Is our Universe Simulatable?

Miscellaneous Topics
#81

It is not clear that quantum mechanics/the universe is turning complete. Of course there is the possibly of a physically based computer than may in fact be more than turning complete. Last i heard quantum computers can still only solve turning complete problems, but some of those problems with different classes of complexity.

Quantum entanglement does not send any information at all. None. If i get 2 die and i throw them … i tell you that the sum adds to 7 then shoot myself after posting one in a box to you and one to someone on the ISS. When you open it and see a 3, you didn’t make the other die magically become a 4. Furthermore you could not make the dice you look at a 2 and “communicate” a 5 to the iss. Even worse you don’t know if they already opened there box and saw a 4 thereby doing “spooky action at a distance” in the other direction.

The Problem is that people try to ascribe meaning to the math of quantum physics, when the correct answer may well be that there is no meaning in the math. Only the outcomes.

#82

Presumably you mean Turing complete :slight_smile: You just added some spin!

Dadum, tsssshhhh.

#83

lol yea… it was totally intentional.

#84

Dammit my brain is… guys… GUYS!!!

//Gifs don’t wanna work with me.

#85

I’m too sober for this discussion.

  • Jev
#86

And the thread went downhill…

#87

I only gave this a quick skim…but it looks somewhat accessible (same author as previous link): The Universe as Quantum Computer

#88

My simplistic interpretation, which matches what some have already said, is that in order to perfectly simulate a system, the simulator must, in essence, contain the entire system (or else we’d be working with approximations, which is what current simulators do).

So a perfect simulation of the Universe requires containing the entire universe. As was pointed out, a simulator within the universe would need to contain itself, and thus complexity would increase recursively making it impossible to simulate.

So we’d need to get “out” (whatever that means*) of the universe, and essentially build a replica with a “fast forward” button.

  • The concept of getting “outside” the universe is hard to understand for a lot of people. I usually simplify it by making an analogy to, say, the Sims game.
    For a Sims character to get out of its universe (the game), it needs to exit the program. The problem is that, outside of the game, the Sims character has no meaning (just a bunch of random data as far as the rest of the computer is concerned), and even less meaning if it is trying to get out of the computer.

That’s what the Universe is, where our physical reality makes sense, and “outside” of it, space, matter or time cease to make any sense, and thus to exist.

So now think how hard it’d be to get “outside” our universe and somehow build a duplicate :wink:

#89

Can you build a simulator not in our universe? If so may be yes in other case simulator will be the part of the universe and need to simulate itself %).

#90

I assume (perhaps naively) that the underlying rules of the universe are probably quite simple. Perhaps something like cellular automaton. If our universe were a simulation then it would have to be perfect. And to the entities running the simulation “our universe” is closer the game of life than to any of our attempts to model physical interactions. The complexity here is really absurd: lex parsimoniae

#91

That means you would get a recursive program that keeps producing itself and goes to infinity and eventually runs out of memory (if it didn’t do that already, for we can accept that the universe is infinitely huge and complex).

#92

you would quickly run out of material with which to build the memory needed to store the information about the state of each component of the universe. if you took all the matter in the universe and converted it into computer memory, it probably wouldnt hold enough data to represent the universe accurately.

#93

Very valid point! Can we conclude that our universe isn’t simulatable? :slight_smile:

#94

There are too many problems. To simulate something (with 100% precission) you need too have 100% valid state at the begining of simulation. So you need to mesure all values without time lag and with 100% precission (all at the same time). All values in universe ? %). You need to simulate quickly than process (universe) is running. You can’t stop universe. If you calculate slower than you can’t predict. This is meaningless question. You need to decide what you want to simulate and with what precission. For ex. Newton’s laws is simulation and many many other known laws of nature.

#95

This was a really interesting video! I’m sure in the far future we could definitely have the power to simulate an entire universe.

#96

An, but not our, thats the point we got.

And still, what would this ‘simulation’ look like? It would somehow process everything, but would it be something we can still read from?
What is a ‘simulation’ if not something that is actually less than the original thing. Trying to simulate it 100% would actually mean cloning it, wouldn’t it?

#97

Why all off you think we are not in simulator? :slight_smile: the only point is you can’t check if you in sumulator or not from inside of it. And you can’t simulate university from inside of it. So to simulate the university first step is “stop the world i want to get off” :).

#98

[quote]Why all off you think we are not in simulator?
[/quote]
Depends on definition whats ‘real’ so… We are but the same time we are not. (completely new concept…)

[quote]And you can’t simulate university from inside of it.
[/quote]
Interesting ::slight_smile:
Its ‘universe’ <- only ment to be helpful.

#99

Depends on definition whats ‘real’ so… We are but the same time we are not. (completely new concept…)

[quote]And you can’t simulate university from inside of it.
[/quote]
Interesting ::slight_smile:
Its ‘universe’ <- only ment to be helpful.
[/quote]
sorry for my english :slight_smile: you right i mean you can’t fully simulate universe from inside of it.

#100

It never fails, you were just punked by your own keyboard :stuck_out_tongue: