Elon Musk thinks we live in the Matrix.

[lrd.Helmet]

1 hour ago, DBowman said:

If you think about the kinds of simulations we do you can tell they are simulations; they are quantized, finite (either with closed loops, edges, or bounded computation), & often have aliasing artifacts for example. You could imagine using ideas about these kinds of 'signatures' as evidence in favour or not of 'this' being a simulation. It seems reasonable that the simulators could interpret the simulation, if so then the simulators and the simulatees could communicate  (it's just a really inefficient AI). If you can communicate then you can 'control' to some extent... In practice I think we'll never know, but I don't think it's in principle unknowable. 

Actually, somebody did just that:
http://gizmodo.com/5950832/how-to-tell-if-the-universe-is-a-computer-simulation

science thingy:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

If I understand correctly. It seems to be that a simulation starts to break down when you go really deep into physics. So that means that you could calculate whether or not you are in a simulation. I think 

[SergeantBlueforce]

1 hour ago, lrd.Helmet said:

Actually, somebody did just that:
http://gizmodo.com/5950832/how-to-tell-if-the-universe-is-a-computer-simulation

science thingy:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

If I understand correctly. It seems to be that a simulation starts to break down when you go really deep into physics. So that means that you could calculate whether or not you are in a simulation. I think 

 

Problem is though, as I pointed out in my OP, is that all these 'how-to-know-if-you-are-inside-a-computer' things is that they all bank on such a simulation being constrained by the same limits as the known universe.

What I mean is, how do we know that mathematics and quantification as a whole isn't a fabricated construct? How do you know the nature of reality within a simulation is different from that outside of it? If so, how do you define 'outside'?

In the case of such things, these experiments are basically useless.

Edited June 6, 2016 by SergeantBlueforce

[p1t1o]

25 minutes ago, lrd.Helmet said:

If I understand correctly. It seems to be that a simulation starts to break down when you go really deep into physics. So that means that you could calculate whether or not you are in a simulation. I think 

Wouldn't it be arbitrarily easy for the programmers of a simulation to program it so that this experiment gave a "not in a simulation" result? Or they could program us so that we think a "real" universe looks exactly like a simulated one, for all we know, the big bang is an obvious giveaway of computer generated universes. And if you disagree, its only your programming telling you that.

Seem unknowable to me.

[lrd.Helmet]

24 minutes ago, SergeantBlueforce said:

 

Problem is though, as I pointed out in my OP, is that all these 'how-to-know-if-you-are-inside-a-computer' things is that they all bank on such a simulation being constrained by the same limits as the known universe.

What I mean is, how do we know that mathematics and quantification as a whole isn't  fabricated construct? How do you know the nature of reality within a simulation is different from that outside of it? If so, how do you define 'outside'?

In the case of such things, these experiments are basically useless.

Thing is. It doesn't matter if our laws of physics are fabricated or not, as soon as it breaks down or starts giving strange results. Then you know you are in a simulation. It doesn't tell you anything about whats outside of the sim, but it does tell you if you are in one or not.

26 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Wouldn't it be arbitrarily easy for the programmers of a simulation to program it so that this experiment gave a "not in a simulation" result? Or they could program us so that we think a "real" universe looks exactly like a simulated one, for all we know, the big bang is an obvious giveaway of computer generated universes. And if you disagree, its only your programming telling you that.

Seem unknowable to me.

Good point. I'm not a programmer myself, but I'd think it would be terribly inefficient to change code to tailor to specific "if>then" coding stuff.

(I'm sorry for my english, it's still early)

[kerbiloid]

26 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Or they could program us so that we think a "real" universe looks exactly like a simulated one

Not "us", "one" is enough.
How do you know that all other people are not a simulation?

[SergeantBlueforce]

4 minutes ago, lrd.Helmet said:

Thing is. It doesn't matter if our laws of physics are fabricated or not, as soon as it breaks down or starts giving strange results. Then you know you are in a simulation. It doesn't tell you anything about whats outside of the sim, but it does tell you if you are in one or not.

It does matter, because if different laws apply in the 'base' reality, then why couldn't a flawless simulation be created? And how can you prove that these strange results aren't normal or natural or have anything to do with it being a simulation?

To be honest, when you reach this point the concept of a simulation begins to lose its meaning.

