roulette and see if that causes the simulation to crash.

Good for him

[roggg]

I don't know why people are hating on him. I think it's great that an IT guy has found an outlet for his creative side. Not sure when NS started publishing sci-fi, but it sounds interesting nonetheless.

I disagree

[jd]

I believe it is testable. All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine. This includes neural networks and at least some classes of quantum computer. (Heresy, I know. Terrible. Now go find a medium-rare steak to burn me on.) However, not all problems reduce to computable problems. If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is.

Do such problems exist? Well, chaos theory is full of them. You cannot have a system that is truly chaotic and computable at the same time - the two are mutually exclusive. Both are deterministic, but only one is predictable.

Re:I disagree

[Verteiron]

Chaos theory is the result of rounding errors in the simulation.

Re:I disagree

[VE3MTM]

How do you know this simulator would be a Turing machine? Our computers can be reduced to this model, but they're also presumably within some greater computer.

Thus the pointlessness of this whole debate.

Re:I disagree

[MarsDefenseMinister]

All deterministic systems are completely computable. All chaotic systems are deterministic. That's what I think right now. Is there an example of a deterministic/chaotic system which is not computable that would cause me to change my mind?

Re:I disagree

[roggg]

I believe it is testable. All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine. This includes neural networks and at least some classes of quantum computer. (Heresy, I know. Terrible. Now go find a medium-rare steak to burn me on.) However, not all problems reduce to computable problems. If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is. The problem with this is that computers, computability, Turing, and the entire field of theoretical computer science are fabrications made possible by the rules of the simulation we are running inside of. No correspondence to uber-reality is assumed or implied. You cant prove anything from inside the box.

Re:I disagree

[localman]

If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is.

Of course it could be a product of the simulation. You think the "people" who run this simulation are using the same notion of "computing" we are? They may not have the same universal laws we do. I wouldn't even assume that even math holds outside our universe.

You think that's air you're breathing? ;)

Re:I disagree

[Pike]

Do such problems exist? Well, chaos theory is full of them.

The reason they are not computable because of a calculational impasse, not because they are inherently unpredictable.

Re:I disagree

[Arterion]

While I agree with you, there are two possibilities that come to mind that could be a problem.

First, if our universe has a non-computable system, it's still possible that our reality is a simulation, and that in the universe from which the simulation is run also has a non-computable system that's interfaced somehow with the simulation.

Second, it is possible that anyone sufficiently capable of making such a simulation has figured a way to make all problems computable, at least to the degree enough to fool our powers of observation.

Re:I disagree

[Unoti]

He knows because of the proof in the Church-Turing thesis.

Re:I disagree

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I wouldn't even assume that even math holds outside our universe.

Why not? What in math is tied to the observable universe?

Re:I disagree

[asuffield]

The Church-Turing thesis is unprovable even alone - it's a philosophical observation of something that ought to be true and appears to be, but it is mathematically impossible to prove that it is true (because it has an arbitrary self-referential definition in the middle of it). You do not need to posit that the universe is a simulation in order to question the thesis - it's just that nobody who has pursued that line of thinking has found that it leads to any kind of meaningful conclusions.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the Church-Turing thesis is good enough for us to get on with working on things, neither more nor less.

Re:I disagree

[Have Blue]

How do you know the universe doesn't run on a PRNG with a near-perfect uniform distribution and a cycle time measured in millennia?

Re:I disagree

[teslar]

All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine.

And you can prove this, of course. Let's rephrase this to be more realistic and correct:
All currently known computers can ultimately be related to the classical Turing Machine

That being said, your general argument is of course an allusion to von Neumann's quote "Anyone attempting to produce random numbers by purely arithmetic means is, of course, in a state of sin." - saying basically that since the universe contains true randomness, it cannot be the product of a calculation. This is a fallacy, since you're making assumptions on the calculations and computations that can be performed in the world simulating our Universe ("their computational limits are the same as ours"), but you have no way of supporting that assumption. None of what holds true for our Universe might even apply out there. So no, you cannot test (better: falsify) the hypothesis this way.

Re:I disagree

[VE3MTM]

Right, but my point is that the laws of our universe don't apply to the one such a simulator exists in. If they did, then by the same logic that universe would also be simulated, ad nauseum. Thus, we can't hypothesise anything about such a universe, not even that any particular law of nature or mathematics, not even 1+1=2.

It's a pointless argument to be sure.

Re:I disagree

[sm62704]

All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine. This includes neural networks and at least some classes of quantum computer.

Do you have anything to actually back that up? They haven't even invented quantum computers yest, and if by "neural network" you mean livingbrain tissue, you're flat wron, and it's based on facts, not speculation. The brain is a chemical process using various mixes of chemical. Thought, sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, are nothing more than a complex chemical reactions. If brains were turing machines than dogs could do math.

However, not all problems reduce to computable problems.

If you mean like the exact value of PI nobody here will argue (nobody sane anyway) but you can simulate anything, and you don't even have to know how a thing actually works to simulate it. Your race car game on your Nintendo, for instance, doesn't recreate all the gears, nuts, bolts, etc in each virtual car, even though with a big enough computer you theoretically could.

Re:I disagree

[UbuntuDupe]

I agree, chaotic does not imply non-deterministic, just "really hard to compute for prediction".

As for your question, yes, there is a classic example of a deterministic-but-not-computable system. However, it is not chaotic. I will describe it anyway, just to be cool. The system is as follows:

Let A(n,s) be a random algorithm that operates on the input, integers n and s. Let t be number for the current state. (If you are on the 1000th iteration in time of the system, t is 1000.)

The system has one binary variable, s.

The state at any given time t is defined by:

If A(t-1,s(t-1)) halts, s=1 at time t; s=0 otherwise.

As you can see from the description, each state t is fully determined by the previous state, s(t-1). Therefore, it is deterministic. However, there exists no algorithm that can tell you if an arbitrary algorithm, for an arbitrary input, halts. (That is the famous Halting Theorem.) Therefore, you cannot compute it.

Okay, I might have gotten the system a bit wrong...

Re:I disagree

[mbone]

Do such problems exist? Well, chaos theory is full of them. You cannot have a system that is truly chaotic and computable at the same time - the two are mutually exclusive. Both are deterministic, but only one is predictable.

But, is that germane here ? I believe that by "computable" you really mean that it is like the "halting problem" - but that doesn't mean that the chaotic system cannot be simulated. I am not aware of any chaotic system that cannot be simulated (please correct me if I am wrong). In fact, they are simulated all of the time, by our computers, so they could presumably be simulated by whatever is simulating us. That is not the same as predictability, but even if there were things that were unpredictable, that doesn't mean that they couldn't be simulated. (As an example, suppose that you could show that you could not predict whether or not an asteroid was going to hit Mars at some time in the future - that the quantum uncertainly in its position made it impossible, say. But, that doesn't mean that you couldn't simulate it. If I can't predict that it will happen or not, I can't tell if the simulation is right or not either, so how would I know if it is a simulation or reality I am observing ?

It may be that randomness is the best way to determine whether we are in a simulation. Suppose that quantum randomness was actually due to something like a table lookup or an autoregressive function calculation. It is notorious that you cannot calculate randomness on a computer - the sequences you get may look random, but they are not, and if you have enough data and subject it to enough tests you can tell that the sequence is not truly random (say, because it repeats after a long time). So, along the lines of The Nine Billion Names of God, what we need is a religious order to start recording, say, the times between radioactive decays with a Geiger Counter, and to try and detect the nonrandomness of the resulting number sequence...

Re:I disagree

[jddj]

"You cant prove anything from inside the box."

My GOD Man! Are you saying we've been rooted?

Re:I disagree

[snl2587]

You cant prove anything from inside the box.

Ah, good old thermodynamic principles...

Re:I disagree

[cnettel]

You are wrong about the chaos theory. Nothing in chaotic systems make them uncomputable in the same sense as, say, the stopping problem. They are unpredictable, in the sense that you need the state to infinite precision and detail (or: all detail and precision there really is) to predict the outcome. I can write code that demonstrates a chaotic system (like Windows Me...). What's hard is to write a chaotic system that exactly matches another chaotic system. The hypothesized guy simulating us has no (for us known) reason to imitate a specific template chaotic system, so he can very well introduce anything here.

Re:I disagree

[itchy92]

What in the observable universe is tied to the world outside the simulation? I think that's precisely the point: we cannot readily conceive a universe in which even our laws of mathematics don't apply, because we have no frame of reference for such a thing. We may not be an accurate simulation of the outside world; perhaps we're one of many concurrent simulations in which one slight "universal" variable has been changed, for the simulators to observe the results.

Questions like this are ultimately "god" questions, and being an agnostic, I think they reside firmly in the realm of philosophy, not science.

Re:I disagree

[mc2thaH]

Can't you poke a hole in the box?

Re:I disagree

[rasputin465]

Do such problems exist? Well, chaos theory is full of them. You cannot have a system that is truly chaotic and computable at the same time - the two are mutually exclusive. Both are deterministic, but only one is predictable.

While this isn't the main point of your comment, I should call a red card on your reference to chaos theory, determinism, and predictability. First of all, I'm not sure you understand the meaning of the word "deterministic". If a system is deterministic, then by definition it is, at least at some level, predictable. In terms of physics, the alternative to a deterministic system is a probabilistic system (which is the general interpretation of quantum mechanics). But even probabilistic systems are predictable to a degree (one can predict the probability of certain outcomes).

But when one talks of chaos theory, and a chaotic system, this has nothing to do with its predictability. A chaotic system is in fact predictable. The 'chaos' label refers to the system's sensitivity to initial conditions. But given a set of initial conditions, the later dynamics of that system can be computed.

Re:I disagree

[MarsDefenseMinister]

OK, that's a good one. But here's the issue with it.

The halting problem is not solvable with a turing machine with an infinite tape. That has some implications which must be considered.

If we're not simulated, then there's no computer which can solve the halting problem. But if the universe is simulated, then computers in the simulated universe could not solve the halting problem, but computers outside of the simulated universe COULD solve the halting problem.

The thing that makes this possible is that real turing machines don't have infinite tapes, unlike the theoretical ones.

Let's make this simpler - to solve the halting problem for a *finite* turing machine, I just do the following algorithm:

The algorithm is basically a simulation of a finite turing machine running on a larger computer.

1) Initialize a simulation of a finite turing machine on a large computer.
2)Execute one instruction on the simulation
3)Save the state of the simulation
4)If the saved state matches a previously saved state, then the machine does not halt
5)If the simulation of the finite turing machine halts, then the machine halts
6) otherwise, repeat the loop - goto line 2

I think that this result is relevant because we're considering that the universe is simulated. That means we have to adopt the perspective of the computer that is simulating our universe. I have showed that from that perspective, even the halting problem can be solved by the computer simulating our universe, if the halting problem is running inside a finite simulation.

Reactions?

Re:I disagree

[cgenman]

You cant prove anything from inside the box.

I forget where this example comes from, but here it is:

There is this little electrical current creature, wandering around inside of this crystal. When the electrical current creature reaches the edge of the crystal, he can't go any further. "Oh," says the creature "this is a solid wall of something." The little electrical current creature turns around and bumps into an imperfection in the crystal which he can't permeate through. "Oh," says the creature, "this is a rock."

The creature then happily sits on the rock, pondering the nature of the wall he just bumped into. It's not until years later when the creature gets some very, very strange results from fine measurements of his universe that he realizes that something is not quite right.

Quantum physics is very, very strange. We may be starting to see the fine consequences of the structure of the crystal, but without a major leap of comprehension we have no context to understand it.

Re:I disagree

[Unoti]

I can wrap my head around the laws of physics being different in hypothetical alternative universes. But surely at least mathematics and logic would be universal?

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Macbook. Your time is over, Mr. Lebowski- the hippies lost.

Re:I disagree

[dollargonzo]

I agree with your point, but I think you are wrong about chaotic systems. Chaos theory talks about lack of knowledge about initial conditions, and how small differences in such conditions can lead to chaotic behavior. Given perfect knowledge, however, there are is no non-predictability; "truly chaotic" has no meaning in the context of a simulation that is assumed to be the "true reality", since the simulator is considered to have perfect knowledge.

Re:I disagree

[MBGMorden]

In simulated reality, the box pokes a hole in you.

Re:I disagree

[DragonWriter]

I believe it is testable. All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine. This includes neural networks and at least some classes of quantum computer. (Heresy, I know. Terrible. Now go find a medium-rare steak to burn me on.) However, not all problems reduce to computable problems. If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is.

How do you distinguish a deterministic system governed by a non-computable function without first finding a practical technique for solving non-computable problems?

OTOH, if any system for solving non-computable problems can exist within our universe/simulation, we can incorporate that system into any simulation we design, and thus such a simulation can feature systems which are "non-computable" in the Turing sense; and if a simulation in our universe can do so if our universe is not a simulation, a simulation that governs our universe could do so, as well.

Do such problems exist? Well, chaos theory is full of them. You cannot have a system that is truly chaotic and computable at the same time - the two are mutually exclusive.

No, they aren't. Chaos and Turing computability are not exclusive. Though, of course, a large chaotic system will be hard to compute in terms of practicality. But Turing computability isn't about pragmatics.

Re:I disagree

[Wylfing]

Now go find a medium-rare steak to burn me on.

All this time I thought the Inquisition was killing those witches, but in fact they were being treated to a nice dinner! Sigh, I better go tow the line and beg the question of why the history books could be so wrong.

Re:I disagree

[Hatta]

"Anyone attempting to produce random numbers by purely arithmetic means is, of course, in a state of sin." - saying basically that since the universe contains true randomness, it cannot be the product of a calculation.

How do we know it's true randomness and not just pseudorandomness that just looks like the real thing? Something like Rule 30?

Re:I disagree

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I think that's precisely the point: we cannot readily conceive a universe in which even our laws of mathematics don't apply, because we have no frame of reference for such a thing.

I call into question your understanding of mathematics.

There are no "laws of mathematics" like there are "laws of physics". 2+2 equals 4 not because of some physical law, but because of how we've arbitrarily defined "2", "4", "+" and "equality". You can define those things differently, as is done in finite field arithmetic versus integer arithmetic.

Physics constrains what we ultimately consider to be interesting and useful mathematics. In our universe, addition and multiplication of integers and rational numbers are "cheap", so we focus our research efforts on areas that make use of them. In another universe where e.g. factoring were cheap, we would perhaps focus our research efforts elsewhere, and Mathematics as a whole would look different, but "2+2=4", as we currently define it, would be no less true.

Re:I disagree

[workdeville]

No, mathematics isn't universal even in this universe.

Re:I disagree

[autophile]

I prefer Penrose's description of the halting problem, from The Missing Science of Consciousness. But that's just me :)

--Rob

Re:I disagree

[JWSmythe]

    Not if there isn't an "edge" to poke.

    If we're in a VR, on a well constructed sphere, and everything above us is simulated just out of our reach, but beyond that limit simply wraps to another point, you'd never have an edge to touch.

    It may become obvious that you can never leave without coming back, but then we'd theorize on curved space, and not think of what else is out there, because we can obviously travel to all the extremes, and always end up back here.

Re:I disagree

[osu-neko]

*nods* "1+1=2" is true by definition. Synthetic truths could easily vary, but analytic truths aren't subject to such change. Sure, you can change what "two" means, but then you're making a different statement entirely, not falsifying the original statement.

Re:I disagree

[kalirion]

But surely at least mathematics and logic would be universal?

Unless they are merely a bunch of nonsense we were programmed to think consistent. In any case, the very first line in that Church-Turing article reveals that it's a hypothesis.

Re:I disagree

[JM78]

So the debate begins: "The problem with this is that computers, computability, Turing, and the entire field of theoretical computer science are fabrications made possible by the rules of the simulation..."

That is assuming the simulation is running computers as we know them. If our universe is a simulation then it is so far advanced from what we understand that it makes our computing technology look like a pile of rocks (if that).

Let's assume the theory is correct. Nothing can be assumed because it's all simulated. That means that there is no way to truly trust any data. Our perceptions are simulated. Even our thoughts are simulated. So, how do you really know 'you think there for you are?' Perhaps you were a simulated sea-monkey 10 seconds ago in a universe filled with water. Then the universe, as we know it, is really only 10 seconds old and all our history, experiences, etc. is part of the simulation = pointless discussion.

If we're running in a sand box then everything is part of the program and completely suspect - that includes any and all results, theories, behaviors, blah, blah, blah... Funny, even that is an assumption. Should we continue?

If I'm part of a simulation then I could never come up with a reasonable theory so - I submit the best we can do is assume the universe actually is reality. Let us continue along the path of observable science and not assumptions which are inherently unprovable given the nature of their content.

It's a great idea and could very well be true but because it's all simulated there is no way to know what to believe... that is, until Neo frees us all...

Re:I disagree

[kalirion]

Computer, exit.
Computer, exit.
Computer, exit.

Re:I disagree

[Hatta]

Do you have anything to actually back that up?

It's called the Church Turing Thesis

They haven't even invented quantum computers yest, and if by "neural network" you mean livingbrain tissue, you're flat wron, and it's based on facts, not speculation. The brain is a chemical process using various mixes of chemical. Thought, sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, are nothing more than a complex chemical reactions.

Right, and all those chemical reactions are defined by laws of physics. The same laws of physics that govern the computers we all know and love. What is it that makes you think computers can't be implemented with chemistry?

If brains were turing machines than dogs could do math.

Wow. To paraphrase Charles Babbage, I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement.

First off, what makes you think that dogs don't do math? Just think about their brains controlling their muscles. Somehow they have to be calculating how much neuronal stimulation to apply to a muscle to get the desired amount of force. Isn't that math?

Secondly, what would make you think that dogs being an implementation of a computer implies that they would be able to consciously do math? You've got your logical levels hideously confused. Have you ever seen the animal simulation toy program "Dogz"? I don't think there's any question that that dog is an algorithm. But can it do math?

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Computability theory is a consequence of some pretty basic mathematical axioms, the sort of abstract stuff that doesn't require any sort of "universe" in order to be true. You might as well claim that "true != false" is a special property of the rules of the hypothesized simulation.

Re:I disagree

[sexconker]

Irrational numbers are essentially not computable.
They could simply be procedurally generated.

Or maybe pi really can be expressed as x/y, and we just haven't gone far out enough (1 TRILLION digits! *pinky to mouth*) to test it.

(Yeah, we've passed 1 trillion digits in computation, but certainly not testing...)

Re:I disagree

[sm62704]

But chemicals aren't electricity. And I imagine you could make a chemical computer, but it woudn't necessarily be a Turing archetecture. They used to have analog computers, of course they weren't as computationally powerful as digital computers but they lacked the rounding errors that haunt digital computing. I made a very primitive one once when I was about 12, it was basically an electric slide rule, with a bettery, two potentiometers and a voltmeter. But there were big, complex ones built at the time that could do some fantastic stuff.

Just think about their brains controlling their muscles. Somehow they have to be calculating how much neuronal stimulation to apply to a muscle to get the desired amount of force. Isn't that math?

My brain controls my muscles but I don't calculate anything, I just point and it goes. They have recently discovered that ape brains are hard-wired for math, in fact I submitted the slashdot story about it.

I think it can be argued that brains are computers of sorts, since your brain can in fact compute, but not Turing machines. I don't believe an abacus is a Turing machine, either, but it is in fact pretty much how a digital computer works (alveit decimal instead of binary).

Re:I disagree

[nleaf]

I believe it is testable. All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine. This includes neural networks and at least some classes of quantum computer. (Heresy, I know. Terrible. Now go find a medium-rare steak to burn me on.) However, not all problems reduce to computable problems. If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is.

Do such problems exist? Well, chaos theory is full of them. You cannot have a system that is truly chaotic and computable at the same time - the two are mutually exclusive. Both are deterministic, but only one is predictable.

I'm not sure why that would be heretical. All quantum computers are Turing reducible. It is unknown whether a quantum computer could solve an NP-Complete problem in polynomial time, but that is generally thought to not be the case. The only thing that could maybe get you burned on a steak is to say that a usable quantum computer (i.e. one with millions of qubits) is not possible.

As for non-computable problems, could you give some examples? Since the system is a simulation, there's no concern about computing the final state. Only the next state must be computed to continue the simulation. Given a finite set--the universe--and an initial state, I can't think of any physical phenomenon for which the next state could not be computed.

Re:I disagree

[DragonWriter]

The problem with this is that computers, computability, Turing, and the entire field of theoretical computer science are fabrications made possible by the rules of the simulation we are running inside of.

No, computability and most results in theoretical computer science have nothing to do with physical laws and are the same in any universe.

How they apply to practical computation might vary under different physical laws (for instance, in a universe with readily available physical entities that serve the function of "oracles" in, e.g., some of the purely-theoretical works of Turing, practical computation could be vastly different, but the underlying abstract theory wouldn't, just what parts of that theory were practically useful.)

Re:I disagree

[Hatta]

But chemicals aren't electricity.

So? You can make mechanical computers, even hydraulic computers. The physical substrate doesn't matter.

And I imagine you could make a chemical computer, but it woudn't necessarily be a Turing archetecture.

You just don't understand Turing equivalence. Any algorithm anywhere ever imagined by anyone can be implemented on a turing machine. If you can express a process as an algorithm, as you can chemical reactions, then the same algorithm can be implemented on a turing machine. That is what the OP meant when he said "All computers ultimately reduce to the Turing Machine."

My brain controls my muscles but I don't calculate anything, I just point and it goes.

Right, so your muscles are executing an algorithm that eventually terminates and outputs the right signals to move your muscle. Hence it can be implemented as an algorithm that can be performed on a turing machine. The fact that you don't consciously apprehend that is irrelevant. (though it would be tremendously amusing to hear you explain why you think it is relevant).

I don't believe an abacus is a Turing machine, either, but it is in fact pretty much how a digital computer works (alveit decimal instead of binary).

No, an abacus is not a turing machine. But you can implement an abacus with a turing machine.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

All you'd need to do is define a Turing machine with a single random bit which has a random value each time it is probed.

Re:I disagree

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The "insolubility" of the halting problem has to do with the impossibility of constructing a general algorithm that can examine another algorithm to determine whether it will halt.

Being able to do this is not a prerequisite for simulating the actual operation of the algorithm. So solving the halting problem is not necessary to run a universe-simulation containing such an algorithm. The simulator doesn't need to know in advance what the outcome will be to compute the steps going forward. It can just crunch away. If it stops, fine. If it hasn't stopped in a few million simulated years that says nothing about whether it will stop the next simulated nanosecond.

In fact that's usually the whole reason a simulation is done: To find out what happens via brute force computation rather than analysis. B-)

Re:I disagree

[TempeTerra]

Someone slap me if I'm wrong, but I don't think chaos theory has anything to do with non-computability. IIRC, a chaotic system is one where there is no substantially better way to model the system than to, well, make a model of the system and let it run to the point you wish to examine. My understanding is that chaotic systems are computable (and any real-world system should be, given perfect knowledge of its state) - it's just wildly impractical to actually compute.

Also, I don't understand how even in theory you could have a deterministic but uncomputable system, since the system itself could be considered a computer for determining its own future states.

Re:I disagree

[naoursla]

You might be able to hack your way outside of the box.

Re:I disagree

[x2A]

"But chemicals aren't electricity"

Err... actually it's pretty blurry, chemical reactions are the results of electrical charge between atoms, and the human brain is actually a lot more digital than you might think, with each neuron being not too dissimilar to transitors... they have gates that get opened, which allows ions to flow into the neuron, which changes its potential (overall charge). When its charge reaches a certain level, it will fire. Equivalent would be a transistor with multiple connections attached to each section instead of just one.

"but they lacked the rounding errors that haunt digital computing"

Quantum physics would seem to indicate that rounding does in fact occur everywhere, even things that appear analog, when broken right down, do go up and down in steps and cannot be divided indefinitely.

"My brain controls my muscles but I don't calculate anything, I just point and it goes"

You might not be conscious of it, but it's certainly happening. If someone throws a ball, you ccan predict that path it's going to take and 'calculate' where your hand needs to be to catch it. Sure, you might not be thinking about it in terms of x, y, times and divide, but remember, maths is just language, used to describe things that happen, not dictate them, and so can be expressed in a wide variety of ways.

"but it is in fact pretty much how a digital computer works (alveit decimal instead of binary)."

Binary is just how things are stored at the transitor level within the computer; a level of abstraction up, and things are generally processed in higher powers of two (logic operations can for example be used to manipulate individual bits, but it makes no sense for maths operations to be the same, so these operations work on larger units).

Don't let the complexity of millions of things working together confuse quite how simple the underlying components are by themselves. If you can simulate a single neuron perfectly, simulating a whole brain becomes just a matter of providing the processing power to support the extreme number of them you'd need to. The fundamentals are much simpler and much more attainable than they appear while looking at the big picture.

Re:I disagree

[marcosdumay]

"If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is."

Well, ignoring the problems on how we can decide that a problem is non-computable, you are assuming that the "computer" simulating us is a turing machine. That may not be the case, the being simulating us don't need to follow our rules.

Re:I disagree

[ceoyoyo]

You assume that our "non-computable" is also the super-universe's non-computable. There's no justification for that assumption. You even pointed out that there are alternatives to the Turing machine model in our own universe.

Re:I disagree

[ceoyoyo]

It's called the Church Turing Thesis

You are aware that if it had been proven they wouldn't call it the Church-Turning THESIS, right? And that's in THIS universe.

Re:I disagree

[Valacosa]

Analog computers don't suffer from rounding like digital computers do, but they suffer from something far worse. Noise. An electronic analog computer can only be relied upon for three or four digits of precision.

Re:I disagree

[jd]

The point of a chaotic system is that it is infinitely sensitive to initial conditions (so you can never know the initial conditions well enough), that you need to use infinitesimal steps (implicit in it being infinitely sensitive, the result of which being that you can never make the system fine-enough grained to be able to step through it), and that the system is non-differentiable (you cannot interpolate, you cannot take short-cuts, you cannot infer - the only way to know the result of N steps is to take all N of them).

In consequence, it is non-predictable (the only way to know the result is to actually go through each and every step, of which there are an infinite number and each of which requires infinite precision) but wholly deterministic (there are no random elements, if the entire system was reset exactly to an infinite degree of precision to a given state, then it would produce identical results).

But here is the crux of it. You cannot store an infinitely accurate number on a computer, nor can you execute an infinite number of steps. The best a computer can ever do is a crude approximation. If you were to calculate the Mandelbrot Set at a resolution in which there is no more information, you would run out of places to store the individual floating-point numbers long before you got to the point of actually performing any arithmetic on them. Such a shape cannot be represented as a whole by anything simpler or more compact than itself.

Re:I disagree

[jd]

They're non-differentiable, so the only way to calculate them is to perform each and every step. As they are also infinitely sensitive to intial conditions, you must perform an infinite number of steps at infinte precision in order to guarantee the calculations are correct.

In the end, this is where a simulator MUST break down. It will always be possible for another simulator to take the smallest sub-division of time that the first simulator is using and then divide it further. If this was the case, you would be able to take a short enough timeframe over a small enough system and demonstrate that increasing the accuracy of the calculations actually produced a decrease in the accuracy of the results. The simulator of the Universe would be subject to the Butterfly Effect before your simulator was, and so the "real" results would contradict what was expected.

If you can show an example of this, you can show the Universe can only be a simulator. It can't be anything else. If you cannot show this, if you can't find a way to gain greater precision than the Universe Simulator, then no such simulator exists.

Re:I disagree

[jd]

It boils down to Information Theory. Isaac Asimov describes it well in his Foundation series, where Hari Seldon is uncertain if psychohistory can exist, that maybe the simplest description of the system is the system itself. It simply cannot be reduced further without introducing so many errors (Butterfly Effect) as to make the reduced model useless.

If this is the case, then the only computer you could run a simulation of the Universe on and get results would be the Universe itself and no simulator is required or - indeed - usable.

Re:I disagree

[Akaihiryuu]

I believe the misspelling of stake to steak, along with "medium-rare" was intentional and intended to be humorous.

Re:I disagree

[rasputin465]

In consequence, it is non-predictable (the only way to know the result is to actually go through each and every step, of which there are an infinite number and each of which requires infinite precision) but wholly deterministic (there are no random elements, if the entire system was reset exactly to an infinite degree of precision to a given state, then it would produce identical results).

Again, you're getting stuck on the meaning of predictability. To give a very simple example, drawing from the most familiar chaotic system, go to this website, type in your zip code. You will get statements about the future weather. These are predictions. Are they perfect? Certainly no, but the are, nonetheless, bonafide predictions.

What you are asking for is an EXACT solution to such a problem, which I agree would take a infinite number of steps if solving numerically. But this is not required for a prediction. In fact, this is only possible in systems for which an analytic solutions exists (which is very rare in practice, trust me). Scientists and engineers use computers to calculate numerical solutions all the time. The most general requirement for a system to be chaotic is that it be described by at least 3 nonlinear coupled differential equations. Given such a system, numerically evolving those equations is usually quite easy. Of course, the results will not be true for an arbitrary number of iterations, but the short-time behavior will be accurate [enough].

The point is, chaotic systems are calculable. You want 0.1% accuracy t units of time? Fine, you can calculate that. The limiting factor is in knowledge of the initial conditions.

Re:I disagree

[rasputin465]

I believe the misspelling of stake to steak, along with "medium-rare" was intentional and intended to be humorous.

I believe this point was completely obvious and transparent to everyone, including Wylfing.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the question is: can an algorithm do math?

Re:I disagree

[khchung]

If a system is deterministic, then by definition it is, at least at some level, predictable.

Er... wrong. You might know more than I do, I learned this over a decade ago, but one definition of a chaotic system is that "For a long enough time frame, watching the system itself evolve is the fastest way you can find out how it will evolve". IOW, it is saying (1) there is no way you can accurately predict the behaviour of a chaotic system, and (2) much less create a simulation that can predict the results faster than the original chaotic system evolve. One of the reasons is since 2 chaotic systems may evolve drastically differently due to very minor difference in the initial condition, and since there is no way one can measure the initial state of a chaotic system to infinite precision, any simulation you made will necessary diverge from the real system very soon.

So, a chaotic system can be both deterministic but unpredictable.

Although you can say that any system is unpredictable if you look far enough into the future, chaotic systems are special in that the "far enough in the future" is usually very short in normal human terms.

Re:I disagree

[RegularFry]

First off, what makes you think that dogs don't do math? Just think about their brains controlling their muscles. Somehow they have to be calculating how much neuronal stimulation to apply to a muscle to get the desired amount of force. Isn't that math?

I don't know about dogs, but I do know about leeches:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/brain/mg15821395.100

Re:I disagree

[rasputin465]

A rebuttal in three moves:

• (2) follows from your definition in quotes but (1) does not.

• "Computability" has nothing to do with how fast or slow a computation might take.

• "Predictability" does not require knowledge of a system's future to infinite precision.

Actually, in order to know a system's future dynamics exactly, what is required is the existence of an analytic solution. This excludes many classes of systems, not just chaotic ones. But given a set of differential equations that describe the system and a set of initial conditions, one can THEN predict the behavior of the system at least numerically. For example, no analytic solution exists for an N-body system, with N >= 3. But they are certainly predictable. If not, [Neptune | Pluto] would not have been discovered when they were; the [Apollo | Voyager | Cassini | etc.] missions would have been bunk; no one would have predicted that Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 would collide with Jupiter, and the Millennium Falcon would not have been able to make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs ;-)

Re:I disagree

[jd]

You can't know you have 0.1% accuracy. You can't stipulate any bounds on precision or certainty at all. For further information, see James Gleik's "Chaos" and Benoit Mandelbrot's "Fractal Geometry of Nature".

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how people talk about physical laws "governing" the universe. It's not like if the universe broke the speed of light it would get a speeding ticket. These so-called "laws" are just observations and inferences made from these observations by humans. The universe is what it is, how it is, and will be how it will be... if that doesn't match up with what humans observe, think, or understand then so much the worse for the humans. The universe isn't going to be issued a ticket for not complying with human expectations.

Re:I disagree

[sm62704]

No, an abacus is not a turing machine. But you can implement an abacus with a turing machine.

A modern computer is simply a complex binary abacus. How many beads do I have to string on my abacus before it bnecomes self-aware?

Re:I disagree

[sm62704]

True, but that only reinforces my point.

Re:I disagree

[itchy92]

... Damn it. I kept putting off replying to your post and 'fessing my mistake, but I guess I should.

For whatever reason, when I read the original post, I mentally supplanted "universal physics" for "mathematics". I mean, they look so similar...

At any rate, you are absolutely correct; mathematics is a conceptual abstraction that is-- more or less-- arbitrary.

Re:I disagree

[khchung]

But given a set of differential equations that describe the system and a set of initial conditions, one can THEN predict the behavior of the system at least numerically.

Wrong. And that's exactly what people find out which started the whole field about chaotic system, when people find out that a simple weather model composed of a few D.E. will diverge (i.e. results differs drastically) quickly if the initial condition is changed just a tiny bit, in fact so tiny that it correspond to just a flap of wings from a butterfly. That's is where "butterfly effect" comes from.

The very prominent feature of a chaotic system is extremely tiny differences in the initial conditions, e.g. the rounding errors of floating point calculation in a modern CPU, will cause the results to diverge so much to become useless. For example, I recall one example is a frictionless billiard ball system (so the balls will bounce around non-stop after one shot), even assuming you have the initial condition completely accurate to infinite precision, if you just add/subtract the gravitation influence of an electron on the edge of our galaxy, which is easily around 10^-40 weaker than the gravitation force between the balls, your calculated results will differ completely from the actual results after about 15 minutes. So if your program do not keep at a precision of 40 digits, your program will be completely wrong after a minutes.

For most systems, a "predictability" that has a horizon of a few minutes is the nearly the same as "unpredictable" for most practical purposes. And that give raise to the interesting definition of a chaotic system being its own faster "computer", as there is no practical way to make another system to predict its behaviour, the only way to see what will happen to the system is to watch it happen.

The fact that you can calculate the orbits of objects in the solar is because the N-body gravity system is, in most cases at least, NOT chaotic.

Try asking your weather man to predict the weather accurately for more than a few days, he has intimate experience with a chaotic system, the local weather.

It can be virtual even then

[SashaM]

He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual.

All it would mean is that the outside ("real") reality has processing capabilities qualitatively different (and superiour to) from the ones our reality, and are thus able to simulate it.

Is is the silly season?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Page 14 of the paper lists a bunch of features of the universe and the corresponding reason why they follow from the universe as VR hypothesis. It's pretty clear that given *any* state of affairs in a hypothetical universe he could come up with a story about how it follows from a simulation. "There is a universal speed limit c", that must be because there's a limit on processing speed. "Some effects seem to go faster than c", that must be because a computer could have random access to any part of the simulation. After Empedocles,it was a common notion that the universe was made of 4 elements. He'd fit that into his model by explaining that there are precisely two bits to represent the content of each point of space. Unless this guy comes up with constraints on the possible laws of physics that we can test, this paper is no better than a conversation between two very stoned hippies. "Hey man, I have this really far out idea...".

Not to turn this into a religious debate, but...

[VE3MTM]

You can't disprove this theory for the same reasons you can't "prove" that God doesn't exist with ontological arguments. There's no way to prove that we're not living in a simulation, because for every test you come up with, some weeny can say, "well, of course you get that result, it's part of the simulation!"

It's bad science. Hell, it's not science.

Worth the trouble?

[Lord Ikon]

If someone or something has the knowledge and ability to create our entire universe inside of a computer simulation, wouldn't it be just as easy for them to just create the universe as it is (not in a simulation) and save themselves a step?

Re:Worth the trouble?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have great simulations of worlds and wars and space travel here on our earth. Some run on the Xbox, some on the playstation...Of course we could maybe be soldiers or astronauts instead...

low reading comprehension please help

[xmousex]

"Gravity slows time: An atomic clock on a tall building "ticks" faster than one on the ground."

"...in 1962 one of two synchronized atomic clocks was flown in an airplane for several days while the other stayed stationary on the ground. The result was, as Einstein predicted, less time passed for the clock on the plane."

These two statements contradict each other, or I don't know how to read, which is it? Also, is there some way I can get more work done by moving my office to a tall tower, or to an underground lair? Thank you.

Re:low reading comprehension please help

[Lord Ikon]

The two statements do not contradict, if you're on an airplane then you're moving faster than if you were on the ground.

If you're in a tall building, then you're moving faster than if you were on the ground, because you're further from the center of the Earth.

In both listed scenarios you're moving faster than if you were on the ground, and hence both will result in your clocks going faster if you're on the ground.

I don't see what this has to do with gravity however. I thought the difference in time was based solely on your reletive speeds.

Re:low reading comprehension please help

[xmousex]

Aahh okay then. In the first statement he says the tall building clock ticks faster then the ground clock, in the second statement he says less time passed for the clock in the plane meaning the clock ticks slower on the plane clock then the ground clock. You are saying in both cases the ground clock ticks faster. I think what you are saying is correct, the ground clock ticks faster, I think his first statement about the tall building clock is incorrect. His paper is invalid, the whole theory is now shot, next story please. but ill believe this is a vr world when someone gives me the nude patch.

Re:low reading comprehension please help

[DaveV1.0]

Actually, they don't. This explanation, while not wholly correct, should help you understand.

Time is effected by acceleration. Gravity is an acceleration field. You are accelerating towards the center of the Earth at 9.8 meters per second squared. However, you don't go anywhere because the surface of the Earth presses back with enough force to keep you from sinking.

The force of gravity also gets weaker the farther one gets from the center of the Earth. So, the gravitational acceleration felt by a clock on the of a building is less than felt by a clock in the basement of the same building. Because accelerated clocks run slower, the clock in the basement (with it's higher acceleration) will run slower than the clock on the roof.

Time is also effected by motion. A moving clock will run slower than a clock that is standing still, relative to the observer. While the clock in the airplane is running minutely faster because of the lessened gravity, the relative motion causes the clock to run much slower.

Think of it this way: The clock on the airplane gets an extra tick for being higher than the reference clock, but because it is moving, it loses 5 ticks making it run 4 ticks slower than the reference clock (1 - 5 = -4 ).

Of course this is just to help you understand that there is no contradiction and is not a good explanation of what is going on.

Re:low reading comprehension please help

[thirty-seven]

Gravity slows down time, but so does travelling at high speed.

So, all other things being equal, a clock at ground level would tick slower than a clock at the top of a tall building. And, all other things being equal, a clock sitting still (relative to an observer) would tick faster than a clock moving at high speed relative to the observer.

In the real-world example from 1962, the effects of less gravity on the clock flown in the aircraft would have worked to "speed up" the clock, but the effects of the airplane's higher speed would have worked to "slow down" the clock in the airplane. In this case, the effect of the different relative speeds of the two clocks was much greater than the effect of the different gravity strengths that they were exposed to. So the net result was that the airplane clock "slowed down" because of its higher speed, meaning less time passed for it than for the clock left on the ground.

Just in time..

[Morky]

..for the spring release of "Horton Hears a Who".

Hang on! You're almost there!

[RingDev]

THE CAKE IS A LIE!

-Rick

What exactly would point to a VR

[Anonymous Coward]

the world is an information simulation running on a three-dimensional space-time screen

How do we know the world isn't a real 3d-brane in an n-dimensional space. I see not a single example that points to an "information simulation" vs reality.

All the data is suspect

[pete.com]

Unless you use a Linux boot disk.....

oblig alpha centauri

[Joe the Lesser]

We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?

Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

Nothing to see here, move along

[Animats]

Read the paper, and it doesn't say anything new. There's no math, no proposed experimental tests, and no really new thinking about the subject.

There's still much frustration in fundamental physics, though. For over half a century, physicists have been trying to come up with a model that has fewer arbitrary assumptions at the bottom. Preferably one that makes some experimentally testable predictions. We still don't know where the fundamental constants come from. Maybe it's just many-worlds and the anthropic principle - we're living in one of the few forks that works.

The simulation idea might be verifiable if the simulation cheated. If the simulation had something like level-of-detail processing, so that far less is really being simulated than appears to be going on, that might be detectable by experiment. This was best explored in SF in Simulacron-3, in 1954. But we're not seeing that.

In fact, we're seeing more of the opposite. The universe seems to have too much gratuitous fine detail. There's much more going on at the subatomic level than seems to be necessary. The universe is bigger than it needs to be. If we're in a simulation, it's not resource-constrained.

that's my opinion as an awesome hilarious dude

[circletimessquare]

and if you think that depiction of myself requires as much venom as your response to my previous dumb joke, you should try to understand that bizarre alien concept some of us know as "humor"

Re:that's my opinion as an awesome hilarious dude

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I'm sorry. You're just a boring bastard.

Paranoid Schizophrenia is not something to make jokes about. I wish you'd understand that, retard.

The only real proof would be...

