Using what machine? The amount of information contained within the Universe cannot be represented by the material of this Universe using any technology reasonably forseeable. We might construct very limited simulators, but even a full simulator of something the size of a planet is unlikely. More likely we will create higher-level simulations because these are close enough to reality to be actually useful, but don't require the ability to model low-level phenomenon to product their results. On the other hand, life as we know it DOES depend on those low-level phenomenon. Rather, we will likely produce machine intelligences, not Universes.
What reason do we have to even suggest that there is the remotest possibility this is the case? Merely our idle imaginations. No perception of reality suggests this.
Untrue. The simulator could itself be using properties of its own universe to generate phenomenon in the simulation, with those phenomenon being themselves incalculable. There is nothing which says the simulation must itself be wholly calculable because we don't/can't know the nature of the entity performing the simulation. Perhaps for those running the simulation, it only needs to be controllable, which is a separate problem and would likely be beyond our ability to detect from within the simulation.
So in this case, we could only prove that we are not in some subset of VR universes. Conversely, since we can't prove the negative (that there exist no incalculable phenomenon) we can never know, even if we find that all known phenomenon are calculable, that there are others which aren't. I don't see how this line of investigation will lead us anywhere useful...
There is no reason to automagically expect a VR machine at all. Are there inexplicable phenomonon whose explanation most logically fits a VR reality as opposed to any number of other theories with more weight in them? I don't think we are there yet.
Billions huge? I'm not suggesting it wasn't a new application to existing ideas. But a billion is a lot of dollars, a multiple billions, well, that's a lot more dollars:)
Or perhaps its not a simulation at all and this is it. Wouldn't THAT be fascinating? Then we don't have to answer the inifitely-recursive question of how did the simulator's universe start.
Only because its one of an infinite number of random but convenient parameters one can put onto an entirely arbitrary hypothesis. Finding a 'flaw' in the Universe doesn't prove anything in particular, much less that our Universe is part of a simluation. It would be just as useful in proving that God exists (he left us a Divine Clue) or that there are more fundamental laws of the universe we didn't understand which themselves lead to more questions. None of those mean 'simulation'.
From a philosophical standpoint, I suppose its amusing to wonder how it all started, REALLY started. But that question doesn't even make any sense because there is no 'before' the beginning of time in which causality has meaning as we comprehend it. There's also the equally likely possibility that the Universe had no beginning at all - we could be in the middle of an endless cycle, or maybe we are the last of an infinite chain of Universe existences.
So what do we hope to gain from this line of questioning? I suppose if it allows us to find ways to manipulate the Universe in useful ways, that is a good purpose. But if we just want to know if we are in a simulated reality? I have my doubts.
Our memories are part of the simulation. Therefore we would not know that anything untoward happened because we'd not remember it happening and there'd be no trace of it in the simulation.
It's turtles all the way down. Even supposing we find out that our reality is a simulation, then we'd be stuck with the problem if the containing Universe. Is it, too, a simulation? I fail to see how this advances anything.
To answer your questions: We run VMWare for various reasons, but if a program misbehaves in a VM we are likely to attempt to correct the problem. Here's the rub - the program doesn't know if it caused a problem and has been 'corrected' unless it communicates outside of the simulation, and that can only occur if the simluation allows it. There is no reason yet to believe there is state outside of this Universe which can be maintained separately, nor is there a reason to believe the Universe can be broken and especially *why* we would be able to break it.
The most interesting places to look are places where our current laws break down (singularities in the space-time continuum.) as these are the most likely to yield new understanding. I wouldn't count on us finding out there is a simulation beyond those gateways, however. The trust is likely to be FAR more fascinating.
It's true, we can rule out certain simulations. Specifically, those simulations which would be unable to simulate us. Whatever simulation we are in specifically has thus far simulated our existence up to this point, or which have been started now and for which we have memories of events up to this point. See Last Thursdayism.
