Could Our Universe Just Be A Experiment?

[makinyashikino]

What if our universe is simply a stick figure laying rocks for millions of millenia?

Consider the 5 Minute Universe Thought Experiment: Imagine that a god, one that likes a good joke, created the universe 5 minutes ago, everything was create to make the appearence that the universe was billions of years old, with light made in transit from stars billions of light years away, to our memories being fabricated. Think about it: that chair you siting in would likely be where you were born, puffed into existance with memories of a past that never was and completely unaware of your own spontanous birth. You reading off a computer that puffed into being with you, reading posts that were never truelly posted but simply came into existance with a false history and peopling thinking falsy that they made those post... How would you know? Assuming this god did a perfect job there would be no way to prove the universe was 5 minutes old and all observation and all evidence and all your memories would exist to convince you otherwise. There would be no way to truelly know.

Now if you want to crawl into a corner and enter a solipsistic catatonic stupur, I would not judge.

I've thought about this before, it terrifies me to no end, because for all I know, it could be true.

[Dispatcher]

An experiment? Possibly. A brilliant, intended achievement (by the standards of the achiever)? Possibly.

[Awaras]

Or it could be a ball of some mysterious matter and energy experiment in a glass orb or something stuffed into a store room in some university like what Terri Pratchett wrote about in his book "snuff"

"Snuff"? It only gets a passing mention there. I gather you didn't read his "Science of Discworld" books? They are basically a blend of a standard discworld story (where the wizards accidentally create our own universe) and a 'popular science' book about the origin of our universe, evolution and science in general. There is four books in the series and they are a very good read.

[bsalis]

I know this may sound insane, but a idea just came to me.

It's not insane, and others have thought the same. In fact, there are a few cosmologists studying the possibility that the universe is a simulation of sorts. Maybe not an experiment, but a simulation like what would run on a computer. There are many indicators that point to this in quantum mechanics. It's fringe science, for sure, but interesting and worth investigating.

Anyhows... i'm sure you have seen The Matrix. You may be interested in seeng this movie though : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/

[Albert VDS]

The only reason to think that the Universe is an experiment or simulation is if you think there is some creator, someone who has a purpose for it.

To me the Universe seems without purpose and that it just is and nothing more.

[FREEFALL1984]

"Snuff"? It only gets a passing mention there. I gather you didn't read his "Science of Discworld" books? They are basically a blend of a standard discworld story (where the wizards accidentally create our own universe) and a 'popular science' book about the origin of our universe, evolution and science in general. There is four books in the series and they are a very good read.

I havent had a chance to read them yet although I will be eager to read them now

Another question is, if the human race ever comes to understand the universe with absolute precision down to the smallest boson, could we not then simulate our own universe and be able to see the future?

[pxi]

There's a couple of apps out there already, that allow people to run evolution simulations on their own computers. Heavily simplified of course, but there's probably far more advanced ones running on supercomputers that I'm not aware of.

Framsticks is one that I've played about with over the years. And of course Steve Grand's Creatures.

At the end of the day, even if the Universe is an experiment (I'm highly agnostic on the subject), unless we can break out of the experiment (ie like the Matrix), or, (as I seem to recall someone else on another thread postulating) you might be able to 'exploit' the simulation in certain ways, otherwise it matters very little in a practical sense to me at least - life still goes on, and it doesn't change the price of bread one iota.

In the philosophical sense, it would matter a great deal, I suspect a large number of people would not believe it, unless you literally could throw them out of the simulation.

[randomness5555]

The scientists in the lab are all taking bets on how long it takes us to destroy ourselves.

Yeah, now THAT I could believe.

[DoctorCruz]

Like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? That was the greatest experiment. Not a whole universe, but a planet built to be a computer!

[-Velocity-]

Honestly I thought about this before I even read up on it a few years ago. We could be just a simulation in a Hyper Intelligent lifeforms computer and this "God" would be controlling our "Free Thoughts"

When someone formulates a story to themselves in their head, or visualizes how something physical works in their head, they are, in effect, creating a simulated universe in their thoughts. The smarter the person is, the better, more detailed, and more accurate the "simulation" is.

The way I see it, all that we know for certain about our universe is that is made up of information, and rules with which that information can interact with itself along a time-like dimension. "Physical reality" is a hard to define concept, and is ultimately impossible to prove. Thus, in a way, every story and simulation ever created makes its own universe, as long as that story/simulation is contains information, rules with which that information can interact with itself, is consistent, and flows along a time-like dimension.