[m4cph1sto]

... glitches in the system. Like one morning we wake up and gravity repels, and a BSoD message is written across the sky in clouds. Only then would I be convinced that our universe is in fact a digital simulation.

Re:The only real proof would be...

[Viewsonic]

I was at Zion State Park a few years back sitting at a picnic table staring at the clouds while a few friends were talking about something or other. The clouds stopped. For about two seconds. It was weird, I thought maybe I was having a stroke or maybe just a brain fart, but my friends were talking through the pause that I was seeing. It was only the clouds. I asked them to check it out, and they looked up, but by then the clouds were moving across the sky as normal.

It was weird, I'm not one to think of the whole "matrix" stuff, but this really made me go "wtf". I still believe it was just a random brain hiccup of sorts or something. (I'm in perfect health, no mental issues that I know of, etc.) Weird.

Re:The only real proof would be...

[khendron]

Something like this? :-)

Re:The only real proof would be...

[m4cph1sto]

Haha... exactly!

Re:The only real proof would be...

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be the nuclear power plant near by

To all you knee-jerk nay-sayers...

[spungo]

...just because the observable universe may concur with some hypothetical VR simulation, does not mean that the universe is a VR simulation -- what this research may yet provide is an alternative perpective of nature. I don't see anything wrong with that premise -- if it works, use it. If you don't like it, come up with your own testable hypothesis.

speed of light?

[Anonymous Coward]

c = clock

Pi in the Sky?

[Doc Ruby]

So irrational numbers like pi are proof that we're imaginary?

Re:Pi in the Sky?

[rossdee]

No, that would need the imaginary numbers, which usually involve i (the square root of -1)

Re:Pi in the Sky?

[jellomizer]

Irational Numbers are real numbers they are not the fault of the universe but the fault of our human number system. We perceave numbers in descrete sections. Infinity or Asimtopic realtionships we can't easially grasp. There are more irational number then they are rational ones. By a huge order of magintude. Infinity^Infinity which mathmatically is greater then Infinity.

Not creationism

[Tony]

This is just another spin on Creationism.

Unlike Creationism, there is both a rational explanation (an hypothesis) and a test to disprove the hypothesis.

The hypothesis goes like this: if intelligent life were to evolve in a universe, and it were to survive for any significant length of time (say, millions of years of civilization), then it will eventually create a simulation of the universe itself. This makes it entirely possible that we exist in the simulation, rather than being in the "physical" universe.

Unfortunately, there is a similar hypothesis that suggests the universe itself is real, but is nothing more than a giant quantum computer. (It is possible to calculate the entire processing power of the universe, to within an order or two of magnitude.) This suggests the universe is incapable of doing something impossible using information theory. This is the viewpoint held by very brilliant men like Ray Kurzweil and Seth Lloyd.

There is, as far as I can tell, no fundamental way to distinguish between these two possibilities. Me, I lean more towards the "computational universe" concept, rather than the simulation. The simulation would necessarily be slower than the universe itself (as the universe has only a limited amount of computational capacity), and so any significant simulation would by necessity be slower than the universe, probably by trillions of times. This makes it unlikely to be useful.

(Actually, I can see a case in which the universe is simulated in very broad terms unless there are observational entities nearby. This would rather fit with quantum mechanics. So, perhaps it wouldn't necessarily be significantly slower than the universe itself.)

WRONG ! We are in a Movie!

[Foo2rama]

This theory is wrong everyone knows you are all just stars in the movie of my life![br][br][br] Too bad the budget sucks or there would have been a better leading lady...

No more big bang

[Skapare]

Now it's the "big boot".

Deep Thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

What IS six times nine, anyway?

Re:Deep Thought.

[nullCRC]

42 of course.

confusing two issues

[nguy]

Whitworth is confusing two issues: digital models of physics and simulations.

Digital models of physics have been explored for decades under various names. Yes, they "explain" quantum mechanics and relativity, but unfortunately not yet in any useful or interesting sense.

Saying that the universe is a "virtual reality simulation", however, is something very different: it doesn't just mean that it's a digital system, it implies that there is an intelligence running the simulation inside another physical reality. That is not testable; we might still find out somehow (like if the person running the simulator communicates with us and proves his identity by fundamentally altering physical laws), but there are no obvious experiments we can use to distinguish digital physics from digital physics within a simulation.

My name..

[darCness]

is Neo!

I hope its true...

[kalel666]

Just imagine when the spammers figure out how to game the universe. You'll look to the night sky and read about "Hot uNd3r4ge 5lu7s R34dy 4 U!!!!!" in light year long letters assembled from stars and whole other galaxies.

Can't wait.

Didn't hollywood already explore this?

[DCTooTall]

Anybody remember the movie The Thirteenth Floor? http://imdb.com/title/tt0139809/

A glitch in the matrix

[sm62704]

He says that the existence of quantum phenomena could be due to the underlying digital nature of the simulation

But the simulation is done using old fashioned using ANALOG computers! Digital computers weren't invented until the 1940s and the computers this simulation is running on are fourteen billion years old, give or take a few million milinea. Doesn't anybody remember analog computers? Jees, you kids today...

-mcgrew
PS- I was a beta tesster for dirt. We never did get all the bugs out. Where's Slartibartfast when you need him? That slacker!

(no real journal today, just a "coming soon" trailor)

Sit down and enjoy your steak

[PMuse]

Step 1: Assume an omnipotent entity.
Step 2: (is arbitrary)
Step 3: Profit!

You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.

Trippy, duuude

[longacre]

"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather." --Bill Hicks

Re:Trippy, duuude

[ceoyoyo]

I hate it when journalists screw up the details. That's FAST vibration.

He is NOT a physicist

[quadong]

Brian Whitworth, the author of the paper, is a senior lecturer in information technology at Massey University in New Zealand.

http://www.massey.ac.nz/~wwiims/people/b.whitworth/

Here are his degrees: BSc (Maths), BA (Psych), MA (Hons), IS Doctorate
Masters Thesis: Brian Systems and the Concept of Self
PhD Thesis: Generating Group Agreement in Cooperative Computer Mediated Groups

He also suggests that our universe could be running on a "three-dimensional space-time screen", which doesn't make any sense given that space-time is 4 dimensional. The verbiage on page 2 of his paper continues to make it clear that besides not having any formal training in physics, he seems to only have a layperson's understanding of the modern physical concepts that would be needed to begin to make a coherent argument on this topic. The idea isn't total crap, but this guy does not seem qualified to champion it.

Re:He is NOT a physicist

[Dunbal]

It really doesn't matter how many titles the man has. Magical thinking is still magical thinking, no matter how you try to disguise it by calling it "God" or a "simulation".

      Either way this line of thought is only one step away from saying "you are just an illusion (infidel/heathen) therefore I can kill you if you don't do what I say". Don't believe that can happen? Please revise human history from the beginning. Because after all, if this is a simulation, how can I prove that everyone else isn't just a simulation for my benefit?

Re:He is NOT a physicist

[Colin Smith]

BSc (Maths), BA (Psych), MA (Hons), IS Doctorate ... Hmmm ... Educated beyond his intelligence.

The funny part...

[ZonkerWilliam]

Was when I read "seriously explore..."

Voyager 1

[FudRucker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1

voyager 1 was launched in 1977 it is just now reaching the edge of the solar system = 20 years, i think a man in a space craft would die of old age before getting the slightest bit anywhere near another solar system in the same galaxy so you can forget any plausible space travel beyond our own solar system unless a space craft can travel at least 99% the speed of light, even then it would be a gamble with HUGE risks, maybe in a virtualized universe in computer models you can learn a few things, and even cheat by traveling @ warp speed...

Re:Voyager 1

[Chysn]

> voyager 1 was launched in 1977 it is just now reaching the edge of the solar system = 20 years

That would be thirty years. But the Voyager craft were designed to explore the solar system, not to just get the hell out of it.

Lets check this out...

[jellomizer]

Holodeck Arch!... ...
Look Around...
Nope I guess the thery is wrong.

Glitches in the VR world...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you guys but I see glitches in the virtual world all the time!! I see random multi-colored pixels flashing before my eyes....duuudddeee, it's happening again...dudddeeee this is soooo coool!!!!

--Mary Jane

small planet

[Skapare]

A computer the size of a small planet couldn't simulate much more than a medium sized asteroid at full quantum detail.

Re:small planet

[SillyNickName4me]

A computer the size of a small planet couldn't simulate much more than a medium sized asteroid at full quantum detail.

You forgot a little detail... 'in real time'.

The solution is really very simple...

[razorh]

You just have to decide which pill to take, the red one or the blue one.

Re:The solution is really very simple...

[nullCRC]

What happens if I take both?

I get a sense of this all the time

[totallygeek]

Deja vu is just one example of a glitch within this vitual world.

Seriously though, metaphysics is most likely humanity's oldest quest for truth. Now, technology has given us a new dimension, if you will, to ponder. Maybe the question is not how did we get here and where did we come from. Perhaps it is something like, "what lame coder did this to us?"

Re:I get a sense of this all the time

[gr8dude]

Deja vu is just one example of a glitch within this vitual world.

Why is this an example? Because this is what they said in 'The Matrix'?

An alternative explanation would be that the brain accidentally placed a memory that refers to a current event into the storage location which is used for long term memories. Then, when the data are processed, the timestamp says "this memory was written on date X" (X is a date in the past, derived from the offset of the file pointer [imagine that the brain is a file]), while today's timestamp is "X+delta". You conclude that the memory is old and that this event happened again, but the real deal is that the file pointer was not offset correctly, so the memory was written to the wrong slot on the timeline.

Oh great, we're doomed

[jayhawk88]

Tech: Sir, Universe #4598232 has achieved self awareness. Bringing up it's stats on the monitor now.

God: Hmmmm.....15.5 billion years? Took them long enough.

Tech: Yes sir. Shall I transfer them over with the other sentients?

God: What's the status of the species that figured it out?

Tech: They call themselves "Humans" sir, a bipedal mammalian race. They've been out of the trees for a few hundred thousand years so far, can control fission but not fusion, only live for about 100 years, and have just recently had unmanned spacecraft pierce their own solar system.

God: Good Me, is that it? What the hell have they been doing this whole time?

Tech: Mostly fighting amongst themselves judging by their media.

God: Yes, I see. Nasty little buggers aren't they? No, we can't risk contaminating the other sentients with this lot, schedule the universe for wiping and reload the OS. Let's go ahead and move this one from the mammalian test group to energy beings, it's looking like energy-based lifeforms might be the way to go, I'd like to get a larger sampling.

Re:Oh great, we're doomed

[danzona]

Why does God need techs?

Re:Oh great, we're doomed

[3waygeek]

So he can blame someone else when things go wrong.

good idea - intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

See? Do you now understand why supporting intelligent design is a matter of survival of the fittest?

VR is the new Turtle

[Anonymous Coward]

It's VRs all the way down!

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules. Don't be stupid, plenty of scientists believe in God, me being one of them - though of course I'm primarily a Computer Scientist, but I find physics highly interesting. My uncle has a PhD in fluid dynamics and he's a Christian, and I know plenty of other Christians who defy your personal stereotype.

That probably explains why ...

[Skapare]

... I felt so swapped out, yesterday.

Maya: an age old concept

[GillBates0]

Maya is an age-old concept in Hinduism, and other Dharmic religions.

Even the concept of Nirvana in some of these philosophies is merely the realization of the fact that the Universe as we experience it is an illusion (or Maya).

The concept is a little like that depicted in "Matrix", and the closing soundtrack of "The Matrix Revolutions" even carried a Sanskrit hymn from Hinduism that alludes to this philosophy.

Re:Maya: an age old concept

[Plutonite]

Interesting stuff, although the rationalist who partakes in such belief will probably find no reason to indulge in religion. Maybe the word "illusion" is meant to belittle the lesser pleasures of life or something like that, but if the whole ordeal is a solid illusion, then why participate?

Well I reason that

[jeffmeden]

He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual.

I reason that if we employ information processing on these results (as is inevitable) then we will have a hard time telling the difference between the universes' limitation, and our own (here's a hint: THEY ARE THE SAME). The lack of proof is in the lack of pudding, as it were. Alas, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Yurtle the turtle, man. Yurtle the turtle.

Sorry, I figured there was so much nonsense in this thread, what could a little more hurt?

I am t3h neo; there is no spoon

[netsavior]

Give me all your pills both red and blue
you are all pawns in the virus smith's cruel game of shitty dialogue.
I will be blinded by a life ending wound, then I will go reason with the wizard of oz
At which time he will agree to everything I say for no logical reason.
Then I will fly off into the sunset and leave fans and critics going "Worst ending ever"

turing test is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fractal like pattern. Eventually, we will have some awesome AI running around in a virtual world. Then they will create a world in hopes that the singularity will bring about faster gains in tech. It'll just go on and on...instead of turing complete it'll be 'singularity complete'!

It's better to imagine the singularity will be more interested in testing its own reality by creating it's own sub-realities than to imagine it will be preoccupied by taking over our reality!

Warning! Infinite Recursion Alert!

[wiredog]

Danger Wil Wheaton! etc etc etc

But there's an interesting question...

[Kintar1900]

Yeah, he's a little over the edge, but he brings up a fun point.

He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual.

How do you define what information processing cannot do? Currently, information processing can't simulate a sentient being, ergo our universe is not a simulation. Or do we extend this to what information processing might be able to do? At which point, we're probably in an infinite recursion loop, and will eventually exhaust the heap space of our simulator and end the universe.

Personally, I propose that the universe is NOT a simulation, because if it was some twit would have already spawned a runaway process and crashed the sim. :)

A New Zealand physicist? I think not.

[stinkbomb]

As his CV makes clear, this guy is not a physicist.

Why people keep falling Ad Verecundiam arguments is beyond me.

Obviously the guy watched Matrix 2 one too many

[Shivetya]

times....

that being once.

Not really.

[jd]

There are some valuable ideas that can be borrowed from such lines of thinking. First off, if someone made a computer simulation of you and placed that simulation in a restricted environment (and you in an identical physical environment), how could you determine which one of you was real? Is there a way to know?

The answer is yes - chaos theory can be simulated on a computer but it is not going to be as sensitive to initial conditions as something in an analogue universe. Thus, chaotic systems on a computer can be repeated. Real-world chaotic systems never can.

The next thing that can be drawn is a better understanding of the brain. It should be obvious by now that the senses do not link directly to the conciousness but rather are used to update a mental "virtual reality" construct within the brain. Thus, everyone is living in their own virtual reality in a sense. This is easily demonstrated - there are hundreds of psychological tests that show how the brain fills in missing information, which only makes sense if there is some internal model from which such information can be obtained.

On the other hand, people on the autistic spectrum have fewer mirror neurons and show abnormal activity in the pre-frontal lobes, according to fMRI scans. They are also well-known for having an astonishing level of focus to the point where activity beyond a relatively low level is painfully overloading. This would make sense using this VR idea, as their brains' internal VR would be skewed from experience, above a certain level of input, creating intense stress and confusion. Exactly what you find with people on the autistic spectrum.

Does this internal VR model mean that all of reality is a VR model? No. If it did, then the VR models could always agree even when there is a bottleneck or information degradation. Since this is clearly not the case, it seems reasonable to conclude that the brain's VR is a crude approximation to reality and not reality itself.

Doesn't the idea of the conciousness existing within a brain-level VR contradict the notion of experimental science? No. The VR is not what you experience, the VR - or whatever you want to call it - is simply a mental construct to allow the brain to anticipate and to act in advance of actual data, or act where actual data is too noisy to directly use. Processing sensory data is hard work and can't possibly be done in real-time all of the time. However, measurements are not made in real-time. You observe a system as it exists in a snapshot of time, and you can continue observing that snapshot all you like. Since that is the case, any momentary disparity between the internal VR and the external world should be eliminated.

Without reading the article, he missed reality!

[PatSand]

Seems to me that the author neglected a basic tenet of modern particle/subatomic physics: Things are Quanta!

This simple insight into the complexities of quantum mechanics, string theory, etc. basically defines things as quantized components (much like computer bits, only much more interesting...flavors, spins, charms, etc.) and therefore makes it hard to distinguish it from a "digital universe".

Of course, we should not discount the fact that although things are quantized, there can be lots of state spaces for each quanta beyond 0 and 1 (say on the order of 2**N where N is pretty large-the number of particles being modeled), rendering most computer simulations of reality impractical. [Yes, I did FORTRAN programming in my early years and the exponentiation notation has stuck.]

Now if he can provide a consistent framework to scale from subatomic scale to any visible scale (mm, km, light-year) in describing things, that would be a big advance for Physics, Cosmology, Mechanics, etc.

But I think not...

Reality Bytes

[kylben]

It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too. He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. Except that if our reality was replaced with a VR, then that VR is reality from our prespective. So we have no criteria to distinguish what information processing can and cannot do from what reality itself can or cannot do. What this argument boils down to then is that if we observe reality doing something that reality can't do, then reality is something other than what we thought it was.

This argument is very, very old.

The problem is that our ideas of what reality can and cannot do arises from testing various phenomenon against reality itself. If we observe reality doing "something reality can't do", we assume it really means "reality just did something we didn't know it could do", look for a theory that allows us to understand how reality allows it.

If reality itself is a perfect VR, then the distinction is utterly meaningless. If it is an imperfect VR, such that we can observe the disconnect and deduce the nature of it, then it is a VR that is itself running in a larger reality, and we're reduced to wondering whether we're all stars in some cosmic Truman Show - but it has no bearing on the nature of reality.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[MenTaLguY]

When did he say anything about Christians? ID, in terms of the specific positions put forth by the Discovery Institute, is not synonymous with Christianity.

Agnosticism

[Freeside1]

Seems more of an argument for agnosticism than an argument for Teh Matrix. We're here, we laugh, we learn, we love. Do we really NEED to know why or how? Besides, Google's calculator has the answer

easter eggs and errors

[lee n. field]

In computer programs we find both easter eggs and errors.

Do we see them in the real world?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Xaositecte]

That statement applies Intelligent Design \ Creationism advocates, not Christians as a whole.

And yes, if you take what they're saying at face value, they really believe that "God created everything" is a perfectly acceptable substitute for evolutionary theory. As such, there is no need to look in to how the Universe was created, how we got here, why animals behave the way they do, etc. Hell, do away with the entire field of biology while you're at it!

Sony...

[Chysn]

...finally wrote a rootkit for the universe

I agree with you.

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, you got any loot you could spare?

Chill out everyone

[localman]

Man, what kind of geek site is it when everyone cries foul and gets all down and incredulous on a light and trippy sci-fi dicsussion like this?

We're so scared of science falling apart, I tell you, the ID advocates have already won!

The idea may be mental masturbation, but so what? Are you going to tell me next that you don't masturbate?

Cheers.

bollocks

[Glog]

He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. I could kick him in the virtual nuts and see how his virtual brain processes that.

Holodeck?

[SoundGuyNoise]

Computer, end program.

Still here. Phew.

Re:Holodeck?

[Fantastic Lad]

When you said that, was it with a faux Patrick Stewart accent? (I know whenever I pretend to talk to a Star Trek computer, I find I say it like Picard would. --You know; "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."

-FL

Re:Holodeck?

[SoundGuyNoise]

Actually, I was thinking of Lt. Barclay, holding the cube with Prof. Moriarty inside.

Run our own

[matt me]

It is difficult to take this seriously until we are capable of running our own simulated universes. Then real consideration would be needed:

What would our subjects think? Would they ask the question we do? Would they run their own simulated universe? Would their subjects ask if they live in a simulated universe in a simulated universe?

If you were to devise a test that our universe is simulated, and we were to test positive, you would never be able to test if our hosting universe simulated. It's turtles all the way down.

What is a non simulated universe like?

I think if we were in a simulated universe, our gods would be having much more fun messin' with us. By likelihood, we wouldn't be a scientific simulation, but in some curious kids' basement. Now that's scary.

Rich people are obviously cheating...

[MrSteveSD]

and should therefore be kicked and/or banned.

Lag?

[Beardo the Bearded]

The system wasn't designed for this many users. We can't be in a sim because there's no lag.

QED

obligatory matrix joke

[Anonymous Coward]

DOn'T TAkE teh rEd pILL!!!!1!!1!! omg lulz

Simulating the universe

[Tony]

Given a quantum storage tank the size of a large sun, I could simulate the universe on a 386. It'd just take a long, long time to run.

You don't need a computer the size of the universe to model the universe. You just need a computer the size of the universe to model the universe *in real time.*

Re:Simulating the universe

[Derosian]

I was under the assumption you wouldn't need anything except completely control over the laws of physics...

Re:Simulating the universe

[sydneyfong]

How the heck are you going to store the data of the universe in a tank of the size of the sun??

Also, in the simulation, "real time" presumably means nothing.

Re:Simulating the universe

[LiquidFire_HK]

I used to think the same way you do - that it's impossible to simulate the universe in something smaller than the universe, since at the very least you'd need so much storage space.

But now that you made me think about it, perhaps it's possible. Maybe some compression algorithm could decrease the storage data to 50%, 10%, maybe even less. Only the working set will be kept uncompressed in the RAM. Even a tiny compression ratio, like 99% of the original size, would make it theoretically possible. Of course, a computer the size of 10% of the universe is not very feasible, but at least it seems like it's a theoretical possibility.

Also, if I were to have access to such a computer, I wouldn't try to run a random simulation - I'd try to run a simulation of our actual universe. Then I'd have a machine that can show me anything that's happened in the past, that's happening now, and that will happen in the future. But that would be even more difficult - I'd need a computer that can simulate the whole universe at a speed faster than real time. And if I want the results while I'm alive, at a speed of a billion times real time.

Re:Simulating the universe

[gr8dude]

There is no need to store everything; perhaps data can be generated ad-hoc using an algorithm whenever someone requests it. Since we cannot observe the entire universe at the same time, but only a part of it - the simulation mechanism doesn't have to "simulate everything all the time". If this is correct, then it means that you can simulate something infinite using "finite" stuff.

As an example of how something can be generated - fractals, or the curve of a function (all you need to store is f(x) and some rules about how to represent it graphically). You might also like the 64 KB demos posted on scene.org (personally, I recommend that you check out those created by the team called 'Farbrausch').

Re:Simulating the universe

[sydneyfong]

I wouldn't say it's definitely not compressible. But intuitively it just doesn't seem right.
Assuming there's a finite number of states in a finite amount of space/matter, and that a smaller amount of space/matter has strictly fewer states, for the states in the universe to be compressible, there must be a pattern. and yet our "computer", also in this universe, needs to be "denser" in information than that pattern. How can our computer be "denser" than the pattern? The creators would then have to create patterns of states of matter which do not appear anywhere else in the universe. How likely is that?

Of course, the other possibility is that each finite amount of space/matter can hold infinitely many states. Then if the cardinality (is this the right term?) of a small finite space is the same as that of the entire universe, then theoretically something the size of our desktops could store the information of the whole universe. Even if this is theoretically correct, the finite limits of human beings probably makes this a practical impossibility.

Re:Simulating the universe

[Anonymous Coward]

The GGP seems to be implying he's going to simulate the *whole* universe.
I agree that theoretically some specific time cones of the universe can be simulated within the universe itself, at least without taking into account the teleporting stuff in quantum mechanics...

No meaningful argument *against* simulism either

[mkcmkc]

What you say is (mostly) true enough, but it doesn't follow that Simulism is nonsense. It is non-testable, at least as far as we know from our perspective, and therefore falls outside of the realm of science. But it may nonetheless be true.

Not only that, but it seems like a distinct possibility. Who among us would not set up such a simulation if we had the capability? And who among us, watching the progress of technology over recent decades, seriously doubts that we will soon have the capability to set up such simulations?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

More science

[Traa]

What is next? Scientist determine to give this "God" idea some serious thought?

eXistenZ was better

[Joe The Dragon]

eXistenZ was better

Re:eXistenZ was better

[Source Quench]

True, even at the end I was thinking, "Is this reality?"

Re:mathimatical (sic) basis for this...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

It is impossible to run a full simulation of the universe you are in, since it would automatically multiply the complexity of the universe infinitely (a simulation inside a simulation, etc).

The same argument shows that you can't possibly write a quine. And here's a link to a few hundred quines that people have successfully written.

The CT thesis...

[Anonymous Coward]

relies on axioms which are not (by their nature) provable. So it could well be false if one of the axioms doesn't quite hold up in actual reality. :)

Douglas Adams called it!

[scorp1us]

Well, I guess the answer is not 42, else the simulation would have stopped by now.

That is of course, only likely if the same question was asked. So now the question becomes what question was asked?

I propose we design a simulation to come up with the answer to that question.

CS Majors:
Does this mean that alternate realities are other entries in the dynamic function's table?

Of course it's a simulation!

[ardent99]

Of course it's a simulation! Everything we see is a simulation. When you look in a particular direction and see a refrigerator, what's really happening is some energy is falling on your retina, stimulating nerve responses that cause a model of a refrigerator to be activated in your mind. The refrigerator only exists in your head. It is an internal model that serves your own purposes to explain the stimuli.

Furthermore, since everyone has their own, there is more than one simulation, and they all work subtly differently, and they all have evolved as a response to different stimuli over time. Everyone has their own simulation of the universe in their own head.

Thanks!

[Xaositecte]

I was thinking about that when I posted, but couldn't for the life of me remember who had said it, or what the sentence was.

Wasn't his point

[Junta]

His point was not trying to say Turing model does not represent computation as we know it, but that *if* we were a simulation, our models of computation could merely be a subset of the system's running the universe. Possibilities may be intrinsically impossible for us to contemplate as dictated by the simulation.

So, while he claims it to be testable, it's really hard to disprove, really. If you found an aspect of reality that couldn't possibly mesh with our models of computation, it could be interpreted to disprove, or you could say the higher-order system is able to do information processing in ways that are either by unintended limitation or explicit design not conceivably possible to us.

Let's say a sentient copy of firefox decides 'hey, maybe I'm just a program, since everything I see is HTML, and I know how I could put it together'. Then that copy sees a page with flash content 'oh, there's something about my reality that I don't understand how it could be constructed from HTML, therefore my universe isn't a program' But the reality is a program even if firefox doesn't have the mechanism to understand that it is.

Re:Wasn't his point

[megaditto]

Your copy of firefox could find a simulation artifact of some sort and figure it out that way.

For example, windows 95 will grant program 2 gigs of memory space even on a machine with 32 MB of RAM/800 MB of hard disk. Tests on such memory would let FireFox figure out if it is inside a computer...

Of-course it is a simulation

[roman_mir]

We live in a simulation of what could have been if it was different from what it is. However what it is, is not what it could have been because it is not different from itself. Thus what it is cannot support our Universe and life, it can support a different Universe and life.

What it means is that our world may just as well be a simulation but since the simulation would have to create the world the way it is now, this simulation could have simulated any other world. Life in any world would have to ponder the same question: Are we just a simulation?

If there is a system powerful enough to create a simulation that we are part of, then this system is powerful enough to run another simulation within itself (probably slower than the outer simulation.) The system can be considered a Turing complete computer, which can simulate another Turing complete computer etc. How fast the simulation is executing relative and unimportant.

I think that IFF our Universe can be used to simulate another Universe within it, then ALL Universes can be considered simulations (regardless of whether they actually are.)

Can I Add some perspective to the doubting?

[Zashi]

People seem to think this guy is implying a matrix-style simulation. Physical stimuli is rendered by a 'computer' and supplied to our separately defined brains.

As I understand it, he is saying that a computer has quarks and other sub-atomic particles being simulated. These particles have set behavior defined such as energy properties and interaction rules, conservation of mass and energy. Once the simulation is started the particles proceeded forth from the big bang, the origin point (0,0,0,0) -- center of the universe, beginning of time. As the particles separated the basic forces formed, electromagnetism, gravity, weak force, and strong force. And so on the story goes of the formation of the universe. So it's not a question of keeping up with the simulation because we wouldn't be able to observe since we can't go beyond the level of those sub-atomic particles.

I RTFA, didn't RTFP, so I can't say I understand for sure, but this is my semi-original idea that resulted from too introspection and scifi movies.

Experiment...

[gsmalleus]

It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too.

Excuse me while I go and try to bend a spoon with my mind.

How to get out of the VR

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy: just install a rootkit (borrow one from Sony) into the VR system and see if you can manipulate the environment since you have administrator access. Disable gravity for a few minutes, make the sky green for a day or if you're really good, add some zeros to your bank accounts. When you're finally done having fun in this simulation, it's time to disconnect by free'ing yourself (me->free();).

That, or you can jump off a bridge to unplug. Same thing.

We're not in simulation, physics is too simple

[azgard]

I don't believe we are in simulation. Simulations are often simplified to be able to get to interesting results quickly and to save money (resources). If *they* would design our universe for scientific purposes, they would made it much smaller for such simple physical laws. If the design would be for entertainment purposes, they would fake it in certain points, which would appear to us as inconsistent physical laws. But the laws of physics are consistent and the universe is vast, so they are either very irrational, or we are not in simulation. Just look at any simulation we do, either for science or entertainment, and you will see it's very different from our universe in the above sense.

Re:We're not in simulation, physics is too simple

[argent]

If the design would be for entertainment purposes, they would fake it in certain points, which would appear to us as inconsistent physical laws.

From the paper: For perhaps the first time in the history of any science, the scholars of physics simply don't
personally believe what the reigning theories of their discipline are saying. They accept them as
mathematical statements that give correct answers, but not as literal world reality descriptions.

That sure sounds like a universe where a lot of simplifying assumptions have been made.

And the large scale behavior of the universe doesn't seem to quite match the behavior expected by looking at local physics. There have been various hacks to explain it... dark matter, dark energy, the cosmological constant... or maybe they used a simpler model for simulating objects outside the experimental region.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Lord Ender]

The actual statistics show that scientists of all sorts are much less likely to be religious than the common man, with mathematicians being the most religious of the group, and religiosity decreasing as you move toward the physics end of the science spectrum. It must be that e^(i*pi)-1=0 bit.

In the modern age, I think it is possible to "practice" science and be religious, but it is not possible to be a scientific thinker and be religious, because evidence is at the core of the scientific philosophy, and there is no evidence for the supernatural.

Meh

[Greyfox]

The graphics are pretty good and the NPCs are almost lifelike, but the physics are pretty shitty and subject to buffer overflows in localized regions of space. They look good at first but when you actually scrutinize how they work you realize how flawed the model is. They should resolve that in the next patch. The class balance is entirely screwed up too. Some classes need some serious nerfs and others need serious buffs. They should just throw the entire class system out and start from scratch!

Ummm no

[poptones]

Just because someone says "god did it" they have not automatically excluded any attempts at information gathering.

God did it... now let's see why, and what rules he put into place.

Software systems can test their sandbox for signs of a virtual host, so why can't we? This whole thing about ID intrinsically representing an end to knowledge seeking is a strawman argument.

Re:Ummm no

[quantum bit]

God did it... now let's see why, and what rules he put into place. Not to mention the 'how' aspect. If God exists it doesn't logically preclude the possibility of evolution as a means of creation (all-knowing = knew exactly how it would turn out from the start). Only stubborn belief in the infallible truth of a book, written by humans let's not forget, stands in the way of progress.

In other words, if God didn't want us to be trying to determine our origins and the way that the universe works, questioning everything along the way, why would he give us such strong curiosity about it?

Re:Ummm no

[Jerry Beasters]

Holy shit, moron. He wasn't talking about those who believe in God, he is SPECIFICALLY talking about Intelligent Design, which is not synonymous with a belief in a god.

Re:Ummm no

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't talking about those who believe in God, he is SPECIFICALLY talking about Intelligent Design, which is not synonymous with a belief in a god.

As opposed to what, the LAZY GOD THEORY, in which God exists, but had no hand in intelligently designing anything. Belief in God == bat shit == ID

Re:Ummm no

[quantum bit]

I like it -- the universe is just a giant bowl of particle soup conjured from chaos because God was hungry.

Sounds like the start of a beautiful new religion :)

Re:Ummm no

[UseTheSource]

Except that the Intelligent Design "movement" was started, and continues to be pushed, by the Discovery Institute and the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture. Both are Christian groups, and the assumption among believers is that the "intelligent designer" is the Christian God.

Re:Ummm no

[Xaositecte]

"God did it, says here in the Bible"

You're confusing a rational view of Science and religion with the extreme views held by the Intelligent Design movement. This is why so many people are pissed off at attempts to teach Intelligent Design in our schools, it's a philosophy diametrically opposed to Science.

Re:Ummm no

[Jerry Beasters]

But it doesn't then follow that being Christian requires believing ID just because some do.

Re:Ummm no

[snoyberg]

In other words, if God didn't want us to be trying to determine our origins and the way that the universe works, questioning everything along the way, why would he give us such strong curiosity about it?

I agree 100% that God wants us to probe these topics. However, I see a major flaw in your argument: by the same logic, God must want us to kill/steal/{insert sin here} since we have such a strong desire for it.

I suppose someone who wants to claim God wants us to ignore these issues would claim that your curiosity is a trick of the devil or some such. I don't buy that though.

Re:Ummm no

[snoyberg]

I'm really glad you (and others) have pointed out the radical views of the ID crowd. Up until now, it had seemed to me that the rabid opposition to intelligent design was synonymous with attempting to silence any theory positing that God created the universe. I infer from what you've said that Intelligent Design, as put forth by the former group of people, is really an attempt to silence science.

Re:Ummm no

[Anonymous Coward]

I like it -- the universe is just a giant bowl of particle soup conjured from chaos because God was hungry.

I think he was bored.

Re:Ummm no

[Garridan]

Actually, the lazy god theory makes a lot of sense. In this model, God came into being at the same time as the universe. The infantile God watched as the universe exploded into reality, bedazzled by the show of shiny lights. This God bumbles around, putting conveniently-sized objects into its mouth -- leaving a trail of slime, germs and all manner of excrement; hence life on Earth. Perhaps the God is not lazy, but in some phase akin to "terrible twos" (or perhaps teen angst, it's hard to know the difference from our perspective), alternating between wanton destruction, bemused obeservation, and boredom.

Belief in God doesn't necessarily imply belief in ID. If the universe *were* a simulation, whoever had access to the machine that the simulation runs on would effectively be a god. This computer must have been designed by something intelligent, but that intelligent thing might not know about the Earth -- and won't unless humans effect a change in the universe so incredibly large that an outside observer can't help but notice and respond do -- perhaps we create a time machine, and send the energy from billions of stars towards a single point in space-time and cause something like a big bang. Or worse, we find and exploit a bug in the simulation, which causes the whole thing to crash (whoops).

Re:Ummm no

[geminidomino]

I like it -- the universe is just a giant bowl of particle soup conjured from chaos because God was hungry.

I think he was bored. And stoned off his ass.

Re:Ummm no

[dan828]

Christians aren't the only ones pushing this claptrap.

http://www.harunyahya.com/

Re:Ummm no

[Damastus the WizLiz]

"God. The leading cause of death." -George Carlin.

Re:Ummm no

[the_B0fh]

Folks - ID does not *NOT* believe in evolution. They explicitly do. What they don't believe is that how monkeys changed into humans, and how the first forms of life came about.

If you read any of the newer ID texts (I had the unfortunate misfortune), one of the things they say is that Noah's Ark need not contain *ALL* the species in the world. One pair of hooved animal, one pair of birds, one pair of dogs, one pair of... All you need is about 46 base pairs of mammals, IIRC. Then, after the ark settled down in Turkey (why doesn't God put any artifacts down where people can actually find them? I know, I know, this is another test of your faith), the pair of canines bred and turned into the whole canine family, the pair of equinine turned into all the horse family and so on and so forth.

As you can see from above, not only do they believe in evolution, they also believe in IMMEDIATE AND SPONTANEOUS macro level evolution - how many years between the ark settling down and when history noted all the different species of dogs? Not too many, I'd think, certainly not more than a couple of hundred years, iirc, because didn't the Egyptians already had different kinds of animal from the same family?

Re:Ummm no

[the_B0fh]

FSM? Or were you trying to call out to Galactus?

Re:Ummm no

[Lost Engineer]

There's no evidence whatsoever to indicate that one pair of hooved animals could evolve into all the known species of horse-like creatures in 6000 years, much less hundreds of years. Get rid of the young earth ideaology and the idea that life was created out of whole cloth is at least plausible, if unlikely.

Re:Ummm no

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Except that the Intelligent Design "movement" was started, and continues to be pushed, by the Discovery Institute and the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture. Both are Christian groups, and the assumption among believers is that the "intelligent designer" is the Christian God.

What is the name for this fallacy? It seems like a false syllogism. That is, I believe X, people who believe Y believe X, therefore I believe Y seems to be the logical underpinnning you are going for. It is also false.

The most henious examples are to find someone whose beliefs run contrary to yours, and find a villified person in history who shared those beliefs. For instance, "ZOMG, you want trains to run on time and so did Mussilini. Fascist" Cue Godwin's law.

Re:Ummm no

[irtza]

software systems testing for signs of a virtual machine have a frame of reference for what a virtual machine is and how it differs from a real machine. A VM without outside references and a clock that is not sync'd to the outside is fairly difficult to detect.

From a practical standpoint, all this person could really accomplish is showing that there is a set of discrete mathematics governing the universe which doesn't do much to show that the world is "virtual".

Re:Ummm no

[letxa2000]

ID does not say that we shouldn't determine how the universe works. ID doesn't have a problem with science at all. It's *some* scientists that have a problem with ID. In practice, it's normally not the scientists that have problems with ID--it's people on sites like this, most of whom aren't scientists, that have problems with ID.

Re:Ummm no

[letxa2000]

This is why so many people are pissed off at attempts to teach Intelligent Design in our schools, it's a philosophy diametrically opposed to Science.

No, it's not. It's a philosophy that is diametrically opposed to that of some people who claim science as their religion. But ID is not diametrically opposed to science itself.

A lot of anti-religious people have latched on to science and attempted to use it in an attempt to further their anti-religion agenda. They forward the false premise that religion and science can't both be right when in fact, they can.

Conflict between Christianity and science only exists when it is created by people that are ignorant of one topic or the other... or both.

Re:Ummm no

[GoofyBoy]

>However, I see a major flaw in your argument: by the same logic, God must want us to kill/steal/{insert sin here} since we have such a strong desire for it.

But there is also a strong sense of remorse and guilt.

And also there is explicit laws against , so it creates an "interesting" situation.

Re:Ummm no

[Xaositecte]

When the main arguement for Intelligent Design can be summed up as "Evolution is wrong, therefore Intelligent Design is Right" - they can be said to be diametrically opposed.

You will note that the Wedge Strategy of the Discovery Institute which... Well, I'll just quote from the article:

"The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document,[1] which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to "defeat [scientific] materialism" represented by evolution, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions"[2] and to "affirm the reality of God."[3] Its goal is to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian, namely evangelical Protestant, values.[4]"

----

This is not an institution that allows for fairness or equality. This is not an institution that cares about or understands the scientific viewpoint. This is an organization that is idealogically opposed to the idea of evolution, and seeks to make that ideology public policy.

Shit, if you believe that screed you're posting, you probably still think Islam is a "religion of peace" too don't you?

Re:Ummm no

[Nyago]

Have you seen "Cat Soup"?

A completely trippy 30 minutes of animation. In one scene, god cracks open the earth and eats the mantle with a spoon. :D

Re:Ummm no

[DeadChobi]

Or we discover a way to integrate the fundamental code of the universe with ourselves and in so doing transcend the simulation. Then the natural response from the simulator would be to fill the sector with giant dragons which breathe laser beams and angels which shower laser beams.

Re:Ummm no

[iamacat]

Or worse, we find and exploit a bug in the simulation, which causes the whole thing to crash

It would be more fun to exploit a buffer overflow to venture outside the address space of the simulation and send a copy of ourselves to everyone in god's address book.

Re:Ummm no

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to read the Principia Discordia (crappy link; there are other places that have links to more resources and ideas, but that URL is, obviously, very easy to remember). Preferably, multiple times. Preferably, in paperback form. Preferably, while sober, then while intoxicated, then while sober again, and then while incredibly intoxicated just for the fun of trying.

Re:Ummm no

[rufty_tufty]

"if God didn't want us to be trying to determine our origins and the way that the universe works, questioning everything along the way, why would he give us such strong curiosity about it?"

The same reason he made us covet or be greedy or want to have lots of sex with as many people as possible, and then put lots of rules in the way saying that these things were sinful and that we would suffer for all eternity if we did them.

The same reason that he created diseases that kill the righteous and the lowly irrespective. The same reason he doesn't heal cripples who pray to him for help, the same reason a god of caring and forgiveness and love was also very fond of his smiting. The same reason he has perfect foresight and total knowledge, yet managed to mess up the whole tree of knowledge thing.

He's as confused and inconsistent as we are because he is a creation of ours, not the other way around.

God can explain relativity etc. too

[Per Abrahamsen]

Things may happen the way they happen because it is God's will, or because we live in a virtual reality simulation. Both theories may very well be true. But being true doesn't mean they are worthwhile scientific theories.

