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

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: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: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

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: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.

[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.

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: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.

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

[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!

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

[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.