Physicists Devise Test For Whether the Universe Is a Simulation

olsmeister writes "Ever wonder if the universe is really a simulation? Well, physicists do too. Recently, a group of physicists have devised a way that could conceivably figure out one way or the other whether that is the case. There is a paper describing their work on arXiv. Some other physicists propose that the universe is actually a giant hologram with all the action actually occurring on a two-dimensional boundary region."

Comments

There is no boundary

[Anonymous Coward]

Though this often earns the ire of physicists who have not studied their history, the fact is: physics is a specialized and well-developed branch of philosophy.

Unbeknownst to many successful physicists, physics is still replete with metaphysical assumptions, established-but-unprovable positions on classical philosophical problems, and analytical methods built firmly upon a foundation of formal logic. Physics is philosophy through-and-through.

This particular branch of philosophy gets special attention for the direct, highly visible, and wonderfully practical applications of what one learns from its methods. Because of this, people who have not been sufficiently educated in philosophy proper tend to imagine that the two are largely unrelated, and further that the other intellectual elsewheres of philosophy are so much hot air. This is unfortunate, as it winds up imposing unperceived limits on the capabilities of practicing scientists...but the situation has remained workable nonetheless.

Ah, and while I am going around stomping on feet with facts....

The world was discovered. The language we use to model it, mathematics, was invented in response to that discovery. Some interesting logical implications of that language were subsequently discovered. But this does not mean that "mathematics" itself was discovered. It was not. It was invented. Study your history and you can trace its invention and gradual refinement over the course of history.

And also man actually walked on the moon...it wasn't the most colossally-impossible-to-maintain lie in human history.

The vikings discovered America first.

Consciousness is a real phenomenon but the soul is a very high-level abstraction mistaken as a concrete reality.

It's okay to be gay.

K, I'm done.

Re:What if they are right?

[bcrowell]

The relationship between simulation and simulator isn't necessarily arbitrary, but it's probably not understandable by the simulation. That is in effect (among) what Goedel's incompleteness theorems say.

No, actually that has nothing to do with what Godel's theorems say.

You might want to read this: http://www.amazon.com/Godels-Theorem-Incomplete-Guide-Abuse/dp/1568812388