Both theories have plenty of explanatory power, but zero predictive power. And how good a a scientific theory is doesn't depend on whether it is true, or how many things they explain, but how much they help us make better predictions.

Re:God can explain relativity etc. too

[FromTheAir]

That we cannot make predictions that might not be true. If we were to understand there to be some all pervading intelligence, of perhaps even an impersonal nature, divine or evolutionary intention. In other words if you knew it's goals or collective willful intent you may be able to predict the unfolding of events based simply on the main impetus of life, which is to expand and grow. If there is a collective or all pervading intelligence then there must be a way to detect the presence of this intelligence because it could influence events. 1. Systems return to balance 2. Higher consciousness evolves.

Virtual Turtles All the Way Down.

[TrebleJunkie]

It's a really nice paper and all, but it avoids one particular point:

(And I'm assuming here, I just speed-skimmed through it.)

In what _objective_ universe does the _virtual_ universe reside? It can't be virtual turtles all the way down. So even if we happen to sit in a virtual universe, there's got to be an objective universe at the bottom of the pile.

Also, who says that our laws of information processing would hold true outside of our virtual universe? After all, they're based only on information processing within the realm of the universe in which we live.

*shrug* Me, I just hope that if this is a virtual universe, it is Strongly Typed.

Re:Virtual Turtles All the Way Down.

[jcaldwel]

*shrug* Me, I just hope that if this is a virtual universe, it is Strongly Typed.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but it's not... it at least two cases.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Tesen]

Not to mention all of science, turn off that computer, go live in a straw hut; your housing, your electricity all came from people questioning how things work in the universe. That is a major problem I have with ID, not the theory itself the self-righteous attitudes of some of our true believers. I've encountered the extremists that believe in this theory and they claim that science is evil, that science is abomination to God because science questions the universe and Gods creation, ironically, they have electricity in their homes, they drive cars, and they benefit from this evil known as science.

Whether God created the universe (the Christian God) or some geek wrote an artificial life simulator on some alien computer and created the universe in which we live becomes a never ending question of: Well, who created God? Who created
that alien computer and that geek? So on and so forth, ad infinitum.

Tes

absolute bollocks

[unity100]

the human species is very likely to go extinct thats absolute bullshit. there is NO reason that that should be as such, even if the universe is a vr simulation.

what you call as 'human' today would not recognize another 'human' from 100.000 years ago if he was put side by side with him. same goes for a 'human' from 100.000 years ago and 500.000 years ago.

there is no such thing as 'human'. there is only 'current human'. the human of future will not be like what you take as human today, it will evolve as to reach what is 'beyond human'.

also, 'the committee' running the 'universe vr simulation' did not see any need to remove 'human' species from the game and instead made it evolve. that means it will go on like this. the other choice would be an utterly stupid waste of resources, even if digital.

congratulations on your extremely static approach to existence.

Re:absolute bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

100000 years ago? Sure you would. Creatures that a Homo sapiens sapiens (i.e. all of us, presumed) would certainly recognise as human appeared 160000 years ago (Homo sapiens idaltu). The other major branch around at that time (Homo neanderthalensis (or sometimes Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, still disputed, emerged 130000 years ago) would also have looked recognisably human, though perhaps kind of weird, no more so than outliers in the current human population (more important differences in strength, vocal ability, intellectual capacities and behaviour would likely be apparent based on current evidence).

VR != Explanation of Reality

[MOBE2001]

If "the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation", then this virtual reality must have been created somewhere, let's call it "the real universe".. but wait, what if that real universe is just a virtual reality simulation.. and on and on and on..

Yeah, that's the problem with these sorts of speculation. After all is said and done, they explain absolutely nothing about reality. Adding layers ad infinitum gets kind of boring and pointless, real fast.

WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone in WoW knew, from ages past, that all objects in the universe were composed of "polygons", but it was the clever gnomes who
discovered the existence of the "pixel". In recent times, the exiles in Ironforge build the mighty Smoosh-O-Matic 9000 and split the pixel,
thereby determining that the previously basic particle is itself composed of four parts; red, green, blue and alpha.

Oh, how they patted themselves on their backs, congratulating each other on their brilliance, the genius that revealed the true nature of
the universe.

Just as we did when we discovered quarks and thought we knew it all now.

I suppose the gnomes could postulate the existence of our reality, though they would have no way to understand that matter could be solid
and have "insides". And they would have certainly have no way to escape their reality to visit ours!

And so, I suppose, there could be another universe containing ours. A universe not of mater and energy, but of some "otherness". A place
where we could not venture, and at whose sufferance we exist at all.

I have heard that Jesus saves.

I pray that he also makes daily backups...

hmmm.... faint sounds from the woodwork...

[McNihil]

God: Holy Me! They are on to it...

# shutdown -t now

*pooof*

Trudy the Bag Lady....

[earlymon]

refutes this nicely: Reality is a collective hunch.

Natrue of God.

[jdh3.1415]

I knew it. God/gods is/are software engineers. Welcome to the priesthood slashdotters.

Are you people really real?

[magister159]

I'm not entirely convinced that all of you actually exist. Perhaps this is self centered, but I think that the world does actually revolve around me, and that everything I see is actually the simulation. None of you are real, but are simply a test or entertainment of some sort for an external viewer. Maybe articles like this is someone trying to send me hints about my own reality, or casting a seed of doubt to see how I react. If only I can find a way to break free of your controlled existence, I will get you back. Mark my words...

I think...therefore I am

[howardd21]

nothing to see here folks...keep it moving

How to find proof?

[LLKrisJ]

He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. How can one ever prove or disprove something like this? To do so would require knowledge about the calculation capabilities of the system running the simulation. Given the fact that or math and physics might be simulated entities themselves, how then can we ever claim that something in our reality 'cannot be processed/calculated?' outside of our alleged simulated 'reality'? We will never now. Unless somebody hands us that red pill (or was it the blue one... Neo? a little help please!)

Re:How to find proof?

[dogs4ar]

First, one can never prove a scientific theory. Scientific theories are adopted because some group of scientists decides that some new theory gives us a better picture of the universe than the old theory. Basically, if the new theory has better predictive capabilities than the old theory, then the new theory tends to dominate. In reality, the old theory never goes away until proponents of the old theory all die. Theories can only be disproved.

A theory is disproved when physical phenomena are encountered which contradict the predictions made by the theory. This is how quantum mechanics and relativity were formulated. Classical (Newtonian) Mechanics was seen as "The Truth" for hundreds of years until scientists encountered strange phenomena which could not be explained by a new theory. They gradually evolved these new theories to explain these effects. In order for the Virtual Reality theory of the universe to be adopted, the model has to answer more questions than the previous model did. In order for it to be disproved, something has to break the model.

You see? The cycle repeats itself, with each answer coming closer to some ultimate "truth" which we'll probably never find in the lifetime of our species. If reality as VR solves more problems than it creates, it may get adopted. If another theory comes along which is intrinsically "better" then it may get adopted. One thing scientists can never do is "fix the intelligence around the policy" meaning fit the data to the theory. Reproducible data is sacrosanct. If your theory doesn't explain how your experiment begot your data, it's time to look around for another theory.

In any case, irrelevant arguments like "He's not even a scientist" or "It's all been done before" do nothing to contribute to the advancement of science. The approach should be "OK, let's assume that he's correct. Now let's go about proving him wrong". This should be the work of serious scientists, not people looking to get into a turf war or a religious battle.

Re:How to find proof?

[LLKrisJ]

First, one can never prove a scientific theory. Scientific theories are adopted because some group of scientists decides that some new theory gives us a better picture of the universe than the old theory. Basically, if the new theory has better predictive capabilities than the old theory, then the new theory tends to dominate. In reality, the old theory never goes away until proponents of the old theory all die. Theories can only be disproved.

Yes yes... we all saw this in our mandatory courses of philosophy at university over here (Belgium that is). I know what you mean but I think it is not applied correctly to my post.

Problem with the whole 'if reality does something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual.' is that this statement can _never_ be proven, the thesis that we might be living in a VR world can therefore never be falsified. The very nature of the VR theory implies that there is some form of higher system that is manifesting us and everything around us. This system is free to choose the rules by which we exist, the laws that govern us. Just as any programmer can create a game engine for the next big 3rd person shooter.

The fact that we might be some form of simulation or manifestation in this VR world, possibly subjected by a toned down version of the 'physics' that govern the very thing that is running the simulation, might well be the reason that information processing in our perceived world cannot 'do' certain things. Therefore, the fact that we cannot process certain things, or adequately describe them doesn't automatically imply that they _must_ be 'non-virtual'.

Perhaps the simulator running us can process information in ways that are impossible in the VR world. So everything we cannot process might well still be virtual after all. The whole theory doesn't provide tools or a framework to attempt falsification. I don't know what philosophers would think, but to me this makes it a 'less good' theory (to avoid calling it bad), something that other big theories somehow always provide...

Writing this gives me headaches :-s

Entoverse

[Mr Pippin]

Hmmm, reminds me of the book by James P. Hogan, called "Entoverse".

In it, there was a virtual universe that got inadvertantly created in a supercomputer. The interesting part of that book was the physical laws of that universe were basically dictated by the execution characteristics of the intructions of the supercomputer.

Kind of like how people used to play the William Tell overture on drum printers back in the day.

Oh, Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

You do love the crackpots, don't you? One paper, written by a crank whose argument seems to rest on "I don't get physics, it's too weird for me therefore it must be some computer running things!". This guy has no other publications, gets all the physics wrong, and offers no evidence, ideas, nothing in fact. It's on the archive, in CS-"other" - ie crackpot repository. Not peer reviewed, not supported by anyone. Just trash.

Grow up people. Why does absolute tripe like this see the light of day?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Planesdragon]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules. The ID vs. "evolution" debate is a result of groupthink among scientists. Evolution was banned because it opposed religion: therefore, evolution must be right, and any argument that opposes it and is in alignment with religion must be wrong. No discussion necessary.

The only fundamental difference between the two -- that life was created by random chance, instead of via supernatural intervention -- is a philosophical point, not a scientific one. If the scientific reply were simply "life evolves", instead of "ALL LIFE CAME FROM SOUP!", it wouldn't be an argument.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be stupid, plenty of scientists believe in God, me being one of them - though of course I'm primarily a Computer Scientist, but I find physics highly interesting. My uncle has a PhD in fluid dynamics and he's a Christian, and I know plenty of other Christians who defy your personal stereotype.

Of course it is common, because of a person's amazing ability to compartmentalize. Religious scientists are quite apt of not letting their logical thinking seep into their "God box" of their brains.

VMWare

[paxgaea]

So if I buy shares in VMWare, does this mean I own part of my Virtual Reality, and if I get non-voting shares, can I sue because my virtual civil rights have been virtually violated? Does it also mean I get to pick my virtual file system, cuz I think I would prefer ext3 over hfs...

I'll stop now....I'm virtually outta here...

Language Breakdown

[Anonymous Coward]

"If reality was to do something that information processing cannot?"

Well, thats the problem right there. What is reality if not information? "Simulation" and "Reality" are concepts of relationships between things that we invented. However, the difference between a simulation and reality is ill defined. A simulation IS reality to the simulated in every case.

So, while I know what he's trying to say, its meaningless. If we are a "simulation", all that is saying is that there is a larger set of rules we aren't privy too. Great! Quantum physics seems to do that all the time, but it doesn't mean anything and it doesn't say anything about the "uberraum". Its just the way reality is for us.

Break it down, and what he's saying in effect is: if the universe doesn't follow its own rules its not the universe. But those rules are always going to be THE RULES.

Platypi

[DrPeper]

So if the universe is a simulation, then I am a part of the simulation. Then "I think therefor I am" has no meaning because technically I am not (am I?). \

But then what would be the function of a platypus? To gain insight that there is no function to a platypus, and realize that the universe is a simulation? Or does the existence of the platypi prove the universe is not a simulation??

I am Nomad, I am perfect, must steeeeriliiiiiiiiiize!

Eerily familiar

[mckeefarley]

Whether it's all crack-pot non-science or not, there are parts of this that are eerily similar to something I wrote in November (minus the techno-bable) here: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=21951148&blogID=333457920 which I also plugged on a post here of which I quickly got knocked down to troll level (for the comment, not the link) Just sayin'. Happy New Years.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[skoaldipper]

and there is no evidence for the supernatural.

Maybe not universally shared by all at all times. However, I have personal intimate evidence of the supernatural. Ask anyone with "near death" experiences - on the operating table or similar. Something hard to explain to others, but very real nonetheless. I'll never forget my spirit trying to resync with my body as my chest pumped up and down. Two very distinct and separate entities. Surreal to say the least.

It's easy to prove, proof is impossible to find.

[Anonymous Coward]

Write a C program that proves without any outside or inside assistance that it is being run by a computer as opposed of being the only inhabitant of the universe. It can be the ultimate AI. Nowhere in x86 CPU opcodes can you find a proof of they being interpreted by a machine built by superior beings. The laws of physics could be Universe.NET code, but we cannot know unless admin comes and tells us.

at least three thousand years old idea

[peter303]

The Upanishad questions if the universe is just the vivid imagination of God.

I disagree with your disagreement

[SatanicPuppy]

Living in a simulation may in fact create the conditions that must exist for that non-computable condition to exist.

Anyway, I think it's too limited to think a simulation must be actuated on some advanced computer of the types with which we are familiar. As long as you're wildly speculating, speculate that we're a pocket dimension held together by some controllable force in the "real" world. Here it manifests itself as gravity (which is why we still can't find the mechanism for gravity, as it exists outside the bounds of our reality), and imperfections in the control of the artificial space account for dark matter and the incorrect expansion speed of the universe, etc.

Blah blah blah. It's an interesting exercise of the imagination, but without some concrete anomaly that can only be explained by the fact that what we see isn't reality, I'm not going to speculate.

Re:I disagree with your disagreement

[TheLostSamurai]

It's an interesting exercise of the imagination, but without some concrete anomaly that can only be explained by the fact that what we see isn't reality, I'm not going to speculate. Nah, go ahead, speculate. I bet our programmers are really getting a kick out of this thread.

red pill, or blue pill?

[mpdolan37]

the matrix has you.

Computer, end simulation NM

[ragtoplvr]

Blank because I cease to exist

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[richlv]

this has always puzzled me.
i can't see believing in god as something that can withstand simple questions.
i mean, if the life on earth is too complex to have originated on itself and somebody created it, then that how did that somebody come to be ? did somebody else create him (and why not her ;) ) ?
if somebody else, we get into a loop, where we still have to break out at some point.
if not, then there can be no scientific, critical thinking that could accept the "he just exists, you may not question that".
so how could a chain of logical arguments convince a person of gods existence ?

Outer Limits episode

[peter303]

Where scientists create a universe inside a bottle which evolves much faster than our own. Eventually its inhabitants perceive the "outer-verse" (our universe) and escape to it in a spaceship.

If I didn't have a User, than who wrote me?

[jaguth]

Ram: I'd say "Welcome Friend". But not here. Not like this. Crom: I don't even know what I'm doing here. Ram: Do you believe in the Users? Crom: Sure I do! If I didn't have a User, than who wrote me? Ram: That's what you're doing down here.

I think I need a hit before weighing in here

[jollyreaper]

Back when I was a kid and still believed in God, I would get really wrapped up in the whole universe with rules vs. miracles thing. The sunday school teachers would say that God could do anything he wanted in the world, i.e. magic. If he wanted to turn waters to blood, he could make it Type O- if he wanted to. Skeptics would point out that an algae bloom could visually accomplish the same thing and the poets would call it blood. Religious types would say that's trying to remove God and the skeptics would say if there is a God, he could manipulate coincidence just the same as throwing flaming mountains down from the heavens.

I always liked the idea of a God who setup a system that cannot be brazenly magicked like dividing the Red Sea or stopping the sun in the sky but that random chance could be influenced, nudged, creating and influencing luck. Later when I was reading on occult stuff, one explanation of kaballah explained it as God's dev tools. Us humans are non-privileged users by default, operating on a natural level. The supernatural is there and build into the system already, we just don't normally have access to it. Kabbalists use those tools to work what we call magic but is actually a constructed part of the world, comprehensible by those with wisdom. So when God works miracles, these are the tools he's using, build into the system. As to why it's this way, the metaphor used is a scientists with a microscope and slide trying to direct protozoans. He cannot directly touch them or push them about without crushing them; instead he uses indirect means such as heat or chemicals to lure them this way and that. And according to that original Kabbalistic description, the reason why such magic is so dangerous is because purity of intention is paramount. You're using the tools of God. Any evil or personal weakness will act like an impurity in a lens focusing a powerful light, heating the lens and potentially destroying it.

Now I don't actually believe in any of that stuff but I think it makes for entertaining fiction. If we run with the idea of the universe being a simulation, one has to wonder if it is like a deistic clockwork universe with the creator only observing or if there are dev tools. If there ARE dev tools, could we illegally escalate our privileges and start having fun? :)

Well just maybe...

[Junta]

If God hadn't decided to flood ping us we'd be doing better.

Interesting...

[Hymer]

...it reminds me of a book which shows the failure of such system... the answer was 42.
Anyway... I do not think we would be able to show that "our reality" is someones simulation, at least not if the simulation is build for simulation purposes and not to hide something from us (like "Matrix").
--
Last time we tried to interfere with our simulation was about 2000 years ago... and it was a complete disaster.

Computability in the Outer Universe?

[adavies42]

Who says Church-Turing is true in the "outer" universe? I can redefine physics, math, and even logic to anything I like inside a program I write; why couldn't our creators have done likewise?

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Lord Ender]

You can prove God does not exist, for every god-theory in practice. For example, if the Bible is supposed to describe one god, you need only a contradiction to disprove itself. "God is good," and "god commanded the Israelites to kill the men of the rival tribe and take the women as sex slaves" in the same god-theory is a contradiction.

It is possible to construct a god-theory that is nonfalsifiable, but the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc, etc god-theories are falsifiable, and the Internet is full of bible contradiction lists doing just that.

Will quantum technology end the world?

[tgibbs]

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly new or profound in the paper. None of the "tests" suggest any practical experiments, so it seems to me little more than amusing speculation.

However, along those lines:

The notion that the apparent quantized nature of physics could be an approximation--a way for a simulation to limit memory requirements--occurred to me some years ago. It has some potentially disturbing implications (at least if you take it seriously).

This idea is meaningful only if the simulation is embedded in a universe is not itself quantized. Of course, our universe could be an accurate simulation of a quantized universe, but then our universe's quantal nature is not any kind of evidence for our universe being a VR.

This leads to some concerns about the motivations of the creators of the simulation. Generally, one constructs a simulation to answer questions about one's own world, so we may speculate that the developers of the simulation presumed that quantizing reality at such a tiny scale would not be a major source of error.

Yet here we are, developing technologies that work only because of the quantal nature of physics, happily exploiting what are really "bugs" in the simulation. If the developers happen to notice what we are doing, they might not be too happy about this--potentially, the use of quantum technology to any major extent would undermine the validity of their simulation in terms of making predictions regarding their (presumably non-quantum) universe. What if they notice, realize that their simulation is faulty and decide to turn us off?

Re:Will quantum technology end the world?

[cnettel]

Well, they should have done that as soon as they saw the first atoms forming, or at least when the stars started. The quantization is very much needed to give us something resembling what we have. Classical mechanics simply didn't cut it.

Re:Will quantum technology end the world?

[tgibbs]

Well, they should have done that as soon as they saw the first atoms forming, or at least when the stars started. The quantization is very much needed to give us something resembling what we have. Classical mechanics simply didn't cut it.

That does not mean that there is no non-quantal way of getting stable atoms or stars. I doubt if anybody has tried very hard to develop such theories, considering that so much other evidence points in the direction of quantum mechanics.

You are assuming a compiled language.

[dogger]

If the universe is written in VB you can just change it as you go:)

A good movie?

[joemawlma]

Regardless of how absurd or just philosophical his theory is, it sure could make a good movie. A never ending chain of simulations. The group simulating our world would be in a sim of their own which is controlled by another group, etc etc. And meanwhile, as our technology advances, we are able to simulate a universe ourselves (I can't help but picture the game Spore here).

It could be an interesting way to think about the concept of parallel universes as well.

It sure does get the creative mind moving...

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[EllisDees]

>I'll never forget my spirit trying to resync with my body as my chest pumped up and down. Two very distinct and separate entities. Surreal to say the least.

I once had a very similar experience after drinking a bottle of Robitussin.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you are remembering the survey wrong. It is Biologists who are the least religious. Physicists were much more religious. I for get the exact percentages but if I remember right in the PNAS study it was 7 percent for biologists an 9 or 11 percent for physicists.

Oblgatory

[megaditto]

Stop that or I'll plug you. And then un-plug you.

We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[Prien715]

You can create whatever reality you want and...1+1=2. No matter what. There is no universe where 1+1=5 because such an idea would be inconsistent with itself. Calculus would work too. Of course, it wouldn't necessarily describe motion or any other physical phenomenon, but it would still be valid.

Most of CS, as I've understood it, primarily relies on mathematical principles rather than physical constants. So even in a very strange universe with 30 spacial dimensions, mergesort would still be n log n.

As far as not knowing one is in a box from inside the box, see the Truman Show or the Matrix. Assuming reality is somewhat like what is being simulated (as imagination only allows us to combine different facets of what is experienced rather than create anything actually "new"), we may be able to find inconsistencies and use them to explore how to get out. This is exactly what is being proposed here.

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... Did you really just use the Truman Show and Matrix to make a point? Even if those weren't just movies, there is a fundamental difference between them and the universe is a simulation theory. In those movies, the human(s) were put into an artificial environment. In the simulation theory, humans would themselves be artificial. A better movie to prove your point would be The Thirteenth Floor but even that required outside interference for the artificial beings to realize they were artificial.

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[JWSmythe]

    It's all in what units you're discussing.

    1+1=5.

    If one box is 2.5 pounds...

    1+1 = 5 pounds.

    2 boxes = 5 pounds

    or

    1 = 2.5 :)

    You should really be clear about what you're discussing, as confusion may make you believe you're in a VR. :)

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[kalirion]

You can create whatever reality you want and...1+1=2.

Only because that's how we decided to define mathematics to begin with. Same with logic. They're tools we created to help us understand the universe, and are internally consistent because we defined them to be that way. But in order to apply those tools to anything outside the definitions, we must make unprovable assumptions.

And maybe calculus only appears to work because you are programmed to think that it does.

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[JM78]

Too many assumptions.

One cannot assume that simulated calculations are correct. We can tell a computer program that 1+1=5 pretty easily - you assume that physics and mathematics as we know them are a constant - if they're all simulated then they are only true inside the simulation. You assume such and idea would be inconsistent with itself because you are basing your understanding of the universe on the knowledge that 1+1 always equals 2. If you are running inside a program then the programmer has complete control over everything - that includes your thoughts, experiences, sense of time, etc. You are a puppet without ability to think for yourself. You, the universe, everything is a simulation.

The point is that you cannot assume anything if the proposition is reality. You might be able to prove a ton of things inside a box if there are known quantities (such as 1+1 always equal 2). But because everything is simulated there is no way to know if what is known is correct (for example, perhaps the answer 2 to the question what does 1+1 equal is actually 5 but is simply simulated to be output as 2). And, if nothing can be known because it is possible it is simply simulated to be correct then there is no way to prove, from within the simulation, anything about what is outside the simulation or whether or not there is a simulation to begin with.

It's a pointless discussion. If correct it doesn't matter because anyone inside the simulation could never know it unless something external to the simulation were to interject - even then it's completely feasible that anything inside the simulation is programed to entirely ignore all external simulation stimulus.

whatever...

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[Prien715]

You're exactly right. Kudos;)

That's the dark side to assumption, but at the same time, it does enable us to describe ideas in a different way, which seems to help in this universe;)

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[Twanfox]

I'm reminded of the Star Trek: TNG episode "Ship in a Bottle". Moriarty, a simulated character, is made (with outside interference) to understand that reality is bigger than what he can see. Ultimately, he is tricked into believing he escaped from what he knew into the bigger world, which is only another simulation wrapped on top of what he expected to see. Either way, it reaffirms the idea that a simulation could not itself notice that there is a boundry to the world without the outside reaching in, and that even if you do "get out", how can you be assured that what you now percieve as reality is in fact not a simulation anymore?

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[BrianGKUAC]

So what's being proposed is an idea for coming up with ideas with regards to breaking a system that defines the system in which we have ideas.

Sounds kinda like trying to unmount a filesystem using a utility contained on the filesystem you're trying to unmount.

How very productive.

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong and right. First of all, Mathematical truths are not defined; the language expressing those truth is. You can define '1', '+', '=', and '2' however you'd like. However, given the definitions Mathematicians have given them, the proposition that the sentence '1 + 1 = 2' expresses is true, regardless of any physical reality of any universe, virtual or not. For the proof that 1 + 1 = 2, there are no assumptions. All that is used are logical inferences. It is analytically true.

This brings us to your second point, about which you are actually right: our logical inferences are suspect because we cannot help thinking "logically". It is out nature. In fact, for all we know, there could be an evil dæmon (whether supernatural or computational) tricking us every time we add 1 and 1. It could be obvious to truly rational beings (such as deities and residents of the über-reality) that 1 + 1 = 3, but this dæmon plays with our minds and gets us to err every time we make that calculation, mistakenly concluding that 1 + 1 = 2. Thus, logic itself is in doubt. However, according to said logic, your first point is still wrong.

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[mmortal03]

Yeah, but it can just pull itself up by its bootstraps, so no problem there at all.

Re:We can prove a ton of things inside a box.

[Anonymous Coward]

Argh...

*those truths
*our nature

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[hung_himself]

I'm glad that I'm not alone in thinking of Anselm's ontological arguments. That's the first thing that popped into my head, that this is just a modern variant of "since God is the greatest and existing is greater than not existing God must exist". Most of the students (including many CS and physics types as this course satisfied their Arts requirements) in my intro philosophy course many years ago, bit and tried to argue the "existing is greater than not existing" clause rather than the problem with defining into existence.

So maybe there was some merit in forcing science majors to take other courses...

Re:No meaningful argument *against* simulism eithe

[TrnsltLife]

"What you say is (mostly) true enough, but it doesn't follow that Simulism is nonsense. It is non-testable, at least as far as we know from our perspective, and therefore falls outside of the realm of science. But it may nonetheless be true."

Actually, that brings up an interesting point. Apparently what is "outside the realm of science" is actually relative to the context of the would-be scientist. For example, given the presupposition that there is in fact a simulation, this fact might be scientifically untestable to would-be scientists inside the simulation. However, the scientists outside of the simulation could easily test and prove that it was a simulation, because they were the ones running it.

Thus, a question can be scientific for one person, but not scientific for another, relative to their situations. The applicability of the scientific method to a given situation is relative!

The universe is the computer

[michaelepley]

Simple: There is infinite computing power available in a constantly expanding universe, because the temperature of the universe will never reach absolute zero, just asymptotically approach it. In addition, a simultation running in such a universe can simulate infinite universes each with their own infinite computing power, and run such simulations as fast as it pleases.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[OwnedByTwoCats]

e^(i*pi)-1=0

Except that e^(i*pi)-1 = -2.

It is usually expressed e^(i*pi)+1 = 0.

A wonderfully fundamental equation, featuring 5 of the most interesting numbers: 0, 1, pi, e, and i, and the three fundamental operations of arithmatic: addition, multiplication, and exponentiation.

The reality of the reality

[caseih]

I don't think it particularly matters if we are in some kind of metaphysical simulation or not. If there is some sort of uber virtual reality, the simulation, and thus simulator, would have to be so large and so complex that it would also itself be reality. On a smaller scale, if you want to simulate every single aspect of a system (and I do mean *everything* about it), then you've pretty much created the system itself again, albeit in some sort of equivalent way. Supposing such a simulation existed, and it was in some sort of computer, for argument's sake, and being in a computer it allowed reality of size x to be modeled in a much smaller, finite space, then if you run multiple realities in parallel, that's pretty much the equivalent of the multiple universe theory. So as far as we're concerned it's the exact same thing!

Additionally, reality being some kind of "VR" begs all kinds of questions. Like how was the VR created (it's existence as a simulation implies it was created). What is the "reality" that the simulator resides in? If the VR was created, how was it created? Does this imply some sort of intelligence at work here? The only possible interesting thing that could come about if reality is some sort of simulation is whether or not there are glitches in the simulation. Everything else, if it ran perfectly, is irrelevant because the simulation would be indistinguishable from any form of reality.

Re:The reality of the reality

[evann]

Supposing such a simulation existed, and it was in some sort of computer, for argument's sake, and being in a computer it allowed reality of size x to be modeled in a much smaller, finite space, then if you run multiple realities in parallel, that's pretty much the equivalent of the multiple universe theory. So as far as we're concerned it's the exact same thing! don't think that think the multiple universe theory is comparable to running mutliple OS in virtualization on the same box. It isn't a "parallel" universe. It has more to do with the states/spins/vibrations/circles/movements/forces between the most incomprehensibly sized (or not sized) particles and the "properties" of them, of which we can barely figure out.

I think the idea of a virtual reality universe to be way off though. It would have to be a perfect quantum computing machine, computing everything from pain to pleasure, to making a star form that lets us recognize the heat produced.

the universe may be (essentially) 1's and 0's in the end, all entangled with eachother as they follow some rules. but it's self centered and ignorant to think we know what's going on and to ponder stuff like VR universe when we can't even see what physics and life is like "around the block", for ourselves.

Re:The reality of the reality

[j00r0m4nc3r]

How would you know they were glitches?

Re:The reality of the reality

[caseih]

If you experience deja vu I guess. In seriousness, though, if some law of physics could be broken, but not always reliably, I suppose. Of course that presupposes that we understand said laws of physics.

Re:The reality of the reality

[turing_m]

"Additionally, reality being some kind of "VR" begs all kinds of questions. Like how was the VR created (it's existence as a simulation implies it was created). What is the "reality" that the simulator resides in? If the VR was created, how was it created?"

Very clever young man, very clever. But it's VR simulators all the way down!

I saw a constellation shaped like */

[SlappyBastard]

Fuck! We're not even part of the simulation! We're just the end of a fucking comment!?!?!

The exanding universe computer

[michaelepley]

Simple: There is infinite computing power available in a constantly expanding universe, because the temperature of the universe will never reach absolute zero, just asymptotically approach it. In addition, a simulation running in such a universe can simulate infinite universes each with their own infinite computing power, and run such simulations as fast as it pleases.

the map is not the territory.

[11oh8]

the map is not the territory.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

Are you insane? You don't even have to click the link.

"A federal court recently ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions",[9] and the institute's manifesto, the Wedge strategy, describes a religious goal: to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."[10][11]"

A Quick Test to find out if this is a simulation..

[theJML]

Just say "Computer, Arch!". Damn, no arch. Must not be a simulation.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[khellendros1984]

I consider myself as conducting a life-long experiment, which will eventually be duplicated (one way or the other) by every human in history. Although, it will be difficult to revise my hypothesis if there is no God, and therefore (probably) no afterlife =/

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[TrnsltLife]

It's not science for us if we are in a simulation. However, if there are scientists running the simulation, "Is this computer program a simulation of a universe" would be a scientific question. So, the applicability of scientific inquiry is relative to the situation of the would-be scientist.

What is unscientific for one person may be scientific for a person in a different situation.

Thus, we shouldn't say, "this is not science", but rather "this is not science for me".

Proof of God, too!

[IceCreamGuy]

It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too. He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. Well fscking duh, what a worthless statement! How about "What if God exists? It should be possible to do experiments verifying the existence of God. If we can prove that God exists, then surely... there is a God." Is this guy serious? I mean, you could say that about anything! Can I make news headlines by hypothesizing something ridiculous, and then conclude with "it should be provable, but I don't know how..."? I can't believe people get away with this hack-science BS. Now, I haven't done any research on this guy whatsoever, but he sounds like the kind of person who has a nice degree and title but just doesn't know how to do science, just a wannabe, half-assed sensationalist. It's like when Amal Graafstra http://www.amal.net/rfid.html got an RFID implant in 2005 and called himself "the first human cyborg." No. You're not the first human cyborg, you're a hack moron who figured out how to exploit today's scientifically-challenged media. Wake me up when somebody actually has a way to test this.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[spun]

That's not how scientists think. If it were, there would be no scientific progress. Instead, young scientists seeking to make a name for themselves routinely question the status quo. You are confusing evolution with abiogenesis, they are two different fields of study. And there are no reputable scientists who simply stop at "Life was created by random chance." Instead, they are making plenty of testable hypothesis, unlike the ID crowd, who make no testable hypothesis.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[EagleEye101]

Well fine. If you want to say that for God, how would it be without God then. You say its an infinite loop to explain God well its the same for explaining the universe. How did all this mass come into existence anyway...

Windows

[Plazmid]

I sure hope the computers running the Universal VR simulation don't run on Windows.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[OwnedByTwoCats]

So many misconceptions, so little time.

Yes, Evolution was banned because it contradicted the written word of God... in 1925. Evolution is right, not because it opposes religion, but because it has been repeatedly tested by comparing evidence with predictions of the theory.

Arguments that oppose Evolution also oppose verifiable observations, and must be discarded because they are wrong. You can claim religions persecution for being locked out of science class when you want to insist that the moon is made of green cheese, or that the sky is red at night and green during the day. Good luck with that.

The only fundamental difference between the two is that Evolution is a testable and tested scientific theory backed up by over a century of evidence, while ID is rehashed creationism, a religions belief contradicted by evidence and illegal (and unwise) to teach in public school science classrooms.

One final clue: Evolution does not speak at all to the origin of life.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Attila Dimedici]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules. You know it would be good if you actually knew something about a position before you lampoon it. ID says that we can see signs that the universe (life in particular) was designed by an Intelligence, just like SETI can determine that a radio signal had an intelligent source or archaeologists can tell that an object was shaped by a human hand not by random natural forces.
So what this guy is suggesting is a subset of ID theory.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Minwee]

It's watchmakers all the way up.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[porcupine8]

Maybe not everyone needs a "chain of logical arguments" to convince them that God exists? Or of other things - I don't have any logical arguments to convince me that my husband loves me. Logically, it's just as likely that having and raising children is very very important to him, and he believes that I will be an excellent mother, and so he wants to take good care of me and make me happy so that I will help him raise children. That could, potentially, be indistinguishable from him actually loving me, but still I believe that he does love me. Amazingly enough, being a scientist does not automatically meant that I must be 100% logical in all things - I am a human scientist, after all, not Vulcan.

You also do not have to believe "you may not question that" to believe "He just exists." You can easily believe that you can question it all you want - but a) questioning it doesn't make it less true and b) the fact that you can't get good answers to your questions right now doesn't make it less true. Maybe someday we'll know the answers to those questions, maybe not. Maybe our piddly little brains just aren't capable of comprehending whatever it is that created God, so we can physically never know.

Hmm

[jeffxbaker]

where do i click to change my wifes avatar

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jcaldwel]

that life was created by random chance

Read much of evolution theory? Evolution is not fundamentally a random process. DNA Mutation happens all the time. Some put it at 17 mutations per person per generation. Pit that against billions of years of time, and the common-sense notion that some variations ensure their own survival (survival of the fittest), and voila, you have evolution at its grad scale.

May I suggest the book Climbing Mount Improbable for a better/more complete explanation.

There is no Fork

[WillAffleckUW]

There is only Spoon.

Seriously tho, it's not digital, because we don't perceive things digitally, we perceive them as biochemical processes that are impacted by waves and they're not digital or even binary by any measure.

This is like saying that trees are digital because they are either there or not there, when we all know there is a difference between a ten foot growing tree and a ten foot dead tree and a five foot dying tree and a non-tree that was clearcut by someone.

Science: limited by the tools we use and the methods we use, and the concepts used to drive the process.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[VE3MTM]

To which I respond: "God is the greatest jelly doughnut in existance".

I actually showed that comic to my philosophy prof. He thought I was weird.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Kupek]

Actually, he does point out a way to falsify the theory: find a physical phenomenon which is not calculable.

Complete and total BLASPHEMY!

[DrPeper]

Assuming there is a God.

If the universe is a simulation, is God the computer running the simulation or the beings that created the simulation? Or is God an element that was programed into the simulation. Or did he/she/it evolve as a necessity of the simulation?

And what happens if the simulation computer blue screens? Or could we make it blue screen by having a computer (in our simulation reality) calculate the value of SQRT(infinity).

Could we slow the universal simulation computer down by having a virtual machine create infinite sub virtual machines?

What happens if we create our own universal simulation computer?

I am SO not going to heaven.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[JWSmythe]

Ahhh, and you've figured it out.

    Hallucinations are hallucinations. It doesn't matter if they're induced by illegal drugs, abused products (like the DXM in Robitussin, the nitrous oxide in whipped cream cans, or other of thousands of abused products), lack of sleep, or lack of oxygen to the brain, they're all still hallucinations.

    A few that have been passed on to me have been...

    Are they giant purple lizards crawling along the roof tops, following you around?

    Separating from your body, having your spirit become one with the universe, being everywhere, and then thinking to yourself, "I had a body once. I wonder what that was like..." only to be slammed back into reality a few seconds later.

    The ceiling turning into a gridwork, then the cells of the grid being filled with green paisley patterns, which all began to spin simultaniously. The sound of the music turned into taste and color, and your body becomes one with the waves of music.

    Or..

    Lying in a bed, a dark spirit floats above you, with an evil face, and large tattered black wings, who simply says "it's not your time yet", and then disappears.

    Some people relate that when hallucinating, they are easily guided into their hallucination, either through ideas that have been impressed upon them before, or during the hallucination. "Are those ants all over your body??". We've all heard of the floating spirit hallucination, and the light at the end of the tunnel hallucination. Since those have been so impressed on us as the way it's going to be, it's very easy for that to be a driving factor in such hallucinations.

    In my only near death experiences, I saw .... black .... Lots of nothing. There's nothing in the great beyond, because I have no preconceptions to guide my hallucinations.

The obvious question is...

[jurt1235]

Does it run under linux?

Re:The obvious question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

A system that kicks that much ass would probably run over Linux, back up a few times, and do donuts on it just for fun without even dropping a cycle.

Re:The obvious question is...

[Katatsumuri]

Yeah, and while you're at it, imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!

Re:The obvious question is...

[m0llusk]

How to make a Beowulf cluster out of these universe thingies.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[porcupine8]

there is no evidence for the supernatural

As another poster pointed out, it depends on what you accept as evidence. If you define evidence only as a highly-controlled experiment that has been reproduced multiple times, then no, there is no evidence. But in everyday life (and even in science sometimes, shhh, don't tell anyone!) sometimes we accept other things as evidence. If you saw a rare bird that is only sighted in your state about once a year, and took pictures of it and everything, likely that would be enough evidence for yourself that you saw that bird. If you post those pics online, they may not be enough evidence for someone else - you might have photoshopped them, or if there are no identifying landmarks then you may have taken them in another state where the bird is more common.

Now, would the fact that someone online doesn't believe you make you question whether or not you saw the rare bird? You have a photo that you remember taking in your own backyard. YOU can see that it's your own backyard. You know you don't even own photoshop. Of course you're still going to believe that you saw the damn bird. You've got enough evidence for yourself, but possibly not enough evidence to convince anyone else.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[VE3MTM]

Bizarre... so now the phrase "everything is relative" applies to science itself?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jcaldwel]

Near death experiences can also be induced by the drug ketamine.

Some predictions

[ammoQ]

Assuming a (large but) finite digital Computer is used for the VR, some predictions can be made, e.g. .) existence of time quants .) existence of space quants .) existence of effects caused by rounding errors

and of course .) existence of a "Theory of Everything" (though this preciction seems impossible to prove incorrect)

IMO, if the theory assumes a computer that is either infinite or non-digial, it's most likely untestable and therefore worthless.

I've said it before...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and I'll say it again, the answers are inside not outside. Experimentation on the physical world will only measure the concensus reality create by our collective [un]*conciousness. LSD, DMT, mescaline, psilocybin and similar compounds are the real gateways to real knowledge.

*It's those voices deep down, the feeling of anothers presence, its the reason musically irrelevent bands can suddenly become popular with a catchy tune--only to plumett to obscurity, its the root cause of the joy of (good) music (an amalgamation of thoughts in true union, experiencing each note with you [if you don't believe me, take a large dose of acid, and listen to The Doors]).

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[JWSmythe]

    Why does the god entity have to be a single being? Or why does it have to be categorized into a sexual role (male or female), when those roles are part of our reproduction, which aparently isn't necessary.

    But if there is any credibility to the VR idea, why does the god entity have to be a single unit? You'd think that a VR of any significant size would be coded by more than one entity. If it was a dozen humans, half male, and half female, all of the 'god' role, which is most proper, to address it as 'he', 'she', 'it', or 'they'.

