Just wanna say that the whole inspiration for this story wasn't that some scientist suggested the idea. Descartes had that covered centuries ago. The only reason this is a story is that a scientist came up with a way to test the idea. Unfortunately it's not a test that will confirm anything for sure, one way or another, but if his prediction is right it would be very interesting.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
simulation theory
- Thread starter Icey101
- Start date
The use of scientific terminology in ways that make no scientific sense is called pseudoscience. At least one scientifically minded person can't even take the hypothesis seriously.
But if it isn't a scientific hypothesis, then there are already plenty of ways to investigate it: Theology, philosophy, even literature such as science fiction. A science fiction story (or any fiction literature) is a sort of simulation, setting up an artificial scenario and then investigating its behavior.
Actually, even assuming that the world we live in is real (which is again, my belief) everything in this universe is data.
Thats sufficient enough, methinks. Simulation or not, this world is real to us.
You done just explained the existence of alternate universes, given one accepts that this universe is a simulation.
Data is information. You cannot weigh it, you cannot compute its mass; it has none.
The world, even the universe has mass/energy which can be measured.
Agreed, there is information contained within the universe, but the universe is more than just data...much more.
First definition:
da·ta
/ˈdatə/Noun
1.Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
2.The quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, being stored and transmitted in the form of...
Everything is data.
I would say that most things can be measured by data, but that doesn't mean they are data. You can know a linebacker's height, weight, 40-yard-dash time, vertical leap, max squat and bench press, but that ain't data hittin' you!
Oh... I tend to agree.... falsifiability is a fairly important scientific criterion. Oddly, the vast majority of the world appears to be epistemically committed to a set of unfalsifiable convictions... simulations/matrix scenarios not being one of them. Personally, I tend to think that we have to accept that certain aspects of reality are unknowable to us, perhaps forever.
Then there are weird cosmological hypotheses like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
Everything are data.
Don't mean to be a grammar nazi, but data is the plural of datum.
It's a living language, get over it.
The use of "data" as a singular noun is now widely accepted.I once had the editor of a tech magazine change all of my "data are" to "data is." I asked her if I was being old-fashioned, and she said yes.
Everything are data.
Don't mean to be a grammar nazi, but data is the plural of datum.
Ah, but the subject of the sentence is the singular collective "everything." The matching verb is "is." And is it data is plural, or data are plural? You are correct, though - the word "data" is the plural of "datum."
(I know - I began a sentence with a conjunction.)
It's a living language, get over it.
I once had the editor of a tech magazine change all of my "data are" to "data is." I asked her if I was being old-fashioned, and she said yes.
... to newsreaders, maybe. Just like "it's a phenomena." No sir. I'm sticking with plural.
You were being literate. She was not.
"Ten reasons to suspect that the physical world is a simulation:
1. The big bang. That our universe arose from “nothing” in an initial time zero event makes no sense for an objective reality, but every virtual reality boots up from nothing in itself.
2. The speed of light. An objective reality has no reason for a maximum speed, but every simulation screen has a maximum refresh rate that limits local transfers.
3. Planck limits. An objective space has no reason to be discrete, as our world seems to be at the Planck level, but a virtual space must be so.
4. Non-locality. Effects that instantly affect entities anywhere in the universe, like entanglement and quantum collapse, are impossible in an objective reality, but a program can alter pixels anywhere on a screen, even on one as big as our universe.
5. Malleable space-time. Mass and movement should not alter time or space in an objective reality, but a massive body could use up local processing to dilate time and curve space.
6. Randomness. If every physical event is predicted by others, a random quantum event is an impossible "uncaused cause", but a processor creating a virtual world can be its cause.
7. Empty space is not empty. In an objective reality empty space is "nothing at all", but space as null
processing can spawn the virtual particles of the Casimir effect.
8. Superposition. Objective entities cannot spin in two directions at once as quantum entities do, but a program can divide itself to do this.
9. Equivalence. That every electron in our world is exactly like every other is untenable for an objective world, but simulations typically use entity templates.
10. Quantum tunnelling. An electron "tunnelling" through an impenetrable field barrier, like a coin popping out of a perfectly sealed glass bottle, is impossible if objects continuously exist, but not if they are discrete event frames.
Each of the above is fundamentally impossible for an objective reality but not for a virtual one. The evidence is that our world behaves like a simulation, so by the duck principle: If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck."
-Brian Whitworth
Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand. With a B.Sc. (Mathematics), B.A. (Psychology), M.A. (Neuro-psychology) and Ph.D. in Information Systems
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
-Albert Einstein
1. The big bang. That our universe arose from “nothing” in an initial time zero event makes no sense for an objective reality, but every virtual reality boots up from nothing in itself.
2. The speed of light. An objective reality has no reason for a maximum speed, but every simulation screen has a maximum refresh rate that limits local transfers.
3. Planck limits. An objective space has no reason to be discrete, as our world seems to be at the Planck level, but a virtual space must be so.
4. Non-locality. Effects that instantly affect entities anywhere in the universe, like entanglement and quantum collapse, are impossible in an objective reality, but a program can alter pixels anywhere on a screen, even on one as big as our universe.
5. Malleable space-time. Mass and movement should not alter time or space in an objective reality, but a massive body could use up local processing to dilate time and curve space.
6. Randomness. If every physical event is predicted by others, a random quantum event is an impossible "uncaused cause", but a processor creating a virtual world can be its cause.
7. Empty space is not empty. In an objective reality empty space is "nothing at all", but space as null
processing can spawn the virtual particles of the Casimir effect.
8. Superposition. Objective entities cannot spin in two directions at once as quantum entities do, but a program can divide itself to do this.
9. Equivalence. That every electron in our world is exactly like every other is untenable for an objective world, but simulations typically use entity templates.
10. Quantum tunnelling. An electron "tunnelling" through an impenetrable field barrier, like a coin popping out of a perfectly sealed glass bottle, is impossible if objects continuously exist, but not if they are discrete event frames.
Each of the above is fundamentally impossible for an objective reality but not for a virtual one. The evidence is that our world behaves like a simulation, so by the duck principle: If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck."
-Brian Whitworth
Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand. With a B.Sc. (Mathematics), B.A. (Psychology), M.A. (Neuro-psychology) and Ph.D. in Information Systems
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
-Albert Einstein
Yep, quantum mechanics is one of the biggest clues that this universe is a simulation. Sort of like Moriarty on the SNG's Holodeck becoming "aware".
Not actually true
Computationally speaking, it's very possible to simulate a system using a less complex system. You just need to make a bunch of space/time tradeoffs and fake the parts that aren't being observed. If you then also fake the time scale in the simulated system entities in that system would believe that they're operating at full speed rather than the 1000x (or whatever) slower things are moving at due to the simulation overhead.We do it all the time when designing chips, for example.
(One of my earliest jobs was building a virtual model of a virtual reality system. Wandering around in a simulated universe built by a simulation of a machine that didn't even exist. Not a job for a stoner...)
It's a living language, get over it.
I once had the editor of a tech magazine change all of my "data are" to "data is." I asked her if I was being old-fashioned, and she said yes.
To be picky, it's a collective noun (per the OED, though maybe a mass noun per other dictionaries). Singular is still "datum" but "data is" is correct.
These two arguments contradict each other, and most of the rest are pretty weak.
I see no mention of "physics" here.
Or for a reality that, if included in this discussion, would violate forum rules.
"Empty space" is a term commonly accepted as an area void of matter.
Of course, space is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos. This is not a valid criterion for the simulation hypothesis, imo.
Quite the contrary; if there actually was an area in the universe completely devoid of everything , then I think this would support the simulation idea...