What's worse is that just because you exist now and remember a "past" there is no guarantee that the future you are about to enter in to is part of the same simulation, or that the rules are necessarily the same, since any memories you will have then could similarly have been simulated. Getting the feeling of mental masturbation yet?
This is taking an already implausible and unnecessary idea (that we are in a VR universe) and adding additional unnecessary hypotheses (that there are more than one of them and in some of them copies of ourselves know they are in a simulated reality.) How does this aid our ability to understand the universe other than to prove we have wild imaginations?
As I have stated, no such experiment disproving the system is possible unless the system wants us to know about it. Further, we are relying on "information theory" as we know it as well as a set of laws and rules of which we are aware. The VR simulation does not necessarily run on these rules, and the rules we would be subject to are necessarily a subset of the rules governing the VR simulation machine itself - it can choose to expose any subset of its own rules as desired.
Any VR simulation of the Universe also controls every aspect of our experience of it. We will only experience that which the VR simulation allows us to experience, and *all* information in this Universe is fundamentally controlled by that simulation. No test can be constructed whose outcome is itself not wholly determined by the VR simulation. Further, any flaw exposed in the VR simulation could be corrected without our knowing, because our experiences, including our memories and even the flow of time, are also wholly within the realm of control of the VR simulation.
A VR simulation of the Universe is omnipotent in this sense. There is nothing that lies beyond its control, and against it you are utterly powerless.
Assume that the Universe is a VR simulation running on some machine. What we experience as time is a sequence of calculations produced by this machine. We are only aware of those parts of the calculation which the simulation specifically makes us aware of. No experiment can prove or disprove this because the calculations which the VR machine makes need not be 1-to-1 with our experiences. For example, the VR machine could 'suspend' the reality simulation while it performs some complex task, and we would be none the wiser.
Further, since the sum of our existence is contained within the VR simulation, and it can be paused OR ALTERED at will, the VR simulation could self-correct for any flaw we discover by simply rewriting the memories of any experiences we had, or deleting and replaying that part of the simulation with different variables. Again, since our experience is wholly under the control of the simulation, we again would be none the wiser.
Finally, since all information within the VR machine is controlled by the VR machine, any experiment we design is itself fully under the control of the VR machine. All data we perceive is perceived because the VR machine has elected to let us perceive it. Ergo, no experiment we could produce would allow us to discern the reality of the VR machine unless it chose to reveal itself to us.
This is Slashdot. The bar for Windows success is vastly higher than the bar for Linux success, whether it deserves to be or not. Don't like the statistics? Change the definition of the statistics so that they are painted in the light you prefer. After all, that's what Microsoft would do, right?
You seem to dislike their definition of a website. But what the survey is really telling you is which web server is being used to serve unique content on the web. Whether one server serves a million pages or a million servers serve one page apiece is irrelevant. What matters, for the purposes of the survey, is which server is doing the serving. That is a perfectly valid metric, just like unique web servers is a perfectly valid metric. However they are not the same.
So there are lies, damn lies, statistics and then people who don't know how to use the information in front of them, or worse, know how to use it but purposely use it incorrectly.
Is it? I wonder. How much does Hubble cost? Billions? Doesn't that seem excessive? I know it's a telescope, and it's in space, but c'mon. BILLIONS. I love Hubble and a lot of those pure science instruments, but I'd like to see the cost breakdowns frankly.
Not that I am advocating what I am about to hypothesize, but bear with me for a moment.
If we were to take your post and the previous one together and assume that the cost for testing a simple part (nut, bolt, screw) is now three orders of magnitide above the cost of the the part itself, then I wonder if mil-spec parts are really doing us any favors. Obviously people's lives are at stake in many of these cases, but when it isn't, I wonder if the overall cost of having to do it over due to part failure might be less than doing it "right" the first time. In which case we actually are not doing ourselves a favor by testing to completion.
Idle speculation on my part, since I don't know much about mechanical engineering, mechanical failure modes or the stresses on these machines, failure probabilities, etc.