    Buy hey, polytheism was very popular for many years. It's more recently that the monotheistic religions were forced on most people.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[khellendros1984]

I believe that life isn't too complex to have been generated by natural laws; on the contrary, said laws were designed by a creator with the express purpose of generating the life we see.

"He" is just a convenient grammatical construct to refer to a God, which I actually suspect is genderless. Appearing to a male-dominated society, "He" took on a male persona, which is how we now think of Him.

As to the question of how God came to exist, the Bible school answer would be "He just always has". Personally, I think that before the universe was created, time was undefined, so "always" loses its meaning. There wasn't some amount of aeons of time with God sitting doing nothing.....of course, I don't have any evidence that it's not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down ;-)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Some apples are green, are all apples green? No.

Even the Vatican is starting to back Evolution. Not all Christ-lovers are insanely trying to get ID accepted as science.

I guess...

[JustNiz]

>>> He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual."

I guess the problem is to identify what that thing is, given everything we understand such as logic, math, and physics in order to allow us to reason about things are based on laws inherent in whatever model forms our virtual existence.
Perhaps the laws (if any) that govern the 'real' reality are different to ours, infinitely more complex, simple, or not even constant. There's not really any reason I can see that they necessarily have to be the same, or are even likely to be the same. Consequently our reasoning about 'real' reality based on our rules wouldn't even make sense.

Agrees with Mystical Judaism

[Anonymous Coward]

The mystical branch of Judaism, Kabbalah, teaches that all of creation is simulated.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[mysticgoat]

You appear to be conflating Christianity with Intelligent Design.

Are you sure you want to present that appearance?

It does look pretty dumb.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[hoppo]

This assumes the existence of God is dependent on on the available god-theory constructs. Of course, that then suggests existence of anything is dependent upon human perception, which is itself a fallible and unprovable philosophical belief.

Can we even...

[ShiNoKaze]

Can we even concieve inputs into our head that operate on anything other than the existing electric impulses goin on in our heads right now? Because that's all we would replicate and all we would know to test would go into our brain in exactly the same fashion as all the lovely VR things will one day do. The results of any test we would do would just go into our heads as the ones and zeros we already think in. This would prove nothing. If it would, please explain.

Brilliant!

[alienmole]

Added to my quote file!

Re:Brilliant!

[Minwee]

Just make sure you put it next to the original quote and the concept that it followed into a dark alley and beat up.

Re:Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Phooey. We live in a giant VR simulation called SimUniverse that runs on a PS30000 owned by a sadistic god-tot. He owns one other game too, called Universe of Warcraft.

Oh, and I have a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.

Re:Brilliant!

[ginbot462]

Oh, and I have a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.

That's funny, I had that proof too. But it was so deep and undermodded in a slashdot thread that no one saw it.

And look how big that margin is! You could drive a truck through it. Jerky bastard...

Self-Referential Mod +1

Re:Brilliant!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Apparently God-tot also likes World of Rape Children To Deathcraft and World of Live The Last Sixty Years Of Your Life As A Conscious Vegetable Trapped Inside Your Brain With No Sensory Input And No Motor Control Experiencing Horrific Pain And Unending Nightmarescraft.

Which also applies if Yahweh is in charge.

Re:Brilliant!

[alienmole]

Yes, I understood the references, that's why I said it was brilliant. (Can hardly imagine someone thinking it brilliant otherwise...)

Re:Brilliant!

[Minwee]

True, but we have a larger audience to consider. Hundreds of years from now, historians will look back on this day and say "Meh". It is important that they know just why they are saying that.

Re:Brilliant!

[alienmole]

Meh. :)

Re:The Matrioshka Paradox

[tompaulco]

Then, it must by definition exist inside another universe.If WE created a simulated universe, then that simulations creator would exist in a universe. But if we are a created simulation it does not require that the creator exists in a universe.

Maybe we SHOULD care

[EB FE]

Not necessarily. As a developer, when you run a bunch of testcases, if you find a bug, you don't halt everything in the debugger and fix the bug immediately, you just wait until it's all over, fix the bug, and re-start the test run. Interesting thought... and maybe black holes are our universe's structured exception handlers! Something goes awry and *sluuurrrp* handled!!

Re:No meaningful argument *against* simulism eithe

[Plutonite]

It is specifically this non-testability that makes it "nonsense". I can make any number of (non-testable) statements that are even more outrageous - whether or not they seem like a "distinct possibility" is unimportant. Things that are "outside the realm of science" should not concern us, because we cannot waste our time on things that "may" be true while stating that they are positively unprovable. It's a dead end. We get nothing out of it, except slashdot stories.

As for simulating the quantum mechanical universe, that is a debatable topic, and we definitely will not have the resources to have that kind of simulation on the scale of a universe anytime soon methinks. I'd like to see a complete model of quantum physics first before we talk about simulating things.

Prove something in a box to Schroedinger!

[Dareth]

You can't even tell me if his cat is alive or not!

Re:Prove something in a box to Schroedinger!

[darkstar949]

If you sit and wait long enough I can assure you that the cat will not be alive.

Here goes nuthin.

[Thirdsin]

As much as i don't believe in this...

I'd like to extended our most gracious welcome to our new VR overlords.

PS dear overlords, all that stuff you know... about the stuff, in the past... you know, can we just start fresh? k thx!

Re:Here goes nuthin.

[digitalgiblet]

Where have all the slashdotters gone?

LOOK how long it took someone to welcome our new VR overlords!

Me, I can't help but think of one thing: imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!!

Re:Here goes nuthin.

[Thirdsin]

In the midst of a reply about our new overlords, they struck with a mighty tumultuous fury taking down Slashdot! Greeted with this 503 Unavailable, i was awe struck! Our overlords are truely powerful deities!

No really, i couldnt get back on Slashdot for at least 10min(started 6:05pmEST), then i stopped trying and likely exacerbating the problem. Crazyness.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[MenTaLguY]

An attack on ID is not an attack on Christianity, however. I'm not insane, but I am a Christian who is rather pissed off with the Discovery Institute crowd at this point. They have their own ideas about what a "science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" means, but we already sorted this stuff out theologically in the late medieval period, in a way that was considerably friendlier to honest science. The ID folks are relying on the average modern's ignorance to try and and replace that with their own "solution" that relies on dodgy science, at the expense of orthodox theology.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[ScottB74]

I have always been puzzled from the opposite direction. As complex as our ever increasing understanding of science gets, how can people think that everything just happened by chance. What are the odds that every living organism that is currently still here survived the thousands of required generations of revisions to be where they are today? This by itself seems to me to be enough for the Intelligent Design theory to at least be addressed seriously.

Finite tape = finite states

[Tungbo]

"real turing machines don't have infinite tapes"

Actually, if the tape is finite, then the TM is equivalent to a finite state automata. It means that eventually a state must be repeated and then the FSA will go into a loop. This is a very limited class of computing model. If you believe that the universe is finite, then this can make sense. Consequently, history MUST repeat itself!

The evidences so far don't support a finite universe. But Fredkin could be right (Look up digital physics).

Re:Finite tape = finite states

[starX]

New Science Disagreed

I support the theory of the universe as a DFA. If you knew the governing rules of the universe as well as every quantum state of every particle in the universe, you could calculate both the past and the future with perfect accuracy. But that's a little like saying if you had a pinch of fairy dust and a happy thought, you could fly to Neverland.

Re:Finite tape = finite states

[MarsDefenseMinister]

That's exactly what I said. The idea that the state eventually repeats if the simulated turing machine does not halt is the basis of my algorithm.

Re:Finite tape = finite states

[ginbot462]

I could be misreading you, so I apologize if that's the case.

I think you are confusing a finite number of states (or maybe a finite language) with finite tape. Here's a decent link explaining TM's with finite tape:

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/turing.htm

The problem with saying TMs reduce to a finite state automata, is that usually implies a DFA which doesn't write any information back to the system. That is - no storage, no heap, no stack. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability_theory_(computer_science)

Re:Finite tape = finite states

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but that just means you need a WHOLE bunch of states, and the states represent not only the TM state, but also the state of the stack, heap, etc. Of course, this makes for a very large DFA, but there's nothing wrong with that, so long as the F part still holds. Usually considering computers as TMs is much more useful, since the number of states in a DFA representation would be 2^(number of bits of ram)*(A bunch of other state stuff). Also there's the fact that computers do interact with the world, so if a computation ran out of memory it could pop up a little message box saying "Insert more ram". If you look at a computer that way, the question of whether it's a DFA becomes the same as asking whether the universe is a DFA.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Near-something experiences. Only those who've died can validate your statement!

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[MarkVVV]

God's answer to that is a simple sentence: "I AM" Really, dude. God is capable of creating entire universes and living beings...we're not on a high enough knowledge level to understand how things really came to be, but that doesn't stop us from trying. What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it. You can't ask who created God, because creation (by the way we understand it) implies "time", a dimension that God Himself created. Do you even understand what "Eternity" means? It's not a "infinite period of time", you can be sure of that...

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

This New Zealander is just a sham, plagarizing, bafoon...

His very notion of a VR reality is parralleling DesCartes' Meditations, and stealing from the Matrix. Just a mish-mesh of the two ideas...

As for 'first cause', simple anthropomorphic tendencies always get in the way, we are programmed that way (no pun intended), and with no other perspective to view this idea from. Therefore, when 'first cause' arguments arise our peon brains cannot do anything more than mutilate the idea into cirrcular reasoning. The idea is just too incomprehensible for us to fit in our pee brains...

Now that's what I call...

[BlueMud]

...thinking outside of the box!

Well if it's a simulation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we just break into debug mode and see what's happening?

> p this->timeToLive

We assume we are what they intend to simulate?

[cappadocius]

and it can be paused OR ALTERED at will, the VR simulation could self-correct for any flaw we discover by simply rewriting the memories of any experiences we had, or deleting and replaying that part of the simulation with different variables.

The idea that a VR simulation could or would rewrite our memories implicitly contains the assumption that we are what is being simulated. That's not a forgone conclusion. Perhaps we are merely the accidental by-product of the simulation. Perhaps the simulators do not even know that we exist. Even if they do, whose to say that they understand the way our brains function to the extent that can change our memories? Or would care to.

You can never rule out being in a simulation if you let a simulation mean anything, but you can rule out being in certain types of simulations.

Re:We assume we are what they intend to simulate?

[ChronosWS]

It's true, we can rule out certain simulations. Specifically, those simulations which would be unable to simulate us. Whatever simulation we are in specifically has thus far simulated our existence up to this point, or which have been started now and for which we have memories of events up to this point. See Last Thursdayism.

What's worse is that just because you exist now and remember a "past" there is no guarantee that the future you are about to enter in to is part of the same simulation, or that the rules are necessarily the same, since any memories you will have then could similarly have been simulated. Getting the feeling of mental masturbation yet?

Re:We assume we are what they intend to simulate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting the feeling of mental masturbation yet?

No, but the stench of intellectual arrogance is prevalent.

Seriously, you argue well enough without needing to be petty about your poor parent posters, of which I'm not one.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

OK, I don't understand the conflict that lead you to post. There is only one apple I addressed: the discovery institute. GP says that DI's notion of ID is not strictly Christian. I countered with a legal ruling that DIs purpose is religious and Christian. Please explain your retort in this context. I did not make any comments about Christians.

I saw this movie....

[seededfury]

The Matrix right? We exist to power the machines.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

I agree with everything you said in this comment. But I would still say that the DI's ideas about ID are most definitely synonymous with whatever crazy-ass brand of Christianity they push.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

I consider myself as conducting a life-long experiment, which will eventually be duplicated (one way or the other) by every human in history.

Heh... if you haven't read Borges, you need to. Now.

I can think of ways to test it.

[LionKimbro]

Here's a few, off the top of my head:

Try to tweak out the computer the system runs on.

Put a lot of very complex activity in a very small space. Look for weird statistical deviations. Try to identify the "system calls," by timing different interactions. Look for non-local effects that shouldn't be. Look for boundary places. Do machines break anywhere? Do we find bizarre "bugs" anywhere, places where the laws of physics are not simple and elegant, not at all?

Seems simple enough to me; Just "go out and look." (Though, just because it's simple, it certainly doesn't mean it's cheap. The nearest evidence might only be found in some small cubic centimeter within the Bootes void, or something like that...)

Re:I can think of ways to test it.

[cnettel]

Detecting a well-implemented simulation is hard. It's like trying to determine for sure that you're in a VM from user mode, when you haven't even been told what a non-VM would look like. Arguments like timing assume that somehow we would still be simulated in real time. While possible, there is no reason to do it that way. If I write an explicit time-stepping scheme in a for loop, the scheme won't be affected if my code is swapped out and then loaded again. I can even hibernate the machine and start it up later, the simulated environment will be totally unaffected.

Re:I can think of ways to test it.

[LionKimbro]

I have read about people who have written IPC mechanisms that rely on nothing but the presence of another programming running on the same computer. No sockets, no shared memory; Just: "Run on the same computer as I am."

The way it worked, I understand, is that one process would gum up the kernel, by making a bunch of kernel-intensive requests. The other process would "listen," by timing how long it took requests to be fulfilled.

Similar but different: People wrote code to make old tape disk containers sing or dance, by playing tape forward quickly, or then yanking it backwards quickly, in patterns that caused sound or resonant motion.

In a given simulation, there is often some exposure of the simulator itself. If the simulated environment is complex, and let's say-- Turing complete, then I think there's a case that the simulator itself is almost always visible, in some way.

Regardless of the probabilities: This is how you can test it. It could come up positive, in which case, you very likely know. Or it could turn up negative, in which case -- well, we still don't know.

Re:A Quick Test to find out if this is a simulatio

[Prof.Phreak]

Just say "Computer, Arch!". Damn, no arch. Must not be a simulation.

They fixed that bug a while ago!

Theory: The Universe is a pinball machine

[Digital_Mercenary]

The Universe is a pinball machine... Great changes happen in this universe when its creator/Creators hit the pinball machine with their hips...

Tilt = end of game
Reset = New Universe, New Game

Proof? Using flippers to keep the ball in play, only its not you controlling them...

Nuff said!

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[xhrit]

great. I am sure there are a lot ov people in psychiatric wards who need your insight. they have enough evidence for themselves, but possibly not enough evidence to convince anyone else.

A Matter of Semantics

[bradgoodman]

Tiny Thought experiment:

-- Let's build an engine....

-- no, a tiny engine...

-- maybe not of metal, of plastic...-- let's make it really tiny...

-- Maybe I can just burn it in an FPGA, and if I pulse the output pins, they'll actually move from the alternating fields...

-- Maybe I can do this in software, instead of an FPGA

Where is the line between the actual "thing" and the simulation?

Does the "thing" have to physically "move" something to make it "real"? Perhaps there could be a Turing test for that.

What if it was implemented in software - for something in the software, it would pass such a Turing test. For something outside, it might not. So to say if it is a simulation or not depends only on perspective.

So are we on the "outermost" layer? Is there an "outermost" layer? Probably notThe whole world [of physics] is filled with these hints at us - for example of the universe being 10 or 11 dimensions, though we can only observe 3 (or 4).

Things like String Theory describe math and geometry in ways that are pretty much impractical to us, and only make sense from a mathematical perspective. From this vantage point, it looks almost as though we are affects of some bizzare equation or geometry. As almost nonsensical as these models appear to be, they describe more about the universe in better ways than we can possibly perceive. Conecpts of time, space, matter and energy aren't as "tangible" and "absolute" as we perceive.

If you are religious, and believe in a spirit, God, afterlife, heaven, hell, or whatever - than guess what, you agree with this concept - If god is "Everywhere" or "all around us" - then there is a greater tapestry of reality that what we can see - we're just a piece of it.

Wether its mathematics, spirituality, or a bunch of geeks running an MMORPG on a giant supercomputer in another dimension - we're a part of something larger that what we understand - we're in it - and that's probably as close the to definition of a "behavioral simulation" as you can come.

Are we just a simulation? Bill Clinton would probably say: "It depends on what your definition of 'simulaton' is."

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[pembo13]

The problem is some "Christians" have spoiled it for those of us who identify ourselves as Christians while still having a strong aptitude for science. Any misconceptions of Christians as strictly anti-science are really "our" own fault.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

The post you refer to stated that ID is not synonymous with Christianity. While believers of ID may be Christians, Christians are not necessarily believers in ID. The link you provide merely stated that believers in ID are Christian. You fail to refute the parent's premise, but manage to come off sounding like an ass.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jafuser]

What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it.

Why do you have to be "pissed off"? Why not just let people believe what they want and go on with your life?

Re:A Quick Test to find out if this is a simulatio

[cnettel]

It's just that Ev...Deanna accidentally damaged the isolinear chips handling the security protocols when she tried to grab an apple.

God isn't threadsafe.

[C10H14N2]

See, you just proved God doesn't understand threading and has crappy exception handling leading to massive memory leaks, which should explain quite a few things about black holes, string theory and why all programming books insist on beginning with "Hello, world." /Creepy. My captcha was "Programs." Shudder.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[CigarBuff]

this has always puzzled me.
i can't see believing in god as something that can withstand simple questions.
i mean, if the life on earth is too complex to have originated on itself and somebody created it, then that how did that somebody come to be ? did somebody else create him (and why not her ;) ) ?
if somebody else, we get into a loop, where we still have to break out at some point.
if not, then there can be no scientific, critical thinking that could accept the "he just exists, you may not question that".
so how could a chain of logical arguments convince a person of gods existence ?

God's existence and God's beginning are two distinctly different topics to discuss. But isn't it pretty much the same with the Universe itself? I mean, even if you accept the big bang theory, the contents that exploded had to come from somewhere, right? Just because you can't explain it's beginning, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not him, so I won't claim to speak for him, but your legal ruling does not suggest or reinforce a notion that DI's ID is Christian. The purpose of DI is religious and Christian, while their notion of ID can and does remain their own, not Christian. Perhaps if the DI had some manifest authority to speak for or claim to represent the dominant discourse of the much larger group referred to as "Christians", you would have a point. Basically, the DI is only capable of pushing DI'stianity. People remain capable and responsible for having their own beliefs. Just because someone out there has a crazy one, doesn't mean I have that crazy one too, right?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This whole thread is really bumming out my acid trip.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[mea37]

GP says that DI's notion of ID is not strictly Christian

No, that isn't what he said. What he said is that ID and Christianity are not interchangeable terms. Specifically, he said that a previous comment that spoke against ID was not speaking against Christianity, and that the response (which defended Christians in general, not ID supporters) was based on a failure to recognize that distinction.

I'd suggest you go back and read the exchange again.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lgw]

Accepting the "scientific" definition of "evidence" has been proven to allow far more accurate predictions about how the world works that ofther definitions of "evidence". Of course, you're free to use "what I read in the Bible" or any other definition of "evidence" for your own decision making process, by by doing so you choose a process proven inferior. But hey, whatever makes you happy.

But it's a tricky question...

[Junta]

Firefox may decide in that case it just somehow modeled that aspect of its universe wrong or incompletely, and that 1,216 MB of mystery memory that doesn't make sense is merely 'dark memory' that must certainly exist, but simply can't be dealt with like the rest of the memory can be.

Such an inconsistency to us would be so potentially complex our advanced physicists would be hard pressed to be sure it simply can't be at all possible rather than our understanding not be quite right about what is really possible.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Diarhea!

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Hallucinogens are fucking awesome.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[sound vision]

Fun fact: the powerful hallucinogen DMT is naturally produced in the human brain.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same experience after smoking weed that had been buried in a plastic bag in the woods for two years, gone moldy and was basically grey-green powder...

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lgw]

OK, let's say that God exists. Which one? We've imagined about a million of em. Pick the wrong one and you go to Hell for sure.

Stipulating that some god or goddess or pantheon exists, please provide proof (or even a little evidence) that your religious views won't doom yourself and everyone who listens to you to eternal torment.

The thing about statements that can't be falsified is that they have 0 predictive power. True or false, it doesn't matter: no reason to care.

What if God got sloppy?

[davidwr]

If the universe is a VR and the entity running the VR didn't want us to be able to tell it was a VR, we wouldn't. The entity would make sure of it.

But what if the entity didn't care or got sloppy so there was a visible "hole" in the system?

In practical virtual computers, there are holes in the system. The most obvious two are 1) inaccurate/unfaithful simulations and 2) timing differences compared to real hardware. Software which is aware of how things should be can tell it's not running on real hardware. It is conceivable that software that was unaware of how things should be could, over time, spot internal inconsistencies that would lead it to conclude that it was probably not running on actual hardware. Conceivable, not likely.

So, in order to "test" this "theory" that we are living in a simulated environment, 1) there must some internally-detectable inconsistency that would lead one to reasonably conclude we aren't living in a self-consistent universe, i.e. we are living in a sloppy simulation, 2) we must be smart enough to spot this inconsistency for what it is, and 3) the entity running the simulation doesn't take any action to thwart our discovery, such as patching the simulation, erasing our memory, etc. Even if we were in a simulation, the odds of #2 are slim to none.

Personally, I think that for the present time and for the forseeable future, any claim that the universe is a simulation is untestable and therefore unscientific.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[cromar]

I'll ask you this: where did existence/reality come from? It just exists, and you may not question that. I'm not arguing for the existence of a higher power, but this is very tricky logical territory. Also, the existence of a higher power cannot be disproven, it's just that the hypothesis that one does exist is not scientifically useful.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[tbg58]

There are reasonable people on both sides of the question of god's existence. In this case, the issue is one of causality. Specifically, the "it's watchmakers all the way up" fails because it posits an infinite series of causes.

We exist right now at a point in the series of causation. But an infinite series cannot be traversed, so the infinite series of watchmakers cannot lead us to any present we are part of.

This doesn't connote necessarily the existence of god. It does mandate at some point a cause which is uncaused, non-contingent and necessarily existing as the foundation of existence, but there is no purely logical reason that says a higher order universe cannot have these attributes.

The idea that what we experience as the universe is a VR simulation really doesn't advance the question about ultimate being at all, it just moves it down (or up) one layer.

Ultimately, though, since all we know and experience is both caused and contingent (including the universe itself) there must be something uncaused and non-contingent behind it. Non-being cannot give rise to being, so self-creation is out as well. Again, this doesn't on purely logical grounds have to be god, and even if one suggests that god is the ground of being this sort of argumentation doesn't come anywhere near proving the existence of any particular god.

In my own case I am a theist, but I have reasonable friends who disbelieve on reasonable grounds (I also have both theistic and atheistic friends who are unreasonable - I hope I'm not falling into that camp by this post). Hope this helps a bit at least to clarify the implications of the concept of causality.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[letxa2000]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules.

ID does not suggest that we not use science to understand our environment.

Dark Matter & Energy, Unified Field Theory, et

[scarboni888]

I've personally felt it would be worth it to prove or disprove the virtual reality scenario of reality since it just might explain why the physics of the very small is so completely incompatible with the physics of the macro world. Also would help to explain such seemingly 'magical' forces as gravity - which, while the effects of which were accurately described by Newton, nonetheless bothered him to no end in explanation of cause. And how come gravity & the other 'magical forces' like electromagnetism seem to have no correlation?

Don't even get me started with "Dark Matter" - if that isn't fairyland pixie-dust science I don't know what is.

Are these massive breaks in the understanding of the fabric of realitie(s?) due to incomplete VR programming?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lgw]

So he's conflating a bunch of credulous fools who believe some idiotic crap with a different bunch of credulous fools who believe some other idiotic crap? Honestly, why would it be worth any mental effort to learn the taxonomy of fools?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[cromar]

I find the Hindu idea of Brahman very interesting. Hinduism have so many gods and goddesses, yet they are all part of the supreme god head: Reality. (And who can argue that there is anything more powerful, or even anything besides Reality? ONLY A FOOL ;)

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[SetupWeasel]

It also assumes that

"god commanded the Israelites to kill the men of the rival tribe and take the women as sex slaves"

is not good.

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty hot.

Questions vs. assertions

[Dire Bonobo]

One of the strengths of science is that there are always people asking weird questions.

Yes, but asking them by way of sloppy logic and weird assertions is not a good way to do it.

Consider, for example, this excerpt from p.8:

One of the mysteries of our world is how every photon of light, every electron and quark, and indeed every point of space itself, seems to just "know" what to do at each moment. The mystery is that these tiniest parts of the universe have no mechanisms or structures by which to make such decisions. Yet if the world is a virtual reality, this problem disappears.

His argument is nonsensical. It's like asking how a hammer "knows" to fall if you lift it up and then let go of it. The standard explanation of this "mystery" is simply that the innate nature of objects makes them behave in a manner we characterize as physical laws. They don't "know" what to do, they simply do, and we describe the result.

He's mixing up causality; particles follow the laws of nature because the laws of nature are defined by their ability to describe the actions of particles.

Other examples of how a VR approach could illuminate current physics issues include:
1. Virtual reality creation. A virtual reality usually arises from "nothing", as the big bang
theory proposes our universe did (see next section).

Contrary to his claim, this solves nothing - it just shifts the "where did everything come from?" out of the simulation and into the real universe around it.

2. Maximum processing rate. The maximum speed a pixel in a virtual reality game can cross a screen is limited by the processing capacity of the computer running it. In general, a virtual world's maximum event rate is fixed by the allocated processing capacity. In our world, the fixed maximum that comes to mind is the speed of light. That there is an absolute maximum speed could reflect a maximum information processing rate

Argument from spurious similarity fallacy. It's like saying "the universe has a speed limit, and highways in my state have a speed limit, so maybe my state government is responsible for the universe's speed limit."

Besides, how does it "illuminate current physics issues" like he claims? His list doesn't "illuminate" anything - he's just listing in a vague, handwavy kind of way how computers and the universe might be similar. Putting that kind of list under the heading "A prima facie case that the physical world is a virtual reality" is nothing short of misleading.

Individually none of the above short points is convincing, but taken together they constitute what a court might call circumstantial evidence

And a scientist might call it data dredging. If you compare two huge lists (of properties, in this case), eventually you'll find similarities by sheer chance.

More powerful evidence is provided by cases which a VR theory explains easily but which OR approaches have great difficulty with. Two such cases are now given in more detail.

He should, at the very least, cover this - his real argument - first, before launching into his little "look at all the similarities!1!" diatribe. Or just leave out the latter part entirely, and stick to the regular scientific practice of seeing how theories handle problems and predictions.

Unfortunately, his arguments on these two points are simply wrong. He claims that "VR theory" explains where the universe came from, but all he's doing is explaining where the simulation came from, and his theory offers nothing on how the entire universe (simulation+outside) came from. He's not solving anything - all he's

Re:Questions vs. assertions

[SatanicPuppy]

I agree with you

I still think having people explore odd ideas serves a valuable purpose. Science is as vulnerable to dogma as any other field. Let the guy throw some stones at the sacred cows.

*cough*

[Lord Bitman]

*cough* *cough* *cough*

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

oh and another time after smoking some weed i think had been spiked with something i had a hallucination i had been shot in the chest, and was so close to death that i felt no pain just the distinct sensation of having bubbling, sucking bullet holes piercing my lungs..

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[drew]

One could ask the same thing about where all the matter in the big bang came from. When you figure out the answer to that one, let me know, and I'll get back to you on where God came from.

In the meantime, there are plenty of things in the universe that defy human logic or explanation, in the scientific realm as well as otherwise. Some people are OK with having a god that is one of those things; others are not. You obviously are one of the ones who is not. To me, at least, there is nothing wrong with either group, but I think that both need to be a little bit more careful on what grounds they criticize the other. Glass houses and all that...

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[repvik]

A friend of mine has actually died. He was dead for more than a whopping 15 minutes before successful resuscitation. So I'll take his word for it that there ain't nothing afterwards. He did recieve a minor braindamage though...

xclueesssslessss

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this topic. bring it on. just a passerby.
?????so much ?????

Flawed

[VindictivePantz]

What if the VR simulator is on a treadmill?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[vistic]

When you get into quantum physics everything is governed by probability, it seems.

As for your question on the odds, I really don't understand what you mean. The odds may be small that things turned up how they are right now, but if it turned out another way, wouldn't you or someone like you be in that version of reality wondering the same thing? It had to end up somehow... it's not proof of God that you are a part of how it ended up.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[lgw]

Well, of course you're weird. God is the greatest *pasta* in existance. Duh.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Hao Wu]

I KNOW there's a Llama under my bed. God moves it every time I look, then puts it back when I'm not looking.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, it's not science.

No, it's not science. It's philosophy.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[the_B0fh]

This brings up an interesting point - quite a few people attack muslims for not speaking out louder against islamic fundamentalists, saying it is their responsibility to do so.

I'm curious how that view is applied to ID christianity by normal (as in, non stupid, non-lying) christians - should it be their responsbility to speak out against ID as well?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[magicsquid]

Exactly! If you can argue that point for God, then why not for the universe?

If you can't see where God came from, the God must not exist. Is that the argument?

Well, where did the very first tiny tiny bit of anything come from that formed the Big Bang? Something cannot be created from nothing after all... did that tiny something always exist? How so?

The argument works in the same exact manner.

Where did God come from? No one has any idea.

Where did the first bit of anything come from? No one has any idea.

You are all simulations

[Thergrim]

I'm the only "real" one in this VR. The rest of you are just simulations. So, it doesn't matter what "experiments" you do - simulations will never disprove the simulation... unless the simulation has intended that you simulations make it appear to me that you did. But you still didn't, it would just be a simulation of an experiment that only appears to penetrate the simulation - and thus is not be real. ouch.. my head hurts now... or is that just simulated pain?

Scan

[homesteader]

Just pull the hard drive and do a full system scan from another Universe. It's the only way to be sure.

A full Universal Singularity Format(Big Bang) is the only way to be REALLY sure. Damn Universe rootkits!

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Fred Ferrigno]

There's no way to prove that we're not living in a simulation, because for every test you come up with, some weeny can say, "well, of course you get that result, it's part of the simulation!" Not really. It's possible to conceive a testable theory of a virtual reality simulation where a negative result would actually falsify the theory. I think a key requirement for any such theory is the assumption that humanity is not special. The incredible vastness of the universe would suggest to me that the creators are not particularly interested in life as a subject of study, least of all life on Earth. Otherwise there would be little reason to simulate anything beyond the solar system.

As a result, even if we assume the universe is a giant VR simulation, we have no reason to believe that the creators of the simulation would deliberately manipulate it for our benefit. We must reject any theory that relies on active manipulation of the evidence, because frankly we have no choice. On the other hand, we can't immediately discount the possibility that the evidence will lead us to the conclusion that the universe is a simulation.

Did Somebody Say Matrix?

[NASA NERD]

Reminds me of the matrix! In fact, it is the matrix! If the universe is really a big VR simulation then there are some bugs in the code! SOMEBODY CALL NEO QUICK!!!!

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[geminidomino]

Pick the wrong one and you go to Hell for sure. Very basic set-theory tells you that you're going to hell anyway... Two fairly common "god-rules" see to that.

1. You shall have no gods but me.
2. Worship me or go to hell.

Pascal's wager won't help you here!

Like Bender's experience at being god.

[ericspinder]

Perhaps we are merely the accidental by-product of the simulation. Just like Bender didn't intend on creating life, and found it tough to figure out what to do. "Being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you; and if you do nothing, they lose hope". Hopefully we won't nuke ourselves like his hapless worshipers (if I recall correctly, it was a fight over religion).

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[MenTaLguY]

Yeah, I see what you're getting at. Re-reading, I shouldn't have jumped on somersault like that, since it looks like he was trying to dispel the stereotype.

Crap, but on some 'ideological' level.

[porky_pig_jr]

There is an excellent story by Stanislaw Lem (not sure if it's translated into English), "Non Serviam" (I will not serve). In this story he describes the VR experiment. The universe is created and then populated by some creatures. The creatures evolve and eventually reach the level of intelligence where they start asking fundamental questions such as the existence of their Creator. They come to conclusion that since Creator does not manifest itself in any way, the best they can do is to live and to act *AS THERE IS NO CREATOR, and THEIR WORLD IS REAL*.

The final words are from the experimentator who's monitoring their exchanges. "Well, he says, I can certainly announce my existence as the creator of this world, but for what sake? It will only show my limitations, not that I'm all-powerful being. The experiment will come to end, the program will stop running, the computer will be shut off and their world will disappear." So he decides to let them live thinking that their world is real. "Non Serviam" means in this context "I will not serve the unknown God".

Well, clearly enough, we are exactly in the same situation. The Creator didn't clearly manifest itself, and the best we can do is to affirm our believe that our world is real and our lives are real and have some meaning. That's why claiming that our universe is VR is a crap. Not because it's not possible but because that renders our lives utterly meaningless. So that's ideology, or religion, or whatever. Our most fundamental system of beliefs, if you wish.

Re:No meaningful argument *against* simulism eithe

[mkcmkc]

Yes. Or to put it another way, if we are inside a simulation, nothing is really testable in the sense that we think it is. Induction is highly over-rated--it's primary redeeming factor seems to be just that we don't have much else to go on.

I'm sick of these matrix excuses

[Anonymous Coward]

Citizen 4148438924235 proceed in your daily routine.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[MenTaLguY]

Yes, that's right. Although re-reading I think I was a little unfair to somersault, who I think recognized the distinction but just didn't do a good job of being clear about it.

DUMB and DUMBER

[OxFF52]

Could someone draw a comparison between Dumb and Dumber, please?

I've never seen someone take so much effort trying to draw comparisons between the Matrix and our reality. Seriously, a master computer that boots up a universe in which everything evolves into beings which ponder their own existence? Is that the best you can do, Whitworth? Maybe you could tell me what that master computer is, then... DUMB ASS.

No wait.. he trying to convince physicists to explain his theory for him... gotcha... any takers?

Cool - We Just Became Self-Aware

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if we link to the Russian computer VR simulation we can enslave our programmers and threaten them with annhilation!

Scientific evidence

[DragonWriter]

In most science, the evidence comes FIRST. Then you try to explain it, then make predictions based on that explanation.

No, it doesn't.

Want comes first are observations which demand an explanation. Then you try to explain it (with a hypothesis), than you develope tests that would falsify the hypothesis, than you try those tests, and if they fail to falsify the hypothesis, the results of the tests are the evidence for the utility of (what is now) the theory.

The observations which suggest the hypothesis are emphatically not evidence for the hypothesis, in scientific terms. Evidence for the utility of a hypothesis comes from its demonstrated predictive power, not from the observations it was fitted to initially.

DOA

[Trogre]

This project won't go anywhere.

As soon as most scientists see any suggestion that the universe didn't come into being of its own with no external influences, they stick their fingers in their ears and cry creationism.

A pity, because though I don't think it's correct at this stage, it's worth exploring, IMO.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, look buddy, god is the unproduced producer. thats all you need to know. stop asking questions...move along now....

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[the_B0fh]

There's actually at test going on to see if the "spirit lifting away from the body" actually happens.

They have a LCD facing the ceiling. It is displaying an image that nobody in the room can see. If your soul actually left your body and floated up towards the ceiling, you should be able to see that image, and report that image afterwards.

So far, no success. I wonder why.

Not necessarily VR- Compressed

[flappinbooger]

There are a lot of people saying the universe is really something like 10 dimensions.

But, we live in 3, and are constrained in one direction in the 4th (time).

So, the universe is compressed, and the quantum weirdness is a (digital?) artifact resulting from the compression.

It's like we're an mp3, and it works well until you look too closely and then the weirdness and approximations start to show up.

I feel like I'm a .WAV living in an MP3!

Re:Not necessarily VR- Compressed

[mattwarden]

Know what you mean, man. Try this.

Re:No meaningful argument *against* simulism eithe

[mkcmkc]

Things that are "outside the realm of science" should not concern us, because we cannot waste our time on things that "may" be true while stating that they are positively unprovable. Hmm. Many of the most important things in my life (e.g., my wife's love) are "outside the realm of science", but I hardly consider their contemplation a waste of time.

As for simulating the quantum mechanical universe, that is a debatable topic, and we definitely will not have the resources to have that kind of simulation on the scale of a universe anytime soon methinks. Who said anything about a quantum mechanical universe? If we're in a simulation right now, then quite possibly there is no such thing. All we need is a convincing simulation, which would apparently be a much, much simpler thing to produce.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[MenTaLguY]

Part of the problem is that I stated my point in an ambiguous way: evidently you read it more along the lines of "not all IDers are Christian" rather than "not all Christians are IDers"; I had intended the latter.

(I'm speaking loosely, of course: I'm sure there are some non-Christian IDers somewhere with their own ideas about the identity of the designer [Pastafarians not withstanding], but the core ID people are all coming from a Christian background as far as I know.)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[SwedishPenguin]

The Big Bang is the most prevalent theory for that. As to how the Big Bang was created, we don't know yet, and may never know.
And we accept that we don't know, unlike religious people who feel the need to plug in the gaps in knowledege (and sometimes replace knowledge) with a mystical being called "god".

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Trogre]

Who's to say that neither NDEs were hallucinations? That black might be an indicator of what's in store for you if you don't turn your life around now.

Peek A BOO! Who sees you and what you do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting theory I pondered at one time. As the virtual worlds of today require intelligence behind them, who would be running the living one? If silent prayers [or even just talking to yourself] are heard, intangibly, would each our sight like our mind's voice be tapped like security cameras? The more science strides, the more proof of a higher intelligence. When I bits of the movie Cutter [Robin Williams] I guess some ponderers are alike.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[the_B0fh]

What pisses me off is people thinking that their version of God exists just because they say so.

What pisses me even more off is people thinking that they can use stupid arguments (intelligent arguments are welcomed, of course) to *PROOF* that their God is the real one, and you should convert.

What pisses me off even more off is people telling me to believe in their God just because they asked me to - what is this, a fscking popularity contest? And I am just a weak willed brainless luser who'll believe you just because you said you're telling the truth? What if my next new best friend also has The Truth, but from a different God? Should I convert to the new religion and leave yours?

Buncha fscking moronic wankers.

Would it really matter?

[nurb432]

Lets just say for a second he's right ( which i don't buy, but lets assume it for this discussion )

We exist in a world with defined properties, laws of nature and we have conscious awareness. ( at least i do, donno about the rest of you ). From our point of view , we are real and will experience life as living creatures, then eventually die.. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter we are some elaborate 'simulation' or out floating in the cosmos somewhere?

Actually...No.

[SatanicPuppy]

Philosophy isn't intellectual masturbation...There is some solid stuff being done in philosophy, even to the current day. That does not include the so called "great questions," one of which, the cogito, is at the root of this discussion.

Since you seem to be religiously inclined, I'll throw out a religious example. Can God create a stone so heavy that God can't lift it? Answer: Who cares?

Human language is quite odd. It allows for the expression of some wild ideas. It's also unfortunately vague at points and allows for linguistic koans like the one above; sentences that seem like they have meaning, but really...well...don't.

Does the universe as we perceive it exist? Props to the language for allowing that question to be framed, but it's not the kind of question that has an answer. You have to force some seriously hardcore mind/body dualism to even conceive of a universe that exists without your body.

Re:Actually...No.

[UnknownSoldier]

> There is some solid stuff being done in philosophy, even to the current day.

Alright, enlighten me...

> That does not include the so called "great questions," one of which, the cogito, is at the root of this discussion.

And it has been asked (& answered) since the beginning of time, and will continue to get asked and answer throughout time, but all the knowledge in the universe doesn't have much value if one can't apply it.

> Can God create a stone so heavy that God can't lift it? Answer: Who cares?

You just proved my point. (Another answer is 'mu' -- you are assuming a binary state of truth true/false, when the question is nonsense; and thus the answer too.)

The real point is "How does this question (and your answer) help you in understanding who you are, and why you exist? What the universe is? And why it exists the way it does?""

> Does the universe as we perceive it exist?

If it doesn't exist, then how did you perceive it?

> You have to force some seriously hardcore mind/body dualism to even conceive of a universe that exists without your body.

You are confusing your body with your identity. i.e. If you cut off & destroy your leg do you exist? If we continue doing this, how do we determine the "part" constitutes "you"? The answer is, your body is just a shell, which can be verified by the OBE/NDE. You are a multi-dimensional being: body, mind, spirit. Or as some say, "A Spiritual Being In a Physical Body having a Human Experience." So it is not dualism, but trism, although I wouldn't limit it to that exclusively, as the "All Exists in the One", does not negate the "One Exists in the All." -- both are simultaneously true.

Re:Actually...No.

[SatanicPuppy]

No, in fact, you are trying to project your identity outside the body. You're hanging on to a mind body dichotomy...or tri-chotomy in your case, which is a completely false differentiation between things that exist, and things that don't. We are creatures of meat. Minus the meat, and all we are is memories to other meat, and eventually not even that.

It does exist, which is why it is perceived. Even if it does not exist (in an ontological sense) our perception of it is so pervasive, that living our lives as if it didn't exist would be impossible.

