Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is Physical Law an Alien Intelligence? (nautil.us)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the guardrails-of-the-galaxy dept.

What if alien life were so advanced that its powers were indistinguishable from physics? It's the one-year anniversary of a startling article which appeared in Nautilus magazine. Long-time Slashdot reader wjcofkc writes: Caleb Scharf, astronomer and the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center at Columbia University presents an intriguing thought experiment.

"Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke was being uncharacteristically unambitious. He once pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology is going to be indistinguishable from magic. If you dropped in on a bunch of Paleolithic farmers with your iPhone and a pair of sneakers, you'd undoubtedly seem pretty magical. But the contrast is only middling: The farmers would still recognize you as basically like them, and before long they'd be taking selfies. But what if life has moved so far on that it doesn't just appear magical, but appears like physics?"
The original submitter included their own counterarguments against the idea, but the astronomer follows his proposal to its ultimate conclusion.

"Perhaps hyper-advanced life isn't just external. Perhaps it's already all around. It is embedded in what we perceive to be physics itself, from the root behavior of particles and fields to the phenomena of complexity and emergence."

6 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Someone already thought of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We already have a name for their possible existence: god.

  2. Quick questions by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Some quick questions:

    1) Does this hypothesis have testable predictions,

    2) Does the theory imply observations that we could make that would invalidate the theory?

    I'm a fan of "Hey, Martha!" stories, they're entertaining and thought provoking, but I don't know how much serious consideration such a proposal warrants. (Compared to, say, the survivability of "The Martian" or whether aspects of the "Star Trek" universe are physically realizable.)

    1. Re:Quick questions by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Funny

      1) Does this hypothesis have testable predictions,

      Yes. The aliens would likely implement physics with some specific features to conserve resources. Here are some predictions:

      1. To localize causality, the propagation of information will have a speed limit rather than happening instantaneously.

      2. At the lowest levels, reality will be discrete, or "quantum", rather than continuous. The degree of quantum granularity will depend on the size of the floating point registers in the alien computers. Planck's Constant is 6.626e-34, which implies a binary mantissa of at least 115 bits.

      3. To limit computation, reality would be held in a fuzzy probabilistic "superposition" state until it is actually observed, similar to how a GPU running OpenGL will skip the generation of hidden polygons. Since only an infinitesimal portion of the Universe is actually observed, this is a huge optimization win.

      All of these are actually true of our Universe. Ergo, we are just alien puppets, and our only purpose in "life" is to provide them with entertainment.

  3. Good response by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's the same as "we're all living in a sim", isn't it?

    That's a very good question.

    So far as I can tell, there are testable predictions that the sim theory makes. These are predictions that are not required by the theory, but that, if we see them, would be good indications of the sim.

    Consider scanning a color document, separating the color channels into R, G, and B, and then doing a histogram of each channel.

    If the envelope of the red histogram is smooth and goes to zero at each end (at R=0 and R=255). then we might conclude that the scanner spans the entire range of "red".

    If the envelope is smooth but has discontinuous jumps at zero and 255, it means that there are intensities of red smaller than the minimum value the scanner can distinguish, and intensities higher than the highest value. Basically, all the high intensity pixels in the image max out the A/D converter in the scanner, and all the low intensity pixels register as zero even though there is significant variation.

    The discontinuities at either end of the measurement imply that there is information outside the measurement range of the scanner.

    We can apply that logic to certain astrophysical measurements in the universe in certain cases. If we see measurement distributions which are smooth, but have discontinuous jumps at either end it might indicate that there is information outside the measurable universe, even though we cannot measure it.

    ...or so it goes. I haven't looked into the theory in detail, but I was under the impression that certain astronomical measurements would imply the existence of a sim, but are not required for us to be in a sim.

  4. Already answered. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The Truth is Truth. The all permeating thing that you materialists call physics and laws of physics is Brahman. What we perceive as The Cosmos, and its physical manifestations are all projections, mere projection of Brahman in our plane of perception, or our sphere of perception. This is the grand illusion, or Maya. Only when we teach ourselves not to be distracted by the physics you would perceive the Brahman, the Truth.

    Bear in mind sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from trollery.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  5. Re: No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pass the bong.