Well, I think we will do it, it will just take much longer. In a sense the government has done its job - it did show that you CAN get to space and back safely. What happened though is that with the computer age, those who go to space found a way to go there without sending people. Most of us dreamers want to send humans, not robots, for various reasons - some technical, some romantic. But the business people know that most of the work at this point can still be done with automation and remote capabilities. We must be ever vigilant for those areas where people CAN contribute in space and ensure they don't get lost in the noise. It's an uphill battle.
I am optimistic that ventures such as space tourism can help to open these frontiers. Again, if for no other reason than to commoditize space launches and operations.
No, if Matlab was compiled as a 32 bit app, the compiled code doesn't have the correct instructions for accessing a 64 bit memory space, no matter what the OS is capable of.
As to trillion dollar NEAs, why not? Many if not most of them are likely to be old comets without a lot of heavy metals, but if we could find one that had high concentrations of heavy metals, we're likely only talking about a 100-150m diameter rock. It might take a generation or two to bring it in, but we could do it with existing technology.
When was the last time you saw anything in the space program really thought out and executed that had a payoff in a generation or two, as opposed to within the next 5 to 10 years? No one wants to take the risk right now, and that's my point. We have a very risk-averse government at the moment. An external influence will have to prove to them that the risks are low, or at least cheap. Neither is true presently.
Also you can be guaranteed people would be afraid of moving a rock of any significance to NEO because they'd all expect Osama Bin Laden would find some way to make it come crashing down.
We need a motivation. In the past, this has almost always been for one of two reasons: 1) Profit. 2) Beat our competition to it so we don't look weak.
Number 1 is a pretty hard sell at the moment because we don't really have a clue how to monetize space yet. Some rich people are beginning to take those risks for various reasons, and hopefully something will fall out of that. Don't expect people to be seriously considering bringing in trillion dollar asteroids to NEO to mine though.
Number 2 hasn't been a motivation for a while. The few players in this arena who can field whole space programs themselves don't view each other as competitors, nor do they view failing to make it to the next milestone first as a defeat in any sense. If China proves out a full, impressive space program which looks like it might be a military or economic threat to the West, then perhaps we will see something. Until then, I wouldn't count on this as a motivator either.
Straight risk-taking isn't really an option for governments right now either, especially Western ones, due to monetary concerns (like shoveling billions into various police actions.) This leaves us basically with billionaires that have a lot of time on their hands to bring down the cost so that governments, which ultimately are most likely to take those risks, will be able to justify the cost of doing so. So if you want to see space really done right, support those companies and persons who are working to make it cheap.
What is the purpose of posting this? Is it news? Is it the intention of the editors to fan a flame war? Will any reader learn anything, or will they just read statistics which either confirm their world view, or dismiss as being flawed in any of a thousand different ways? Is this just to get zealots of one flavor of another to come here and rant for a bit and possibly click an ad by mistake (probably yes to this one.)
You can spot inflamatory and ultimately useless stories like this a mile away. If it weren't for the trolls which require daily feeding, I suspect a good 20 to 30% of Slashdot articles would never appear, and we'd all be a lot better off for it.
Actually, all Rights belong to the people, except for those Powers we have delegated to the government. See the 9th Amendment. We have given Congress the Power to determine the limits of certain Rights, through legislation, but that does not mean that by the writing of the pen they can take them away. That can only be done by the consent of the People. That's a key difference which separates a just democratic republic from an unjust one.
If we decide that the government does not represent us - in a specific law or in general - then truly Congress has overstepped its Power, in this case Article I Section 8. Whether they have done so in this case is a matter of personal opinion for those affected, and depends on whether you believe that the law has served "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; ". If you do not believe the law promotes the progress of the science and useful arts, then the law is not legal under the Powers granted by the Constitution, and therefore is not a law at all.
Note, I am not trying to advocate anarchy or wanton reinterpretation of the rules or Constitution, but people need to really read and understand that document. There is lot more in it that its short length might suggest.