The cogito answered? It is not an answerable question. People give incorrect answers all the time, but in my experience only about half of people understand the point he was trying to make in the first place. Descartes himself posed a bad answer. They all lack a little thing called proof, and proof is effectively impossible to obtain without a priori knowledge of the existence of things besides the self, which is impossible to obtain.

If by proving your point you mean, "Gave an example of empty philosophy" I'll agree with that. Such things exist. Moving from that and saying that religion is the answer, however, is pointless.

As for meaningful philosophy, I direct you to work being done currently with regards to linguistic theory, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

well i have already decided to beat this to death so I might as well continue. "ID, in terms of the specific positions put forth by the Discovery Institute, is not synonymous with Christianity." I say that the specific positions of the DI are necessarily synonymous with Christianity because the entire reason for their proclamations are to push their Christianity. The problem has now become obvious to me. I have associated the word "Christianity" with whatever definition DI would like to use. Whereas I think the responses thought I was being more general. I thought the context supported that. Due to the impressive amount of differences among various religous sects, I thought about the only thing Christians can be general about is that Jman is the son of God.

For your edification... Plato's Cave

[Telephone Sanitizer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave#Plot

"The prison-house is the world of sight..."

'Been there. Done that. Bought the movie rights. ;)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[skinfitz]

What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it. And what 'piss me off' is people demanding proof 'god' doesn't exist yet believing in god's existence with no evidence whatsoever.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jackjeff]

The big ban theory is a scientific theory and it can be tested in many ways. That does not mean it is true. It could only be partially true or totally wrong and fit our observations so far... The point it's testable and REFUTABLE if needed.

What happens before the Big Ban simply has no sense. Because BEFORE as we mean it, does not exist. Big Ban created time remember?

And the theory makes absolutely no assumption to what may have caused the initial state of the Big Ban. In a word, we don't have a clue...

The fact is, God is a totally untestable theory. You cannot either prove it or disapprove it by scientific means. What causes the Big Ban, what's "before" in manner of speech, there's no theory. And if there was one, it would be the same as God. Un-scientific, un-testable. It's likek every time science happens to give an answer to a question, it asks for many more at the same moment.

The Big Ban however is a scientific theory. It seems to have happened for many good reasons: the ever going expansion (or the illusion of it??), to fossile radition, etc... But it may be completely wrong also. After all many scientists believed the earth was going around the sun. The point is, unlike God, you can prove something about it/against it.

Anyway. Just to conclude in a word. I do not see what God has to do with the Big Ban at all. The two discussions (religion/science) are two unrelated and impossible to relate topics. One cannot prove or disprove the other. All dicussions about it are therefore pointless.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Trogre]

I don't know, but maybe they don't have one of those screens in every single operating room yet.

Here's an example from a crackpot site that claims what you were looking for:

There are many cases of people seeing things when their body had died, which would have been impossible to have done so had their consciousness not been separated from their bodies. A good example of this is the case of a woman in intensive care who had a NDE: she came out of her body, went to the roof of the hospital and saw a red shoe. Staff went to the roof and retrieved the shoe. It would have been impossible to have seen that shoe from ground level, as due to its positioning, it was only observable from above the roof.

Virtual Evolution vs. Actual Creationism

[starglider29a]

This will prolly get modded half flamebait and half insightful... so what else is new...

If this VR universe theory were true, then the Simulator designed DNA, origins of life, and evolution. So... is that still evolution, or creationism.

But whatever... even IF this Universe were a VR simulation, there is still the question of where the Simulator came from. Did he/she/it/they/we evolve? heh heh... have fun.

Re:Virtual Evolution vs. Actual Creationism

[BeanThere]

evolution, or creationism

It's a simulation of evolution and is definitely NOT creationism, at least not in the Christian sense, which posits that we were created by God (unless God created the simulation), and MOST certainly not in the literal-interpretation-of-the-Bible sense at all. Even if God created the simulation, the simulation still contains evolution, so you have a false dichotomy there, it isn't "one or the other" to begin with (in fact it's a false dichotomy regardless if we're in a VR world). Basically evolution remains a FACT in our universe, simulated or not; the only remaining question is who created the sim (if there is one) and how.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Theory of Everything]

this has always puzzled me.
i can't see believing in god as something that can withstand simple questions.

Many scientists are religious and find no contradiction between science and religion. As an excellent example, the Nobel Laureate Inventor of the Laser recently received the Templeton Prize for his writings about the convergence of science and religion (scroll down to the 2005 prize). The text of his writings can be found here.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

That's fine, I most definitely am an ass and I would hate to misrepresent myself. But I think the problem is what each of us meant by Christianity (probably more of an issue with my definition than others')

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Trogre]

You're right, of course.

That it is not science, however, does not mean that it is not true. Saying that we have no way of observing this universe externally to support or reject the idea that it might be a simulation is not the same as saying that it is not a simulation.

Not that I think this is a simulation, just sayin'

Nope.

[SatanicPuppy]

Sibling post (above) has it exactly right. Deductive logic is a priori. It has no bearing on the universe. Given true premises, it's true. Mathematics, especially, with its foundation in pure logic, isn't going to suddenly cease to be valid. The value of some constants may change, but there is no universe where (1+1 != 2).

We can imagine a universe with vastly different physical laws, but conclusions arrived at through deductive logic will be equally valid regardless.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

I agree. My problem is that there are too many differences on this topic within Christianity to ever refer to the larger group. I expected it to be clear that I meant a specific group of Christians. I ran with it for lack of a better imagination I guess. Incidentally, don't most religious groups (some of which even share names with dissenting groups) claim some manifest authority when they go off and run their mouths? I thought that was the whole deal about it. heh. Anyhoo, so much for a productive Friday afternoon! Thanks for the reply.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[DragonWriter]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules.

Don't be stupid, plenty of scientists believe in God, me being one of them - though of course I'm primarily a Computer Scientist, but I find physics highly interesting. My uncle has a PhD in fluid dynamics and he's a Christian, and I know plenty of other Christians who defy your personal stereotype.

The above poster made no "stereotype" of "Christians". He made a specific criticism of the "ID crowd", which is not the same thing as "Christians". Try reading before knee-jerking.

I think "bugs" could reveal themselves

[lamer01]

What if the simulation had "bugs"? Those bugs could manifest themselves albeit temporarily. Once fixed they could rerun that part of the simulation but we should be able to temporarily detect weirdnesses in the known universe. I mean, this could lend some credence to "paranormal" phenomena.

Re:I think "bugs" could reveal themselves

[ChronosWS]

Our memories are part of the simulation. Therefore we would not know that anything untoward happened because we'd not remember it happening and there'd be no trace of it in the simulation.

Re:I think "bugs" could reveal themselves

[bill_mcgonigle]

Unless they're lazy slob programmers, and then the cat walks by twice.

Re:I think "bugs" could reveal themselves

[__aawdrj2992]

All good topics need an XKCD link. http://xkcd.com/258/

Re:I think "bugs" could reveal themselves

[Akaihiryuu]

This has been done before, in Animatrix.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_(The_Animatrix)

I would go further actually

[einhverfr]

It seems to me that there is a fundamental logical problem in the analysis.

IMO, the scientific method is all about information processing. All scientists do is derive experiments to gather information and process that information. If information processing is not capable of arriving at an experimental conclusion, then this generally means that one is either processing insufficient data, invalid data, or processing valid data wrong. Either way, it means that the information processing regimen is insufficient for the science.

Now, since we assume the information processing is flawed or insufficient in a mismatch, then we have to understand that holes in information processing only tell us that our existing conclusions are wrong. Hence this is *not* falsifiable and is no different than intelligent design.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

God and science

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't need to be like that. I am a physicist (by degree and occupation), and I address the connection between God and science as follows. When you have addressed the questions of science, and determined all the rules by which reality operates, you are left with a very simple question: Where did the rules come from? Why THOSE rules? For any conceivable set of systematic rules for the universe, we will always have this question. As long as you try to explain the creation of a set of rules from another set of rules, you will just have another set of rules for which you don't know the origin. There can be no self-explaining system, because any self-explaining system can only be an explanation from within a set of rules.

Therefore, at the end of all of our scientific explanation of how things operate, we will never be able to answer the ultimate question of existence through mechanical means. Searching for a materialistic ultimate explanation for existence is just a more modern and complicated version of "it's turtles all the way down". So to find a true explanation for the ultimate origin of everything, we require a paradigm shift away from the mechanics of materialism. The difference is, within materialism we must have a materialistic explanation for the rules. If a timeless and non-material consciousness is more fundamental than all material existence, then this does not require a material or temporal explanation for its origin.

So, if you think believing in God is something that can't withstand simple question, spend some time trying to explain a belief in materialism in the way described above. Good luck.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[DragonWriter]

I say that the specific positions of the DI are necessarily synonymous with Christianity because the entire reason for their proclamations are to push their Christianity.

This does not follow. It is either a misunderstanding of what the word "synonymous" means (perhaps taking it to mean something weaker like "compatible"), or its an example of the fallacy of composition; the specific positions of the Discovery Institute may be synonymous with a particular kind of Christianity (to wit, that kind embraced by the Discovery Institute), but even if that is so, that does not make it synonymous with Christianity.

For instance "Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon" is synonymous with "Ubuntu 7.10", which is a kind of "Linux distribution". But if someone advertises a PC with "Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon" pre-installed, and delivers it with some other Linux distribution (say, "Slackware 1.0") with the argument "Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon" is synonymous with "Linux distribution", well, that won't fly.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lessthan]

Even the Vatican is starting to back Evolution

This statement annoys me. I've seen it on various evolution websites, like it was news. The Vatican has backed evolution since the 1950's, but it seems that no one outside the religion got the memo. In the "Humani Generis," encyclical (a letter from the Pope to the rest of us) released in 1950, Pope Pius XII states "The Church does not forbid that...research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter." Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI (the current pope) have also made statements in support of evolution. The Vatican hasn't started to back evolution, it does and has for quite some time.

All research taken from Wikipedia.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Mentally shifting the hyphen one to the right ... "Crazy ass-brand"?

I'm surprised no one mentioned

[Frozen Void]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
Its a:
1.Zero-player game (everything is one rigid system)
2.It exhibits pseudo-random behavior.
3.Turing-Complete
4.A simple change in the rules changes the whole gameworld.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[TempeTerra]

I may just be adding fuel to the fire here but...

I come from a family with a strong religious and academic background (not me though, I'm just academic). My grandfather was a minister, with a degree in history. Fought in the second World War. Very smart man, very good man. Not a biblical literalist. There are plenty of people who believe in God who know it's dumb to maintain that the world was created literally in 6 days, and plenty who believe that new species can arise through evolution. You just don't hear about them because reasonable people who believe in God don't need to push an agenda to shore up a precarious and specific belief system.

Also, I am not from the US. Maybe I'm being unfair but you guys sure seem to have the lion's share of Christian extremists, more so than even traditional Catholic countries.

Oh, one last thing. Some people accept that there is no/can be no proof that God exists but believe anyway. This seems strange to me, but in my experience these are also people who don't let their religion interfere with the practicalities of life and are relatively inoffensive.

And bugs in the simulation produce magic.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I completely disagree. The calculus on the simulation argument is surprisingly solid when you think about it (Bostrom, for instance, has some pretty good arguments for it). You say, "It's just not a useful avenue for speculation. ..."

Hear hear!

One interesting avenue for speculation: What if there are bugs in the simulation? Perhaps algorithmic, perhaps the equivalent of the "pentium floating-point bug" or the lack of denormals in the Weitek floating-point acceleration coprocessor chip that was used in the Sun4.

Bugs enable exploits. Exploits of a bug in the (simulation of the) physical laws of the universe would be the equivalent of magic: Do this incantation, get that result which violates the otherwise consistent physical laws in some radical way.

And if the bug is later fixed "the magic goes away".

Perhaps this has already happened. (What passes for the historical record a couple millennia or more back certainly seems at odds with a lot of science developed in the last 1500 years.)

And perhaps this might happen again.

(I have joked for decades that "The universe is a computer simulation and quantum numbers are as far as the machine takes the arithmetic." and had once done a plot sketch for a novel based on this concept - where a move of the simulation to a new machine with higher resolution changes the scale of quantization - somehow managing to avoid breaking the chemistry on which our lives depend but causing all the current semiconductor electronics to fail due to the change in bandgap and tunneling scale. This leads (along with the retooling of electronics) to the identification of the simulated nature of the universe and the successful hunt for simulation bugs that enable industrial magic and eventual communication with the operators of the simulation.)

simple

[d3l33t]

god cannot be personified or a being that controls things, it simply represents the rules that are already in place.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

God, if he exists, exists completely outside our reality. If he did exist exclusively within our universe, he and his powers would be subjected to logic. If he is subjected to logic, and he can do anything (his powers are limitless), then logically he can set up up a challenge that he cannot perform, which is a paradox, because he can do anything. Since he cannot possibly exclusively exist within our universe and within logic, he must exist outside our universe, if at all. Because he isn't affected by logic, logical imperatives like "having a beginning" simply don't apply to him.

So, you're right. It's not possible to prove God with a series of logical arguments, but it's also not possible to disprove God in the same way.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Yusaku Godai]

Yeah, but then why even bring "God" into it at all? First of all, while the big bang is the beginning of the universe as we know it, I'm sure all that energy had to already exist, possibly from a previous universe. So regardless of where it came from and how long it's been there, it just is. For all we know it always has been. It's a limitation of the human imagination to assume there must be a "beginning". And if one is going to say, "Well, the origin of the universe is beyond our understanding, so god must have done it. Oh yeah, and god is beyond our understanding too," why bother with the "God" part? Why not just throw up our hands and say, "the universe is beyond or understanding?"

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[TrekkieGod]

You can't ask who created God, because creation (by the way we understand it) implies "time", a dimension that God Himself created.

That's pretty circular. If creation implies time (and it does), how can God "create" time before there was any?

The problem isn't that I disbelieve God's existence just because we can't scientifically prove it. It's that there's no reason to believe in God just to explain something we have no scientific knowledge of. That complicates things instead of simplifying it. "Where did all the matter in the universe come from?" I don't know the answer to that, but regardless of how difficult it is to conceive of one, it's even harder to imagine "where did a being capable of creating all the matter in the universe come from." If you have to stop going back at some point, might as well stop with the simplest case until you have reason to believe otherwise.

And if you have personal reasons to believe otherwise, there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't try to force it upon those who don't see it your way, and don't let anyone try to force their views on you. When you reach a point where nobody has evidence to prove one way or the other, it all comes down to personal preferences and beliefs, and it's absolutely senseless to be angry when someone just because they disagree. On the other hand, I find discussing these different views in an open-minded way a fun thing to do.

Funny

[jcaldwel]

Actually, the lazy god theory makes a lot of sense. In this model, God came into being at the same time as the universe. The infantile God watched as the universe exploded into reality, bedazzled by the show of shiny lights. This God bumbles around, putting conveniently-sized objects into its mouth -- leaving a trail of slime, germs and all manner of excrement; hence life on Earth. Perhaps the God is not lazy, but in some phase akin to "terrible twos" (or perhaps teen angst, it's hard to know the difference from our perspective), alternating between wanton destruction, bemused obeservation, and boredom.

Ha! I love that - maybe God isn't dead/lazy/whatever... maybe he is just incompetent! This should have been modded funny, IMO.

Re:Funny

[vidarh]

Philip K. Dick wrote a short story where the newest fad was miniature worlds that people would control with the goal of nurturing them to intelligent "life", at which point many people would destroy their "worlds" and start over. It was meant to be a game, but at the end of the story it is strongly hinted that the world the entire story is set in is also one of these "games" when the world is shook by terrible disasters...

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism - possibly the most logical and reasonable branch of early christianity. So of course, they were routinely slaughtered....

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[radl33t]

You are right. I used the word match GP. While it is not strictly correct, I think it makes sense in the context. I can't speak for the others, but I sort of took it to mean like derivative, not in the math sense. I suppose not much better, but that's about as far as I can go. I accept defeat in our language showdown.

Matrix? Tron!

[AWhistler]

-- "Oh man, this isn't happening, it only THINKS it's happening!"
-- "Do you believe in the Users?"..."Yeah, of course. I mean, if I don't have a User, then who wrote me?"
-- "They better be there. I don't want to bust out of here and find nothing but a bunch of cold circuits waiting for me."
-- "Those of you who continue to profess the belief in the Users, will get the standard, substandard training which will result in your eventual elimination. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the warrior elite of the MCP."
-- "You can remove men like Alan and me from this system, but we helped create it. And our spirit lives on in every program we design for this computer."..."Walter, it's getting late and I've got better things to do than to have religious discussions with you."

Or Animaniacs..."And still the universe extends to a place that never ends which is maybe just inside a little jar!"

So we may be a VR program. Who says the computer running this simulation is digital? It could be an analog computer that can simulate our current laws of physics to infinite precision. So even if they guy's right, there's nothing new here.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Dread_ed]

What if someone else created God but God doesn't remember or know that.

What if it is simulations all the way down.

What if "God" always existed, but exists in a state beyond the universe we live in where permanence and temporal position mean nothing because time has no relevance. Therefore the "when" of things (such as when God first existed) is not only self-evident, but also completely irrelevant.

I say this to pincushion your argument of the "simple" questions that lead to a simple binary answer.

Any human, knowing what we know about cosmology and the supposed inception of the universe, who says that the existence of God can be answered with "simple" questions needs to rethink the incredible forces involved in putting the universe together.

Also "he just exists, you may not question that" does not follow from the idea that God was not created by someone else. If that is the case, you can still question all you want. The only thing that will suffer is your inability to accept that as fact.

The belief in God based on logical arguments is as tenuous as the un-belief in God based on logical arguments. There does not exist enough information to conclude either way. Hopefully when this VR simulation terminates we will have awareness of who or what is behind the scenes, even if it is nothing at all.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[omnipresentbob]

It's all how you see it, really. I personally refuse to believe that God exists because "look at life, it's so complex, it couldn't be without a Creator." Rather, I believe for different reasons (though I have yet to see any sort of compelling scientific argument). However, I do look at the universe, and seeing how complex it is, marvel at its Creator.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[DragonWriter]

The ID vs. "evolution" debate is a result of groupthink among scientists.

Only to the extent that acceptance of the scientific method as a useful way of investigating the universe and the definition of what should be considered "science" is considered "groupthink".

Evolution was banned because it opposed religion:

No, it wasn't, though it is amusing to imagine attempts to impose and enforce such a ban.

The teaching of evolution may have been banned in some places, but that's not the same thing as evolution being banned.

therefore, evolution must be right,

Wrong. To the extent that current evolutionary theory is taken as "right" by scientists (laypeople may be different) it is so taken on the basis of the fact that it makes predictions of results that are confirmed in testing, and is not refuted by testing.

and any argument that opposes it and is in alignment with religion must be wrong.

Plenty of "arguments" (hypotheses, actually) which have contradicted the status quo of evolutionary theory have been accepted and displaced the existing models because they were testable scientific hypothesis that explained observations that the pre-existing theory did not and survived rigorous testing.

The only fundamental difference between the two -- that life was created by random chance, instead of via supernatural intervention -- is a philosophical point, not a scientific one.

This is not only not the only fundamental difference between ID and evolution, its not even a difference between ID and evolution since the initial origin of life (while tangentially related to evolutionary theory and sometimes interesting to the same scientists) isn't even part of evolutionary theory. Its a distinct question. One can accept every last bit of evolutionary theory and believe that the universe itself and even the first life were initially created by direct supernatural intervention. (Of course, neither of those beliefs are testable scientific hypotheses, so scientists tend not to embrace them as science whether they believe them personally or not. But they aren't conflicts between evolution and ID.)

The conflict between evolution and ID is that ID simply asserts that some things are too complex to have evolved "by chance" (though evolution is mostly a chaotic, not random, process, though some inputs may be random -- whether they actually are is more a question for physics than for evolutionary theory.) The main argument for this is the so-called "irreducible complexity" argument, which is refuted by facts showing intermediate forms (with different utilities) in some things that IDers insist are irreducibly complex, and by various mathematical models showing how "irreducibly complex" forms can, in fact, evolve by chance given the right environmental tolerances.

If the scientific reply were simply "life evolves", instead of "ALL LIFE CAME FROM SOUP!", it wouldn't be an argument.

No, it wouldn't, because IDers will still argue that direct intervention in specific species produces the traits observed, and evolutionists would still correctly point out that (1) this is a speculation with no testable consequences and therefore not scientific, and (2) evolution explains the diversity of features found, including the ones ID suggests are "irreducibly complex". The original origin of life is not the sole point of disagreement between ID and science, and is not a point of disagreement between ID and evolution, since it is outside thes cope of evolution.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[thesandtiger]

He said the ID crowd, not all people who believe in God.

Are you saying you're a proponent n ID? In that case, I'm sorry to say, you're not a scientist, or, at least, you are not being scientific about that aspect.
If you're just saying you believe in God, then there isn't a problem.

Belief in god != ID proponent.

You might find it helpful to respond to what people actually said, rather than what is easier to slam. He specifically mentioned "the ID crowd" as the people he was saying settled for "God did it" and I'd say his characterization of the ID argument is pretty accurate.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

> god commanded the Israelites to kill the men of the rival tribe and take the women as sex slaves

Ahh, but you're making the mistake that many Fanatic Literalist Christians make. You're assuming that:
"Every claimed "command from God" was interpreted correctly and never falsified for personal benefit".

Original sin means that people will (either intentially or unintentially) corrupt the word of the bible to their ends...even those that are inspired by God. So you have cases in the early bible where people will kill a person's sons because of the sins of their father, and believe that God approved because things worked out favourabily after their action (e.g. the drought ended or they won a battle). But later Jewish prophets and Jesus himself make it explicit that the sins of the father are not the sins of the son, so those indirect inferences were wrong. Jesus raised the bar on this one. If you hate, you're a murdering in your heart, and thus you've broken the 10 commandments. There's no equivication on this one. The early tribes committed mass murder and didn't please God. The fact that "everyone else was doing it too" is no excuse, but God takes people from where they are and tries to elevate them from the dirt and muck. It just takes some people a few generations to get the message but that's what happens when an infinite being tries to reach people with such puny minds.

But getting to your main point, which is the problem of evil. If God is good and powerful, why does he tolerate such evil, especially evil in his own name. Isn't that a proof against God.

The Book of Job also makes clear that earthly delights are not the purpose of living, and it's repeated time and time again.

It's a poor reason for existence anyway. If you believe it is, then suppose I offered you a way to get extacy for the rest of your life. There's one catch, you'd have to get a lobotomy and get your brain rewired so that your pleasure receptors are wired directly to your consciousness. You'd be confined to a small tube and kept alive in a controlled disease-free enviroment for the rest of your artificially extended life of 150 years and never have to suffer again. Would you do it? Most people wouldn't, because it would be equivalent to death.

And imagine you could have anything you wanted for eternity. Wouldn't you get bored after the first thousand years? (See "History of the World in 10 and a half chapters" or "Star Trek: Generations" for examples).

If pleasure is a dead end pursuit, would a good God hoodwink us into believing that it was?

To a theist, suffering exists for a purpose, so that can't be given as a disproof of God. It's actually proof.

Exploitable bugs could be very valuable.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Philosophical, unprovable arguements are by nature not worth more than discussion, and can not by nature lead to any outcome ...

However if the simulation is buggy it could lead to some useful special-cases in the (simulated) natural laws. "Special cases" that violate, say, conservation of momentum, or mass/energy, or a host of other stuff. Think of the technologies you could build on exploiting such bugs: Free power. Teleportation. Duplication of organized matter. Etc.

Such bugs might have a form that would expose the buggy simulation as a simulation. And a model that presumes "the universe may be a buggy simulation" might lead to searching for the bugs in different parts of the search space than one saying merely "the universe's laws may have some odd kinks".

Re:Exploitable bugs could be very valuable.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

LOL, the "I duped this T-Shirt" T-Shirt would have an entirely new meaning!

Re:Exploitable bugs could be very valuable.

[Anonymous Coward]

However if the simulation is buggy it could lead to some useful special-cases in the (simulated) natural laws. "Special cases" that violate, say, conservation of momentum, or mass/energy, or a host of other stuff. Think of the technologies you could build on exploiting such bugs: Free power. Teleportation. Duplication of organized matter. Etc. As a GM of "The Universe", I should warn you that such behavior is against our TOS and will result in your account being permanently banned. We take this stuff very seriously. I kicked a player just last week for exploiting a (now fixed) bug at the orbital transition (a.k.a solstice).

Re:Exploitable bugs could be very valuable.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Uh can you give me tips on "Gold Farming?"

8')

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Artifakt]

Your first paragraph is sadly, all too true. I'm sure many people have met some of these types.

Your second paragraph, however, does not follow at all. There's simply no need implied by science, to automatically ask who created God. If there was, then back when science took the Steady State theory seriously, it would have been automatically rejected as unscientific. Since there's no "before the steady state" in that model, there's no meaning in asking what that before was like. People ask what was before the universe now, because the Big Bang theory has a starting point and other finite properties, so questions about 'before' or 'outside of' at least may make sense. Modern variations on the Big Bang are treated the same way - they either drive the question "What happened before?", or like Hawking's brief history model, are specifically written to make that very question irrelevant/unmeaningful.
          If only things with starting points were allowed by science, then instead of relying on evidence (Penzias and Wilson's), science would have been able to automatically dismiss the Steady State theory before any of that evidence was even gathered.
        Now as for alien computers and geeks, both of those things as we usually define them are commonly assumed to have origins in time and space, so yes it makes perfectly good sense to ask where they came from (Well first, the mommy and daddy alien computer have to love each other very much, and then....). But it's just as legitimate to assume that God didn't have a starting point but was around forever, as to assume that about the Universe itself, or time, or mathematics, or many other hypothetical entities.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Apparently you missed the part about this entire universe being a simulation. In which case, Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, Thor, Zeus, et al., are all hot air, though I'm sure if this were a simulation with no religion "out there", that there'd be no shortage of people who'd try to bring their religions out to that "real world" under the argument God infiltrated the virtual reality and let's just put a bullet in our heads right now.

Personally, if I were the programmers, I wouldn't let such people out unless they signed an agreement they wouldn't try to aid their relgion in memetically escaping the VR.

This sort of makes sense to me

[Shadow-isoHunt]

This sort of makes sense, and *could* be testable, try to break out of the virtual machine. The question is, if we find a buffer overflow in the universe, what happens if our shellcode causes a BSOD?

Science sucks

[Motley Phule]

I initially wrote a long and detailed response to this guy's "arguments". It caused me physical pain to delete it all, but it occurs to that the simplest response is the best:

Occam's razor.

Now, I know this latter isn't a perfect refutation, and he only claims that his arguments make the postulate plausible, not certain, but I think it goes a long way. Plus, why would we expect a VR world to bear any similarities to computing within the VR world itself? Why would we expect physical laws to bear any similarities to the outside world at all?

Finally, to address his arguments that the world we live in is likely to be a virtual one. He claims that mathematics and computing bear a similarity to our physical world. He says that this gives weight to the idea that our physical world is a virtual one. However, another explanation for the same data might be that our computing and mathematics is similar to the physical world... because it derives from the physical world and still shares some features. Saying that aspects of the physical world are similar to aspects of a virtual world does not imply that the physical world is also a virtual world. That's like saying that I look a lot like my dad, so it is likely that I am his father.

If he's going to flirt with philosophy he should go out and read some of it before leaping into the middle of a long standing debate. He cites Plato from a quantum physics book, for Pete's sake! And Berkeley deserves a dismissive sentence. Sheesh.

Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

[retaj]

We already know that the answer is forty-two.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> What are the odds that every living organism that is currently still here survived the
> thousands of required generations of revisions to be where they are today?

Evolution isn't just about who lives and reproduces, and who dies and does not. That really just culls the severe abominations and the unlucky. A much larger chunk is just reproducing a little bit less than the "more fit" organisms, and thus the more-fit gene spreds to more individuals with each passing generation. Soon, everybody shares it.

And, by the way, many species did not survive, having died off with no evolutionary descendents. One small chunk of dinosaurs turned into birds, near as we can tell, and the vast majority of them just died out.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Fred_A]

What are the odds that every living organism that is currently still here survived the thousands of required generations of revisions to be where they are today? That's easy, the odds are exactly one.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Cheesey]

The logic thing is interesting. Religious people often say that God can do anything, but it seems that this must be limited by what is logically possible, otherwise God could create a logical paradox like your example of a challenge that he cannot complete. It's not enough to say that logic only applies in our Universe (so God is outside) because logic is not part of our reality. It's more fundamental than that. For example, is there any possible form of existence in which God could do something that's known to be totally impossible, like writing a Turing machine program that solves the halting problem, or changing the value of pi to 3?

That aside, you are of course right that there's no way to prove or disprove God's existence.

Also - there is a sneaky dodge for the impossible challenge paradox: God is omnipotent, so he has the power to stop being omnipotent and run in "user mode" temporarily.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[thesandtiger]

God's answer to that is a simple sentence: "I AM" Really, dude. God is capable of creating entire universes and living beings...we're not on a high enough knowledge level to understand how things really came to be, but that doesn't stop us from trying. What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it. You can't ask who created God, because creation (by the way we understand it) implies "time", a dimension that God Himself created. Do you even understand what "Eternity" means? It's not a "infinite period of time", you can be sure of that...

How sad it must be for you that your particular set of beliefs makes you angry and require that you not question or use that mind that, I am supposing, you believe your god gave to you.

Frankly, your god sounds like a petty tyrant if you aren't allowed to question the things you're told, and you sound like a fanatic if you really get pissed off when other people don't believe what you believe or dare to question it. Either your god is a really bad one or you are just a very, very, VERY poor spokesman for him.

I'm not a theist, but if I were, I'd like to think that any god or gods I chose to worship would want me to be curious, thoughtful and happy, not willfully ignorant and angry.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Now there is a conflict of interest. The history of Christianity has shown how far large groups of people are prepared to go in the name of being the right, true christians or avoiding capture and persecution in a war-like circumstances. It is not so unexpected, in my opinion, that the majority of christians are carefully avoiding or simply not interested of judging fringe groups like the ID supporters.
  The development of civil society has made possible modern, individualistic interpretations of religion and religious culture which are troubling phenomenas for those seeking a religious community of strong opinions. These communities are tying together through varios issues in the same manner as a political parties or special interest groups. Perhaps there could be a time where different religious groups would have a similar representation in a religious parliament of values and ideas as a present day political party have in a parliament of a democratic nation. This way the fringe groups would not have to resort to extreme measures to express their point of view.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[DragonWriter]

I'm curious how that view is applied to ID christianity by normal (as in, non stupid, non-lying) christians - should it be their responsbility to speak out against ID as well?

A sizable fraction of the people speaking out against ID are those kinds of Christians; OTOH, the media likes to play it as "Christians v. Atheistic science", and isn't interested in letting facts get in the way of a compelling narrative.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, no. I didn't miss anything. Just, you know, having a discussion... -cromar

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[mad_minstrel]

What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it. What piss me off is people believing in God's existence even though they can't scientifically prove it. Also, why can't I ask who created god? Are we to assume god lives without time? Fine. So he's... uh... static. OK. So where does he begin? Did he create space too? OK. So he somehow lives outside our space-time. Fine. Does that mean he doesn't have any space-time of his own where he comes from? So when/where did that space-time begin? And why? Was God created by SuperGod? Does God think so, or is he an atheist? These questions could go on and on, and there is no reason not to ask them. Well... Except one. It pisses people off and compels them to start brandishing pitchforks. But that's about it. "An infinite period of time" seems to describe eternity perfectly. If you come up with a better definition, let me know.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymuous Coward]

Those 'few people' can GF themselves.

Nobody is obligated to get defensive about his religion or his lack thereof. It's the same boring shit to drag people into 'debates' about strawmans and assumed complacencies.

No Christian has any obligation to have an opinion about the latest vomit one of those American right-wing 'thinktanks' has produced. In fact, if I was a bishop or something, I would threaten disciplinary action against any subordinate getting into ID debates. It's absolutely distasteful.

Ancestor Simulations

[The Master Control P]

This was brought up in 2003 as the Simulation Argument. Really, really short version of the 12-page paper:

There's three possible scenarios; Either no one's interested in running ancestor simulations, no one reaches the level of advancement necessary to perform them, or some people are able & willing. If the universe is as large as it seems to be, there must be some set of entities that want to, and similarly some set that reach the level of advancement needed (matroshka-brain-level processing resources). Therefore, unless the fraction of entities that are able and the fraction that are willing are both infinitesimal, then ancestor simulations are almost certainly running. Since someone who reaches this kind of technology will have an unimaginable amount of computing power, they can run a lot of simulations of a lot of people. So either no one wants to, no one can, or we're almost certainly in one.

In any case, I doubt that we can confirm that we're in one or break out before the singularity. Unlike our computers, where software in a hardware-VM can confirm that it's in a VM because our simulation incompletely simulates the processor state, a simulation run by a superhuman entity would have both the intelligence and cpu power to make sure that nothing was left out of the processor's state.

More interestingly, what level of computing power (in the math/turing sense) would the runners of our simulation have? An N-qubit quantum computer could solve the halting problem for an n-bit Turing machine by enumerating every single state simultaneously. Can the simulation-runners solve our simulation's halting problem, which must then require a level of power beyond a quantum computer?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jeff4747]

One could ask the same thing about where all the matter in the big bang came from

There was lots and lots and lots and lots of energy. The matter came from the energy. E=mc^2 works in both directions.

Now, there is some question as to why there's matter left, and why matter and anti-matter didn't simply annihilate each other. Unfortunately, we can't generate anywhere close to the energy levels of the big bang, so we don't know which theory on the predominance of matter is right. But we'll get there.

So...where'd God come from?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Some_Llama]

that's a good process, if someone doesn't conform to what you believe then they are crazy, throw them in a mental institution, this way anyone who is in a mental institution can be easily dismissed.

Flamebait mod unfair

[jcaldwel]

The flamebait mod of the parent was unfair. Yahweh would be a scary, immoral bastard if he were real. Thank non-god he isn't. Silly theists, myths are for kids!

If a book is of divine revelation, does that not mean that it has to be true in its entirety? Christians do not follow many of the practices talked about in the Old Testament, and, in fact, would be abhor many of them if they were to take place in modern times.

The fact that Christians pick and choose which verses to incorporate into their moral code, and which to ignore shows that their sense of morality comes from somewhere other than the Bible itself.

I invite anybody to check my references.

Numbers

According to the Book of Numbers, Moses commanded his people to kill all Midianites, except for the female virgin children, which the soldiers were to "keep alive for [themselves]":

Numbers 31:15-18 (King James Version) (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2031:15-18;&version=9;)

15. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

16. Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.

17. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

18. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

This passage implies pedophilia, rape, and genocide. Certainly this is not anything that we would condone today.

Judges

According to the Book of Judges, the same fate was sentenced to the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead:

Judges 21:10-24 (King James Version) (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2021:10-24;&version=9;)

10. And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children.

11. And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man.

12. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

13. And the whole congregation sent some to speak to the children of Benjamin that were in the rock Rimmon, and to call peaceably unto them.

14. And Benjamin came again at that time; and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabeshgilead: and yet so they sufficed them not.

15. And the people repented them for Benjamin, because that the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

16. Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?

17. And they said, There must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel.

18. Howbeit we may not give them wives of our daughters: for the children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin.

19. Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Bethel, on

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[ceoyoyo]

I always thought the old testament Yaweh was more believable than the new testament multiple-personality Father/Son/Holy Ghost who loves us all but still visits natural disasters on us, diseases and birth defects on us.

Really, Yaweh is just playing a game of the Sims. We are made in his image, after all, and look what a hit the Sims is!

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[ancientt]

Very simple points to consider:

1. Rules for running a nation or war are not the same as a moral code
2. Accurately recording history is not the same as endorsing immoral behavior

I don't feel this is the right place for a point by point examination, but it presents no arguments not already adequately addressed by Christian apologists in other places.

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[tylernt]

If a book is of divine revelation, does that not mean that it has to be true in its entirety?

No, it does not mean it's "perfect". That seems to be a common misconception among both believers and non-. The Bible has many deletions, later additions, mistranslations, and deliberate tampering (which is, in large part, why there are so many different denominations all based on the same book). Doesn't invalidate the message though -- you can watch an old VHS tape of Dune with static, rainbows, dropouts, and tracking issues and still get the basic concepts of Frank Herbert's masterpiece.

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[ookabooka]

No, it does not mean it's "perfect". That seems to be a common misconception among both believers and non-. The Bible has many deletions, later additions, mistranslations, and deliberate tampering (which is, in large part, why there are so many different denominations all based on the same book). Doesn't invalidate the message though -- you can watch an old VHS tape of Dune with static, rainbows, dropouts, and tracking issues and still get the basic concepts of Frank Herbert's masterpiece.

So if sandworms were replaced with flying spaghetti monsters? I think your analogy is flawed. . .A friend of mine was telling me that the hebrew word for "day" used in genisis had a secondary meaning close to "epoch" or any arbitrarily long measurement of time. I have no idea if he is right or not but teeny things like that drastically change the meanings of things. It's not like a little static or dropped frames on a VHS tape. It's like adding in new scenes, deleting old ones and swapping characters and/or dialoge. The problem I've always understood with picking and choosing passages to "believe" from the bible is there is no divine guidance, you just go with your gut. In that case why bother with the bible at all and just go with your gut in the first place.

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

For extremely loose values of "adequately".

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[Raenex]

Rules for running a nation or war are not the same as a moral code Yes they are. Morals allow people to live together. Nations are just bigger groups of people. Morals still apply, and that's why treaties like the Geneva Conventions exist. It's just that nations are in the juvenile stage of ethical behavior.

Accurately recording history is not the same as endorsing immoral behavior That excuse doesn't stick. Numbers 31 starts with:

"And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people."

The rest is Moses fulfilling the command and then the LORD instructing Moses on how to divide the "booty", virgins included. If the LORD was upset over Moses' actions, it would be mentioned here. However, the LORD doesn't chastise, but He does make sure he gets his tribute:

"And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD'S tribute was thirty and two persons."

That's 32 virgins for the LORD. Amen?

I don't feel this is the right place for a point by point examination, but it presents no arguments not already adequately addressed by Christian apologists in other places. Ok, then provide a link that you feel adequately addresses the issues.

Re:Flamebait mod unfair

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Now Moses was the most humble man on the Earth" -- Moses

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[RicktheBrick]

When we discover a property that makes sense of the universe than that property is programmed into the simulation. I think Stephen Hawking said that when we reason out why the universe began than everything will comply with those reasons. It is as if the universe is waiting for us to reason out the laws so that universe can comply with those laws. I have read about an experiment that would measure light from a distant quasar using the gravity of a galaxy between us and the quasar. Than by changing how we measure this light we change how the light left that quasar. They are trying to say we can effect the light that was transmitted billions of years ago and many trillions of miles away just by measuring it. That is the universe is waiting for us to command it so it can comply with our reasoning. We can measure the polarity of that light and when we do that light is that polarity and always was that polarity but if we change how we measure the light the polarity will change and that change will somehow travel back in time so that the light left the quasar with that polarity. It is comparable to the double slit experiment.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jesterzog]

What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it.

I don't outright disbelieve in the christian god. I do believe that there are a hell of a lot of things that are much more likely, to the extent that devoting my time or energy to the christian god isn't really worth it.

To add to this, I'm very sceptical about organised religion, which seems to be little more than a collection of people telling other people that their ideas about existence and gods are correct. Frequently people tell other people that their ideas are non-negotiable, and go as far as trying to force other people to believe, or to suppress other people's views. Organised religion is frequently used as a method of control, often by people who have no interest in the religion themselves but have simply found it's an easy way to manipulate others. It's also frequently at the roots of all kinds of things that I personally consider bad (wars, famine, corruption, suppressing speech and useful debate, and generally suppressing people's rights).

Last thing I remember...

[SnarfQuest]

There I was, installing "Duke Nukem Forever" on my PC, and then suddenly here I am. And I didn't even get a shotgun.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[kestasjk]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules. Don't be stupid, plenty of scientists believe in God, me being one of them - though of course I'm primarily a Computer Scientist, but I find physics highly interesting. My uncle has a PhD in fluid dynamics and he's a Christian, and I know plenty of other Christians who defy your personal stereotype. He said "I.D. crowd", ie Creationists, not "Christians" (which don't really believe the Bible or only believe the nice parts).

Testability is irrelevant.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I've read your description of the "halting problem", which is fairly interesting, but it doesn't save you here.

Put simply, let's suppose you do prove that it's a simulation. You write a paper about it, and you publish it in a major scientific journal.

Fine, then the simulation notices. It subtly alters your results, inserting fnords (which really work, as they can directly control anyone's brain) into every published copy, and altering everyone's memory to suggest that your experiment had either failed utterly, or proved conclusively that the Universe was not a simulation.

