A number of articles have been popping up online speculating that the Universe is in fact a simulation. A few people postulate that it's extremely likely that we are simply simulated beings simply by virtue of the fact that the math says its far more likely than not.
One such article is here: http://www.express.co.uk/life-style...e-Matrix-Universe-Planet-Earth-NASA-Scientist
So this provokes an interesting thought experiment: assuming the universe is a simulation, what conclusions can we draw about why the universe works in the way it does, and what purposes does this simulation serve to the entities running it?
A couple of my ideas:
The purpose of the universe is obviously to see what happens at its broadest. The same reason a kid sets up a ton of dominoes and then watches as they all fall down.
At its narrowest however, since intelligent life has formed, one distinct possibility is we could be a test model to see if free will is a real thing or not. If free will is a thing, it stands to reason that at some level of the situation, our choices should be in defiance of the laws of physics and chemistry through our ability to choose between things.
Another possibility is that Earth was itself designed and is in fact the center of the simulation. This would quickly explain why we have yet to detect any other intelligent life in the cosmos. I personally do not think this is the case, as other features of the universe would seem to suggest otherwise.
Lets start by acknowledging the simple fact that particles do not have distinct properties until they are observed. We can draw a very simple analog to this with our own computer simulations: video games. Characters are not rendered in video games until they are very near a point of observance: namely something that can be viewed by a player through some means. If this programming method is common to the universes creators, it means that nothing in the universe is instantiated beyond the most general form until it is needed to be due to observation by some form of intelligent life, and then only as detailed as it needs to be to satisfy those observations.
Following that, it stands to reason that the simulator has a set processing capacity and the fact that things do not have properties unless observed would be an obvious way to conserve resources.
Futher, since information can not at present propagate faster than then speed of light, this would limit the amount of the universe that needs to be simulated to the light that has reached the intelligent life at that point. In may be that certain galaxies that we've only recently observed which are demonstrated to be at a distance of 13.3 Billion years in the past were only just begun to be simulated when we first observed them.
It may be that different parts of the universes are simulated asynchronously and as new parts are observed, the simulation elsewhere halts as that new region is simulated forward to the present.
This would suggest that the speed of light itself is a property designed to limit the complexity of the simulation at any one time. Since we can barely see anything in the universe beyond the most general, we could reasonably assume that the universe has only been simulated as far as we can see it. If light were treated as a "hit scan" weapon is treated in modern day FPS's, we would be able to observe all points in the universe as they are today, and thus all points in the universe would need to be simulated, at least in the most general sense, at least as far as they would need to be in order to be observed as they are now. Since they don't have to be, this saves a **** ton of processing time for more important and more complex things: namely us.
The fact that the universe seems to be spreading out, rendering the most distant parts of more and more unobservable would also seem to suggest a plan that is in place to limit the complexity of the simulation as entities spawn that can observe and thus require the simulation to process objects past the most general and into higher resolutions. Once a galaxy recedes from view, it will no longer have to be simulated, at least for us.
Assuming there is other intelligent life elsewhere in the simulation, the universe expanding would also allow for the simulation to run different species at different points in parallel. If a race of intelligent beings were to exist on the opposite side of the universe, our galaxy, to them, would appear as a small, indistinct blob and thus would not have to be displayed to them any further than their ability to observe it based on what information they can obtain with their current technology.
It would also allow our galaxy to be rendered from the history of it that we have created by virtue of being able to observe it much sooner than they can. It would be analogous to rolling a spot check in a DND game and the game master calling out that you don't see **** because you only rolled a 12, and you needed to roll 14 or greater in order to see the monster behind the fake mirror.
As galaxies and intelligent species recede from eachothers view, it would allow the simulation to stop rendering parts of the simulation for each species view, and also allow it to page the history of each formerly viewable galaxy to archive storage and free up more memory to allow the simulation to continue running at an acceptable rate even as it gains more overall complexity. In other words it could be broken down into multiple simulations that are only loosely linked. This is analogous to the way EVE online is run: different solar systems and solar system clusters are simulated on different servers, allowing the game to gain additional processing overhead as technology is developed and the needs of the growing player base dictate.
The fact that the plank length seems to be a thing would also suggest that that is as granular as the simulation is programmed to go and we have discovered the simulations maximum display resolution.
The fact that we can't seem to pin down how gravity works compared to the other fundamental forces could suggest that it's not the same type of force at all, but possibly a simulation wide constant. A hardcoded limitation either because they could not get a dynamic property to simulate right, or they genuinely wanted it to work how it does. This could be analogous to how you can only mod a game so far because of the engines absolute limits. Without changing the engine itself, it is not possible to change certain properties of the game.
It could also be that they the simulation developers have not even completed their implementation of how gravity works and did not notice that we were starting to investigate it until it was too late to implement it how they had designed. Now that we're actively working to discover it, they may need to further refine how it works to fit within the narrative of what we've tried so far and what we would need to try in order to be able to get the simulation to fully implement it in its dynamic, fully evolved form. In other words, gravity could be in beta and will shortly be patched in during server downtime.