Slashdot Mirror
Using what machine? The amount of information contained within the Universe cannot be represented by the material of this Universe using any technology reasonably forseeable. We might construct very limited simulators, but even a full simulator of something the size of a planet is unlikely. More likely we will create higher-level simulations because these are close enough to reality to be actually useful, but don't require the ability to model low-level phenomenon to product their results. On the other hand, life as we know it DOES depend on those low-level phenomenon. Rather, we will likely produce machine intelligences, not Universes.
Hard for you and I. Maybe not so hard for an entity capable of simulating the entire Universe...
What reason do we have to even suggest that there is the remotest possibility this is the case? Merely our idle imaginations. No perception of reality suggests this.
Untrue. The simulator could itself be using properties of its own universe to generate phenomenon in the simulation, with those phenomenon being themselves incalculable. There is nothing which says the simulation must itself be wholly calculable because we don't/can't know the nature of the entity performing the simulation. Perhaps for those running the simulation, it only needs to be controllable, which is a separate problem and would likely be beyond our ability to detect from within the simulation.
So in this case, we could only prove that we are not in some subset of VR universes. Conversely, since we can't prove the negative (that there exist no incalculable phenomenon) we can never know, even if we find that all known phenomenon are calculable, that there are others which aren't. I don't see how this line of investigation will lead us anywhere useful...
There is no reason to automagically expect a VR machine at all. Are there inexplicable phenomonon whose explanation most logically fits a VR reality as opposed to any number of other theories with more weight in them? I don't think we are there yet.
Billions huge? I'm not suggesting it wasn't a new application to existing ideas. But a billion is a lot of dollars, a multiple billions, well, that's a lot more dollars :)
Or perhaps its not a simulation at all and this is it. Wouldn't THAT be fascinating? Then we don't have to answer the inifitely-recursive question of how did the simulator's universe start.
Only because its one of an infinite number of random but convenient parameters one can put onto an entirely arbitrary hypothesis. Finding a 'flaw' in the Universe doesn't prove anything in particular, much less that our Universe is part of a simluation. It would be just as useful in proving that God exists (he left us a Divine Clue) or that there are more fundamental laws of the universe we didn't understand which themselves lead to more questions. None of those mean 'simulation'.
From a philosophical standpoint, I suppose its amusing to wonder how it all started, REALLY started. But that question doesn't even make any sense because there is no 'before' the beginning of time in which causality has meaning as we comprehend it. There's also the equally likely possibility that the Universe had no beginning at all - we could be in the middle of an endless cycle, or maybe we are the last of an infinite chain of Universe existences.
So what do we hope to gain from this line of questioning? I suppose if it allows us to find ways to manipulate the Universe in useful ways, that is a good purpose. But if we just want to know if we are in a simulated reality? I have my doubts.
Our memories are part of the simulation. Therefore we would not know that anything untoward happened because we'd not remember it happening and there'd be no trace of it in the simulation.
It's turtles all the way down. Even supposing we find out that our reality is a simulation, then we'd be stuck with the problem if the containing Universe. Is it, too, a simulation? I fail to see how this advances anything.
To answer your questions: We run VMWare for various reasons, but if a program misbehaves in a VM we are likely to attempt to correct the problem. Here's the rub - the program doesn't know if it caused a problem and has been 'corrected' unless it communicates outside of the simulation, and that can only occur if the simluation allows it. There is no reason yet to believe there is state outside of this Universe which can be maintained separately, nor is there a reason to believe the Universe can be broken and especially *why* we would be able to break it.
The most interesting places to look are places where our current laws break down (singularities in the space-time continuum.) as these are the most likely to yield new understanding. I wouldn't count on us finding out there is a simulation beyond those gateways, however. The trust is likely to be FAR more fascinating.
It's true, we can rule out certain simulations. Specifically, those simulations which would be unable to simulate us. Whatever simulation we are in specifically has thus far simulated our existence up to this point, or which have been started now and for which we have memories of events up to this point. See Last Thursdayism.