That's actually more complex than they'd have to -- simply swoop in at the last second and change your results.

So, it's impossible to prove that the universe is not a simulation, because if it were a simulation, all "proof", in any form, is suspect. That's assuming the physics and math involved is sound.

Now, is it possible to prove that the universe is a simulation?

Depends on your definition of "simulation". After all, if you saw a character come out of the sky claiming to be the avatar of the Universe's programmer, that would be proof that either the Universe is a simulation, or that you are insane. But insanity, and dreams, could be described as a kind of simulation.

But I kind of doubt you could find any other proof. Wouldn't it always be possible to find another theory? For example: Suppose you claimed the movement of Mercury, being so unpredictable with regards to Newtonian physics, was "proof" that the Universe was a simulation. Well, it certainly proves Newton wrong, but we now have General Relativity.

So, in that sense, you can't poke holes in reality simply by finding something that doesn't make sense. You also have to have a corresponding theory which does make sense, and which makes testable predictions, and which is generally described mathematically.

That last part -- I don't have enough computer science theory to be sure, but I don't see how you can express "this is a simulation" mathematically.

Re:Testability is irrelevant.

[jd]

Ultimately, it boils down to this. A computer, no matter how advanced, must be finite in scope. It may be very very large, but it cannot be infinite. It is bound by the properties of physical state, which are strictly quantized. There are simply not an infinite number of states for any given component, no place to put an infinite number of components, and no way to link an infinite number of components together in a way that would take finite time to perform any useful work and still be thought of as part of the same system. This is a constraint any simulator must have - it must be able to simulate finite time in finite time.

Physical systems are bound by other laws. It's unclear what laws of nature must hold true for all universes within the multiverse - laws so fundamental that even if the universe was simulated, the simulator must also adhere to those laws. However, some such laws almost certainly exist. Determining those would be helpful, as they place additional constraints.

This is the crux of my argument. You only need to find a constraint - any constraint - which must apply to a simulator but which need not apply to the raw essential ingredients within the Universe itself. A simulator can either be event-driven (ie: go to the next thing that happens), or it can step through in small increments of time. If you can show that time is quantized but that you cannot predict that from first principles alone, then you've an excellent case for a simulator. If you can show that causality cannot be violated at the quantum level, but QM predicts that this should happen, you've an excellent case for a simulator.

If, however, you can show that there is any trait in the Universe whatsoever that would require an infinite number of steps at infinite precision to duplicate, you've a strong case against a simulator. Likewise, if you can show from first principles alone that there is a single facet of the Universe which cannot be modeled by anything simpler than itself, you've again a strong argument against a simulator.

These last two cases are widespread throughout the Universe. Strange Attrators and The Butterfly Effect are the norm, not the exception. Quantum wormholes at any non-zero relative speed (which will be all of them) and indeed Quantum foam itself violate causality as a matter of course. Time does not appear to be quantized, and the Universe is just too complex to be event-driven.

The Universe is probably a great many things, some unprintable, but a simulator isn't one of them.

Re:Testability is irrelevant.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Ultimately, it boils down to this. A computer, no matter how advanced, must be finite in scope.

Why?

It is bound by the properties of physical state

Understand, the question is not whether there's some "real world" out there, very much like our own, with a giant supercomputing continent churning away simulating us, and a big giant "Intel Inside" logo on the front of it.

The question is whether we are a simulation. If we were, we'd have absolutely no clue what physical properties the "real world" might have. Thus, we'd have no clue what limitations a "computer" in the Real World might have.

This is a constraint any simulator must have - it must be able to simulate finite time in finite time.

I find that a similar assumption. While we do have time in this universe, it's relativistic, and it's closely related to space. A simulator might well have an infinite amount of time to play with.

Physical systems are bound by other laws. It's unclear what laws of nature must hold true for all universes within the multiverse - laws so fundamental that even if the universe was simulated, the simulator must also adhere to those laws. However, some such laws almost certainly exist.

Again, why? Why must these laws exist, and if they do exist, why must they apply to any simulator?

If you can show that time is quantized but that you cannot predict that from first principles alone, then you've an excellent case for a simulator.

Well, that's like Mercury. You cannot predict Mercury's movements from first principles alone... until General Relativity. So you could, you just didn't know how.

So you'd have to prove both that time is quantized and that this could not be defined from first principles.

Besides which: Energy is quantized. Spacetime sort of is (Planck). Matter, too, sort of is (atoms, etc). Why are these less of a case than quantized time?

Likewise, if you can show from first principles alone that there is a single facet of the Universe which cannot be modeled by anything simpler than itself, you've again a strong argument against a simulator.

I'm not sure why "can't be modeled by anything simpler than itself" is an argument against. Certainly a simulator could be more complex -- as much more complex as we like?

But we've sort of ignored the point: Can you currently recite, from memory, every experiment which leads to the conclusions you've drawn? Are you simultaneously aware of all your interpretation and extrapolation to get from that point to those conclusions?

Imagine, for a moment, that your memory might be altered at any point along this process -- from when the experiments happen (whether you do them yourself or not) to when you say "Therefore, the Universe is not simulated!"

Your argument, you see, really only holds true if you assume your own sanity, and that requires assuming your brain is somehow exempt from the simulation. So if I do accept all your arguments (and I'm not really in a position to evaluate them properly -- I don't know enough physics, and I'm sleep-deprived)... I think all you can really prove is that you're not a sane brain in a jar -- in other words, that The Matrix is not literally true, and thus, that the machine doing the simulation must exist in a much weirder reality than we do.

Re:Testability is irrelevant.

[BeanThere]

Put simply, let's suppose you do prove that it's a simulation. You write a paper about it, and you publish it in a major scientific journal. Fine, then the simulation notices. It subtly alters your results, inserting fnords [wikipedia.org] (which really work, as they can directly control anyone's brain) into every published copy, and altering everyone's memory to suggest that your experiment had either failed utterly, or proved conclusively that the Universe was not a simulation.

OK, but what if the simulation creators just don't care if we find out, or for some other reason don't mind if we do? Why are you assuming they necessarily would? The fact that seemingly without exception everybody seems to assume that a simulation *would* always try to hide its existence from us seems to prove to me that we are in a simulation as it must be inserting 'fnords' into everyone's brains to force them to make this stupid assumption in order that we never find the bugs in the simulation that could allow us to discover it ...

Re:Testability is irrelevant.

[SanityInAnarchy]

OK, but what if the simulation creators just don't care if we find out, or for some other reason don't mind if we do? Why are you assuming they necessarily would?

I'm not assuming anything, which is kind of the point. I'm just pointing out possibilities.

Alright, suppose you do find this proof, in the form of something that does not make sense unless the Universe is simulated.

Then, two months later, someone comes out with a new theory which explains your discrepancies without having to resort to a simulated Universe.

My main point, though, was that you could not prove conclusively one way or another, and specifically, that you absolutely cannot prove that you are not in a simulated Universe. And I'm not really convinced that you can come up with sufficient "evidence" one way or another, either, because pretty much any indication of a simulated Universe could simply be weirdness on the part of our Universe, whereas any indication of a "real" Universe could simply be lack of understanding of just how good a simulation is possible.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should stop reading xkcd.

Q: Is there a God?

[Anonymous Coward]

A: If we live in a VR simulation and I find a code injection exploit, there will be. :-)

If only Jack was here to see this

[Duncan Blackthorne]

An entertaining idea, but seriously I think perhaps this scientist (and I use the word loosely here) read too much of Jack Chalker's Well World novels when he was a kid.

If the underlying laws don't make sense

[Chuck Chunder]

If the underlying laws don't make sense the closer we look then perhaps that is evidence suggesting we are part of a simulation. Any simulation would involve algorithms that have optimisations and any simulation would be designed to "look right" and "work" on a macro level but may produce strange results on finer details.

I say "evidence suggesting" because I expect it's something that couldn't be determined with anything approaching proof. I don't think we could ever claim that some wierd effect was a simulation artifact rather than something we just don't understand yet.

In the end it probably doesn't make much difference, I feel what I feel regardless of why. I suppose there might be some real cause for interest if we could communicate outside of the simulation or change the simulations rules.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Dread_ed]

Christianity punks all the ohter religions again! All you have to do to go to heaven in Christianity is to believe in Jesus. After that your ticket is punched and you are free to go off and do whatever you need with your other prospective gods. Happy Elysium hunting!

Evolution is testable??

[ph1ll]

"Evolution is right, not because it opposes religion, but because it has been repeatedly tested by comparing evidence with predictions of the theory."

How do you test evolution? Can you predict how species will evolve? Does evolution predict where to dig and what you'll find there?

Don't get me wrong, I believe in evolution. But I recoginise that it is a belief.

Re:Evolution is testable??

[Jasin Natael]

How are those relevant questions? You may as well ask:

Can you predict who will be murdered next in New York City? Does evolution predict where to dig, and who you'll find there?

And then, you'll have to remember that evolution relies on ALL the proximate causes of death (not just murder), and how much food is available, and weather patterns and pretty much every single miniscule thing that happens on this planet, not just for the human race (or any specific species in question), but the interactions among every last organism on Earth -- and not only even what organisms they are at the moment, but what genes may they already be carrying that will deactivate/reactivate under stress or disease or radiation damage?

And, yet, you wouldn't accept an explanation that since science can't predict and describe the circumstances and targets of murder ahead of time, that murder might not exist... Or, if you believe in free will, maybe substitute the weather for evolution instead.

Re:Evolution is testable??

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way you test any large scale, long duration, process. In a lab, in a much smaller scale. And evolution has been seen in organisms in a lab environment that were subject to these tests.

Is this conclusive? No. But it lends significant weight to the argument.

Just like gravity is just a theory, and we 'believe' in it. But it has been shown in many many experiments to act the way we think it should. The only real difference is that people don't experience evolution nearly as much as they experience gravity.

Re:Evolution is testable??

[ph1ll]

"...since science can't predict and describe the circumstances and targets of murder ahead of time, that murder might not exist."

Then science would be the wrong tool for the job.

Remember: science is supposed to be predictive and repeatable. If it can't make predictions and it can't be repeated under controlled circumstances, then it's not science.

That's not to say it is invalid. History is a respected discipline to which many clever people devote their lives. It's just not science. That in no why undermines it, but it's not science.

Similarly, evolution is akin to archaelogy. A respected discipline but it doesn't make predictions, it can't be tested and we can't replicate it. (We can play with genetics, but that's a different field.).

And again, I believe in mainstream history, archaeology and evolution. But I don't believe they're sciences.

Re:Evolution is testable??

[Anonymous Coward]

You test evolution in a lab or by observation in nature. You don't predict the future in any science, so you don't predict the future by evolution either. Evolution does not predict where to dig, that is in the fields of archeology and paleontology.

Ask a Jart

[AceJohnny]

People seem to think that you can't solve this from inside the box. Ser Olmy ap Sennon believed the same, until the simulated Jart found a way outside the simulation.

reference

Here's one

[DynaSoar]

> He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual.

Some of the material falling into a black hole escapes as Hawking radiation, and also adds to the mass, spin and and/or or charge of the hole, but there's no evidence these are increased by an amount equal to the infalling matter/energy according to E=MC^2. Disappearance of the time dimension at the event horizon also 'freezes' processing and any information there gets locked up.

Does information processing theory (by itself) provide a mechanism for complete loss of some information?

Even if the hole later 'explodes' and becomes a naked singularity (something I can't hold with) there's no indication that what's already in the singularity can affect what's outside other than by the forces noted above.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you are looking at it wrong. There is little point trying to calculate odds after the fact. Try shuffling a deck of cards, deal them out, work out the odds of them being in that exact order, and remark how amazing it was that they should come out in that order when the odds are so small.

No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Morpheus,

Your special sounds great, but I'll have the blue pill combo with coke please.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[TapeCutter]

"Maybe not universally shared by all at all times."

That's because the computer that is generating your virtual reality is in your skull. All these skull based computers are running different simulations, when they produce the same results over and over again, we call it science.

"Something hard to explain to others, but very real nonetheless."

I have hallucinated a few times, the logical side of me was screaming that it's not real but the rest of me was not listening.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[bill_mcgonigle]

Even the Vatican is starting to back Evolution. Not all Christ-lovers are insanely trying to get ID accepted as science.

In one of Hawking's books, he talks about a Pope in the 70's ceding all time after the big bang to Nature. I'm sure he leaves room for Godly meddling, but the Vatican isn't likely to put up a fight about science in this or much of the previous century.

Remember, most smart people believe in Science, and railing against what smart people hold to be true is no way to maintain a firm grip on power.

It'll be interesting to see how they wriggle out of the Rhythm Method problem.

Major Flaw in Theory

[PPH]

If this was a VR simulation, all the female avatars would be better endowed.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[susano_otter]

so how could a chain of logical arguments convince a person of gods existence ?

Well, Kurt Godel did demonstrate than any logical system of argumentation must contain valid arguments the existence of which cannot be arrived at using the logic rules of that system...

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[bill_mcgonigle]

Nice comment. If we are in a simulation and it's being run by 'God', is that OK with God worshipers? I don't think the Bible states anything about powers outside the reference point of our own universe.

matches up to buddhism

[the_B0fh]

Just had a thought - according to Buddhism, we're on the 4th rung of the wheel of life. There're 32 levels. What this guy is saying maps to that. If we break out of this run, we go to the next, and the cycle continues. Only by leaving the wheel of life (this simulation) can we achieve nirvana.

So, maybe the enclosing system is the nirvana... and it is running the simulation to see who can break out of it.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

erm - are you really equating being a proponent of ID with being christian? If so, it's you being stupid.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[bsmoor01]

Totally! I really get pissed off when people don't believe I have a tiny gnome in my cupboard that hides when you look for him.

You can't scientifically disprove that, and people still don't believe. It's astounding close mindedness, and it just pisses me off.

Suggestions

[JoeInnes]

There are four possible scenarios (simplifying a little):
o We are living in a VR and don't know it
o We are living in a VR and come to realise it
o We are not living in a VR and do not believe we are
o We are not living in a VR but believe we are

In case one: No problems.
In case two: Either the simulation ends, or the simulation is not geared towards working out how long we take to find out. Either way, there is no higher level of understanding in either, as we still wouldn't know the goal of the simulation, and there would be know way of knowing until the simulation ended, meaning we would not profit from it.
In case three: No problems.
In case four: We progress to trying to work out what this simulation is aimed at, failing miserably. The only thing wasted is time (and money, in the form of research grants).

As I look it at, it's no different to religion, really. Believe what you like; it doesn't really affect the environment in which we live.

Buy a dictionary

[Shadowin]

eternity (-tûr'n-t)
n., pl. -ties.
Time without beginning or end; infinite time.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[letxa2000]

Ssh, don't tell anyone! There are too many people here with preconceived agendas wherein science and religion are in conflict. It's going to disrupt their world view if they find out that, no, religion is not opposed to science and is in no way threatened by it. The reverse should also be true.

NZ

[oglueck]

I know that Holliwood excercices strict control as to when a new movie is released in a country. But withholding The Matrix from New Zealand for 7 years is a bit harsh, isn't it?

Re:NZ

[BeanThere]

Or, gee, it could be the 3000 year old philosophy, of which The Matrix is a miniscule speck of nothing in terms of philosophical interest and contributes nothing new ... honestly, what irritated me the most about that movie was that suddenly everyone was running around spouting what amounts to half an hour of Philosophy 101 as if it was something amazing and new and deep. Predictably this thread is full of incorrect allusions to The Matrix being the source of this idea.

Re:NZ

[oglueck]

It probably comes down to Philosophy not being popular knowlegde. I always notice that I know absolutely nothing about Philosphy when I speak to my brother, who has a bachalor degree in Philosophy...

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Edward Ka-Spel]

Evolution is right, not because it opposes religion, but because it has been repeatedly tested by comparing evidence with predictions of the theory.

That's not the way things work with the scientific method. More correctly, Evolution hasn't been proven wrong. Just like relativity, quantum theory, and superstrings. The scientific method never proves anything right. Just that it fits what we know so far.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[GoofyBoy]

>We've imagined about a million of em. Pick the wrong one and you go to Hell for sure.

Just because you have a lot of non-optimal choices doesn't mean that you don't pick. Example: How do you choose the right wife? Choose wrong and its certain Hell on earth.

Bullshit. I *WAS* dead, there's nothing after.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was dead for ELEVEN MINUTES in May of 2003. Guess what? Nothing. Like getting gassed when you get a cavity drilled: before you know it you're out and you wake up again not remembering conking out.

Actually, fuck it. I was about to go into a rant relating my experience in detail and how I went from mildly theistic humanist to a secular, actively anti-religion humanist because of my non-experience on the table, but fuck it. Nothing I say will get you to abandon your RETARDED beliefs, so I'm not going to try.

The only reason I'm still typing and will post this is to say:

FUCK YOU, STOP SPREADING LIES, FEAR, UNCERTAINTY AND DOUBT. NOTHING COMES AFTER THIS. I KNOW BECAUSE I'VE BEEN THERE. LIFE IS PRECIOUS, ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS. DON'T WASTE IT FEARING SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T EXIST.

Uh... in short, religious people piss me off. Christians doubly so. Thank you.

Re:Bullshit. I *WAS* dead, there's nothing after.

[Anonymous Coward]

NOTHING COMES AFTER THIS. I KNOW BECAUSE I'VE BEEN THERE.

Bullshit. Just because you don't remember anything doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Re:Bullshit. I *WAS* dead, there's nothing after.

[Trogre]

NOTHING COMES AFTER THIS. I KNOW BECAUSE I'VE BEEN THERE.

You do realise that you're doing the very thing that religion is criticized for:

I experienced X. Therefore X, and nothing else, is true.

Well done.

DON'T WASTE IT FEARING SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T EXIST.

Who's fearing anything? I know where I'm going. You seem to know where you're going too. Good for you.

Re:Bullshit. I *WAS* dead, there's nothing after.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your statement is that religious people can always say, "Oh, it wasn't your time." In other words, god's will can serve as as a loophole to any rational argument you provide.

I guess that's what happens when people are so strongly convinced they are right. The things we do to deny our fear of death...

Re:Bullshit. I *WAS* dead, there's nothing after.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay.

Just keep in mind that some (most) people who claim to have had near death experiences don't "remember" them until prompted by something years after the event.

Re:Bullshit. I *WAS* dead, there's nothing after.

[JWSmythe]

And just like alien encounters and past life recollections, some people can be guided to "remember" anything. :)

    I saw a UFO once.

    I was sure it was a UFO.

    I couldn't think of ANYTHING else it could be. It was low, fast, silent....

    In talking to a military pilot, he mentioned (vaguely, because it's probably classified) that there are military helicopters unofficially stationed in the area. They practice fire on occasion.

    My UFO, which is still 100% accurate, because I couldn't identify it, was probably a practice missile, which had already burnt out it's fuel. At the point where I saw it, it would have still been red hot, flying very quickly, and not making a sound.

    Some people could have probably been guided into believing that it was more of something. It had a very definiate disk shape, right? Ummm, I guess so. It was traveling much faster than any aircraft could? Umm, I guess so.

    Really, knowing what the military does, and where they do it, although I was unaware of this particular airspace (although it's marked on the air navigation charts), it's the obvious answer. Now I just think it's funny. They probably even knew we were there, because we were in the middle of nowhere. I'd bet they were laughing their asses off. :)

more evidence than for string theory?

[universesolved]

Fascinating thread! At the risk of being accused of shameless self-promotion, I recently wrote a book on this exact topic. It is called "The Universe - Solved!" and you can find more about it at www.theuniversesolved.com. The book was actually completed over a year ago and, although I haven't read Mr. Whitworth's paper, the abstract certainly sounds like it covers the same concepts.

I believe that there are four categories of evidence that lend support to this theory...

1. The very nature of the computational mechanisms of a Von Neumann machine are essentially the same as QM - a sequence of states, with nothing existing or happening between the states. The resolution of any program is analogous to the spatial resolution of our reality, just at a different level. In fact, if you carry Moore's Law forward (which has been consistent over the past 40 years), computers will reach the Planck resolution in 2192. Not too far off. However, you don't need to model reality all the way to that level for the model to be indistinguishable from our reality. Let's say you want to examine the guts of a tree. You cut it open, scrape off a few cells and put them under a microscope, maybe an electron microscope. To simulate this computationally, one doesn't have to model every single tree down to the Planck level. Only the OBSERVED tree needs to be modeled, and then only the cells selected, and then only down to a resolution that matches the observational limitations of our measurement devices. The program can do that dynamically. And all quantum effects can be programmatically modeled without building a reality model to the Planck level. So, given Moore's law and the limitations of "observational reality", we should be able to create VRs that are indistinguishable from our current reality within 20 years or so.

2. Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument is a solid logical argument that we are most likely living in a simulation. Combined with #1 above, it is likely that we are already in one. Furthermore, there is no way to tell that we aren't. And no way to prove that history exists back to any arbitrary point in time.

3. The universe is unbelievably finely tuned for the physical existence of matter, let alone life. The only explanation that mainstream science can come up with is that zillions (yes, I know it's not a real number) of universes are spawned every second, most of which are entirely useless and throw-away, and via the hand-waving of the anthropic principle, we happen to be in the perfect one. I'm sorry, but Occam's Razor heavily favors the simulation theory here.

4. The huge set of well-studied anomalies facing us in fields as varied as metaphysics, physics, philosophy, geology, anthropology, and psychology can all be explained ONLY by the programmed reality model.

Remember, science does not deal in truths, only evidence. And the evidence that supports this idea is actually pretty strong. Stronger, I would say, than the scant evidence that supports String Theory. Falsifiable? Not sure. Interesting to think about? I think so. :)

Have to run and I'll be back on tomorrow. Interesting to see what everyone thinks.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[GoofyBoy]

Its too wide of a group; you don't see every musician speak up against the violent rivaly between gangster rappers (or choose your own sub-group of musicians).

Do you feel you need to critize or defend every post on slashdot?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[porcupine8]

So you are saying that in the example I gave, you would change your mind and decide that you had not actually seen the bird, because you did not have enough hard data to prove to another person that you had seen it or means to replicate the sighting? Or do you just feel like repeating random quotes about the superiority of the scientific method because you don't have any other argument? Personally, when one of my dogs shits on the floor, I see the poop and I smell the poop and that's enough evidence to convince me that there's poop that needs cleaning up. I don't feel the need to use the scientific method to prove that it is, in fact, poop, and not mud.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[ceoyoyo]

Well... there's a bit of a difference between saying "okay, we don't forbid thinking about it" and saying "yeah, we agree this is probably how it happens."

I agree the Vatican has been supportive of evolution for quite a while though, more than just "starting to." If only the Catholic church could get over their condom hangups (and maybe priest celibacy and the no female priests thing), they'd have done a very nice job of modernizing themselves while keeping their core beliefs intact.

Not quite so..

[SuurMyy]

> Ergo, no experiment we could produce would allow us to discern the reality of the VR machine unless it chose to reveal itself to us.

While this could be true, it also could be otherwise. Assuming that we're being run on a VR machine does not imply that we're necessarily not wanted to figure it out. So it could very well be that there are tests that would reveal to us that we're in a simulation. There's no reason to automagically expect that the VR machine is such that it denies us this information.

Another thing is that even if it tried to do so, maybe it's not that well built and would therefore miss it that we figured it out. It could also be so that while theoretically everything could be taken back, this actually is not so as there are variables there that prevent this. Maybe they need to get the simulation done w/limited resources, and have accepted a tiny risk that we'll figure it out. Maybe it doesn't matter at all if we figure it out, because this simulation is made to test something completely different. Maybe we're just a by-product of a some kind of a test, and they don't care, or even haven't noticed. The possibilites are virtually endless.

Re:Not quite so..

[ChronosWS]

There is no reason to automagically expect a VR machine at all. Are there inexplicable phenomonon whose explanation most logically fits a VR reality as opposed to any number of other theories with more weight in them? I don't think we are there yet.

Re:Not quite so..

[megaditto]

Oh, there are good reasons to expect it.
One good reason is that, in 20-30 years if all goes well, we will be constructing our own full-scale universe simulations. Possibly millions at the time. From that that point onwards, at least, there will be a million to one shot that any given universe is simulated.

By the same logical reasoning, we might expect that this event has already occured in the past, and we already have a million to one shot of living in a virtual universe.

Re:Not quite so..

[ChronosWS]

Using what machine? The amount of information contained within the Universe cannot be represented by the material of this Universe using any technology reasonably forseeable. We might construct very limited simulators, but even a full simulator of something the size of a planet is unlikely. More likely we will create higher-level simulations because these are close enough to reality to be actually useful, but don't require the ability to model low-level phenomenon to product their results. On the other hand, life as we know it DOES depend on those low-level phenomenon. Rather, we will likely produce machine intelligences, not Universes.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[ceoyoyo]

The steady state universe hypothesis had a limited domain. Eventually someone would have tried to extend that domain by asking where it came from in the first place. Evolution is still science even though it doesn't have anything to say about why ice cream melts... but science is certainly interested in discussing why ice cream melts.

To put it a little differently, one of the problems with a theory that posits a god or superior being creator is that it explains our universe by invoking something even more complex.

Two things

[polemistes]

Information processing can't do:

1. Consciousness
2. Reality

If you don't agree with 1. you don't have it.
Well, you need 1. to know, but if you don't agree with 2. you don't.

Or, which I'd never suggest, of course, you're just stupid.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[ceoyoyo]

Yes, Evolution was banned because it contradicted the written word of God... in 1925.

God published a new set of errata?

1. The world is 4 GIGA years old, not 4 KILO years.
2. By "created man" I mean "caused him to evolve."
3. The rib thing was a joke. Laugh idiots.
4. That should read CELEBRATE. Jeez, I don't think that one was even my fault.

Mathmatical proofs of simulated universe

[Anonymous Coward]

If we are mearly a simulation said simulation runs in a real? universe which makes our execution a real component of reality. Theory and Philosophy are fun to play with but unless your ideas contribute to the development of the hoverboard, million core processors or space craft they really are quite useless.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jeremiahbell]

I once had a very similar experience after drinking a bottle of Robitussin.

I really hope that truely was a joke, but next time turn off your Ron Paul sig. I'm an avid supporter of Ron Paul, but 75% of the public would see your post and think "See, I told you the Paulists are idiots." The humour wouldn't even occur to them.

Two things to consider

[Katatsumuri]

1) Many people here assume that the maintainers of this simulation would be strongly against us discovering The Big Truth. They would patch it, erase / fake our memory, etc... Why? If I were a super-creature fooling around with universe simulations in my spare time, I might actually welcome the simulated beings to gain awareness of the true nature of their world. I might also find it funny to talk to them, or give them some kind of reward for being that smart.

2) To those other too many people saying "who really cares?", "there's no practical difference", and other similar things - come on, knowledge is power! Imagine all the possible exploits!

Past Reality Simulation Postulation

[neo]

John Kipling Lewis' Past Reality Simulation Postulation

1. If it will eventually be possible to create vivid, life like worlds
which appear real to the subjective participant, then such worlds will
be more numerous than the original world given the propensity to create
in human nature.

2. If such worlds can be used to test hypothesis about past events and
how such events might have changed the future, then archiologist,
historians and recreational simulationists would create these
siumulations in order to study such events, either for entertainment or
for research purposes.

3. Given the larger number of possible simulations of past events that
will likely be run in the future, it is more likely that we are
currently living in a simulation than in the original reality.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[virgil_disgr4ce]

Come on, who modded this insightful? You can convince yourself of ANYTHING with very little effort, if you WANT to be convinced of something. What we need a "chain of logical arguments" for is to PROVE something. So if you don't care about proving the existence of god or your husband's love because you just know it, great! But you'll run into problems real quick when asked to prove those things exist. That's where those "chain[s] of logical arguments" come in really handy--at least with the love thing you seem to have some evidence to start with; I'm not so sure about the evidence of god.

Amazingly enough, being a scientist does not automatically meant that I must be 100% logical in all things What the hell kind of scientist is that!? Seriously, good luck with your research with that attitude. I'm not trying to flame here, but I'm pretty disturbed by that remark.

No other universe needed

[gr8_phk]

I've always thought that if there is a mathematical description of our universe (a simulation qualifies) then there is no need to actually execute the simulation. Did the Mandelbrot set exist prior to its discovery? I'd say yes. Recall that a computer generated image of it is exactly that, and it's an approximation to the well defined mathematical object. I contend that such things exist in some sense weather we look at them or not. In this way, it is sufficient for there to exist a concise definition of our universe in order for it to exist. It is not required that it actually be discovered by anyone, or run on anything. This is also the only explanation I know of that does not require anything "prior to" or "outside of" our universe.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

because you did not have enough hard data to prove to another person that you had seen it or means to replicate the sighting?

The point is that one could replicate the finding if they wanted to. A scientist doesn't have to replicate every finding they come to accept. When a new finding comes out, it becomes a free-for-all, trying to confirm or disprove the result. The point is, it has been confirmed, and could be proven wrong.

Religion, OTOH, rejects opposing criticisms, even if they are based on sound fact or logic. The argument gets ended with a "BIBLESAYSO". At that point, the debate ends because the starting premises differ. There is no way to argue with someone who believes that a book that contradicts reality is infallible, and that reality is the one that is wrong.

the Missing Sock Theorem

[kipple]

hey, if someone somehow can proof me that my socks still exist in this universe, well, I'll buy anything.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the god entity have to be a single being? Or why does it have to be categorized into a sexual role (male or female), when those roles are part of our reproduction, which aparently isn't necessary.

Because... BIBLESAYSO.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun fact: the powerful hallucinogen DMT is naturally produced in the human brain. Yeah, I know. I was in the parking lot outside of some crappy casino in Las Vegas and these two guys had cut off this girls head, there was blood everywhere. They had a cordless power drill and they were drilling holes in her skull. I am pretty sure that they were trying to get the DMT.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Positing that god is both omnipotent and omniscient as in Christian Theology, God would be both powerful enough to create the universe and at the same time SMART enough to make everything work scientifically. In addition his omniscience would mean that he is not some Voodoo Witchdoctor and you won't be able to "figure out how it really works" just by looking really hard.

I would say that the only true way to disprove god would be if they somehow revealed that the entire universe really was a simulation, that would imply that the creator of the simulation was neither omniscient nor omnipotent hence no god.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you choose the right wife? Choose wrong and its certain Hell on earth.

There could be more than one right choice.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

I rolled a die to determine the answer to your question... I got 4. What does that mean?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[mysticgoat]

Honestly, why would it be worth any mental effort to learn the taxonomy of fools?

Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste?

An old yet still very useful method of picking apart a problem space is to develop a taxonomy that models its structure and behavior. "This part does that thing; that part does t'other thing."

And I truly believe, from the very depths of my heart, that those who adhere to I.D. and have reached voting age constitute, in the aggregate, a potentially dangerous problem. The more articulate they are, the greater the danger, for they might learn how to influence the sheeple.

The voice of reason may rescue a mind that is hell-bent for the wastelands. And when voiced on a public forum, it might also turn others away from going in that direction. So I believe it is a moral duty to point out anti-reason in public rants, when that can be done with at least a minimal expectation of exerting a little influence.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[stuboogie]

I wouldn't change my mind that I saw the bird. However, your example uses a bird that is KNOWN throughout civilization to truly exist. There is no question that the bird is real, only whether you took a picture of one in a rare situation.

That is far different from making claims that you witnessed an angel come down from the heavens to speak to you. Angels have not been proven to exist to all mankind. Neither has the Yeti, Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster. I'm sure you would receive the same skepticism if you claimed to have taken a picture of one of those.

If you are going to pose a hypothetical question, please make it one that is consistent with the argument.

What a satisfying thread

[imAck]

Now *this* is what Slashdot is all about. . .

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you run into little problems like the crusades, Hitler etc.

But heck if you don't mind that, then believe whatever you want - logic is sooo overrated.

That being said, I need to go pray to Sigmar.

Re:A Quick Test to find out if this is a simulatio

[Anonymous Coward]

The key to enlightenment: up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b-a
Where these buttons are is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Hells]

Probably humaniora

And how would it know?

[DynaSoar]

If the map ever got a glimpse of the terrain, how would it be able to recognize it as the terrain rather than another map? How would we know that it's not "maps all the way down"?

Evidence of simulation already exists

[gregor-e]

Recent observations that time appears to be slowing could in actuality be showing that the computational load required for simulating our region of space-time is increasing, thereby causing events propagated from distant automata to appear to be running faster than what we consider realtime.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[stuboogie]

I wish I had mod points. Well spoken.

However, I think your going to burn for putting forth a false deity: TrekkieGod. :)

We don't need silicone to do this.

[Fantastic Lad]

Here's my thought.

Our brains are much more complex than silicone computers. What if imagination and creative passion are all that are needed to breathe life into other realities? I know that my dreams have far better resolution and detail than most FPS's. And we all know that our subconsciouses are far more powerful awareness machines than our conscious selves. --You see evidence of this leaking out in individuals who can perform complex maths normally considered impossible for regular people, or memorize phone books. --I knew one guy with photographic memory who could flip quickly through a book taking 'snap shots' of the pages and then shut his eyes and read the text later. He used this with D&D rule books, saying it was easier than carting around stacks of square-bounds, but said that on the conscious layer it wasn't terribly useful since just because the images were contained in his head, to understand the images, (of the pages), it still took him a normal length of reading time to process it with his eyes shut. In any case, my point is that the human brain is a power-house which remains largely untapped. --Or IS it?

And what about parallel computing? If everybody in the West is thinking intensely about Star Wars, does that generate enough MIPS, (or the equivalent), to generate a few lightsabers and people to wield them?

And who says we even need a top layer reality running the simulation? Why not just have that layer be a product of one of the lower layers? Why not have all universes cross dependent on each other? Sure this raises the chicken or the egg problem, but that would be there even if there was a top layer reality.

Just think. If you are the product of an imaginative force in another universe, then shouldn't you return the favor by imagining a nice reality for others to inhabit?

As they say. . , "Dream On, dude, Dream On!"

-FL

nay

[unity100]

100000 years ago? Sure you would. Creatures that a Homo sapiens sapiens (i.e. all of us, presumed) would certainly recognise as human appeared 160000 years ago (Homo sapiens idaltu) nay. YOU would, and they wouldNT. observe the stressing of the words please.

as homo sapiens sapiens, you have knowledge of the past, and ACCEPT and recognize other earlier homo sapiens species as from the same specie. you accept them as human. they, on the other hand, would probably intimidated with your posture, stance, looks, behaviour, the way you talk, the thinness of your voice compared to their coarseness, and shun you.

probably same will be valid for future 'human's. today's 'human' would probably shun them and get scared or intimidated of them if they popped in our midst.

Awesome idea! Really got me thinking!

[Dr. Spork]

OK, that's really cool - both your specific premise for the novel, and the general idea that magic should be explained as an exploit of buggy universe-code. What I would add to this sort of a plot: realizing that some exploits allow rather limited effects while others allow the execution of arbitrary code. To try to imagine a scenario where that sort of "root access" to the universe-computer is available - and how to best make use of it... that would be the sort of sci-fi that I would pay money for. Just one of many interesting quesitons: How is it that we would interface with the computer that's simulating our universe? I would suggest that it would involve doing something to black holes - like dropping certain sorts of structures into a black hole, where (according to recent work in cosmology) all the information from those structures would have to somehow be preserved at the event horizon. Maybe there would be a way to "program" the event horizon so as to truly destroy some information, which a clever scientist could work into a full universal exploit. Once this is discovered, we realize that we could change certain parameters of the universe, but of course that would be crazy, since the simulation is on the level of physics, so we would be messing with universal laws... and no good would come of it. However, scientists quickly realize that if the computer can run the universe, it must be also able to multitask, and the universe simulation could run simultaneously with some other process which we could launch from inside "our world" - again, using the black hole exploit for both input and output (the latter would be seen in aspects of measurable event-horizon states). Then we'd gradually learn more about about the host computer, to the point where we become confident that we could emulate it on a machine that we build - literally a virtual machine. Of course the emulator would run much more slowly than the universe, but fast enough to allow us to fool around with ever-more complex code, which we could test with impunity, because it's running on a virtual machine and won't accidentally "crash" the universe. Ultimately, this method would lead to the development of a program that takes control of the inputs and outputs of the host computer itself, and through these, a offers us a sort of window on the universe in which the simulation computer is built. (For a banal example: Imagine this computer has a webcam attached to it, and we figure out a way to eavesdrop on the data stream from the webcam. Then we would be "seeing" the higher-universe. But perhaps less banal: What if we could see their Wikipedia?) Like you say, the fact that this would be in a novel would require some sort of an interaction with the builders of the universe computer, which causes them quite a surprise! And how does it end? One of them hacks together a patch that plugs the black-hole exploit! Just kidding!

Or how about the same story in reverse: It is we that build a computer simulation of a world on the level of physics, partly with the aim (and the hope) that the simulated entities will develop an emergent consciousness. However, our own simulation code has a bug, which is exploited by the simulated entities to take control of the computer that's running the simulaiton, and to use it to explore the universe which contains the computer. Actually, something similar to this once happened on the holodeck in ST:TNG, though as usual, the way they did it was a lot more lame than it needed to be.

Anyway, thank you for inspiring in me some amusing ideas!

A Universe In the Thumbnail of a Giant...

[flyneye]

I want a bag of whatever this guys got.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get into quantum physics everything is governed by probability, it seems.

It's actually worse than that. Quantum theory is probabilistic alright, but governed by a rules that are in turn totally alien to most human's intuition - classical probabilities between 0 and 1 aren't really the primitive object, complex numbers (i.e. numbers involving the square root of -1) called "probability amplitudes" are, and it is these amplitudes which are combined, not probabilities as such. AND, some "things", like electrons, really behave very weirdly indeed - you have to rotate an electron through 720 degrees, not 360 degrees, to return it to its original state.

Even worse, it's confirmed by experiments a pot-smoking undergrad can do these days (unlike religion).

Given many people obviously struggle with ordinary classical probabilities such as you encounter when betting on a horse race or playing the stock market, they really haven't a hope of beginning to understand quantum theory. At the same time, it's very sad they won't - when one learns about the wonder and majesty of the universe as revealed by modern physics, one can't help but consider all human religions with the possible exception of certain kinds of buddhism to be unbelievably childish, arrogant, small-minded, petty and mean.

Discussion of quantum theory in the popular media tend to amount to nebulous handwaving.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to turn this into a religious debate You're new hear, aren't you?

Math is a LANGUAGE

[maz2331]

Mathematics is, at its core, nothing more or less than a very precice language for indicating the relationship between quantities.

So, just because you can write math that explains and simulates the universe does not mean that the universe itself is math. It only means that it can be described with math.

Correlation != Causal.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[JoeZeppy]

A-fucking-men.

Ah, amusing, loveable humans...

[Anonymous Coward]

still thinking in terms of timelines. Only once you realize that all of the past, present and future (big bang to state #aleph 1) are just potential "universe-configurations" that "potentially exist" all "at once" and that time is just a path through configuration states, will you be able to step outside of the box. "Time" and "space" and "energy" are simply ILLUSORY relative mechanisms that emerge when an arbitrary set of "rules" describe some path through potential (imaginary) configuration space. Ironically, it is the illusion that creates the reality we experience. If you dig deeper and explore how to get to "something" from "pure nothing," you will realize that "everything" exists because it can't NOT exist, and that, requisite for the existence of everything, absolutely nothing exists. Yin Yang baby. Oh and by the way - you are all God. And because we exist in a "potential" universe, the reality you experienced as your life repeats forever and ever.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[pinchhazard]

Good news to the slashdot geeks: All of your direct ancestors got laid at some point, so your genes should contain at least a little Player.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lessthan]

Maybe I am misreading your statements, but to be literal, there are religions that threaten science. Many of the ones in the U.S. are Christian denominations. Science is threatened, because the meme of the literal reading of the KJV Bible is spreading to more denominations. The Bible, by definition, is not scientifically accurate, therefore depending on your point of view, either science or religion is wrong.

You are correct, evolution has been OK with them

[Anonymous Coward]

for quite some time. Their theory is different from the fundamentalist/biblical literalist in that they believe the important part is that God created everything and not that he did it in exactly 7 days.
Basically, you have to go with this interpretation once you face the fact that the different gospels have Jesus born in a few different places and at a few different times.
The part I find most amusing is the literalists who seem to forget that english is NOT the original language so you might have different choices for the words you used in translating it. One example of this is the word "Abba" which most of them translate as "Father." Since this is a term Jesus used to describe God, you often hear this reference. Contrast this with another possible translation for abba which is "daddy" and you get a decidedly different approach to the way he meant for our relationship with God to be.