It would also mean that time travel is right out, because if they are indeed going to have to patch it in that way, it stands to reason that the only reason they're doing it that way is because it is not possible to run the simulation in reverse. This would be loosely analogous to how we've developed asymmetrical cryptography allowing for the use of a public keys, but since they never imagined that they would need to run it in reverse, they never implemented a way to do so and the simulation records the history of it to storage in such a way that certain bits of the past are irretrievable.
What does all this mean for us here, today? Not a damn thing. Since we have not yet developed a method to test for any of this, there is no point fretting about if the simulation is real or not because to ourselves we are real, therefore we exist in some form somewhere, and should just continue to exist and enjoy that existence as long as it lasts.
On the other hand, we could certainly try a few things and see what happens.
For instance, if we develop a way to create AI that can observe as we do, we could potentially create enough of them and place them such that the simulation has to run much much more complex than it does now. What would this do? It would likely get us noticed by the creators and maintainers of this simulation due to the fact that we're suddenly redlining the CPUs associated with our portion of existence and simulation speed has dropped from 15 days simulated per time unit to 1 day simulated per time unit.
If we can develop more theories for how things work, we may somehow discover exploits that we could use to harness control of the simulation. How much control? Anything from something as stupid as changing the color or your hair to as meaningful as spawning a comet such that it only just now comes into view and is on a trajectory to destroy earth in X years.
Potentially, we could also find some way to exploit the data display system that they use to start sending text data direct to their screen much like how Clippy would pop up and nag you. If those methods ceased to work, we could infer that the sim was patched and our creators prefer to remain separated from us.
We could also use exploits to pull up the history of the simulation elsewhere in the universe and get concrete evidence of the existence of other intelligent life, and then potentially find a way to contact them directly without having to wait for light to propagate the unknown number of lightyears between our civilizations. We could possibly time travel in a limited fashion depending on if my earlier speculation of asynchronous simulation holds. We could talk to some species 3 billion years in the past and get a picture of what our galaxy looked like 6 billion years ago from them. Or we could talk to some developing species that will exist 23 billion years from now and tell them about all the cool technology we've developed and completely throw them off their natural development path.
Boy oh boy, that would sure wreck havoc with the simulation, wouldn't it?
Of course, it may turn out that that is entirely the point of the simulation: to see how long it runs before something it simulates within itself starts breaking things. Either way it seems likely that such an event would merit some kind of response from above.
So then, what is the meaning of life?
If we're living in a hyper advanced video game, it would seem to me that the whole point is for us to get the high score, and to define what we consider that to be in the process.
One such article is here: http://www.express.co.uk/life-style...e-Matrix-Universe-Planet-Earth-NASA-Scientist
So this provokes an interesting thought experiment: assuming the universe is a simulation, what conclusions can we draw about why the universe works in the way it does, and what purposes does this simulation serve to the entities running it?
A couple of my ideas:
The purpose of the universe is obviously to see what happens at its broadest. The same reason a kid sets up a ton of dominoes and then watches as they all fall down.
At its narrowest however, since intelligent life has formed, one distinct possibility is we could be a test model to see if free will is a real thing or not. If free will is a thing, it stands to reason that at some level of the situation, our choices should be in defiance of the laws of physics and chemistry through our ability to choose between things.
Another possibility is that Earth was itself designed and is in fact the center of the simulation. This would quickly explain why we have yet to detect any other intelligent life in the cosmos. I personally do not think this is the case, as other features of the universe would seem to suggest otherwise.
Lets start by acknowledging the simple fact that particles do not have distinct properties until they are observed. We can draw a very simple analog to this with our own computer simulations: video games. Characters are not rendered in video games until they are very near a point of observance: namely something that can be viewed by a player through some means. If this programming method is common to the universes creators, it means that nothing in the universe is instantiated beyond the most general form until it is needed to be due to observation by some form of intelligent life, and then only as detailed as it needs to be to satisfy those observations.
Following that, it stands to reason that the simulator has a set processing capacity and the fact that things do not have properties unless observed would be an obvious way to conserve resources.
Futher, since information can not at present propagate faster than then speed of light, this would limit the amount of the universe that needs to be simulated to the light that has reached the intelligent life at that point. In may be that certain galaxies that we've only recently observed which are demonstrated to be at a distance of 13.3 Billion years in the past were only just begun to be simulated when we first observed them.
It may be that different parts of the universes are simulated asynchronously and as new parts are observed, the simulation elsewhere halts as that new region is simulated forward to the present.
This would suggest that the speed of light itself is a property designed to limit the complexity of the simulation at any one time. Since we can barely see anything in the universe beyond the most general, we could reasonably assume that the universe has only been simulated as far as we can see it. If light were treated as a "hit scan" weapon is treated in modern day FPS's, we would be able to observe all points in the universe as they are today, and thus all points in the universe would need to be simulated, at least in the most general sense, at least as far as they would need to be in order to be observed as they are now. Since they don't have to be, this saves a **** ton of processing time for more important and more complex things: namely us.