Edited June 6, 2016 by SergeantBlueforce

[lrd.Helmet]

4 minutes ago, SergeantBlueforce said:

It does matter, because if different laws apply in the 'base' reality, then why couldn't a flawless simulation be created? And how can you prove that these strange results aren't normal or natural or have anything to do with it being a simulation?

 

That actually makes a lot of sense. I just assumed that the outside world would have the same rules and maybe more (like some kind of multidimensional world).

Edit: Thing is, If we are in a flawless simulation it doesn't really matter whether we know or we don't. If it is truly flawless then there would be no way of getting out or destroy our oppressive overlords matrix-style... 

Edited June 6, 2016 by lrd.Helmet

[PB666]

1 hour ago, lrd.Helmet said:

That actually makes a lot of sense. I just assumed that the outside world would have the same rules and maybe more (like some kind of multidimensional world).

Edit: Thing is, If we are in a flawless simulation it doesn't really matter whether we know or we don't. If it is truly flawless then there would be no way of getting out or destroy our oppressive overlords matrix-style... 

No it doesn't. what is the point of having a simulation of 10e25 starsystems evolving or a rndom natural reality, a random natural reality takes up alot less processing power. These coputers would have to track every subatomic particle at the planks scale in all of these systems you talking about a machine with1E200 memory and a processing speed at 10E40 and around 1E190 processors. 

[kerbiloid]

12 minutes ago, PB666 said:

No it doesn't. what is the point of having a simulation of 10e25 starsystems evolving or a rndom natural reality, a random natural reality takes up alot less processing power.

Elite for ZX Spectrum contains 8+1 procedural galaxies in 42 kbytes. And myriads of ships.
Elite Frontier also contains procedural space centers and other surface facilities. In several MBytes.
In any case you need to be calculated only what you are looking at.

12 minutes ago, PB666 said:

These coputers would have to track every subatomic particle at the planks scale in all of these systems you talking about

Delayed calculations, run on demand.
(Also this would explain the role of "observer".)

Edited June 6, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Elite for ZX Spectrum contains 8+1 procedural galaxies in 42 kbytes. And myriads of ships.
Elite Frontier also contains procedural space centers and other surface facilities. In several MBytes.
In any case you need to be calculated only what you are looking at.

Delayed calculations, run on demand.
(Also this would explain the role of "observer".)

And you are telling me that i am the center of the universe, oh that would make K2 really happy. Ok, no problem with that,nstop the rain, the boss demands i take a six week vacation, the motor on my boat suudenly repairs itself and a new truck suddenly apoears in my driveway, engage number 1. 

Nope, didn't happen. Must be the IPAD again. 

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Ok, no problem with that,nstop the rain, the boss demands i take a six week vacation, the motor on my boat suudenly repairs itself and a new truck suddenly apoears in my driveway, engage number 1. 

Nope, didn't happen. Must be the IPAD again. 

Excellent! CPU sends commands to the devices, but only commands from a program, not its own, not commands it would prefer.

[PB666]

15 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Excellent! CPU sends commands to the devices, but only commands from a program, not its own, not commands it would prefer.

Hey, I'm not you are the center of  the Universe, being as such i should be able to steer. Since NPCs can appear in the game at any time, in need a new NPC pickup. 

Also since i am the center of the Universe i would like to see all these meta science post disappear from the forum, and Elon musks religion should be a banned topic in a science forum, let me use my center universe power to draw in a moderator NPC so that we can work on this issue. 

[SergeantBlueforce]

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

No it doesn't. what is the point of having a simulation of 10e25 starsystems evolving or a rndom natural reality, a random natural reality takes up alot less processing power. These coputers would have to track every subatomic particle at the planks scale in all of these systems you talking about a machine with1E200 memory and a processing speed at 10E40 and around 1E190 processors. 

I know I'm restating the same thing again, but you are again thinking within terms of our own reality while there is no guarantee that applies in any way to the aforementioned 'base' reality.

[Rakaydos]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Hey, I'm not you are the center of  the Universe, being as such i should be able to steer. Since NPCs can appear in the game at any time, in need a new NPC pickup. 

Also since i am the center of the Universe i would like to see all these meta science post disappear from the forum, and Elon musks religion should be a banned topic in a science forum, let me use my center universe power to draw in a moderator NPC so that we can work on this issue. 

