Do we live in a computer simulation? researchers say idea can be tested!

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by 0bserver1

 

While I think it's a very real possibility we live in a simulation, it's still a very low possibility imo. The reason I think this, is because our Universe is so enormous. Mind numbingly enormous. And every single atom in the Universe is extremely complex. To simulate every single atom in a single living cell with real physics, requires a computer 1000x more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer on Earth. Imagine trying to simulate a whole person, or the entire planet, or even our entire solar system, or our entire galaxy. The amount of power required to achieve such a feat is beyond comprehension... let alone trying to simulate the entire Universe.

Don't even try to imagine how much power that would require because I can tell you that none of us here have the ability to comprehend how much computing power that would require. We have trouble even comprehending the distance to the nearest star in our own galaxy, or the distance between our galaxy and the nearest galaxy. Keep in mind there are billions of galaxies in our Universe. In fact the Universe may be infinite for all we know, we can only see so far, and no matter how far we look there appears to be no end. These facts lead me to believe we are in a "genuine" Universe, and not a simulated one. But I'm not completely convinced either way.

edit on 11/12/2012 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

I would suggest you look at Moore's Law en.wikipedia.org... , and then draw an imaginary line to the year 2248 - computers could easily replicate a fully immersive simulation, your perspective on reality could be completely different to mine - you may not even have a reality, you may be someone created by my simulation to interact with, a random character with a pre-destined timeline or I could be the simulation for you. I don't think it's entirely beyond the realms of possibility; technology has evolved at such an amazing pace. The odd thing about predictive abilities and regression to a certain extent with past lives is I believe the brain is capable of 'seeing' things outside our current timeline, are these left-over programs or pre-configured timelines - all theories of course but fascinating all the same.

Just following on from my post above, how could you prove such a theory - how could you break out of the simulation and see the world for what it really is. If we're just lines of code, you have to wonder what the purpose of the simulation is.

Takes me back to some of the original simulation games, anyone remember Populous ?
www.kickstarter.com...

Strange if I think of all the movies and video games that have being created around this topic, then you almost would think that some how we know that theres something strange in this world. For instance when you having deja vu , or visionary perception with someone, how did you obtain that information? , who gave it to you?

if this is true than everything you imagine is possible, because fantasy becomes reality or better say virtual reality everything has being build out of ideas created within this holographic model. So than this program running runs itself and creates itself , maybe the first intelligence that started civilization within this universe, had limited space to operate in and created this simulation to expand there boundaries, but then the simulation began to be aware and started to expand... now my thoughts are running wild...cut!

reply to post by PrplHrt


Thanks..

Originally posted by randomname
so, humanity has the ability to run a simulation and this is the best we can come up with.

death, war, famine, evil, poverty, disease, suffering and every other human sorrow you can think of.

what would be the point.

The point of a simulation is usually to note the outcome. Maybe whoever is running the sim, is trying to figure out if there's any way possible to come up with a result in which those things are no more.

Just a thought I had while reading through the thread.

Originally posted by ooYODAoo
my question to this "simulation" theory is WHY?



why would someone want to "play" as me and go through a boring un fulfilling life filing and shredding papers in a gray office cubicle? why?

why not use "cheat" codes and make me rich with fun exotic cars, and all sorts of women?:...why not make it a fun simulation,

if i were playing a simulation of my life...i would have turned the game off and got my money back...

can anyone answer this?

We come here to go on vacation from being "God", for one thing. Your innate power is infinite, as you are a reflection of the infinite. Getting what you want immediately gets boring after a while. (Which you should know, having used cheat codes)

We also come here to know what we are. One of my favorite quotes is, "The universe is God asking itself, 'What am I?'" All possible (and impossible) iterations of existence are explored. Some deeper than others. It truly takes an infinity to do this. But because something is known, does not mean the experience has been integrated. To paraphrase Morpheus, knowing the path is not the same as living the path. Your consciousness is a fleck of God living the path that is your life.

Originally posted by PrplHrt
reply to post by zombiewarpigs

 

There is no god. There is only a creature that delights in torture and mayhem.

This thing, it laughs as it pulls your strings. The next time someone pisses you off watch their face. They'll be smiling without smiling. That's this thing getting its rocks off at your expense.

This is the real life "Truman Show" folks and we're all the saps who jerk this thing off.

edit on 12/12/2012 by PrplHrt because: (no reason given)

When you reconcile yourself with the fact that YOU are that creature, you can begin to "make friends with the horror", and then recognize that all IS, and it neither need be good nor evil. Take responsibility for all that has happened in your experience. It's hard to do, but it's possible. It sounds like you've got a chip on your shoulder. It may even be justifiable! But is it to your advantage? Forgiveness is the most powerful self-empowerment tool, and one of the hardest (maybe THE hardest) to implement. Because you have to start with yourself. You have to forgive yourself for choosing the existence wherein you forget agreeing to the experience, and then the experience becomes hellish. But deep inside, you also are smiling. If you can't see that you need to look deeper, because there is only one of us here, playing all the roles.

Forgive yourself for being alone. There never was anyone else, no matter what your memory seems to tell you.

reply to post by seamus

You're full of more crap than a whale. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know what's been done to me.

Incredible. I give you credit for balls and take it back for lack of brains.

Hi I am new here but I have a thought on this.

