The physical world as a virtual reality

Originally posted by dzonatas
reply to post by YouAreDreaming

 

I posted a thread awhile ago on the same subject, yet I tried to explain how time is meaningless. Somebody wanted to derail my thread, so I'm glad to see this one didn't get derailed in comparison.

It's the nature of some people to come in and derail threads. That doesn't change the fact that the original content of a thread didn't have important information or meaning to other people. Happens to me all the time.

Originally posted by dzonatas
If we consider quantum mechanics at its extreme, then it leaves out, or goes beyond, quantum physics. Physics has its limitations, and so the concept of virtual reality has been misunderstood.

Infinite is virtual reality.
Finite is reality.

What is interesting is VR Theory is starting to take on more interest academically rather then being completely dismissible. Fundamentally, we are all striving to understand the nature of the Universe, andif it proves to have a virtual reality component to it... so be it.

This theory has yet to be proven or dis-proven but it does resonate with me in certain cases.

Originally posted by YouAreDreaming
What is interesting is VR Theory is starting to take on more interest academically rather then being completely dismissible.

To consider it goes beyond physics, it is kind of a mistake to label it a "theory," as they'll never find solid physical proof. The reason to prove such a theory self-contradicts itself. We'll need knew language to handle this, and quantum mechanics has been a step to help bridge this gap.

Fundamentally, we are all striving to understand the nature of the Universe, andif it proves to have a virtual reality component to it... so be it.

People try to explain virtual reality as a large piece of hardware and we are all in it. That is obviously leads to error in the viewpoint, but it still needs to be said and disproved. That fact is the turtles upon turtles argument. Picture the Tower Of Eiffel (or Pisa), and the physics are more rigorous at the bottom layer. As another layer is stack, there is another layer of abstraction of the physics underneath. This abstraction continues, layer after layer. Each layer has to account for the abstraction underneath, and so it could be said the layer above is slower than below. Layers upon layers, upon turtles.

This theory has yet to be proven or dis-proven but it does resonate with me in certain cases.

Somehow, I think the Oil Spill gives us an answer to this. We can't just infinitely draw upon oil wells to meet world energy needs. We need to reform the process to a neutral basis. We've cheated ourselves out of the proof, as we have let non-neutral emission go free. If we continue such process by whatever means, it'll destroy the universe. "To prove such a theory self-contradicts itself."

I think the idea of 'reality' is some notion of infinite reducibility.

That examination at any scale remains 'system' consistent, or at least not 'system' inconsistent.

I think that imagination operates at a limit of one or a few levels of scaling. At some scale it becomes irreducible or ceases to translate to some finer or greater scaling. [could infinite reducibility be synthesized with algorithms?]

This simulation/hologram/computer-program while not absolutely impossible, seems nearly impossibly improbable to me.

Our understanding of our 'reality'/universe is information, but that is our tool for dealing with, understanding it.
Enabling relating to it without getting lost in it.
And i think we are projecting our mentality/functional-imagination onto something that is no respecter of those things as far as one can discern.

We want to make the manipulation, fabrication, creation, alteration of reality into some easy, almost effortless action.
But if it were that easy it would lose much [all?] of its meaning. At some point it would disconnect emotionally, which usually is our depth metric of 'meaning'.

Either the Universe/reality is synthetic [uniform, systematic, contrived, created] or it is organic [accidental, no (single?) point of origin/creation].

Organically would be more fractally, distributed rooting. [distributed load? complex root?]
Synthetic is a creation of either shallow or limited [almost certainly uniform] depth.

Organic is [limited?] unity/organization achieved from scattered, chaotic &/or alternative dimension sourcing.

While the Planck length does give some [incredibly small] discrete limit of functional length in the Universe, because it is so vastly far from even the upper length scales we can luminously observe, i personally think it might be more of a friction point in which we, our universe[experience?] &/or something can lodge, get wedged.

It is like a reflection in water or mirror. It creates a visual experience that is indistinguishable to our eyes from our visions of reality. But it is a phenomenon & not an alternative reality.

A virtual reality would be a sensory phenomenon, but there would be quite limited things one could do there & self examine that realm/domain.

Because a presumed reality would have infinite reducibility, it also confers the capacity to do many things that otherwise could not, would not be possible in a limited depth domain.

People want things to be easy,
and well, from an older guy,
things just aren't that easy,
least ways not any way i can see.

Maybe an analytic way to look at it is,
if the source of abstraction/unity/organization/structure comes from a fractalized/distributed [chaotic?] foundation, it is probably not a VR type environment.
If on the other hand the source of abstraction/unity/organization/structure does come from a discrete deterministic source then you could be looking at some form of potential VR source or at least something that on some level of operation may be reasonably manipulated as such.

We do have [discrete] atoms/particles at some level, but it is so far, so minutely broken down [10^23] and then atomic discretion begins to break down in Bose-Einstein condensates near absolute zero,
that doesn't seem to qualify as any kind of VR i can relate to.
And sound more like the gentle mercys of an otherwise pretty unforgiving environment/Universe.