What's worse is that just because you exist now and remember a "past" there is no guarantee that the future you are about to enter in to is part of the same simulation, or that the rules are necessarily the same, since any memories you will have then could similarly have been simulated. Getting the feeling of mental masturbation yet?
This is taking an already implausible and unnecessary idea (that we are in a VR universe) and adding additional unnecessary hypotheses (that there are more than one of them and in some of them copies of ourselves know they are in a simulated reality.) How does this aid our ability to understand the universe other than to prove we have wild imaginations?
As I have stated, no such experiment disproving the system is possible unless the system wants us to know about it. Further, we are relying on "information theory" as we know it as well as a set of laws and rules of which we are aware. The VR simulation does not necessarily run on these rules, and the rules we would be subject to are necessarily a subset of the rules governing the VR simulation machine itself - it can choose to expose any subset of its own rules as desired.
Any VR simulation of the Universe also controls every aspect of our experience of it. We will only experience that which the VR simulation allows us to experience, and *all* information in this Universe is fundamentally controlled by that simulation. No test can be constructed whose outcome is itself not wholly determined by the VR simulation. Further, any flaw exposed in the VR simulation could be corrected without our knowing, because our experiences, including our memories and even the flow of time, are also wholly within the realm of control of the VR simulation.
A VR simulation of the Universe is omnipotent in this sense. There is nothing that lies beyond its control, and against it you are utterly powerless.
Um, no :)
Assume that the Universe is a VR simulation running on some machine. What we experience as time is a sequence of calculations produced by this machine. We are only aware of those parts of the calculation which the simulation specifically makes us aware of. No experiment can prove or disprove this because the calculations which the VR machine makes need not be 1-to-1 with our experiences. For example, the VR machine could 'suspend' the reality simulation while it performs some complex task, and we would be none the wiser.
Further, since the sum of our existence is contained within the VR simulation, and it can be paused OR ALTERED at will, the VR simulation could self-correct for any flaw we discover by simply rewriting the memories of any experiences we had, or deleting and replaying that part of the simulation with different variables. Again, since our experience is wholly under the control of the simulation, we again would be none the wiser.
Finally, since all information within the VR machine is controlled by the VR machine, any experiment we design is itself fully under the control of the VR machine. All data we perceive is perceived because the VR machine has elected to let us perceive it. Ergo, no experiment we could produce would allow us to discern the reality of the VR machine unless it chose to reveal itself to us.
There is nothing new here.
This is Slashdot. The bar for Windows success is vastly higher than the bar for Linux success, whether it deserves to be or not. Don't like the statistics? Change the definition of the statistics so that they are painted in the light you prefer. After all, that's what Microsoft would do, right?
You seem to dislike their definition of a website. But what the survey is really telling you is which web server is being used to serve unique content on the web. Whether one server serves a million pages or a million servers serve one page apiece is irrelevant. What matters, for the purposes of the survey, is which server is doing the serving. That is a perfectly valid metric, just like unique web servers is a perfectly valid metric. However they are not the same.
So there are lies, damn lies, statistics and then people who don't know how to use the information in front of them, or worse, know how to use it but purposely use it incorrectly.
For reference, here is the Netcraft methodology.
Is it? I wonder. How much does Hubble cost? Billions? Doesn't that seem excessive? I know it's a telescope, and it's in space, but c'mon. BILLIONS. I love Hubble and a lot of those pure science instruments, but I'd like to see the cost breakdowns frankly.
Not that I am advocating what I am about to hypothesize, but bear with me for a moment.
If we were to take your post and the previous one together and assume that the cost for testing a simple part (nut, bolt, screw) is now three orders of magnitide above the cost of the the part itself, then I wonder if mil-spec parts are really doing us any favors. Obviously people's lives are at stake in many of these cases, but when it isn't, I wonder if the overall cost of having to do it over due to part failure might be less than doing it "right" the first time. In which case we actually are not doing ourselves a favor by testing to completion.