Truman Show made truman the center of the universe... how much control of his life did he have?

[PB666]

17 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Truman Show made truman the center of the universe... how much control of his life did he have?

Uh, that was a Hollywood movie. I am thinking about the base reality, would require a huge amount of processing power just to create one life. 
For example. I get in my boat which has about a 100 mile range, I travel in the middle of a bay at my leisure, that's not the Truman show, a bit of Hollywood fiction.

The scale of our lives is tremendous at the quantum scale. A quantum shape is roughly 10E-100 of a meter cube, and quantum time is 10E-43 which means to calculate through one square meter of space-time you need something that processes 10E-143. Now if I am traveling in a boat through Galveston bay at 25kts at my leisure, meaning I can turn any direction of my choosing, that means

Secondarily, most models of quantum physics are non-deterministic, only one model that I presented, which no-one, including yourself, chose, was deterministic (The pilot wave theory). Therefore according to generally agreed consensus in the scientific world and here, I can steer my boat where-ever I want In Galveston bay. This means the entire bay and beyond in that flat plane, would have to be non-deterministic. In such a case I am crossing 1000s of cubic meters per second. That's now a quasi-quantum state of 10E-147 unit cells. If i get out of that boat at clear lake and start making a raucous, that means now JSC and the spaceflight operations now have to be engaged in my quantum state, this includes ISS traveling around the Earth at 8000 m/s. Even if you restricted the quantum state to me, my boat and the water within a meter of that boat for say 10E-44 second, you still have a state which I control, remembering that my choice causes the unit say boat hull to interface with passing water.

The second issue here, the most recent models of quantum gravity (quantum space-time) suggest that the unit cells are extremely plastic, they only resolve on the large scale (relativistic space-time). This in essence means that non-determinism is not simply a boundary layer of unit cells between NP environment and player, but constitutes a large swath of time and space where the functional units overlap.

You can contrive any hypothesis to fit an illogical belief. To dispose of all of these we apply Occam's razor, very good at doing so because it was rooted in philosophical sophistry. So the solution is that the simplest explanation is the best, and that applies to simulated reality also. Since non-determinism appears to be a truth at the quantum scale, then we have to conclude that either the machine will always be invisible to us (Or like the grand experiment in HHGTTG) we are the universal machine. As pointed out by Hawking, given the dearth of information concerning the universes center and the polycentric POV then we are each the center of the universe, and so is everyone else. If everyone is the center of the universe then I by myself cannot be the only center, and therefore the Truman program cannot work on me, it has to apply to everything in the visible universe, which means we have 10E-143 multiplied by 45 billion trans-universal ly distance by 10E16 meters)

The unit cell size of the object is 10E-143 * 4/3pi * (4.5E26)^3 ~ 1E233 for the known life of the universe of 14 billon years (365.25 x 86320) we are talking about about 10²⁵⁰ processes. This is not talking about the physical processes that occur within each unit of quantum space-time, and not also mentioning the translational operations between interacting units of space time, we probably need to multiply another 10E50 on top of that.

So here is the current fastest computer is say in the HexaFlop range it would be capable of modeling space-time at say then femtometer scale and lag the actual system by several magnitudes of 10.

Occam's razor would argue that the distance between a capacity and reality is so great to make this a black and white issue, and given the fact that non-determinism works at such as small scale you are left with one plausible explanation, naturally non-deterministic evolution of the universe. This is not to say that the universe itself is the machine, the computer, the question to the answer 42 so to speak, but then one has to immerse oneself in the off-topic concept of a being creator, the architect of the universe.

Again, I point this out with bioneogenesis and universe's creation. I wasn't there, there are many conflicting beliefs, most of them are wrong, therefore let's just not guess.

 

[kerbiloid]

9 minutes ago, PB666 said:

The scale of our lives is tremendous at the quantum scale. A quantum shape is roughly 10E-100 of a meter cube, and quantum time is 10E-43 which means to calculate through one square meter of space-time you need something that processes 10E-143.

- Where have you heard this, Neo?
- In school.
- And where is school?
- In Matrix...
- There is no physics, Neo. Only Matrix.

[PB666]

Hollywood fiction has no meaning, and so what hollywood contrives has no objective meaning. Get that into your head.

