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Mathematician: Is Our Universe a Simulation?
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mathematician Edward Frenkel writes in the NYT that one fanciful possibility that explains why mathematics seems to permeate our universe is that we live in a computer simulation based on the laws of mathematics — not in what we commonly take to be the real world. According to this theory, some highly advanced computer programmer of the future has devised this simulation, and we are unknowingly part of it. Thus when we discover a mathematical truth, we are simply discovering aspects of the code that the programmer used. This may strike you as very unlikely writes Frenkel but physicists have been creating their own computer simulations of the forces of nature for years — on a tiny scale, the size of an atomic nucleus. They use a three-dimensional grid to model a little chunk of the universe; then they run the program to see what happens. 'Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we are more likely to be in such a simulation than not,' writes Frenkel. 'If such simulations are possible in theory, he reasons, then eventually humans will create them — presumably many of them. If this is so, in time there will be many more simulated worlds than nonsimulated ones. Statistically speaking, therefore, we are more likely to be living in a simulated world than the real one.' The question now becomes is there any way to empirically test this hypothesis and the answer surprisingly is yes. In a recent paper, 'Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation,' the physicists Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi and Martin J. Savage outline a possible method for detecting that our world is actually a computer simulation (PDF). Savage and his colleagues assume that any future simulators would use some of the same techniques current scientists use to run simulations, with the same constraints. The future simulators, Savage indicated, would map their universe on a mathematical lattice or grid, consisting of points and lines. But computer simulations generate slight but distinctive anomalies — certain kinds of asymmetries and they suggest that a closer look at cosmic rays may reveal similar asymmetries. If so, this would indicate that we might — just might — ourselves be in someone else's computer simulation."
That paper is from November 2012. We should have been able to catch it a little bit earlier than this. That, or the person running the simulation missed an important loop bug.
Some possible ways to determine if we're living in a simulation:
Look for signs of optimizations/short cuts in the simulation:
Is there a maximum speed?
Is there a minimum size?
Is there a limit as to determining an object's position and momentum?
etc...
According to this theory, some highly advanced computer programmer of the future has devised this simulation, and we are unknowingly part of it.
Wouldn't he have to be a computer programmer of the present, if he wrote this simulation and we're in it RIGHT NOW?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
For this to be true in even the most allegorical sense would require that we stretch the definitions of "computer" and "simulation" well beyond anything we currently understand and well beyond the bounds of our ability to be concise and specific about what the terms mean. Using these terms here is just mixing up apples and oranges.
We might as well, in other words, say that our universe is a blender inside a giant appliance store, a stageplay inside a giant theatre district, a mildewing blow tickler inside a giant hoarder's garage mess, or anything else bearing the one of the rough relationships signal:carrier, content:form, fragment:whole, instance:structure, etc.
I mean, what sort of computer are we talking about here?
What is its nature, not just logically, but physically? Do we even know that we're speaking "physically"? Isn't this the scale at which such quantities break down?
And doesn't our idea of computation and simulation require precisely that mathematical rules apply for these to be carried out in the first place?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Many people dream every night. Statistically there would be many more dream worlds than real worlds. So therefore this world is more likely to be a dream world than a real world.
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Quantum physics seems to be the ultimate proof that the universe is a simulation.
The universe, intuitively, seems to be analog and continuous. That "feels" right to us. But quantum physics shows that it is actually discrete. But that is exactly how computer simulations work! They use very small time scales to make things appear continuous. We know that below certain time scales, things are essentially random. This is consistent with a computer simulation. You can't accurately simulate something that happens in less time than one "frame" of time. There is a whole area of mathematics that deals with how to make simulations work accurately given the limitation of discrete time scales.
The same happens with physical sizes. Below the Planck scale the universe starts to break-down and become random. This is exactly how things would work if the universe was using binary arithmetic. Suppose that every particle in the universe has a coordinate. You can represent it's position over a vast scale, but only with limited accuracy. The plank scale is that limit, and it indirectly tells us how many bits are in the coordinate field of each particle. When we try to measure the position of something accurately, we find that the position becomes random. And if you try to measure it's speed to more resolution than one "frame" of time, it becomes less accurate. Worse-yet: the only way we can measure the position or speed of a simulated particle is by comparing it to another simulated particule, which introduces yet more error. We are ultimately limited by the accuracy of the simulation.
One side-benefit of this is that we have an awesome source of stastically predictable randomness. Quantum computers are actually using the randomness of the simulator to take advantage of cpu-cycles that are "outside" of our universe. Within the simulator, we can only build a computer that is so fast. But if we find a way to tap into the computing power of the simulator, like by using the side-effects of one of it's built-in functions, then we can compute a result faster than anything we can do ourselves. It is like calling into "native code" while we are running in the interpreted bytecode.
Another indication that we are in a simulation is that quantum physics shows us that wave functions collapse when we observe them. That makes sense: why should the universal simulator waste time calculating quantities that are not currently being measured? Imagine a vast number of inputs, a vast number of calculations that produce outputs, and a smaller number of observers of those outputs. You can easily optimize away things that are not being observed. But we found a way to notice the side-effect of not calculating certain values. It's like a side-channel attack on an encryption algorithm. You can tell how many bits of a password are correct even without the output by seeing how long it took to calculate, or how much power the computer consumed. I wonder if the designers of the simulator didn't know that we could see these kinds of side-effects, or if they are too difficult to fix. Either way, we are seeing side-effects of some of the shortcuts and optimizations.
Perhaps one day one of the programmers will look over at their printer and find a little note from someone way down here inside the simulation. If you could hack a few words outside of the system, what would they be?
I find it hilarious, though, that people are open to this possibility but so hostile to the idea of creationism.
If you ask me, it's the same shit in a different package. Throughout most of early history, man had a pretty bad understanding of scientific principles and "God made everything" was an answer that fit what was observable at the time. As advances in scientific understanding were made, we've come up with theories as to why we're here that are have a higher likelyhood of being true based on observations (the Big Bang, for example). It's also just as likely we were observing some advance's alien race's fireworks show that predated our known universe, but just because that fits the observation, does not mean it's true.
For example, if I put you in a completely darkened room and you heard meowing, would you know for absolute certain that there was a cat in the room? It could've been a recording of a cat, a person making a meow noise or even a parrot that was trained to meow. You could've said that "I heard a cat, so there is a cat in the room." and it would've fit your observation, but it could still be entirely incorrect. Likewise, these scientists may believe "the universe is a simulation" fits their observations. Just remember, until you can turn on the lights and see for sure - all that meows may not be a cat.
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