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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."
What will we do then? When will Zaphod eat the cake?
They never pass the joint around :(
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Recently, a group of physicists have devised a way that could conceivably figure out one way or the other whether that is the case.
In other news, the group of higher-dimensional physicists who are running this universe a simulation figured out a way to falsify the results of the test.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Wouldn't one of the interesting consequences of the Universe being a 'hologram mapped on a two-dimensional boundary region' be that we could then postulate the reason for the speed of light? Speed of light could be then some upper boundary on the most primitive matrix transformation, sort of like the maximum GHz that the Universe is running at (assuming that the matrix itself is a memory map and that there is a gigantic number of processors that can access and modify memory simultaneously), or maybe the speed of light is then a manner, in which race conditions and dead locks are prevented? Sort of like in a bad system, where you know an atomic transaction takes 1ms, so you force a wait condition on the memory it access for 2ms, so you know for sure that the transaction committed.
At the same time, if that is the case, then going above and beyond speed of light could cause transactional failure and that could mean some form of memory corruption and destruction of the matrix or space time distortion and destruction :) But then if we didn't care about transactionality we could somehow breach the speed of light, but only by going outside of the memory boundaries of the simulation, crossing into the instruction stack and overwriting that constant!
I just gave myself a mental highfive on the level of crazy.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
One thing genetic algorithms, when applied to entities in simulations, always seem to find are the flaws in the simulation. Those flaws are exploited to increase their "fitness" measure. Example, if your fitness measure is how far the thing moves over a period of time but your simulation doesnt have absolutely perfect conservation of energy , the GA will always find a way to exploit that lack of perfect conservation of energy (by smashing into walls, etc..)
"His name was James Damore."
The test can (maybe) figure out of one of the consequences that would result from our universe being a simulation does, in fact, exist, provided, of course, our theories about how the universe and simulations work are actually accurate. Or in other words, it might show that it is possible that the universe is a simulation. Even if we show that the consequence exists (the consequence is that energy particles have a limit, the theory being that a simulation would have an upper limit on what it is able to simulate, kind of similar to how your computer has an upper limit on what it can fit into it's RAM), we still won't know that it is actually the result of the universe being a simulation, or some other unknown cause, and even if we don't find an upper limit, it could mean either our methods are too limited to find it or that the simulation isn't limited in the way that we think.
Really, while the research is itself fascinating, it isn't some kind of definitive test. Such tests are phenomenally rare in physics, perhaps even non-existent (it's always possible to create another theory that fits the observations).
As a side note, saying the universe isn't "real" is almost self-contradictory, as we define existence and reality precisely by our observations of the universe itself. A holographic universe would be no less real for being holographic, if only because we would literally have no other possible meaning for the word "real" (the simulation that occurs in The Matrix movie is of a completely different nature from the holographic principle). I'd also somewhat object to even using the word "simulation" in the first place, as that implies it is a simulation of something, when we really have absolutely no reason to suspect that is indeed the case (holographic universes can be modeled by simulation cases, hence the use of the term).
Disclaimer: IANAP yet, but I'm studying in the field.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
When I ran into a wall yesterday, I thought I briefly saw a black wall with yellow lines...
"we assume that our universe is an early numerical simulation with unimproved Wilson fermion discretization and investigate potentially-observable consequences."
If I read that right, they mean that their analysis can only conclude either that the universe is a simulation, or that it is either not a simulation or a simulation too accurate to tell via their method. It can't actually prove that the universe is *not* a simulation.
Looks like no need for elaborate and expensive equipment though - just a way to measure the energy of cosmic rays - so why not give it a try?
... efficiently on a classic Turing machine. This has been established since Feynman originally proposed it. So I simply don't understand the premise of this research. Not that this is hasn't come up before with SUSY string theorists.
It simply flies into the face of what these days is known about computational complexity.
Apparently some physicists are completely ignoring this branch of theoretical computer science.
Now if the question was that the universe might be a quantum computing simulation that'll make more sense, as these can also efficiently simulate field theories.
But my understanding is that this is not what they are investigating here.
I think we really are skirting the boundary between physics and philosophy. I suppose the fact that actual experiments are being proposed pushes the holographic universe idea and the simulation idea towards being actual physics. However, I still have categorizing the holographic universe hypothesis as real physics. By real physics, I mean experimental physics, where we base our ideas about the physical world on what we actually observe.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
What if the "simulation" is simply programmed to deceive this test? Then what do you do?
If no test is possible, then it is not physics but only philosophy.
Scientists perform experiments that are constrained by the laws of nature.
Philosophers perform experiments that are constrained by the laws of logic.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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.
The Outer Limits - Wolf 359
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uAGABz4R4s
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
There's a difference between "programmed to deceive this test" and "programmed to deceive all tests". This is a test for a particular type of simulation, and will verify or falsify whether we're in that type, but other types, which may or may not have occurred to us, may or may not have other tests that can be performed. So failure to detect a simulation here will not only not prove we're not in a simulation, but will not prove that the hypothesis is unscientific.
On the other hand, success at proving we're in a simulation would certainly be a fascinating result! :)
Just like when Copernicus said the earth was not the centre of the universe, and all those scientists attacked him?? No, that was Christians.
Well how about evolution? It explains all we see in the natural world elegantly using a simple principle which is supported mathematically. Nope, Christians want to stop people discussing that. The big bang? The existence of other planets? The size of the universe? Fossils? Radio-isotopic dating? No, no, no - Christians HATE these things.
Christianity, and its brother Islam, are jokes. The teach ridiculous things, and demand acceptance without allowing questioning. I'm happy for you to believe that crap if you like, but know that it's bullshit and that you are wasting your time.
Also, and most importantly, stop trying to discourage science. Stop trying to stop people learning things. Christians and Muslims might be happy living in smelly caves, or you may accept the benefits of science at the same time as attacking it, but science is important for all humanity. More important that some bundle of lies, the false idol, cobbled together and continually altered declaring itself as god's word.
Or it just slows down the tick rate, and we have literally no idea. I can't think of any reason a simulation would need to run in real time.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
This is not a test whether the universe is a simulation.
This is a test about the possibility that one kind of simulation can model the (known) behavior of the universe.
I keep repeating that "the universe is a simulation" vs. "the universe is real" does not make sense as a dichotomy. The question, unanswerable from the inside, is whether the universe is the last level of abstraction or the product of a meta-universe.
Let's take a game of chess as an example. A particular game of chess is an abstraction. A reality on its own. It is not some pieces on a checkerboard, it is something in the minds of those who know what those pieces mean. It depends on our reality for its existence (you gotta keep the moves recorded somewhere) so we say it's one level of recursion below ours. At the same level of dreams, laws, and so on.
Asking whether this universe is a simulation is like showing the transcript of a game of chess (the abstraction called a game of chess has a 1:1 mapping with the transcript of the game) and ask who was playing that game. Impossible question, because it's outside the level of abstraction represented by the game of chess. I need some meta information. But if my reality is constrained by the game of chess itself, like science is constrained by observation and human logic, I cannot perceive nor understand that meta information. If I try to process that meta information, like when we enter the field of religion, I can't tell whether that meta information is true or whether I understood it at all.
Sure, it's good to try, to reason about a game: "this move seems silly so white is probably a pc with some primitive algorhithm". But it could be a human rookie. Dramatic difference in the meta reality, irrelevant for the game.
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