Science avoids contrivances of facts, not embraces them. Get that into your head.

[Rakaydos]

Arbitrarally large numbers are not, by themselves, evidence against simulation. It is impossible to prove the negative that we arnt in a simulation- it is only possible to find evidence that may suggest simulation shortcuts, like the observer effect.

[PB666]

6 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Arbitrarally large numbers are not, by themselves, evidence against simulation. It is impossible to prove the negative that we arnt in a simulation- it is only possible to find evidence that may suggest simulation shortcuts, like the observer effect.

Occam's razor applies to all of these arguments, its your obligation to provide facts, not my obligation to prove that its not possible. Otherwise its just one guess of many beliefs, no better or worse than any god belief.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/

 

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

Occam's razor applies to all of these arguments, its your obligation to provide facts, not my obligation to prove that its not possible.

Certainly. Why to invent physical laws when you already have a Matrix program.

[PB666]

32 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Certainly. Why to invent physical laws when you already have a Matrix program.

Why be here if you have decided not to discuss physical laws instead you want to discuss religion?

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, PB666 said:

Why be here if you have decided not to discuss physical laws instead you want to discuss religion?

Physical laws are mathematical generalization of previously observed events.
To measure a value you need to get an image of the meausing instrument counter into your mind.
So, physical laws are generalization of your assumptions of what image appeared in your brain.
You presume that this picture had came from outside. When you dream or (just an example) drunk a little, the same picture can come from inside. You just presume where this picture appeared using your previous life experience.

[PB666]

58 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Physical laws are mathematical generalization of previously observed events.
To measure a value you need to get an image of the meausing instrument counter into your mind.
So, physical laws are generalization of your assumptions of what image appeared in your brain.
You presume that this picture had came from outside. When you dream or (just an example) drunk a little, the same picture can come from inside. You just presume where this picture appeared using your previous life experience.

Quote

A physical law or scientific law is a theoretical statement "inferred from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present."^[1] Physical laws are typically conclusions based on repeated scientific experiments and observations over many years and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community. The production of a summary description of our environment in the form of such laws is a fundamental aim of science.

 

Quote

 

Several general properties of physical laws have been identified. Physical laws are:

• True, at least within their regime of validity. By definition, there have never been repeatable contradicting observations.
• Universal. They appear to apply everywhere in the universe.^[3]:82
• Simple. They are typically expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation.
• Absolute. Nothing in the universe appears to affect them.^[3]:82
• Stable. Unchanged since first discovered (although they may have been shown to be approximations of more accurate laws—see "Laws as approximations" below),
• Omnipotent. Everything in the universe apparently must comply with them (according to observations).^[3]:83
• Generally conservative of quantity.^[4]:59
• Often expressions of existing homogeneities (symmetries) of space and time.^[4]
• Typically theoretically reversible in time (if non-quantum), although time itself is irreversible.^[4]

 

• Quote

  Scientific laws summarize and explain a large collection of facts determined by experiment, and are tested based on their ability to predict the results of future experiments. They are developed either from facts or through mathematics, and are strongly supported by empirical evidence. It is generally understood that they reflect causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented.^[2]

 

More sophmoric obfuscation, take your BS and spread it elsewhere. The facts of the matter are that physical laws have a basis in reality, and matrix like explanations have a basis in fantasy, mythology, or religion.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, PB666 said:

have a basis in reality

Btw, definitions from books also appear in your mind as a result of your interpretation of electrical signals from your eyes.

Don't you say that "G = 6.67e-11" is a result of your logical assumptions?
What physical laws deny other values in, say, another part of the Universe beyond 13 bln l.y. (as we presume, the Universe has no bounds, just light speed limits what we can directly observe)?

Edited June 7, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Nathair]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

matrix like explanations have a basis in fantasy, mythology, or religion.

1

It is like Last Thursdayism, the idea that the universe was created last thursday in a configuration indistinguishable from great age. All our memories were created then, light from distant stars was created "already on the way", etc. It is an absolutely irrefutable and untestable suggestion, as such it is also a rather thoroughly pointless one. I would say that the Simulation "hypothesis" is also a rather pointless idea. I guess we should just count our blessings that Musk hasn't completely embraced Kurzweilian transhumanism to go with this simulation silliness and his fear of the Great Robot Uprising...