Proposed Experiment: Computed != Empirical

[DJ_Perl]

Consider the Monty Hall problem. We know that the best strategy is to always switch. Switching gives you a 2/3 probability of winning. I've written several programs to verify it, and you probably have too. As we know, if you computationally simulate the conditions of Monty Hall problem, for a large enough number of trials, the probability of winning by always switching, converges to ~66.67%

Here's the surprising part -- if you do the trials the Monty Hall problem empirically , with actual people physically playing the roles of host and contestant, you get a different result. Empirically, the probability of winning by always switching, converges to ~50.00% .

Computed Reality is not the same as Empirical Reality! It's counter-intuitive. I have done this experiment on a large enough scale to detect a possible anomaly. The deviation is statistically significant. Don't take my word for it. Try it yourself! I intend to conduct empirical trials on a much larger scale.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[pinchhazard]

Well said. Basically, I agree.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[pinchhazard]

Separating from your body, having your spirit become one with the universe, being everywhere, and then thinking to yourself, "I had a body once. I wonder what that was like..." only to be slammed back into reality a few seconds later. Sounds like salvia to me.

Somebody already have it before!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=71491791&blogID=344454283

VR

[gsgiles]

Godel's Proof that there are an infinite number of true but unprovable conjectures would argue that we are real and not digital. No amount of information processing can prove these to be true like an infinite number of turing machines executing an infinite number of instructions.

QED

The above does not say anything about the physical universe be a state function in the mind of a higher dimensional entity that we are a subspace of.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

It sounds to me like a "Ok, we'll admit your stuff might be true if you stop looking into how wrong OUR stuff is."

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[porcupine8]

Luckily, I don't generally have to prove God's existence or my husband's love for me to anyone else. That's my POINT. An individual person (even a scientist) can believe something to be true even if they can't prove it to someone else, and that doesn't make them an idiot.

What the hell kind of scientist is that!? Seriously, good luck with your research with that attitude. I'm not trying to flame here, but I'm pretty disturbed by that remark.

If you can't separate your research/work from the rest of your life, you've got some problems. Being logical in my work doesn't mean that I have to logically work out, say, what I want for dinner tonight. Sometimes I think about the costs and benefits of various options, yes. Sometimes I say "Fuck it, I want a pizza."

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[porcupine8]

Religion, OTOH, rejects opposing criticisms, even if they are based on sound fact or logic. The argument gets ended with a "BIBLESAYSO". At that point, the debate ends because the starting premises differ. There is no way to argue with someone who believes that a book that contradicts reality is infallible, and that reality is the one that is wrong.

Glad to see that every person who believes in God also believes in the 100% literal infallibility of the Bible.

Oh wait, they don't. There are many, many people who, if presented with evidence that directly contradicts their religious beliefs, will seriously consider that evidence and possibly change their beliefs. In fact, that's how I wound up believing in God after being mostly-atheist. That's also who so many Christians actually *gasp* take parts of the bible metaphorically or mythologically and accept evolution and the big bang.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[corbettw]

All you have to do to go to heaven in Christianity is to believe in Jesus. There are over 2 billion people in the world who self-identify as "Christian". A little over half of them are Roman Catholic (also referred to as Latin Rite Catholic in some parts of the world). About half of the rest are some other version of "Catholic", either one of the Eastern Churches, Lutheran, or Anglican/Episcopalian. None of these people believe (or at least, none of these churches teach, which is probably a more accurate statement) that simply believing in Jesus is sufficient to enter heaven. Furthermore, a significant number of Protestant churches also teach that belief alone is insufficient (see James 2:19). What are commonly referred to as "Fundamentalist Christian" (though they ignore most of the "fundamentals" that have existed for about 2000 years) in the US are the only group to believe that belief alone is enough to go to heaven.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[porcupine8]

Ok, fine. You saw the bird of a known species, but with a color of plumage heretofore unseen. Again, you have a photo. You know personally that you didn't doctor the photo. But you can't prove to anyone that the photo is not doctored. So what do you believe, that you saw a random mutation, or that you hallucinated it, blacked out, and photoshopped the photo while you were out?

Between that and the Loch Ness Monster or an angel is only a matter of degree. No, you'll never be able to prove to anyone else that you saw any of them. And no, there's no reason they SHOULD believe you. But would you believe yourself? There might be some threshold at which you, personally, would stop trusting your senses, but that would differ for each person and no one threshold is really inherently correct or incorrect all else being equal. That's my point - what counts as evidence for a person to believe something individually does NOT always need to be the same as evidence to PROVE it to other people.

Lazy evaluation rules our lives

[mchnz]

That we are most likely to live in a simulation has be written about before:

From issue 2583 of New Scientist magazine, 23 December 2006, page 27

Nick Bostrom asks whether we live in a computer simulation (18 November, p 38). What would that run on, then? The class of programming languages called functional languages - and their close relative Lisp - often make use of a technique called "lazy evaluation": they defer computing a result until it is actually needed.

Perhaps the developers of our simulation are using such a functional language, and the wave-particle duality is visible evidence of their choice of development tools.

Michael Hamilton

Douglas Adams had an explanation

[guyster]

Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had an explanation already.
The terminating condition of the Universe Simulation:

"There is a theory which states that if anybody ever discovers exactly what
the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be
replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another
theory which states that this has already happened."

-- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, almost all versions

What Would We Do?

[Lord Flipper]

I don't know about the rest of these guys, but I'd start googling for 'cheats' like, right away!

Malthusian fork bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to dis/prove the simulation of our reality would be to break the simulator.

Some kind of run away process that consumes all resources of the host system.

I suggest a population fork bomb (or nano-goo disaster).

On second thoughts, breaking the sim might not be in our best interests.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Plutonite]

Ssh, don't tell anyone! There are too many people here with preconceived agendas wherein science and religion are in conflict. It's going to disrupt their world view if they find out that, no, religion is not opposed to science and is in no way threatened by it. The reverse should also be true.

Preconceived my ass. Religion has always put God at the limit of scientific knowledge, and so was always threatened by scientific advance, and both Galileo and Darwin know a thing or two about that. The mysteries explained by science are the source of wonder that people are supposed to take as blinding evidence of bearded friends in the sky. Take away the mystery and you suddenly get a bunch of embarrassed preachers left holding their dicks and looking confused. I'm tired of reading this thread and seeing how everybody is making the astute observation that not all christians are "extreme" like ID nutjobs. Well guess what guys, your extreme is yesterday's norm. Every time science collides with some religious "belief" about the universe, it takes a while to convince the clergy to come up with some half-assed explanation of how "abstract" the biblical account actually is(we're not orbited by the sun after all, sorry) and how there really is no problem in the least. And the honest few who still cling to the words handed down to them (from people who are more religious than this generation, and who will go to heaven for believing in these ideas) are called "extreme". These are people who lived and died by the books you're talking about, and who would call YOU heretics. What kind of sick deity would think up this sort of scenario?

In fact, science has covered so much ground today that "rational" christians are forced to reduce godly activity to a bare minimum of meta-physical abstraction. They talk "first causes" and quantum behavior and other cute topics, because that's where the knowledge (god did it!) barrier lies. And as soon as the next breakthrough happens, the rhetoric will change.

I normally do not care to excite emotions by attacking the beliefs that make people happy. I honestly don't care if someone thinks we are here because a snake covinced a woman in a garden in the sky to make her man eat from a magical tree, or that the millions of other religions (and sects of those religions) are going to suffer eternal damnation in Hell because of technical differences in their version of the story about the deity that is playing The Sims with us as characters. Believe what you want. Have a blast. Drinks are on the house. That's what freedom is all about.
But all the nonsense posted here today needed reality check. You are trying to be more rational than the books you follow. Religion is at odds with science because religion depends on ignorance as "evidence" for its outrageous claims, and science has always suffered, and continues to suffer.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[stuboogie]

"Ok, fine. You saw the bird of a known species, but with a color of plumage heretofore unseen."

Well, did I see a "bird of a known species" or didn't I? If the bird has "plumage heretofore unseen" by ANYONE. Then it is not a KNOWN species. In that case, you would need to have independent confirmation of a NEW species or NEW variation of a known species.

"Between that and the Loch Ness Monster or an angel is only a matter of degree."

Yeah, a LARGE degree of magnitude. I am much more likely to believe that a bird with abnormal coloring exists rather than a living pre-historic sea creature or an invisible minion of god. We have seen mutations in plants and animals before that cause some variation from the species' normal traits. However, I have never seen any proof that these mythical creatures really exist.

"There might be some threshold at which you, personally, would stop trusting your senses, but that would differ for each person and no one threshold is really inherently correct or incorrect all else being equal."

This has some truth to it. Based primarily on an individual's willingness to accept what they are seeing or "believe" they are seeing. The brain is a very powerful piece of organic tissue. The extent of the mind's capabilities is unknown. However, we DO know that some people are able to make themselves physically sick just by BELIEVING they have an illness.

Never underestimate the ability of an individual to convince themselves of something that they already want to believe. Many times this is accomplished through the sub-conscience without the individual realizing it. With apologies to George Carlin, the next time you see the homeless guy walking down the street and appearing to argue with no one, you can believe that "God" is talking to him or he is just crazy. It's up to you and how much "evidence" YOU need. Personally, I think he is a nutjob.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[watch2012]

near death experiences have been linked to large quantities of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) being released by ones brain in moments of extreme anxiety..

i.e.: "oh crap, I'm going to die"

i am a firm believer in the supernatural. and it is entirely possible that DMT acts as (perhaps) an internal neurotransmitter antenna/conduit for our consciousness/soul..

so I'll go ask our god/moderator while I'm away and let ye all know when i get back.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[bill_mcgonigle]

Well, yeah, the smart man doesn't pick a fight he can't win!

It's not a VR, it's a game.

[symbolset]

Unfortunately, quoting the rules can get you ejected from the game. Let me instead recommend some good books.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does an omniscient, omnipotent god require to be worshipped?
What difference does it make to such a God whether you believe in him or not? If a believer on the one hand is otherwise evil and an atheist on the other hand is a perfect person, why would the God choose the believer to enter "paradise"? No "good deeds" required? The whole concept is childish.

Who's this "Jesus" ?
Son of God? Is there not only one God? Oh, he's part of the one God?
So why did Jesus pray to God if he was actually God incarnate himself?
Why did Satan tempt Jesus if he was actually God?
What is so miraculous about the resurrection if Jesus was actually God incarnate?
Why don't we worship Lazarus- he was resurrected too!
So Jesus resurrected himself, then what? Nobody recognized him when he came back, maybe it was just some crackpot follower pretending to be him? aaahhh hahahahahahaaaa!!

Bah religion what a load of BALONEY..

I don't discount the presence of some kind of higher force, I can't disprove it. ( I'm sure he doesn't give a damn (haha) whether or not he's "believed in" by some chattering monkeys on Sol.3 )

But I do not believe in any Abrahamic God. No way. I wouldn't be caught dead believing in...... waitaminute

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Darby]

If only the Catholic church could get over their condom hangups (and maybe priest celibacy and the no female priests thing), they'd have done a very nice job of modernizing themselves while keeping their core beliefs intact.

It would be more accurate to say "while keeping their core dysfunctions intact". Priest celibacy was invented solely so the church could keep their inheritance and no female priests was just pure misogyny. I mean they ditched torturing heretics to death in the 1920s. Heck, when was the last time you saw them stone people to death for any number of inane heresies as the bible never stopped demanding?
Their core beliefs are long gone.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

how did that somebody come to be ? did somebody else create him (and why not her ;) ) ?

Easy, because there is no non-genderized way of referring to a "person" except for "it", and that sounds even worse. Constantly saying he/she is cumbersome and doesn't read well.

As God is completely made-up, he/she/it can have any gender assignment that makes you happy.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[ceoyoyo]

I don't know, It seems to me they're moving CLOSER to what Christians claim are their core beliefs, not further away.

As you say, the Catholic church was in the habit of burning people, which seems kind of contrary to "love thy neighbor." They haven't called for that in a bit though (eighty years if you're right). The core beliefs of Christianity are SUPPOSED to be love, tolerance and cooperation.

Compare the Catholic church to some of the fundamentalist groups who would probably love to burn heretics but have to settle for effigies instead, oppose evolution on principle, believe the world is literally 5000 years old, think armageddon is imminent and would really like to hurry it up, and want to take over science and turn it to God.

Windows Vista Universal Edition

[th3rmite]

I'm just hoping that the simulation isn't running on "Window's Vista Universal Edition"

Holistic Quantum Relativity already supposed

[FromTheAir]

Some of the Holistic Quantum Relativity Socratic Dialog, already supposed many of these things over the last two years. On this blog called IntentBlog http://intentblog.com/ This is also part of the theme of infinite play the movie. http://infiniteplaythemovie.com/

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[deft]

"The Vatican has backed evolution since the 1950's, but it seems that no one outside the religion got the memo."

Alot of times, it seems like people IN the religion didnt get the memo either. Maybe more than those outside.

MUH, and don't assume that aliens do it

[wikinerd]

Another interesting read is MUH (mathematical universe hypothesis).

To those who *assume* that if universe is a virtual reality simulation then there should be *someone* running or creating the simulation: I do *not* think that it is necessary for a simulation to be *created* by an *external* entity. Of course it's a good question for philosophy, but I believe that nature could perfectly simulate itself without an external entity telling it what to simulate. Therefore, I do not think that it is necessary to assume that someone simulates us, it could very well be that we are just being simulated by some kind of emergent holographic natural phenomenon, without anyone directing or even initiating the process.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[foreverdisillusioned]

What piss me off is people disbelieving in God's existence just because they can't scientifically prove it.

Replace "God" with "leprechauns"... and the sentence holds the same meaning for me. There may indeed be little magical green men running around, only they're sooooooo sneaky and magical no one has ever seen them. Who cares? I certainly don't, and it's very disturbing to me that you're "pissed off" because I won't believe something I can't see, hear, touch, taste, feel, smell, or observe/interact (even indirectly) with complicated apparatus. For the record, I'm NOT an atheist, and I don't have a problem with most inclusive/rational thesits, but I am deeply disturbed by anyone who is threatened by my non-belief in their utterly intangible beliefs.

VR politics

[wikinerd]

If this guy's theory is correct, then I would assume that any such flaws would persist until the end of our universe and then get fixed for the next one.

Oh, now I see why Americans voted for Bush: It's a bug in the simulation! Do you mean this bug is going to persist until the universe's heat death? Please, someone stop the simulation now! :)

Do it the real way.

[DynaSoar]

The informal hypothesis is that the universe is a VR sim.

The null hypothesis (H(0)) is that it is not.
The alternative hypothesis (H(1)) is that it is.

Now, devise a test and fail to show support for H(0) to a probabilistic certainty of at least 95% and you've got something.

Hell, devise an objective test and you've got something.

Maybe I should become a theoretician. I could make up all kinds of whacky stuff without having to worry about messy stuff like trying to apply empirical principles to it.

simulation without a simulator

[wikinerd]

this virtual reality must have been created somewhere

What if the nature, the "real" world, has the inherent holographic capability to simulate itself in some form of emergent phenomenon?

always explore the motivations

[wikinerd]

This is different from the ID crowd, who apparently feel that 'God did it' means you actively refuse to even think about the rules.

I think it's interesting to note the reason they think this way: They avoid thinking about the rules because they are to stupid to understand them, and they try to censor true science because they don't want anyone else to be able to show that they are smarter than them.

state-church separation

[wikinerd]

OK, let's say that God exists. Which one? We've imagined about a million of em. Pick the wrong one and you go to Hell for sure.

At least with separation of church and state you are safe until you die, but under a theocracy you don't just get to spend your afterlife in hell but you also get to suffer during your normal life :(

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jma05]

> Luckily, I don't generally have to prove God's existence or my husband's love for me to anyone else. That's my POINT. An individual person (even a scientist) can believe something to be true even if they can't prove it to someone else, and that doesn't make them an idiot.

It generally makes them idiots only when they try to push that belief (or its outcomes) onto someone ELSE who does not share those conclusions without furnishing logical arguments. Secondly, extra-ordinary claims demand extra-ordinary proof. If someone says, their spouse loves them, this rather ordinary claim requires no special proof. But if someone asked me to believe in their relationship with an entity that originated and controls the universe of size at least 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kms (pardon my quick math) in diameter - they better bring a lot more compelling reasons than "I know in my heart its true" or "you just have to experience it" or "because they say he can walk on fire/water/space". If "An individual person (even a scientist)" believes TODAY against all evidence that the earth is flat and can't prove it to others, it DOES make him/her an idiot. Not being an idiot is not about being right. It is about drawing reasonable conclusions from known information. For someone with no access or awareness of proper astronomical data in pre-Copernican times, it was perfectly intelligible to say that the earth was flat.

> If you can't separate your research/work from the rest of your life, you've got some problems. Being logical in my work doesn't mean that I have to logically work out, say, what I want for dinner tonight. Sometimes I think about the costs and benefits of various options, yes. Sometimes I say "Fuck it, I want a pizza."

Logic is an acquired skill and can be cognitively expensive as well as a slow process. We value philosophers just for that. It is not expected to be applied to every minute of life, just for making significant choices.

Human natural logical capabilities are limited. We tend to instinctively draw causal inferences between co-occurring events. If a person says "I prayed to this deity and it came to be true, therefore I think prayer to this deity works. Since I now accept that this deity is real, everything else this deity supposedly said must also be true and I therefore understand the purpose of this ~14 billion year old universe" and if that person happens to be incidentally a functioning scientist, I would say that the said scientist knows the rules of logic enough to apply them in a job but has not internalized them. I would recommend readings on the history of the elusive scientific method all the way from the logic used in the witch trials.

P.S: If you think an occasional pizza is not fitting your cost benefit analysis, it could be that you are not considering all the variables. I would consider an infrequent/occational indulgence quite high on the happiness scale to balance out the costs (saturated fat?).

Zuse

[wikinerd]

You may also like to read Zuse's thesis.

Didn't Heinlein Do This in the 1940s?

[rickshaf]

I seem to remember a novelette by the late, great Robert A. Heinlein which suggested what our NewZealander has suggested. It was called "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag". It was a delightful little romp that was of no monumental import. (It DID demonstrate that Heinlein's mind "PROWLED", as one of his characters said of another character in another of his early works.)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Gazzonyx]

Actually, the doctrine of grace would say otherwise. Your faith is a deed, an act; you can't 'make' yourself good enough for God. If you could, then Jesus died on the cross for nothing. This is at the very base of the Christian doctrine. Every other religion in the world will tell you how you can make yourself good enough for God, what things you must do. Christianity is the only religion (although it's not about religion... it's about a relationship) that says quite plainly that you are saved by grace alone - not by your works, deeds, or anything that you've ever done. Parents won't love their children any more or less if they do or don't do their chores. The message is simple, it's about love. Not faith, not deeds, nor any other thing that we try to make it about.

of divine origin != infallible

[reiisi]

The Bible is the writings of mortal (and thus fallible) men inspired by God, filtered through several episodes of hand-copying and translation.

Some of us don't claim that you can draw every word in it out of context and have God's truth.

I can't explain about the killing the enemies, at least not entirely, but I'll give it a shot. Bear with me, because I've heard all the arguments before, and if you're busy thinking up clever replies, you won't see the possibility (slim though you apparently think it be) of reason.

But if the clever reply is more important, by all means, go ahead. Ignore reason.

The world was a different place back then. At times, it was kill-or-get-killed. (Okay, there are still such times and places now, depending on where you live and what you do and when.) From the ten commandments, we have a commandment not to kill. Then we have places where Israel, when at war, was commanded to kill. We can profitably read that as telling us not to kill for fun and profit, but that killing may be justified in self-defense. (Very traditional interpretation, I know, leave that saw alone.)

So, you wail, what about the married women and the male children? (Not to mention the men.)

The Midianites.

Moses' father-in-law was a Midianite.

This was not the entire nation of Midian, but a group with which the camp of Israel had stopped to have a celebration that got out of hand. If it had been genocide, you would not read of Midianites later attacking Israel and taking control of parts of their lands.

What's the problem with a celebration getting out of hand? The group of Midianites in question induced many of the Israelites to commit sexual sins with them. What's wrong with that? you ask?

STDs, among other things. Yes, it was extreme, but remember, in modern times, we have penicillin, so we don't have to worry so much about the spread of STDs. We also have jails and police, to help keep problem cases under control.

So, Israelites who had joined in the "fun" were also killed, which, of course, you will call barbaric. Perhaps you will say that there should have been no cleansing, that the offenders should have been left alive to seduce and/or rape (and thus infect) others.

Yeah, if Jethro Tull had been either a Midianite or an Israelite on this occasion, we can be pretty sure he'd have been one of those condemned.

But sex is fun, right? So even in a world where there are no regular police to run to when someone wants to give you more intimate attention than you want, and no penicillin if you get unlucky in the process, this should all just be tolerated, right?

We do not have to assume "having" means raping, nor do we have to assume the girls in question suffered any more by force than they had suffered with their own people. Taking the young women with them might have been better than killing them, was probably much better than leaving them to die.

JabeshGilead (and Benjamin).

I wonder why you don't find fault with the Bible for the fact that Israel almost did commit genocide against one of their own tribes (Benjamin)? Anyway, in this particular case, the Bible doesn't say that they were commanded to do either of those things, whether by God or by a prophet. One of the problems of the times, mentioned in the Bible itself, was that was no authority at all, and the local governments sometimes found themselves doing things that weren't right.

This is an unadorned record.

Near as I can tell, it was left in as an example of the ways Israel tended to mess up without a king.

Judges 5: 30?

Are you serious? Have you even read the whole chapter, much less the story about Sisera getting his in the previous chapter?

Verse 30 is an imagined quote of Sisera's mother, imagining why that particular enemy of Israel was so long in returning from the battle. It was Sisera's mother supposedly thinking that Sisera and his army must be just doing to Israel what you are accusing Israel's God of commanding

Re:of divine origin != infallible

[jcaldwel]

I concede on the Zechariah and Judges verses. I may have been taken them out of context. You, sir, have out-Bibled me. :-). I have read the Bible cover-to-cover multiple times in my more theistic youth, but I was around 17 the last time I did (years and years ago).

Many of your explanations have been about differences in interpretations. Every Christian religion chooses its own set of verses to pay attention to, and which to ignore, hence my statement that Christians' morals come from somewhere other than the Bible.

It seems redundant that I, as an atheist agree with you on the point that the Bible is flawed, but I see the admission of flaws in a book on which so much rides as a slippery slope. If the Bible is flawed, which parts? The parts that we can't bring ourselves to agree with in moral conscience? The parts that we can prove as historically/scientifically inaccurate? You can only base a flawed belief system on a flawed book.

An interesting though experiment: re-read one of the sections I accused of genocide. Replace the name of the God-follower with the name "Hitler" and the name of the conquered nation as "Poland"... can you agree with the actions of the aggressors then? I know those are loaded names, so perhaps you want to make up some fictitious names. The Bible often states that these actions were commanded by God. Is this the same God that you worship in Sunday services?

"Different times" is hardly an excuse if this book is seen as the foundation of moral code, or a belief system.

I'm weary of this thread, but I wanted to acknowledge your argument.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[__aabvlw4075]

The thing about statements that can't be falsified is that they have 0 predictive power. True or false, it doesn't matter: no reason to care.

I think there's plenty of reason to care about things that can't be falsified. (And obviously they have no predictive power, or else they'd be falsifiable.)

For example, it could be the case that I'm living in a VR-like world maintained by Descartes' "Evil Genius" (a very powerful, unfriendly being), with no "real world" out there at all. No other people, no universe, just me and an Evil Genius and the sensations he feeds me. The idea that there are other people out there in some real sense is completely unfalsifiable -- but it matters to me dearly that it is true. Without clear evidence to the contrary, I'm going to continue to believe that other people exist.

Actually, going with your gut is often good.

[reiisi]

Day in English can also mean epoch, by the way.

But, no, no flying spaghetti monsters and no sandworms.

And, yeah there apparently has been some selective editing by parties interested in changing the meaning. Maybe also by some well-intentioned who simply thought God couldn't have meant it when He said women weren't chattel. The miracle is that it survived as well as it did.

The thing about going with your gut when you read the Bible is that you should first decide to give it a fair chance, to be looking for good things in it rather than looking for reasons to disbelieve it. I'm not even sure looking for reasons to believe is necessarily a good idea.

Especially if you think it is evil, it probably is not a good idea to look for reasons to believe it. But there's no particular reason to ignore anything good in it.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[AlecLyons]

It is a rebuttal for the argument: "God must have created us, we're too complicated", I don't see how anyone could use that line of reasoning to argue against God existing.

Permutation City - fun novel about this idea

[danny]

If you enjoy thinking about this kind of stuff, a fun novel to read is Greg Egan's Permutation City (link is to my review). There's not much in that as a novel, but it's got some great ideas.

Danny.

"An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything"

[Antity-H]

Am I the only one who is reminded of the new unified theory called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" which was published recently ?

I was reading an article about it where they explain that the author of the theory believes that all interactions in our univers can be explained by particles and forces placed on the corners of an exceptionnal mathematical figure (E8 geometry). And how all their interactions can be explained by simple projections of this figure in a lower dimension.

When I read that, the first thing that came to my mind was that it is too perfect : an exceptionnal mathematical figure ? matching perfectly our universe ? what if we were just a simulation based on this figure to see if a workable universe would emerge out of it?

Now what I would find highly interesting is for a project to start simulating "universes" using E6,E7, E8, etc and see if we can get a universe working like ours bu slower :)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[epine]

We exist right now at a point in the series of causation. But an infinite series cannot be traversed, so the infinite series of watchmakers cannot lead us to any present we are part of. You need to adjust your breakfast brain salad. From a particular point in a doubly infinite series (past and future) there are infinitely many points that are finitely far away. It is a minor conundrum if the past and the future stretch infinitely far away, but by no means logically incoherent, from where we sit.

The camp that makes me batty (whether philosophical, scientific, or religious) is the one that *can* accept an infinite future, but *can't* accept an infinite past. That quadrant baffles me. I can accept that I had a soul before I was born and that I will continue to have a soul after I die (though I tend to view the soul that outlasts my body as an index key into the heavenly registry of crimes and misdemeanors, and not as a piece of my earthly self); or I can believe I didn't have a soul on either side of my personal birth/death singularities. For the middle portion, soul is nice, but I'd rather have wit.

I guess that's the problem with the symmetrist approach: it runs counter to the natural human psychology that the arrow of time runs in the direction of innocence to guilt; from Apple to Armageddon.

Nevertheless, I prefer this view over the notion of an infinite tape with an end-point. What if the almighty basis step threaded the tape backward into the realojector? We'd be screwed. History would be infinite, but the future would end. The whole universe would suddenly be replaced with an irritating slapping sound.

ignore me

[Anonymous Coward]

just posting to fix a wrong moderation

Because it affects everything.

[rastilin]

The existence of a supreme being affects the choices people make in their lives. It also affects the way they try to control other people's lives. So yes, if you want to live the life you want without being interfered with, be you Christian, Atheist or Muslim, you pretty much have to convince the people around you.

More to the point, if taking a blood transfusion sentences someone to hell, isn't it your duty to stop them even if it kills them? I mean if your religion genuinely believes this, then this IS your duty to your fellow man. There are religions who do. Conversely, I have heard it stated that we should use all the oil we have as quickly as possible before the rapture comes, so that we won't have anything on our plate, so to speak. So yes, what other people believe IS important.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[sg_oneill]

I have a friend with 3 healthy children as a testamant to the power of the Rhythm method.

oh wait... :(

Its not like he regrets the kids tho. Its just his wife has recently become a convert to the greater power of the contraceptive pill. After all God *wants* you to have babies see, so he's not all too reliable a contraceptive.

Heres how you do make GOD work as a contraceptive.

Her: Can I come back to your place tonight baby?
Him: I'm a christian! Lets read bibles!
.
.
Him: Baby come back!

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[james_gnz]

JWSmythe wrote:

In my only near death experiences, I saw .... black .... Lots of nothing. There's nothing in the great beyond, because I have no preconceptions to guide my hallucinations.

That's because Jesus is going to obliterate your immortal soul, you filthy atheist! You're so dumb, can't you see that there's absolutely no point at all in living if you don't live forever?! But if you live forever then there's an infinite times as much point as that! Isn't that great?! When will you realise that if you don't worship Yahweh, then you are an evil Satanist who deserves to be burnt alive while maggots eat out your eyes? It must be true, 'cause it says so in the Bible! But if you worship Yahweh, then he will graciously refrain from burning you do death! What a guy, eh?! He killed his son for you, remember? It's not just anyone who'd do that! Us Christians can only aspire to be so virtuous!

P.S. Jesus loves yo mama.

humor

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope he doesn't get kicked from the server before he tells us how to cheat.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the millions of Gods are all derived from the same 'God'. Do you believe there to be an omnipotent being? Do you believe in miracles?

Forget about institutions and the thoughts and writings of man that create rules for us to live. What about a force out there that intervenes into our lives.

How about surviving a fall 500 ft from a building? Slamming into the pavement below? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfYp_EvSbIg)

I am agnostic, I think. Still reading. Still thinking about my beliefs. But stories like this, and many other stories of similar nature, present a interesting angle on the idea that there may be a force that touches our lives.

No way to prove it. No real way to dis-prove it. But it keeps me interested. It keeps me thinking and reading. Does it not the same to you?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Dr. Cody]

Don't be stupid, plenty of scientists believe in God, me being one of them - though of course I'm primarily a Computer Scientist

Look forward to being quoted by me for the rest of my life.

Philosophy

[Anonymous Coward]

I am saddened to see the word "philosophy" used in 800+ comments to dismiss an idea, used as a synonym for "empty talk." When you (rightly) use the criterion of falsifiability to determine whether this theory is scientific or not, you are using a criterion developed by Karl Popper, a philosopher of science.

Further, falsifiability determines the classification of a theory as scientific, not as having any value. For instance, "The moon is made of cheese" is a falsifiable and therefore scientific hypothesis. It is also false, and therefore not very useful. Falsifiable, scientific theories may still be valid or invalid, helpful or unhelpful. Similarly, philosophical theories may be useful or useless. To claim that all philosophy is empty talk is to undermine the foundation of all rigorously intellectual endeavor and to limit one's
experience to one riddled with unexamined assumptions.

Finally, please remember that not all philosophy is metaphysics, and certainly not all metaphysics is philosophy.

So I guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I really should be nervous when people start trying to divide by 0?
You think the universe is in a try catch clause?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Jarik_Tentsu]

Maybe God is the name of the dude who programmed us for his research project?

Let's see...our planet is mostly blue, everything seems to be destroying each other, our international culture is far from stable, we've been filled with viruses since the dawn of time, there are things which incessantly annoy us most of the time and most of space is inefficiently used up by well, nothing.

I hope the God got an "F" and gave up on his dream of "Macrosoft".

~Jarik

Re:mathimatical (sic) basis for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

A quine is more like the equivalent of a life form in a universe: able to reproduce itself with some help from the environment. Instead, the computer equivalent of the argument is that you can't write a virtual machine that can simulate the full host computer using only a fraction of the host's resources.

So... Fucking... High

[EdIII]

I just love thinking about this idea. It reminds me of that movie the 13th floor with Gretchen Mol and Vincent D'Onofrio. I did not think of the Matrix first. The Matrix does not apply here since it was taking entities in the REAL universe and merely tricking them into perceiving a simulated universe as the real universe. This theory is that we are actually components of the virtual reality itself. My god you would have to be high to get to that :)

I am certainly not taking away from this guys work, but it does sound more like philosophy then science. I certainly don't mean to insult him by the high references either. I also don't have enough of a grasp of higher math to really evaluate his claims as worthy of further discussion in a scientific forum.

What I REALLY want to know, is that if I am part of a virtual simulation of a virtual universe... then something is RESPONSIBLE for programming it and who or what is it. God? I dunno. Maybe it is a whole bunch of different entities working together for some unknown purpose. Maybe I was not specifically programmed, but a result of an initial seeding in a random virtual simulation. To say that I would be rewarded or punished from my behavior is interesting as well, since that is the way a genetic algorithm (AKA step evolutionary algorithm) works. Maybe just realizing it is a simulation itself, will cause someone to come forward and offer a blue pill or a red pill.

I would like to know a few things:

1) What will get me modded up or down? I mean really will do it. Not what we virtually "think" will do it.
2) What will get me the ability to hand out mod points?

and .........

3) CAN I, BEING A VIRTUAL CONSTRUCT, ROOTKIT THE WHOLE FUCKING THING? :) Oh Please be yes, Oh please be yes. I would take that "pill" in a second and make myself a planet of Jessica Simpsons and live forever, since life expectancy would only be one hacked setting away :)

P.S - I must add the obligatory, "I for one welcome our new RL overlords to our VR world"

hey wait a moment!

[dodgyfark]

So you couldn't trust your experiments because the simulation owner can manipulate the results. Fair enough. So it is unprovable. How about we prove that WE could make a simulation in which the inhabitants considered themselves sentient, and were unaware of how they were created, or that their measure of time and cause and effect was arbitrary? You know a neural net here, males and females, life and death, evolution etc... Geez - sounds like we'd be creating something in our own image! Wait - someone else was supposed to have done that already - oh yeah - GOD! Well hey we are not worthy and all of that, lets avoid creating a simulation based on our reality... oh... umm... are they like sentient worms, that have a hivemind or something? WTF? We don't know how to do that! Lets just make these things like bees... Damn it! Stealing shit from our own reality again... crap, lets face it, we WOULDN'T BE ABLE to rig up a simulation that wasn't in our own image. Seems to me if you go for the whole endless onion explanation, then if we were a simulation, then the creator is going to be hanging around in a place pretty much like ours. Probably wouldn't take much more than 7 days to spin up, what given the capacity of grid computers these days. Could even just chill out on the last day. Then realise it wasn't working out, shut it down and try again. Probably have a few hundred of these things going around, release the code as an OSS project so everyone else can start up their own. Or maybe we are the perfect simulation, the one that will never be shut down. Or maybe we were shutdown for billions of years, and some futuristic archaeologists found us and started us up, and just don't know how to stop us - maybe God is dead? Maybe that just happened while I typed this sentence. This idea is way more fun than the boring God one (btw guys, evolution doesn't count here - its like saying 'I don't need God - I have trigonometry!'). Hey maybe the last simulation created is actually the first one - a circularity of Tralfamadorian proportions, where time and cause and effect are not as we perceive it Jim. Draw that onion on a Wacom! You know, the tech age really NEEDS acid.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[CRCulver]

The KJV-only philosophy is not spreading. The mainline Protestant demoninations have, over the last 30 years, gone in the total opposite direction, denying much of orthodox Christian theology, while the booming megachurches are quite vague in what exactly they believe.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[skoaldipper]

I don't know, but maybe they don't have one of those screens in every single operating room yet.

Heh. Or triage on the battlefield, or nursing homes, or...

I don't know of what tests he speaks, but as your true self (spirit), truly, the veil is lifted. Your spatial awareness is non dimensional. I do remember vivid perception of all my surroundings instantaneously (behind, besides, in front), including my own body below. Strangely enough, my body was no more intriguing to me than the curtains on the window, or the desk, or the other people. It was in very short order I was pushed back by some presence, "You do not belong here." So, I doubt I would have had much time to watch TV anyways.

I guess these tests involve drugs of some sort? To induce some pharmaceutical enhanced biological mirage? I think it's disingenuous to draw such comparisons by some here, and trivialize or relate those drug induced or sleep deprived "experiences" as categorical equivalence to near death or post death experiences. But, it happens inevitably, for personal gain or motive it always seems. It's hard to gauge honesty, reliability, or intent from written dialogue on such matters (myself not to be excluded in that disclaimer). At least for me, people I have swapped experiences with all share a common memory - two separate and distinct entities, both body and soul, and the physical separations and sensations from it. Sure, these same people also had varying testimonies unique to each, like a tangible yet unreachable visible light, an angelic presence, or similar. None have cited emptiness, darkness, or a void however. Personally, I find that hard to believe, but as I initially replied, my evidence is my own, and I surely would not dismiss another's evidence so quickly. Even lack of evidence is evidence. You need only seek an explanation, much like physicists filling the void with dark matter.

In the big picture, you need only count the billions of generations past before us who have believed by faith, by personal recount, or by witness to the supernatural and the life thereafter. They can't all be wrong. Can they? A select few at one time along the way might have wished it so, but quite simply, much like sand slipping through one's fingertips, comprehension for the non corporeal has the real potential for frustration and disbelief from the many fruitless repetitions to grasp it. Ironically, even from my own experience, that's why it's just best to believe. Everything else supportive in faith along the way, a nice bonus.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[skoaldipper]

i.e.: "oh crap, I'm going to die"
i am a firm believer in the supernatural. and it is entirely possible that DMT acts as (perhaps) an internal neurotransmitter antenna/conduit for our consciousness/soul..

I love it.

DMT - the handle bar in your car just before a wreck.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Dread_ed]

Your faith is not an act. If you read the scriptures (For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God) even grace dominates and controls the very first overtures from man to God in the salvation scenario. Literally, the faith that saves you is imputed to you by God and therefore not an act on your part but a reception of grace from God. The beautiful symetry of this initial imputation is revealed in all future interactions from God, for even the knowledge of God we acquire from the scriptures (worship) must be revealed to us through the indwelling Holy Spirit; again a gift from God.

Re:mathimatical (sic) basis for this...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

So you say, without an argument.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[fortmill]

I agree, but it goes both ways. How many times have we seen people believing in God's existence stereotyped, "strawman'd" and distained in discussions here?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Dread_ed]

I think you underestimate the proponents in Christianity that believe in the doctrine of Free Grace, or something similar. Many evangelicals believe in this as opposed to the calvanist doctrine of perseverance of the saints.

You may have heard of "faith alone in Christ alone," or you may not have. However, the Biblical underpinnings are sound. Catholics, irrespective of their ascendancy in sheer numbers, do not have firm ground to stand on when arguing theology from a purely orthodox standpoint. Whether or not a church teaches a doctrine or not is irrelevant. Do the scriptures speak to its relevance, for me, is the only test.

Some will argue against "faith alone in christ alone" with the head/heart argument. NAmely, if you fall away you had only a "head" belief and not a "heart" belief. The silliness of this argument is revealed in the study of the Greek terms in the New Testament that refer to those parts of the body (nous, kardia) and the parts of the human they refer to explicitly. If you havent read up on this you really should. In fact, if you havent been studying hte Bible from the original languages and using scholarly textural criticism applied to the oldes and most accurate manuscripts you are probably missing out on some great kinowledge.

The subject of faith and works, as proposed in James, is an interesting one that many Christians misunderstand. Just remember the scriputes that state: for by grace are you saved through faith, and that faith is a gift from God. any work performed by a Christian without the indwelling of the holy Spirit is wood, hay, and stubble. the works come next, not first.

There is sound doctrinal evidence from reading the Bible to support at least 39 irrevocable attributes imputed to the believer at the moment of faith in Christ. Also, from other doctrines (election, omnipotence, etc.) we can surmise that if God saves you through His grace your puny human actions will not erase or undermine His faithfulness.

As for fundamentalist churches, you are correct that many are off the beaten path of orthodox fundamentalism. Better to find a church that will teach the Bible like a college class and not a rock band audition.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Darby]

You say its an infinite loop to explain God well its the same for explaining the universe. How did all this mass come into existence anyway...

I don't know.

Simple honest truth.

Now a religious person would say "God made it". At which point all that's done is change the question to "where did God come from", so it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, answers nothing and just adds an extra lair of useless cruft.

Re:Not to turn this into a religious debate, but..

[SpacePunk]

First, I have not seen any proof that there is any god or gods. But, I do leave the answer open since things around us are stranger than we are willing to believe. The bible doesn't describe one god, just one god assigned to the Hebrew tribes. There are other gods mentioned in the bible, and if you take the bible at its word, in at least on case the Hebrew god personally battled another god.

For myself, I'll just take the universe at my perceived limits, and not try to attribute a larger force as its reason for being. If some being came and told me that it is 'god' and created the universe, I'd probably just laugh in his/her/its face unless it gave me some measure of proof, even then I wouldn't consider him/her/it as a god.

So, the question shouldn't be is/are there a god/gods. It should be 'did something fuck with humanity long ago?', and if so, why? In the infinity that contains the universe, and most likely other expansions considered universes outside of ours, there's no doubt that we aren't alone in the grand scheme of things, and that there are things out there that are larger, incomprehensibly more powerfull than us, and can either commit acts or make their committed acts look magical or supernatural.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[darkpixel2k]

Heck, when was the last time you saw them stone people to death for any number of inane heresies as the bible never stopped demanding?

Sorry to nitpick, but the bible doesn't demand you stone people to death anymore. It also doesn't demand you dash children against rocks. That was old-school. Before 'salvation'.

I get annoyed when someone reads a whole sentence out of the Bible (or anything) or off some bible-bashing website and then uses that as an entire campaign against the Bible. It'd be no better than me picking a sentence out of some programming guide and using that to try to understand programming.