The fact that the universe seems to be spreading out, rendering the most distant parts of more and more unobservable would also seem to suggest a plan that is in place to limit the complexity of the simulation as entities spawn that can observe and thus require the simulation to process objects past the most general and into higher resolutions. Once a galaxy recedes from view, it will no longer have to be simulated, at least for us.
Assuming there is other intelligent life elsewhere in the simulation, the universe expanding would also allow for the simulation to run different species at different points in parallel. If a race of intelligent beings were to exist on the opposite side of the universe, our galaxy, to them, would appear as a small, indistinct blob and thus would not have to be displayed to them any further than their ability to observe it based on what information they can obtain with their current technology.
It would also allow our galaxy to be rendered from the history of it that we have created by virtue of being able to observe it much sooner than they can. It would be analogous to rolling a spot check in a DND game and the game master calling out that you don't see **** because you only rolled a 12, and you needed to roll 14 or greater in order to see the monster behind the fake mirror.
As galaxies and intelligent species recede from eachothers view, it would allow the simulation to stop rendering parts of the simulation for each species view, and also allow it to page the history of each formerly viewable galaxy to archive storage and free up more memory to allow the simulation to continue running at an acceptable rate even as it gains more overall complexity. In other words it could be broken down into multiple simulations that are only loosely linked. This is analogous to the way EVE online is run: different solar systems and solar system clusters are simulated on different servers, allowing the game to gain additional processing overhead as technology is developed and the needs of the growing player base dictate.
The fact that the plank length seems to be a thing would also suggest that that is as granular as the simulation is programmed to go and we have discovered the simulations maximum display resolution.
The fact that we can't seem to pin down how gravity works compared to the other fundamental forces could suggest that it's not the same type of force at all, but possibly a simulation wide constant. A hardcoded limitation either because they could not get a dynamic property to simulate right, or they genuinely wanted it to work how it does. This could be analogous to how you can only mod a game so far because of the engines absolute limits. Without changing the engine itself, it is not possible to change certain properties of the game.
It could also be that they the simulation developers have not even completed their implementation of how gravity works and did not notice that we were starting to investigate it until it was too late to implement it how they had designed. Now that we're actively working to discover it, they may need to further refine how it works to fit within the narrative of what we've tried so far and what we would need to try in order to be able to get the simulation to fully implement it in its dynamic, fully evolved form. In other words, gravity could be in beta and will shortly be patched in during server downtime.
It would also mean that time travel is right out, because if they are indeed going to have to patch it in that way, it stands to reason that the only reason they're doing it that way is because it is not possible to run the simulation in reverse. This would be loosely analogous to how we've developed asymmetrical cryptography allowing for the use of a public keys, but since they never imagined that they would need to run it in reverse, they never implemented a way to do so and the simulation records the history of it to storage in such a way that certain bits of the past are irretrievable.
What does all this mean for us here, today? Not a damn thing. Since we have not yet developed a method to test for any of this, there is no point fretting about if the simulation is real or not because to ourselves we are real, therefore we exist in some form somewhere, and should just continue to exist and enjoy that existence as long as it lasts.
On the other hand, we could certainly try a few things and see what happens.
For instance, if we develop a way to create AI that can observe as we do, we could potentially create enough of them and place them such that the simulation has to run much much more complex than it does now. What would this do? It would likely get us noticed by the creators and maintainers of this simulation due to the fact that we're suddenly redlining the CPUs associated with our portion of existence and simulation speed has dropped from 15 days simulated per time unit to 1 day simulated per time unit.
If we can develop more theories for how things work, we may somehow discover exploits that we could use to harness control of the simulation. How much control? Anything from something as stupid as changing the color or your hair to as meaningful as spawning a comet such that it only just now comes into view and is on a trajectory to destroy earth in X years.
Potentially, we could also find some way to exploit the data display system that they use to start sending text data direct to their screen much like how Clippy would pop up and nag you. If those methods ceased to work, we could infer that the sim was patched and our creators prefer to remain separated from us.
We could also use exploits to pull up the history of the simulation elsewhere in the universe and get concrete evidence of the existence of other intelligent life, and then potentially find a way to contact them directly without having to wait for light to propagate the unknown number of lightyears between our civilizations. We could possibly time travel in a limited fashion depending on if my earlier speculation of asynchronous simulation holds. We could talk to some species 3 billion years in the past and get a picture of what our galaxy looked like 6 billion years ago from them. Or we could talk to some developing species that will exist 23 billion years from now and tell them about all the cool technology we've developed and completely throw them off their natural development path.
Boy oh boy, that would sure wreck havoc with the simulation, wouldn't it?
Of course, it may turn out that that is entirely the point of the simulation: to see how long it runs before something it simulates within itself starts breaking things. Either way it seems likely that such an event would merit some kind of response from above.
So then, what is the meaning of life?
If we're living in a hyper advanced video game, it would seem to me that the whole point is for us to get the high score, and to define what we consider that to be in the process.