Idle speculation on my part, since I don't know much about mechanical engineering, mechanical failure modes or the stresses on these machines, failure probabilities, etc.
Well, I think we will do it, it will just take much longer. In a sense the government has done its job - it did show that you CAN get to space and back safely. What happened though is that with the computer age, those who go to space found a way to go there without sending people. Most of us dreamers want to send humans, not robots, for various reasons - some technical, some romantic. But the business people know that most of the work at this point can still be done with automation and remote capabilities. We must be ever vigilant for those areas where people CAN contribute in space and ensure they don't get lost in the noise. It's an uphill battle.
I am optimistic that ventures such as space tourism can help to open these frontiers. Again, if for no other reason than to commoditize space launches and operations.
No, if Matlab was compiled as a 32 bit app, the compiled code doesn't have the correct instructions for accessing a 64 bit memory space, no matter what the OS is capable of.
When was the last time you saw anything in the space program really thought out and executed that had a payoff in a generation or two, as opposed to within the next 5 to 10 years? No one wants to take the risk right now, and that's my point. We have a very risk-averse government at the moment. An external influence will have to prove to them that the risks are low, or at least cheap. Neither is true presently.
Also you can be guaranteed people would be afraid of moving a rock of any significance to NEO because they'd all expect Osama Bin Laden would find some way to make it come crashing down.
We need a motivation. In the past, this has almost always been for one of two reasons:
1) Profit.
2) Beat our competition to it so we don't look weak.
Number 1 is a pretty hard sell at the moment because we don't really have a clue how to monetize space yet. Some rich people are beginning to take those risks for various reasons, and hopefully something will fall out of that. Don't expect people to be seriously considering bringing in trillion dollar asteroids to NEO to mine though.
Number 2 hasn't been a motivation for a while. The few players in this arena who can field whole space programs themselves don't view each other as competitors, nor do they view failing to make it to the next milestone first as a defeat in any sense. If China proves out a full, impressive space program which looks like it might be a military or economic threat to the West, then perhaps we will see something. Until then, I wouldn't count on this as a motivator either.
Straight risk-taking isn't really an option for governments right now either, especially Western ones, due to monetary concerns (like shoveling billions into various police actions.) This leaves us basically with billionaires that have a lot of time on their hands to bring down the cost so that governments, which ultimately are most likely to take those risks, will be able to justify the cost of doing so. So if you want to see space really done right, support those companies and persons who are working to make it cheap.
You, sir, are an ass. No one here wants sound arguments based on logic and reason. Please troll elsewhere.
What is the purpose of posting this? Is it news? Is it the intention of the editors to fan a flame war? Will any reader learn anything, or will they just read statistics which either confirm their world view, or dismiss as being flawed in any of a thousand different ways? Is this just to get zealots of one flavor of another to come here and rant for a bit and possibly click an ad by mistake (probably yes to this one.)
You can spot inflamatory and ultimately useless stories like this a mile away. If it weren't for the trolls which require daily feeding, I suspect a good 20 to 30% of Slashdot articles would never appear, and we'd all be a lot better off for it.
Actually, all Rights belong to the people, except for those Powers we have delegated to the government. See the 9th Amendment. We have given Congress the Power to determine the limits of certain Rights, through legislation, but that does not mean that by the writing of the pen they can take them away. That can only be done by the consent of the People. That's a key difference which separates a just democratic republic from an unjust one.
If we decide that the government does not represent us - in a specific law or in general - then truly Congress has overstepped its Power, in this case Article I Section 8. Whether they have done so in this case is a matter of personal opinion for those affected, and depends on whether you believe that the law has served "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; ". If you do not believe the law promotes the progress of the science and useful arts, then the law is not legal under the Powers granted by the Constitution, and therefore is not a law at all.
Note, I am not trying to advocate anarchy or wanton reinterpretation of the rules or Constitution, but people need to really read and understand that document. There is lot more in it that its short length might suggest.