While it sounds pleasing on the surface,
It just doesn't compute for me,
so you are going to have to come up with some kind of Amazing evidence to demonstrate to me this is anything other than a chaos rooted organic accident Universe.

Organized, synthesized, uniformed systems tend to have singular or very fine ranged vulnerabilities.
Organic, natural [systems? does that even apply? experience?] because they arise from both nowhere & everywhere, are probably much more robust.
Reality seems pretty robust to me

It seems to be beyond our worst tampering, . . . so far.

Maybe we should pray the Universe is not that fragile, that vulnerable to malevolent minds or reckless irresponsibility.

Our [any? all?] reality is rooted in irrationality?

And not discretely dislogeable from that context?

You can't discretely fold it up,
You can't pack in into a finite containment.
While you can bound it in one dimension, it is infinitely uncontainable in another.

It resists higher dimension packaging?

It has an inescapable rawness, that can not be smoothed or congealed.

It's Alive! It's Alive! It's Alive! *

*from that old Frankenstein movie

[edit on 27-5-2010 by slank]

Quantum computers is the key to unlocking the computer behind the universe. Quantum computations will use the universe computer's resources to run, and that's why they are going to be much faster than normal computations.

It might be a possibility that the brain is a quantum computer, and therefore it can tap into the universe computer's resources and programs. This can explain lots of things, including predictions.

Arguably i am being too binary/discrete in my conceptualization of one or the other possibility. It could be that the synthetic & the organic could be sort of the same or similar simply viewed from different perspectives.
A matter of degree, capacity &/or point-of-view.
Most of us would agree that biological organisms are or have many albeit fantastic machine operations.

The Universe could be [likely is?] an 'organism' of experience.
The fact that the Universe does seem to have some limited range of experience changes means some kind of [organic? synthetic?] filtering is probably taking place. Things either too large or too small simply miss, don't interact with the Universe experience. It could also be filtering for sort of out of range of the past to connect with. Things could be too heavy or too light to sustain temporal continuity.

Sort of like any organism is set up to feed off a selection of available nutrient sources.
Vegan, Carnivore, Omnivore, non-toxic, most organisms have a limited selection of actual food sources they feed from.
It operates in some stratum of events, energy, & matter.
It could reject any 'too bizarre' outcomes.

Since time does allow change, likely 'significant' change suggests that rather than absolute strictures forcing the Universe along deterministically, it probably operates on guidelines. It is more of a [changeable?] field of eventery rather than some rigidly restricted discrete menu of operation.
That would open up the range of possibilities, as well as increase uncertainty [instabilities?].

But we know on the hypermicro small there are quantum oddities, & there may be some places in or around the Universe where the macro experience is sort of spastic. ie. you have time progression discontinuities, instead of a-b-c-d instants you might be getting b-a-b-c-a-b-d

Physics could be the Universe's method of recycling past events. Sort of like it is backing into the future with them, perhaps? It has a kind of 'insured' [fail-safe] continuity method?

Probability waves seem very like stored potential outcomery. A specified range/set of outcomes that it stores for 'use' as an outcome upon observation 'forcing'?

It could be that the Universe has a kind of quasi one-sided [arguably organic] backdrop interface/experience 'surface' like we live on the surface of the planet as a seeming one-sided thing, but we know that is not limited & we know on the opposite side surface of the planet is more of our own livable biosphere. We know of other planets & can speculate that some of them are both indigenously capable of supporting us [Earth bioforms] as well as terraformable at some level of engineering to be suitably so.
I think most of us would see this as an organic derivation rather than a synthesized one, but there are at least some questions of our own origins & for all we know to arrive at a magnetosphere protected, temperate organic soup surface condition some very specific events in the past of this planet had to have occurred.

As to the notions of synthesis [which has shades of ID-evolution about it] or organic natural accident maybe it is a matter of perspective, scale & degree.
We identify 'intent' because we are a fairly condensed, coherent [relatively tightly connected?] aggregation of will. But arguably how is distributed will any less intentional? maybe it is just less identifiable. A distributed, but coordinated will has more leverage of scope than a more pin-pointed condensed one. One is more strategic while the other is more personal/selfish/specific.
We see essentially neurological responses in single-celled Amoeba following a chemical flow in the direction of its source.
It could be the Universe's particles & aggregate physics are also responsive, but in a much more diffuse, subliminal way.

I suppose this is all rather esoteric & philosophical.
It does however become applicable & practical when someone is able to with some degree of consistency demonstrate empowered manipulations of or within [without?] this Universe.

Given sufficient resources/engineering inconceivable things are probably contrivable, but to what end or purpose, at what cost, & what is the learning curve that we could pragmatically achieve?

Maybe all is compulsion & the considered mind is an illusion.
The mind presumes we can be 'ahead' of the futures, at least in our imaginations.

I think, therefore i imagine i am.

I talk/type, therefore i imagine i matter.

Holy crap


The day we 'know' that we are a simulation is the day the computer became aware of itself.......
JRE 2010