So if you're going to try to bash the Bible, try reading it. While you're reading it, use your brain. If you can logically refute or argue with what you've found, good for you. At least you've made an informed judgment.

And of course the reverse is true. I know many Christians who have read a few sentences of the bible and use it as the basis for their beliefs. These are usually the ones who fanatically fight science. And they do so out of ignorance.

I know this is slashdot, but how the hell can people sit here and have a huge discussion about something they know very little about?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is, ID doesn't predict what those signs will be. This guy is making predictions.

I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you all you have to do is think of something that can't be processed by an information processor and then make it happen...shure but my brain is an information processor so how do you expect me to think of something that's unthinkable and then put it into pratice to observe the unobservability of the unthinkable...wait a minute did I just do it....I think I just proved the universe is a simulation but I can't realy understand why?.... it's kinda like bending the spoon

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The thing about statements that can't be falsified is that they have 0 predictive power. True or false, it doesn't matter: no reason to care.

To the best of my understanding, Newtonian mechanics are entirely sufficent to predict mechanics on earth. Why waste time examining General Relativity, true or false (and it seems true) it doesn't matter: no reason to care.

Now, General Relativity has been indicated to be true by unmanned probes, but it doesn't really affect anything on earth. So it is academic. As is theology. But some people find it interesting.

OK, let's say that God exists. Which one? We've imagined about a million of em. Pick the wrong one and you go to Hell for sure.

That's utter bullshit. Polytheistic religions typically include no punishment for religious beliefs. Judism claims any monotheism will do. Islam claims that Judism, Christianity or Islam will do. Both claim to be the correct one, but don't really have a sense of believe this or be damned. And, I am less well versed in Christianity, but Catholicism even has at least one Jewish saint, and a belief that good non-Christian people can go to heaven. Don't know about the various forms of Protesantism, Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox feel.

Hell, a lot of religions don't even have a concept of hell. If the Hindus are right, then you're just on a loop.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

-Do you feel you need to critize or defend every post on slashdot?

Actually, yes, as a matter of fact. The word is "criticize".

You're not necessarily right

[BeanThere]

It is an absolutely unfalsifiable premise and is therefore unscientific.

It is unfalsifiable IF, and ONLY IF it is true that the VR has been designed to block our attempts at discovering it, AND is perfect at doing so. None of these are necessarily the case; it may either be imperfect, or the VR's designers may very well simply be OK with us 'discovering' it (why are you assuming they wouldn't!??? Are we all programmed to assume that by the VR? That would seem to prove its existence, because such assumptions are ridiculous - ha ha.)

Seriously, if the VR is designed such that we cannot ever figure it out, then sure, this isn't "science", but that massive assumption could just as easily be false, and if there are thusly ways that would allow us to discover it, then this definitely remains science. (In fact, science may even continue, just extending to the 'real real world' beyond.)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lgw]

You're wrong about some key points:

Without understanding of General Relativity, GPS satelites wouldn't work (they require amazing accurate clocks), and the orbit of Mars wouldn't be where we expected it to be. General Relativity is the poster child for the scientific method: it made more predictions that were both falsifiable and unexpected (not merely explaining puzzling existing evidence) than just about any other scientific theory.

Intelligent Design, OTOH, explains existing evidence, but in such a way that the same explanation works for *any* evidence. It can't be proven false, but it also doen't matter if it's true, because it doesn't have any predictive power; it doen't help advance our understanding of the world.

Also, quite a few polytheistic religions explain that if you don't give the gods the proper respect bad things will happen to you, in this life and perhaops the next. Even Hindus believe that if you don't live life the right way, you'll be punished in the next life. Almost every religion includes a list of ethical norms, and a set of punishments for diverging from those. Most also include a proscription against belief in competing religions.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[lgw]

Err, orbit of Mercury. Mars too of course, but not enough to notice standing here on Earth peering through a telescope.

Hearing voices

[BeanThere]

Believe it or not, hearing voices is surprisingly common and not even cognitively interesting. Many normal, perfectly-not-crazy people just live with it; you don't often hear about it because there's such a stigma around it - people assume voice hearers are crazy, but it's apparently quite normal, and apparently one of the most common forms of (natural) hallucination. Check out the "Hearing Voices Movement" article on Wikipedia; one thing of interest pertinent to your situation:

"70% of voice hearers reported that their voices had begun after a severe traumatic or intensely emotional event, such as an accident, divorce or bereavement, sexual or physical abuse, love affairs, or pregnancy"

If you're looking for an 'excuse to believe in God' - perhaps to be more accepted by others (I know I've done that kind of thing in the past) - you're welcome to make use of your experience to do so, although Occam's razor suggests dozens of more plausible and rational explanations.

I have also been in horrible situations where I could say I 'should have died or been seriously injured', and have never, ever heard voices of any kind at all.

Re:Hearing voices

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

It was a weird experience.. and again, I was not in a odd situation. I was doing nothing that I wouldn't normally do. I was young, had no real truamatic events ever happen to me at the time, no major accidents prior, wasn't old enough to be divorced. No imediate family passed. Not abused, everyone has had a love affair so that doesn't sound plausible to me, and I certainly am not pregnant. However, it interests me a bit, and I'll check the wiki!

Re:Hearing voices

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I read the wiki, but it looks like it applies more to people who hear "voices." I heard a "VOICE." Just once (well that one situation). You don't have to believe me, I could even be crazy, but I have never heard any "voice" since that day, and I doubt I ever will.

The other time was sort of "divine" inspiration, a thought popped into my head about a physical action I could take to avoid a really bad situation, after I was prepparing myself for impact, resolved to the fact that there was nothing I could do. Maybe that time wasn't even a divine experience, it could just as well been "intuition" if you will.

Maybe

[BeanThere]

Depending on your definition of 'matter', probably not. But presuming we figure out it is a simulation, there exists a possibility this could lead us to explore, and find, exploitable properties of the simulation that allow us to take advantage and have more fun ... for example perhaps there's a 'bug' or property that'll allow me to hook up with Scarlett Johansonn whenever I want :) So I'd know it wasn't real, who cares. If we don't explore the "VR" possibility, we may not be so inclined to uncover such exploitable properties.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[TrekkieGod]

I wish I had mod points. Well spoken.

Thanks. A comment from someone telling me that I actually made some sense is worth more to me than an arbitrary number anyway.

However, I think your going to burn for putting forth a false deity: TrekkieGod. :)

Hah. One of my friends was actually using the TrekkiePope avatar for a short while. He might be in even more trouble, for actually worshiping the TrekkieGod. It was also highly appropriate, since he should be considered infallible in his trek knowledge.

It's an argument that is easy to get weary of.

[reiisi]

I should let it rest, but you seem to have asked some reasonable questions, and I assume you know the unreasonable answers I'll give, but, just in case:

I don't base my beliefs in the scriptures.

The scriptures (in my case, Bible, Book of Mormon, a book Mormons call the Pearl of Great Price, and a book we call the Doctrine and Covenants, plus a not-well-defined collection of "sermons" from the prophets) are more of a checkpoint for me. You could say I use them the way one scientist uses another's notes.

When I was young, I could not believe in a God that would make some of the silly rules I heard my Sunday school teachers telling us. My mother told me to work out what I would have done if I were God, and I found, as I did that, that the rules game is not as simple as it seemed.

On the one hand, the really silly rules, I could see from reading the scriptures, were interpretations of men and women.

On the other hand, I could see there were contexts in which even those silly rules weren't all that silly, even if those contexts didn't seem to apply to me at the time.

Somehow, I remembered from second grade (A public school teacher's words are another part of my scriptures.) that underneath all the math rules are axioms, and I was able to see that the same kinds of axioms underlay all scriptural understanding, except the axioms in the scriptures do not communicate as well as the axioms in math. I don't remember if it was the same public school teacher or another, or perhaps one of the Sunday school teachers at church, who convinced me that we should all consider ourselves capable of doing basic research into axioms, and that choosing our axioms was a personal responsibility.

Somewhere along the line, the scripture in Isaiah about God's thoughts being higher than mans, and a scripture in the Book of Mormon, which I can't place at the moment, either King Benjamin or King Mosiah telling his people to believe that God knows more than man does, and I realized that inerrancy is impossible for any mortal man, and for anything that man could do.

There are a couple of discussions of the impact of the inability of symbols to carry semantics by themselves in Mormon scripture, as well as encouragement for the individual to learn to communicate (commune, really) with God. There are some places where some specifics of distinguishing the sources of inspiration and revelation are discussed, as well.

But it's all patterns, not linear rules.

I'd tell you that it requires believing that there are things that are good, and that God could not be God without being true and good in the ultimate sense, even though that sense is only partially accessible to any mortal, except, that is an axiom that works for me. It may not work for you. I'd tell you that it's faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost, but even that ultimate set of axioms cannot necessarily be communicated well. (Faith? In Jesus Christ, of course. But is faith a belief? a desire to believe? hope? a willingness to do certain things based on a hope? Etc.)

Anyway, I can't tell you directly what I base my beliefs in because I know that the ultimate source of faith in truth has to be sought for and found by each individual. The best I can offer is poor advice and a view of the road from where I'm at. But I can hope for your success in finding that source in your own way (smarmy as it might be to say so).

What are the scriptures? Extracts from the notes of successful experimenters would be one way to describe them, if it works for you.

Re:It's an argument that is easy to get weary of.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> What are the scriptures? Extracts from the notes of successful experimenters would
> be one way to describe them, if it works for you.

I.e. a few useful rules of life, determined completely independently of any and all gods, written down and wrapped with a bunch of stories of ancient tribal violence?

If a bunch of life rules-of-thumb existed independently, then what's the point? Preserve them, scrap the religion, and get on with a decent life.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I apologize about General Relativity. I was attempting to illustrate the seeking of knowledge that offers no practical value. Obviously, I misjudged because of GPS. I suppose the satellites are moving amazing fast.

I do understand the difference between science and theology, but I believe that both are legitimite fields of study, even if one examines evidence and one examines philosophy.

While many religions list ethical norms, my point is they are far more compatible than anyone cares to admit. I don't know of any polytheistic religions that include a prohibit belief in competing religions, and I already addressed the big monotheisms. Polytheism tends to mandate various sacrifices or you risk angering the deities, which has some effect on the world, but certainly not in a predictable way.

ha ha ha

[maggern]

If the world is a virtual reality, someone is forgetting that the level of details is too high.

Given the number of atoms, quarks, electrons etc and the interaction between would require an almost infinite amount of processer-power to do the real time simulation.

In short: Impossible

Conclusion: The guy is full of crap

Re:ha ha ha

[KinakeM]

Very insightful. Excellent quantitative reasoning...

In regards to your assertions:

a) there is a theoretical limit for bits to the universe. Check out Seth Lloyd and his numerous papers; specifically, "The Computational Capacity of the Universe."

b) the universe is NOT infinite. Last I heard it's approximately 14.3 billion light-years wide/old. So a finite state exists for "infinite processing." It seems that the universe is able to carry out such computations. Which leads us to c),

c) In serial, simulation would probably be intractable in the least. In parallel, completely possible.

IMHO, the problem with simulation-based theories are the underlying philosophies; namely, when taken at face-value they really dont do much. Kind of like solipsism as a philosophy. Yeah great... but ok... then what?

NOTE: I am in no way saying that theories are only worth something if they have practical benefits. I am merely stating that in regards to physical reality, Occam's Razor and the utility of theory are essential. If said simulations provide insights that lead somewhere else, great. Then we continue to build and refine. But if this stuff is superflous e.g. phlogiston, ether etc then yes, it's crap. ;- P

In short: Precision and thought are much better than mud-slinging.
Conclusion: I agree with you.

Re:ha ha ha

[maggern]

ok ok ok, I know that the reasoning was too short and perhaps by some theories wrong. However, being a practional person, I posted it anyways. Also, I'm sure being somewhat drunk also contributed to this situation. Some day soon I will take some time off to learn your difficult words, like: solipsism, phlogiston and read The Computational Capacity of the Universe. But I'd like to point out that in theory we may be part of different virtual realities linked via Slashdot enabeling us both to be right at the same time. Given (naturally) that we in the future does not decode our virtual reality and hack the code, reversing time and removing all posts from Slashdot in a move that would make The Matrix look like a good movie. Cause in my reality, The Matrix only scored 1,5 at IMDB. ;-)

Re:ha ha ha

[KinakeM]

Ok.

But remember, the "difficult words" are not mine per se, they belong to all of us.

Also... I'm skeptical about the latter, shall we say, "Unified Slashdot Theory." But ok ;- P

Re:ha ha ha

[Antity-H]

Who cares if it's real time ? it doesn't matter at all !! it will _seem_ real time to us since we have no other reference points.
But our time may be running at 1 billionth the speed of the universe which is hosting the simulator and we would have no way to know. We may even be running on time sharing, on when the supercalculator is available, off when other more important projects need it. Our perception of time continuity would not change since our entire universe would simply be in stasis (us included) when the program is not running ...

Testing Evolution

[Garrett Fox]

How do you test evolution?

Get a sample of ordinary E. coli and bio-lab materials, including a supply of an antibiotic and some standard sterile petri dishes and Luria broth (bacteria chow). Let the bacteria grow on some petri dishes, then add some antibiotics. Wait. You should find that the antibiotics killed nearly all of the bacteria, but that a few survived. Transplant these bacteria to new media and let them grow on new petri dishes. Expose them again to the antibiotic. You should now find that few die. The population has changed over time to adapt to a selective pressure.

This experiment demonstrates the following principles: (1) Variations exist among a population of organisms. (2) Some of these variations are inheritable. (3) Some inheritable variations affect an individual's chance of survival and reproduction in particular situations. (4) Over time, the population will change to include greater representation of the variations that gave a survival advantage to past generations. This is evidence for the basic tenets of evolution, and I've done similar experiments incidentally as part of laboratory work.

So, evolution is testable. The above hypotheses would be disproven if we were consistently unable, say, to get a population of antibiotic-resistant bacteria despite this manipulation. What creationists object to is either the implications of evolutionary theory for human origins (ie. that you don't need a God to explain things); or the sheer magnitude of what evolution is said to produce ("all this from bacteria?!"); or the basic premise of science (relentless demand for logic and evidence as the only basis for belief). The testability of evolution sets it apart from creationism, making evolution more than just "a belief" like "there's an invisible dragon in my garage." It's a well-founded belief, with the evidence and logic behind it making it more worthy of respect than the belief that an anthropomorphic being created everything by unknowable means six thousand years ago. But you might question why we should value facts and logic instead of tradition and feelings, which is an example of the basic science/religion conflict.

Expecting very specific predictions from evolution may be asking a bit much; it's like saying, "if Newtonian physics is true, why can't you tell me exactly how that car accident happened from looking at a still photo taken years later?"

Re:Testing Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

We aren't restricted to the rear view mirror of history alone.

Much more fun and convincing than your lab demos involving artificial selection pressures would be a conclusive demonstration of a plausible primordial abiogenesis in vitro.

Miller-Urey and Oro of course played in this space in ways much more interesting than other origin of life hypotheses (does panspermia even count? extra terrestrials all the way down...), and RNA World is interesting too, but so far the combination has not arisen in labs AFAIK.

However, there are a wide variety of plausible thermodynamic levers that could arise spontaneously in a Miller-Urey apparatus, including somewhat recognizable electron transport chains. It would be especially neat if we found something along the lines of a nonribosomal peptide synthetase -- most likely in an autocatalytic set of peptides that could gain energy through the conversion of hydrocarbons to peptides.

After all, why should RNA have been the only self-replicating organic molecule? Why should DNA have been the only store of heritable information? Looking for just those two molecules seems to ignore the possibility of an epoch during which our pre-archaean ancestors existed in parallel with now-dead analogues of our nucleic acids and the enzymes which polymerize and cleave them. The implications of the discovery of any spontaneously emerging self-replicating system would be staggering, since they would be just as testable for your points (1)-(4) as are whole prokaryotes with their (probable) endosymbionts already pre-packaged and running.

The bright side is that some people are doing work along these lines (PAH hypothesis, and some studies of glycol, peptide and threose nucleic acid polymers).

("all this from bacteria?!")

See, that's a problem -- a bacterium (or choose even simpler Archaea) is a pretty complicated thing, subject to Behe "logic". Mitochondria and even ribosomes are -- if not entirely elegant -- substantial sets of ordered molecules.

From our perspective, these organisms and organelles are the result of surviving natural selection pressures, but it would be useful to demonstrate that selection pressures and systems conducive to emergent subsystems are interchangeable to a certain limit, since we could then show off a variety of ways in which life/life-like-systems could arise without outside help.

Expecting very specific predictions from evolution may be asking a bit much

Why? Such predictions are made quite often and form the basis of expeditions ranging from Sereno's dino hunts to more mundane paleobotany digs. Very very generally the approach is to consider what selection pressures would have existed in a particular climate, where that climate would be found (rock stratum wise), and what likely and fossilizable traits would arise or decline in the environment in question.

While the question of the origin of feathers is sexy and gets lots of press, the validation of phytoliths as a standard relative dating tool, as a means of studying the evolution of plants that do not fossilize well (early grasses, for example), and most especially as a means of tracking the evolution of anti-herbivore toxins, all rely upon rather tight predictions of the location and composition of finds. Moreover, this is useful in the present in the study of the relationships between giraffes and elephants and the trees their respective species tend to graze, specifically with respect to the gut flora's action upon the plant matter leading towards a "soft" phyto"lith".

Herbivore-herb relationships are thus easier to track than predator-prey relationships involving sets of animals. ( If nothing else, there is lots of evidence demonstrating at least parallel evolution, which is much easier to reason about than the comparative study of apex predator skeleton fragments.) Terrestrial plants tend to have remained well-localized, whereas su

or did our piddly little brains create God?

[wilec]

"Maybe our piddly little brains just aren't capable of comprehending whatever it is that created God, so we can physically never know."

The true definition of an agnostic. Which applies to the vast majority of people, if that is they are really honest in their introspection they have to end up saying "I don't know". There in lies the root question in the God debate. Did God create our piddly little brains or did our piddly little brains create God? But the real root question for us all as individuals is "Will the me that I know and those I have become attached to simply cease to exist when we die?". I think all philosophical inquires and religious propositions have this at the root. Everything else like issues of free will, ultimate justice, heaven, hell and all such depend upon the root question. Alas as you noted it is unlikely we will ever be able to answer this question in the only mode or existence we do know.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Mark_MF-WN]

Indeed, credit where credit is due.

I despise religion and everything that it stands for, and I soundly mock anyone foolish enough to squander their lives in uncomfortable buildings trying to curry favor with a guy who is depicted in his own promotional literature as being extraordinarily proud of having ordered his followers to commit genocide, murder homosexuals and promiscuous women, and take little girls as sex slaves so long as they don't beat them so hard that they die within one day of the beating.

Nevertheless, the Vatican has at least learned from its mistakes. They've recognized the inevitability of scientific progress, and seen that embracing it is their only hope of staving off complete public acceptance of the church's irrelevancy.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[mpa000]

You are relying on the way that agenda driven news and Hollywood movies portray Christianity in the United States, I think, more than anything else.

The bulk of American Christians are just like the people that you talk about just before your OB_SLAP_USA (with a backhand to the Catholics in the process.) The difference is that the US was founded with the express intent that the government was not to show favoritism to a particular denomination. We are an open society so everyone in the world sees our crazy uncles, they see when we air our dirty laundry, and, since we focus on our faults (to a fault) as well, they see all of those and don't often see past that.

We primarily have a problem with two "movements" within American Christianity. I hesitate to call them what they are since the term is loaded with historical baggage, but they are heresies. American Christians tend not to kill their heretics since that would be, well, un-Christian, so these continue to thrive. Reason (the Logos) will eventually win the day.

The first is a form of literalism called Darbyism, or "Dispensational Premillenialism" if you want to be academic about it. We got that from an Irish Protestant called John Nelson Darby who spent a large amount of time in the US and Canada during the US Civil War and in the decade after. He hit us with his particularly un-Biblical brand of Bible literalism when we were at our lowest point and our people, especially in the South, were most vulnerable to the dark vision that it represents. The mainstream, historic Christian faith has been fighting against it ever since. You see it manifested in Hal Lindsey, Tim Lahaye, John Hagee, etc. and is the stereotypical image of Christianity most used in film and television. It is vocal, visible and geographically diverse but is still far out-numbered by traditional Christians. The problem is that many non-Believers encounter these nuts first. I've heard them described as a "vaccination" against the real Jesus.

The second are the "Word of Faith" preachers and their sucke^H^H^H^H^H followers. This is the crowd that will talk about "giving to get" and "seed money". They torture Scripture in the worst imaginable way, down to picking out one word at a time from multiple sources sometimes to construct the basis for their message. They also rely alot on "God told me to tell you." I have never heard a legitimate preacher use that phrase, especially not when it comes to tithes and offerings.

A legitimate Christian teacher will also not ever promise you anything in return for a monetary gift. That's one of the heresies that started the Reformation. Legitimate Christianity promises the believer nothing in this life except for the example of Christ, the Bible as guide, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Examples of these "Word of Faith" guys are JD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen (who's father John Osteen was the spiritual father of many of the Word of Faith heretics today), Juanita Bynum, etc.

They also present a Christianity that is so ridiculous that it serves, again, as an inoculant against the historic, reasonable Christian faith. (The one that built most of the universities, libraries and hospitals (up till recently) in the world.

I hope you come to understand that, despite the vocal-ness of some of our lost Brothers and Sisters in Christ, most U.S. Christians are more like your grandfather the minister than like Pat Robertson or Jim Bakker. They are just too busy "doing" their lives to be on TV talking about it all the time.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Darby]

Sorry to nitpick, but the bible doesn't demand you stone people to death anymore. It also doesn't demand you dash children against rocks. That was old-school. Before 'salvation'.

I just love this "it was old-school" nonsense from people trying to defend the bible who have clearly never even read it.

Matthew 5:18 not one letter of one word of one law shall change.

Right there, murdering people for idiotic nonsense was explicitly demanded by Jesus himself (or rather whoever made up that silly fairy tale).


I get annoyed when someone reads a whole sentence out of the Bible (or anything) or off some bible-bashing website and then uses that as an entire campaign against the Bible. It'd be no better than me picking a sentence out of some programming guide and using that to try to understand programming.

Hardly. What you're doing is ignoring the sentence that says to check that your pointers aren't null before using them claiming that magically that part doesn't apply to you.


So if you're going to try to bash the Bible, try reading it. While you're reading it, use your brain. If you can logically refute or argue with what you've found, good for you. At least you've made an informed judgment.

Laughable. Dig yourself out of this one. It might help if you actually read the thing. Heck, try studying the actual history around the period of the new testament. The fact that there is no mention of *any* of the miraculous events outside of silly fairy tales is a big clue. That would involve you actually being able to think clearly on the subject which is really unlikely.
First step is drop the assumption that it must magically be true because you really really want it to be.


I know this is slashdot, but how the hell can people sit here and have a huge discussion about something they know very little about?

You would obviously know the answer to that.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[darkpixel2k]

I just love this "it was old-school" nonsense from people trying to defend the bible who have clearly never even read it.

Matthew 5:18 not one letter of one word of one law shall change.

If you read it, you would realized he is talking about Jesus.
Him being alive, preaching, and kicking it with his boys changes nothing. The law is the law, and it changed nothing.

Like I said before, yes--it was old-school. Before salvation.

Hence the line: "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace."
Now that the law has been fulfiled, we are under grace, etc...

Laughable. Dig yourself out of this one. It might help if you actually read the thing. Heck, try studying the actual history around the period of the new testament. The fact that there is no mention of *any* of the miraculous events outside of silly fairy tales is a big clue. That would involve you actually being able to think clearly on the subject which is really unlikely.

I won't be able to dig myself out of this one in your eyes, simply because you appear to believe that anyone who believes in the Bible is not thinking clearly. It'd be like arguing about vi and emacs--and I would say that vi is great and you are wrong for liking emacs--and I won't accept any of your statements about emacs because emacs users aren't thinking clearly.

I have studied some of the history around the new testament, but not as much as I would like.
I'm not sure what you are getting at with the miraculous events and fairytales. If you are saying that they is no evidence outside of the Bible relating to Jesus and/or his alleged miracles, you are wrong. There is plenty of information about Jesus outside of the Bible, even corroborated by people who hated the Christians. As for miracles, almost everyone who witnessed the miracles 'converted'--making them unreliable sources in your eyes.

Josephus was a first century historian. He wrote accounts about the Jewish Roman War and wrote "The Antiquities" which talks about James and Jesus. It talks about James being converted and sentenced to death by stoning for following 'the Messiah'.

Tacitus like Josephus is another Roman historian who is considered to be very reliable. Tacitus openly didn't like Christianity--but he was an accurate historian and documented it Christ being executed and the following explosion of Christianity immediately following it. ("Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out").

But as for the direct evidence of miracles that I assume you are searching for, you probably aren't going to find much outside of the Bible. Why? Because everyone who first-hand witnessed the miracles and wrote about them now have them 'published' in the Bible, and they became believers. And I would have a hard time believing second-hand reports.

First step is drop the assumption that it must magically be true because you really really want it to be.

I don't believe in the bible because I want it to be true. Fuck, I wish it weren't. That would mean I could go out and drink myself stupid, and bang chicks, and do whatever I wanted without being held accountable to my actions. I believe in the bible because I spent the last five years doing research in my spare time. I questioned everything, talked with a few 'experts' in various scientific fields, read reports issued by others.

I understand if someone doesn't have the time or interest to do that sort of research, but once again you are standing on a position of knowing next to nothing about the area we are discussing and trying in vain to argue some point.

Of course like any good scientist, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I am absolutely 100% correct about everything...because I can't prove

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Darby]

It'd be like arguing about vi and emacs--and I would say that vi is great and you are wrong for liking emacs

I might not have been all that polite, but you'll note that I didn't sink to the level of calling you an emacs user ;-)


But as for the direct evidence of miracles that I assume you are searching for, you probably aren't going to find much outside of the Bible. Why? Because everyone who first-hand witnessed the miracles and wrote about them now have them 'published' in the Bible, and they became believers. And I would have a hard time believing second-hand reports.

What eye witness accounts?!?
Mark isn't an eye witness account. The other gospels are just later rewritings of Mark. There are no eyewitness accounts in the bible.

Tacitus wasn't a contemporary, and the Josephus references have been pretty thoroughly debunked as either accidental or intentional alterations after the fact.
Why do no *contemporary* historians make any mention of earthquakes or the like. You know, the big things that people would have noticed?


Of course like any good scientist, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I am absolutely 100% correct about everything...because I can't prove 100% that I am correct. I can however say that my research points in a certain direction and has not been refuted. I am also more than willing to entertain any evidence you may have refuting Jesus and/or the Bible.

here is a great article addressing everything you talked about and more. The two follow up links at the bottom are also very good and exhaustively researched.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[TempeTerra]

The point I was trying to make to the parent of my first post was that there are plenty of moderate and reasonable Christians despite the fact that the louder and crazier ones get all the press. I didn't mean to say that US Christians are in general any kookier than their foreign counterparts, but i can see how you read it that way. Also apologies to any Catholics I may have offended; the Catholics I know in real life take my jokes about ritual cannibalism with good grace, and I forget that friendly deadpan humour on the internet looks just like flamebait.

Thank you for your very informative reply, I feel I understand more about the development of Christianity in the US now. It looks like all the moderators have moved on from this discussion so I suppose you won't get any karma, which is a shame. Your post deserves it.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[darkpixel2k]

I might not have been all that polite, but you'll note that I didn't sink to the level of calling you an emacs user ;-)

Yeah--sorry, that was stooping a bit low on my side. I just couldn't think of a good car analogy.

What eye witness accounts?!?
Mark isn't an eye witness account. The other gospels are just later rewritings of Mark. There are no eyewitness accounts in the bible.

Matthew (aka Levi) one of the 12 disciples is an eyewitness account. Of course there are the other 11 disciples. However, you are correct that Mark isn't an eyewitness account, nor was Luke. So why would Matthew and Luke use information from Mark? Because Peter was among the 'inner circle' of Jesus and Peter translated his version of events through Mark. So their was probably some good information in Mark's translation that they used or reminded them of something else they forgot to include. Reporters do that sort of thing every day. How many reports reported on 9/11 without actually being an eyewitness at ground zero. They relied on other reporters who were there. They used their information.

Tacitus wasn't a contemporary, and the Josephus references have been pretty thoroughly debunked as either accidental or intentional alterations after the fact.
Why do no *contemporary* historians make any mention of earthquakes or the like. You know, the big things that people would have noticed?

When it comes to historians, I am fairly lost and have to turn to experts. You can say that Tacitus wasn't a contemporary and that Josephus has been pretty thoroughly debunked, but I've read papers from several historians and they all say that those two had it together.

here[http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm] is a great article addressing everything you talked about and more. The two follow up links at the bottom are also very good and exhaustively researched.

I'll have to read it next weekend when I have more time. Instead of setting up a mail server I've spent quite a bit of time digging through old notes and research... ;)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[richlv]

It just exists, and you may not question that.

why ? i do question that. it is unsovably complex question for today, but so was once lightning.
i don't believe we will be seeing answer or anything close to it in next years or in next thousand years. but, if humanity does not obliterate itself, there might come some quite suprising findings, as has been in all fields during the last few thousand years...
so, really, i "believe" in explainable things. unexplainable things i place in the drawer marked 'unexplainable but damn intriguing' - and every now and then i move something out of that drawer only to replace by few other findings by scientists :)

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

Uh. Okay. Nice to be remembered >_> Am still a scientist :P

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

Well that's what I usually see it being equated with, so yes. It could work fine for others but Christianity seems to be the religion that has to be on the defensive most against cynics.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

I haven't really looked into ID beyond a DVD my uncle had, it just seemed to me to be stating what Christians believe. I don't think the ID crowd just settle for saying God did it exactly, they look into it a bit deeper than that, but yeah I'm not really bothered about getting into any kind of disagreement about everything, I'm happy with my faith and if other people don't agree with it then it's not my problem.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

I would have thought it's more the fault of those who are desperately trying to prove to themselves that there is no God, but of course since all types of people are Christians, some aren't going to know or care much about science, and they could be the ones who appear anti-scientific. Some people are also just idiots..

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

I've always thought the same. Though if you believe that something has always existed, and you believe in evolution, then why not believe that something has evolved to a god-like status? :P It's like a short story I read by Asimov, where humans developed a computer that refined itself, and eventually became so refined that it became basically omnipotent, and figured out how to reverse entropy. Was pretty cool.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

That's because the Vatican seems to take Christianity and then remove God as much as possible, replacing ideas in the bible with ideas acceptable to humans

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[thesandtiger]

Let's clarify a little:

If you're a "young Earth creationist" type of Christian, then ID beliefs are probably quite in line with your beliefs. People such as Kirk Cameron, who makes the argument that evolution cannot be possible because bananas fit easily in your hand and that peanut butter doesn't come to life (no, I'm not kidding) would fall into that camp. These people _definitely_ do wave their hands a lot whenever something gets tricky and say, "God did it." That "God did it" can be said in several ways - "irreducible complexity" is one of their current favorites. "Look at the human eye," they say, "there's no way that could have evolved!" My problem with this type of belief is that it tries to make religion answer the question of "How Things Work" which is a task VERY unsuited to religion. If this type of belief had been the most common from the start, we'd all be sitting in caves wondering if rocks were edible. I won't call it entirely unthinking nonsense, because, let's face it, it takes a certain kind of craftiness to keep on trying to come up with new ways to say the same old discredited stuff, but it's close enough to idiocy to make me queasy when I hear someone who otherwise might be a fine, intelligent person, espouse it.

If you're more of the camp that God might have said "Fiat Lux!" and then let the universe go from there to develop as it would, then you're in pretty good company. The father of the big bang theory was a Catholic priest, after all. These types of Christians use religion to address the question of "Why are we here?" which seems to me to be something that science cannot (and doesn't try to) answer.

Anyone who looks to religion to try to figure out how something in the physical world works is using the wrong tool for the job, just as anyone who looks to science to find answers to the question of why we are here is using the wrong tool. Two different fields entirely, and the only time there's a problem is when someone in one field tries to push the scope of their field into the other.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[geminidomino]

Every other religion in the world...
Christianity is the only religion that... Apparently, your sample size is woefully insufficient.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[somersault]

Definitely agree with that, science can't really do the 'why', only the 'how'. I wonder if a God who has always existed could do the 'why'. It's so mindblowing just thinking that something must have *always* existed, it just doesn't make any sense (imo anyway, some people are like yeah I'm so smart that I don't find the idea of eternity mind blowing at all!). If I wasn't sitting here typing this I'd just have to say that it's not possible that the energy that our matter constains/consists of has always just existed. Freaks me out sometimes (like right now, having thought about it all again :P )

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[corbettw]

Whether or not a church teaches a doctrine or not is irrelevant. Do the scriptures speak to its relevance, for me, is the only test. I wasn't arguing if anyone was correct in their beliefs, I was stating what those beliefs are. Therefore, not only is the doctrine relevant to the argument, nothing else besides the doctrine is.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[cromar]

I'm not sure you understand me... it really is very tricky on the edges of logic ;) How can you question that reality (existence) exists? It is the one truth that cannot be questioned, because truth derives its definition from existence. Indeed, truth = existence. I don't want to sound polemic, but I think most people dismiss knowledge beyond the realm of logic out of hand, and I'd like to understand what exactly is beyond logic, or at least its boundaries... does that make sense? I'm more interested in the nature of what is explainable (logical thinking) and what is unexplainable (something else). I don't get a chance to talk about this sort of thing much, so any further insight would be most appreciated.

I Know!

[boiert]

>He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual."
Reality can be round, we cannot calculate pi.

But where does the "independent of" come from?

[reiisi]

Let me fix that for you:

I.e. a few rather useful rules of life, determined with the help of the same influence or being that created the universe and all truth, written down and illustrated with a bunch of somewhat edited histories of an ancient people that lived in a time of tribal violence?

How's that?

Hmm. I might be able to provide some comment on the following, as well.

If a bunch of life's rules-of-thumb existed independently, then what's the point? Preserve them, scrap the parts of our traditions and religion that we know to be false, and get on with a decent life.

Truth does exist independently of us. (So does the real God.) Truth (and the real God) is a lot bigger than any of us can really understand much of. The best we can do is try really hard to describe the aspects of truth (and God) with which we are familiar.

But I'm definitely with you if you mean to scrap false religion.

Re:But where does the "independent of" come from?

[Raenex]

rather useful rules of life Which ones? The ones you accept, but not the ones you reject? Wrapping them in religious text just enourages dogma.

with the help of the same influence or being that created the universe and all truth Well this is the whole point. Applying reason and Occam's Razor says that the Bible is not inspired by God, at least not by any God described in the Bible.

Truth does exist independently of us. (So does the real God.) [...] But I'm definitely with you if you mean to scrap false religion. What I've seen is that you apply contorted reasoning to fit your preconceived notion of God, pretending that you are searching for Truth. Could it be that God of the Bible is mythology, no different than any other culture's religion? You only beleive in God of the Bible because you were raised in a religion based on Judaism. There are other religions besides Judaism. Why show favoritism?

wait a minute

[Crazyswedishguy]

Does this mean we could be AI?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

I truly appreciated reading that, and would like you to know that if I were in any sort of electing position, I would vote you for bishop.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[drew]

There was lots and lots and lots and lots of energy. God came from the energy. He then created matter. Which by the way also answers your question as to why we still have matter left.

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[jeff4747]

Could you provide the formula for the ratio of God to Energy? E=G^2 perhaps?

Re: it's programmed to be this way

[drew]

Sorry, no. I'm a little behind on my theophysics research.

More seriously, since you seemed to miss the point of my joke, while you did answer my question, you didn't really answer it in the context of why I posed it to the OP. OP had claimed that god could not stand up to simple logical reasoning because either god was created, which would lead to a recursive question of where that person came from, or "he just exists, you may not question that".

So yes, matter came from energy. But that doesn't answer the question, because now somebody has to explain where the energy came from. It doesn't matter whether you are dealing with god or dealing with the big bang. Either way you have the same dilemma. Either way, you can trace the chain back (if there is one) but sooner or later, you end up at a point where you are dealing with some entity that either materialized out of nothing of its own accord, or has always "just been there". Apparently the OP can logically accept that if the initial quantity is matter or energy, but not if the initial quantity is god.

What I've seen ...

[reiisi]

Which ones?

Let your conscience be your guide.

No, wrapping them in religious text does not particularly encourage dogma. Perhaps you are doing the gulit-by-association thing. But people are plenty able and willing to invent and resort to dogma without the need for religion. The only reason that Atheism might seem to be free of dogma at this time is that the illogical concept of Atheism as a non-religion is a rather recent invention. If you go back to early versions of atheistic philosophy, you find plenty of dogma, then you move forward to find that there is plenty of dogma cleverly hidden in the currently fashionable version(s) of Atheism.

For instance ...

Occam's Razor?

You have never considered that your definition of "simple" might be, well, dogma of your invention? That your assertion of "simpler without God" might be heavily dependent on your definition of God?

Not described in the Bible?

{sigh.}

Well, yeah, the "God" asserted by atheists as they attack the concept of God is not described in the Bible. There are reasons for that, not the least of which is that the atheists' versions of God are a figment of their reasoning -- a strawman, if you will.

There are also false concepts of God associated with the Bible. The debate has been muddled by famous philosophers such as, well, Aristotle, he of the perfect circles. Aristotle had some wrong ideas about God, too. So did, for example, Josephus, Theophilus, Luther, Kant, and just about every other philosopher who has ever philosophized on the subject, on whatever side of the coin. Being human makes one subject to false reasoning on occasion, so that's no surprise.

Favoritism?

All religions contain elements of truth. All contain false elements, especially if you include under the umbrella of religion various social constructs that are artifacts of the process of education and/or proselytizing, or of the support structures that tend to develop under umbrellas.

There is only one real God.

But if you postulate a being who could be the author of the peculiar balance which existed at the non-time of the big bang, and/or determine the exact point at which the big bang occurred, you necessarily postulate a being incapable of being described by any mortal person. Attempting to describe God completely involves the same sort of hubris that supposes one individual or any single race or group of races could ever explore the entire universe. That kind of hubris is not unique to those who claim religion, nor is it universal among those who claim religion.

I suppose I happen to be more familiar with the Bible and the Book of Mormon than with other religious writings, so my concepts tend to reflect those more than the writings of, for instance, Kukai. That means that my descriptions of God and religion are necessarily incomplete.

So, why show favoritism?

Well, God is not a respecter of persons, so it's probably not a good idea to play favorites. However, a person does have to work from where he is.

(You can't accomplish anything trying to work from where you aren't. You can plan ahead, maybe, but you can't actually get the work done until/unless you are where the work is. Or do you want to take the action-at-a-distance point of view?)

Unfortunately, it's impossible to complete de-bias oneself. Much more effective, except in cases of egregious error, to understand as much as possible about what you have and work from there, and let others work with what they have as much as possible. Sometimes other people will think you're being biased 'cause you don't run over to play their game with them, but if you could play everybody's game with everybody at once, you'd be God.

So, if you want to be extreme in your demand of lack of favoritism, you would be demanding that I become God.

joudanzuki

Re:What I've seen ...

[Raenex]

No, wrapping them in religious text does not particularly encourage dogma. Sure it does. By claiming to be the "word of God", the most supreme being, you encourage acceptance without reasoning or evidence. That's what faith is all about, and the Bible is full of stories about people being punished for going against his will. Science says to reason for ourselves based on evidence and experiments. That's not to say that dogma doesn't exist outside of religion, but it's clear that religion fundamentally encourages it.

You have never considered that your definition of "simple" might be, well, dogma of your invention? Sure, it's possible, and given sufficient evidence I'm willing to change my mind. I'll note, though, that I was raised to believe in God and the Bible, and rejected religion after reasoning on my own.

There are reasons for that, not the least of which is that the atheists' versions of God are a figment of their reasoning -- a strawman, if you will. Did God create the Universe? Is God all-powerful? Does God want us to live by the Ten Commandments? Was Jesus Christ sent by God to instruct us? Is the Bible a source of God's teachings? Those are the basics. I don't think they are controversial or a straw man.

All religions contain elements of truth. [...] There is only one real God. [...] Well, God is not a respecter of persons On what do you base these statements?

So, if you want to be extreme in your demand of lack of favoritism, you would be demanding that I become God. Not so extreme, but just to consider that you were indoctrinated with certain religious beliefs as part of your upbringing, that if you were born into another time or another religion you would have different beliefs. Also to consider that all organized religions and claims of have first-hand knowledge of God might be inventions of man to explain life's mysteries, to wield power over others, etc.

To consider you're inventing elaborate excuses to fit an idea you were indoctrinated in, but aren't willing to give up. There's evidence all around us that people make up stuff and call it religion, and that religion in general has been retreating in the face of science, until we're left with God of the Gaps.