Many people think that if we are in a "Matrix" it is like the one in the movies you know where tons of humans are in machines.... Does no one consider that we may in fact all be programs? Such as "Agent Smith," All randomized bits of data that can learn adding more data to themselves. If that is the case then there are no liberated humans on the outside world fighting with all sorts of futuristic sci-fi equipment but instead. We like the popular game "The Sims" sitting in some server or computer or something of the like.

Which would make our true purpose of being to be, simply science, just a theory.

Originally posted by Philosophile
You people should check out Moore's law and look at applying it to the simulation theory. In the sense that, eventually technological advancements reach a singularity or (infinity) point if you expand the current graph; you can see at one point the line is directly up, hence the infinity point.

Just a thought though because I've been curious as to if it is applicable to this theory and if anyone could add some insight that'd be appreciated.

I have been fascinated with the 'Singularity' ever since seeing a small documentary on it around 10-12 years ago. The date that singularity happens on the documentary I seen was something like 2021 or 2023, the time when machine overtakes man, I'd never heard of Moore's law so thankyou for that and makes it a lot easier to follow now.

I always assumed that it was something similar. In fact, I wasn't that surprised when I watched the Matrix. What else could it be? What sort of computer is this?

reply to post by digitalf


We wait and see if we can simulate a universe in as much detail as real life then look at the reason why we are doing it

reply to post by 0bserver1


Just want to chime in that this idea is not really any weirder than any other concerning this "reality." This idea also has evidential support from individual experience, esoteric writings, most religions on to higher mathamatics.

A question pops up that may or not be noteworthy. If we are experiencing an artificial simulation best described in layman's terms as a computer simulation, then are we NPC's made up of code, or "real" entities outside projecting in?

The answer may not even matter as at this level of complexity NPC or first person might be interchangable... just wondering.

Either way, knowing that this is a real possibility doesn't change a whole lot as we still have to live this "simulation" as if it's "real"... unless we devise a way to hack the system or become self aware code that can travel and exist outside the simulation... or "wake up" to the fact and in effect "win" the "game"- if that makes any sense.

But back to my own relative simulation of needing more coffee.

reply to post by seamus


Oh, and that idea that we are all one, or God splitting itself to regard itself from all perspectives to understand what He is, is scary at some level to me.

Being stuck alone in a masturbatory room of mirrors for eternity... off-hand I can't think of a worse hell. How alone and insane such a being might be. I (being this being of course) would crave company (and a universe) that had the ability to surprise me - be other than myself... but that's just my social ape-ness expressing itself.

Originally posted by aivlas
reply to post by digitalf

 

We wait and see if we can simulate a universe in as much detail as real life then look at the reason why we are doing it

We would do it to see if it could be done. Then we would manipulate it to see WHAT could be done. Then we'd do outrageous things to see what we could get away with and damn the consequences for the people in the scenario.

Sort of like our military. That got anyone thinking?

The idea of a "matrix" is not really Sci-Fi or fantasy but should at some point become very obvious.

The reason for this is our non-ability to ever be able to look "behind the curtain", because what we perceive as "the reality" will always be limited by our own brain. We CAN NOT discover the reality of such a matrix, simulation or whatever it might be detached from our own mind and brain.

As long (or: as soon) as we realize that your thinking and perception will always be bound by the limits of our mind, it will also immediately open up the question what is "beyond" this - very much as the "über-reality" eg. as we know from the Matrix movie. From that point of view, the philosophy behind "The Matrix" is not even that far out. The fantastic component in the movie RATHER the fact they then "find out" about this reality in the movie - while it's questionable that we humans here would be ever be able to do so.

reply to post by flexy123

Once you've seen behind the curtain they punish you. They're punishing me. Have been for years. We're in "The Truman Show". Some of us may be real. I suspect, the rich. "Those who have the gold make the rules."

When you challenge the script they use those around you to drive you mad and piss you off. They are a very sick bunch.

Our goal should be to gain control of the scenario. I say that in all seriousness.

You people have no idea what s*** we are in and why.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder

Originally posted by Philosophile
You people should check out Moore's law and look at applying it to the simulation theory.

Even for the most efficient threshold limit you could ever imagine, it would still take a computer at least the size of our solar system, and a power source of multiple stars, to simulate the entire observable Universe. Of course it could technically be done, but there's absolutely no chance anyone would ever waste enough time and energy on it. It would take probably billions of years just to build.

Any other completely arbitrary statements you wish to make? :-P

Originally posted by mr10k
Oh, and for that one similarity, planck units. The universe is bound by planck temperature, planck time, and other planck units, just as a computer program is bound by the range of specific data types.Planck length is the shortest length achievable in the universe. Nothing can be smaller. Similarly, a 1-bit pixel is the smallest length in the world of computers. Nothing can be displayed if it is smaller than a single bit pixel.

Wow, that should be general knowledge actually. You'd have to be blissfully ignorant of computers to not think that a computer can be built to simulate a universe. Or maybe you think Alienwares are the most powerful computers on the planet

edit on 11-12-2012 by mr10k because: (no reason given)

A for effort and making valid points, but being a programmer you should know that world coordinate data type determines precision (ex.: floating point of a certain bit size) in this scenario. 1-bit pixels would only be capable of monochrome color (on or off). I think the precision could be Planck, and perhaps it "rasterizes" at the Planck level as well. So I'm just nitpicking. Good points.

reply to post by AkumaStreak

Can you post a link to your thread? I'd like to read it.