Is our Universe Simulatable?

Miscellaneous Topics
#41

I found this interesting couple of paragraphs:

Everything in the universe is quantifiable in some way. Even life is quantifiable, despite medicine’s long reputation as an “inexact science.” The Human Genome Project, which sequenced the chemical base pairs that make up human DNA, was solved using computers. All the secrets of the universe are solved using math. In fact, we can explain the universe better using math than we can with words.

If everything is mathematical, everything could be broken down to binary code. So if computers and their data progress enough, could a functional human be created using the genome sequence inside a computer? And if you can build one being, mightn’t you build a whole world of them?

Really interesting to think about. Everything is truly based off of math, so it could be feasible to think we are in fact in a simulation. It also goes on to talk about “bugs in the code”. Such as in the movie, The Matrix, where deja vu is just the simulation “skipping”. There are some freak occurrences in everyday life that could be " bugs".

Weird.

#42

Did this pot before, it was moved. I cut everything opiop related now.

At the end, the universe we live in is what it is. We can understand parts of what it is and why it is, but there will always remain questions.
We could simulate it (although not yet), but just approximately and never 100% accurate.

Everything depends on definition. Even “The Matrix” asks “What is ‘real’?”

#43

Forget “What’s real?” Better questions are “What’s feasible?” and “How probable?” It’s impossible to simulate our universe in some other universe that obeys the same rules as our own. The scales are too large and you have to bend over backwards to make the numbers work out. So it would have to be in a universe vastly more complex than our own.

#44

to store and simulate exactly you would require more than one particle of memory per particle infact to simulate one particle to the exact specification of the universe you would require a large processing power and at minimum a megabyte of memory

#45

That is an interesting notion. I’m not sure it’s true… it might be. I do recall that many of those science fiction stories were like that, that the super universe has more dimensions…

I dunno, quantum computing with quantum entanglement and everything - size should not be an issue

Btw that brings up a 2 classic questions:

  1. can beings of lesser dimensions exist in a universe with more dimensions ?
  2. Is there any chance of inhabitants of a simulation to exit out anyway ?

Coincidentally the main topic in the game I am working on is simulated reality :smiley:

#46

I dont think you fully understand what quantum computing does , quantum computing does not give you more memory it just allows you to perform a specific function (similar to for functions) very quickly and output a single result. It does not make standard processing any faster and doesnt support more memory. Quantum entanglement technically reduces the amount of memory avaliable because you are binding one particle to another making them “the same” of course in a very stretched out term.

#47

This question has been asked many times before by philosophers, futurists, and sophomore-year college students. It doesn’t have a “real” answer, but you can read about all the different schools of thought on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

#48

My god. I just got on JGO to find two pages of discussion in front of me, this topic is really hot! :slight_smile:

Haha, yes. I have seen it, but it was some weeks ago. The Idea to post this question here was born because I saw your profile picture ;D

I don’t think so. Remember what Riven said: We never said we would simulate the universe in real time. The other universe in which our universe is simulated might ‘run’ much faster than ours. We couldn’t notice :slight_smile:

Quite an interesting thought :smiley: but it’s not quite true. Remember what Riven said, again.
We build our simulator. It runs 1/10 of a year of the universe every year (in our universe).
The simulated universe builds a simulator. It run’s at the same speed. But in relation to our universe it runs with (1/10 * 1/10) the speed. It takes 10 years in the simulated universe to simulate one year in the simulated simulated universe. And it takes 100 years in our universe to simulate the 10 years in the simulated universe.

Meh. Words… Ewww.

  1. Universe builds simulator. Time in simulator to time in our world: 1:10
  2. Simulated universe builds simulator. Time in simulated simulated universe to time in our world: 1:100
  3. Layer 3 universe builds simulator. Layer 4 universe in comparison to our world: 1:1000
    And so on…

I’m asking myself also a little about: What is life? (philosophical, again)
If we simulate a human in a computer. It’s thinking. It maybe learns to talk and maybe even starts to think about morality. I assume many people would argue it’s not a living person, because he/she is simulated in a computer. Technically only bits and bytes. I think that’s a little naive, but yeah…

Quite cool that this topic is so hot. These are questions I’ve asked myself a lot and it’s nice to see I’m not the only one :slight_smile:

#49

One problem about computing is that light is to slow and makes a cpu too hot. quantum entanglement would remedy that.
More memory is not needed imho.
If you build a death star sized object in space, with the technology we are going to have in 3000 years,considering 64gb micro SD so exist today, its a number so high I dont even wanna think about it

#50

You might also be interested in reading about the technological singularity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

#51

you still are not getting it quantum computing is using quantum entanglement , light is how all matter communicates and is the maximum speed (in non virtual particles). you physically cannot go faster than it without going really deep into horrifically complicated quantum physics. , just to point out aswell light is heat. you cannot perform any function other than data transfer with quantum entanglement, its useful for interstella transmission but is basically useless performing functions faster than standard electronics.

#52

Offtopic:

AFAIK ‘heat’ is not really a thing. We perceive vibration as heat, but vibration is nothing more than a group of atoms that get in eachother’s way, bouncing against eachother while trying to move in a straight line. A single atom can’t vibrate (without external forces), because there is nothing to bounce off of, so a single atom can’t be cold or hot: it only has a certain velocity, and combined with its mass, it results in kinetic energy.

So saying ‘light is heat’ is a bit off: light is a form of energy, just like kinetic energy. Heat/vibration is just a side effect of kinetic energy on a nano scale.

* Riven runs…!

#53

Maybe offtopic, but would you agree that any kind of energy is also a kind of movement, so energy is movement?

#54

Wrooooooooong! ;D
They don’t actually get in contact with each other :stuck_out_tongue:

* Philipp runs!

I don’t think so. Is chemical energy movement? It’s just tension between two particles, keeping them from getting apart from each other. I don’t see any movment with a simple uranium atom. It’s chemical energy is used in nuclear reactors.

#55

I took physics last year (10th grade), and possibly one of the coolest things I learned all year was that nothing actually ever touches anything else. As in, particles don’t touch ever. Absolutely crazy to think that I have physically never touched anything, I just feel the heat coming off the atoms of other “objects” (or something, can’t remember how the feeling of touch works).

#56

I would say that energy applied to mass results in movement of the mass, but I would not say energy is movement. Movement (or motion) is contextual to a physical body, usually a mass. (then there’s photons and such)

It is sometimes difficult to differentiate these, as mass and energy are closely related. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass–energy_equivalence

#57

You feel the force exerted on your electrons by the electric field(s) of other electrons in objects you are “touching.”

#58

Ah, thank you. I had forgotten that. Physics really is interesting, I had a great time in that class.

#59

It depends on your abstraction level. You can see 2 ‘colliding’ hydrogen atoms as solid spheres and the maths add up (almost like Newtonian physics), you can also go a few orders of magnitude ‘closer’ & ‘shorter’, and see how these atoms (or electrons/protons/quarks, if you will) exchange short lived particles, eventually resulting in them having a brand spanking new velocity vector.

#60

Shoot.
You win.

* Philipp sighs