Is reality a simulation?

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, Laie said:

Solipsism by any other name is just as sweet.

Until you realize that being the only entity in the Universe you need an unique axis to order your states — call in "a time". At least just one bit in size - to distinguish at least two of your states.
And that means that the Universe consisting only of you is not full.

Then you understand that when there are myriads of bits then there can be myriads of times - and myriads of yous.

And as "every you" limited with two states poorly could think about something, that means that there are much more bits of time than just two, and amount of possible yous rises "factorially".
And as there's no reason to distinguish one bit from another, you are no more the only information system in the Universe.

6 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

We can't prove that it isn't reversible.

Then entropy can both increase and decrease. As the physical laws are reversible by definition. They act with both positive and negative amounts of time.

Edited April 26, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

1 hour ago, RainDreamer said:

Well, we can also frame it as a  class ical philosophical question: can we prove that this whole universe is not just generated 10 minutes ago, exactly like how it was 10 minutes ago right down to every atoms position, and all our memories were implanted? Everything we know or thought we know might have been fabricated, and our senses simulated.

Really, there is no way to tell.

something like vanilla sky. While the universe might be a simulation, but i have a 0.0000000001 % probability that my memory of the last 50 years were implanted. I know the paradox, but when you get older you feelmyour years, like when you get up at 2 am and mindleesly go to the bathroom and you some how wake up in a different place than where you went to bed and dont remember moving. 

[YNM]

There's no point in figuring out whether we live in a simulation or not. Far better just to sit down and look at the whole thing, IMHO.

(Which, to be honest, is why I don't quite like theoretical astrophysicist and people who like to do things only mathematically. While they help steer observation to new directions, it's not like the old things are fully studied either. More and more data, that's what we need.)

Edited April 26, 2016 by YNM

[Yourself]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

There is no rational reason why one of dimensions is privileged and not reversable, except if it is a CPU command sequence.

And in the universe where that CPU command sequence is executing is time no longer privileged and irreversible? In that case how would such a CPU order and execute commands sequentially?

The fact that there's no "rational" reason for it seems to me to indicate that it's completely natural.  The universe need not be rational.

And if the universe were a simulation, what is it simulating?

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, Yourself said:

And in the universe where that CPU command sequence is executing is time no longer privileged and irreversible? In that case how would such a CPU order and execute commands sequentially?

The fact that there's no "rational" reason for it seems to me to indicate that it's completely natural.  The universe need not be rational.

And if the universe were a simulation, what is it simulating?

By definition, any change needs an axis "before-after".
As the "Universe" by definition includes everything what can be, so every axis is by definition a part of the Universe.
Ergo, there cannot be any axis out of the Universe. Otherwise you are observing not the whole Universe, but just a part of it.

As there is no axis for the Universe to match its states, thus the Universe has only one state and cannot change at all. (There is just no "before" and "after" beyond herself).

So, the Universe is a static superposition of its possible states.
Any visible "change", i.e. any "before-after" states, are just a comparison of two minor subsets of the Universe parts, using another part (a bitset or axis, as you wish) as a measure.
A "time" is just a particular case of such axis. Any two bits of the Universe can be used as a "before-after" axis for the rest part of the Universe.
So, there can be technically infinite "times": from one-bit "times" to infinite axis "times".

As every physical law (rather than the mathematical laws) describe a change of a system relative to "time", the physical laws are a particular case of time-invariant mathematical laws, applied to the "time" you currently use.

As the Universe is unchangeable, this answers to "How can it be that entropy can only grow, while the physical laws are time-reversible?"
In an unchangeable Universe the entropy neither grows, nor decreases, it's constant. It "grows" when you take a particular part of a Universe as a coordinate axis and observe the rest Universe in relation to it.
If you take it in the opposite direction, you see a reversed animation where the entropy also "grows", just because you animation describes the Universe states in order of the entropy growth.

Edited April 26, 2016 by kerbiloid