As far as I see it, the only essential difference between our universe and say, the universe created on your computer while you're playing KSP is a matter of scale and complexity.

Also it stands to reason, following the logic I outline above, that IF a TREMENDOUSLY intelligent being exists, then just its thoughts alone could be detailed enough to create entire "universes". Some thoughts would not be consistent, follow a time-like dimension (and generally resemble a simulation), but some very well COULD, and those thoughts would be the ones that could properly be considered "universes".

Again though, Occam's razor says the above is almost certainly NOT the case. A universe in which a tremendously intelligent being could come into existence would have to be incredibly, tremendously complex. Thus, if the explanation that is more simple is usually correct, then the explanation that is like, 100 orders of magnitude more simple (that there is no such tremendously intelligent being) is almost assured to be correct....

Edited April 23, 2014 by |Velocity|

[Mazon Del]

Amusingly enough, one of the ways scientists are using to try and determine if we are a simulation is by making hyper accurate clocks. The theory being that you cannot accurately create a clock within a simulation that is more accurate than the system clock running the simulation. IE, if your system clock could only count in seconds, your simulation cannot accurately count in half seconds.

They are getting loads of funding for this, primarily because more accurate clocks are useful all over the place. If incidentally we prove we are a simulation, bonus points!

[Soda Popinski]

I think this topic came up on a podcast I listen to, "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe." Sometime in 2013, there was some break-through in reality simulation - we could now simulate atomic interactions at the small molecule level on a super-computer. Basically, simulate reality at the very smallest of scales. If a computer were made powerful enough to simulate our 4-dimensional reality, or even a 3-dimensional reality (2D + time), eventually the simulation may spawn intelligent life. That intelligent life may create their own universe simulator. In that simulated universe's simulated universe, they could create their own universe simulator.

So, much like the turtles holding up the world, it's turtles (or universes) all the way down. There's only one "prime" real universe. So chances are, if this is happening, then we're likely in one of the simulations.

I think the physicist they spoke to guessed about a 20% chance we're living in a simulation.

[Idobox]

To the people claiming the universe is too difficult to simulate, think about this:

You can build computers in minecraft, but nothing powerful enough to run minecraft. From the point of view of a minecraft character, the idea of their world being simulated is ridiculous because they can't fathom a computing device powerful enough.

On a different note, there is the holographic principle, a conclusion of string theory, that claims that whatever happens in a volume can be encoded on its boundary. It means that we could think of the universe we know as an illusion, the real one being a sort of event horizon. Not the same as universe simulation, but there are some ties here.

[Javster]

Could a single pixel in the screen you're looking at be an entire universe just like ours?

[rkman]

I could simulate our entire universe on my laptop. Remember, for those inside the universe, there is no such thing as "lag" because their brains operate based on the computer; if the computer is not "running" them then they perceive no time passing. And time is all you would need to simulate a universe.

i bet the laws of physics in our universe would prevent that from working.

That is, if the simulation of our universe takes place in our universe. But that is not how simulations work.

No simulation can operate within that same simulation, nor in a reality that is identical to the reality inside the simulation.

If the universe is a simulation then the laws of physics in our universe are just algorithms in a computer.

The actual reality in which there is a computer that simulaters our universe, would operate on rather different laws of physics than the reality in which we exist.

[Mazon Del]

rkman: You say that if we were a simulated universe, we would have different laws of physics. Why is it you find that true? There is a whole host of reasons why one might choose our physics to be they way they are. Maybe we are an approximation of their physics. Maybe we are a 'what if' scenario that tests out how life would be if there was a magical 'speed of light' limit.

Imagine a universe that did not have the same rules regarding speed of light, everybody might very well be content with ships that take forever to accelerate up to a ridiculous speed then slow down to arrive relative to their target. Some want even better engines, but the rest just don't really care. Their science is super-science and they are immortal, etc. So rather than trying to figure it out themselves, the few that care made a simulation with this silly speed limit to see what people inside would try in order to beat it.

There was a scientist that I had been reading about once, he had been interviewed on this topic. One of the things he pointed out as being very depressing about the possibility of being a simulation was not that we were 'fake' but that we might be living in the 'wrong' set of phycics. Meaning that it would almost be impossible for us to exist as we are outside the simulation.

[rtxoff]

The answer to all your questions,believe it or not is 42 :-)

[-Velocity-]

That intelligent life may create their own universe simulator. In that simulated universe's simulated universe, they could create their own universe simulator.

So, much like the turtles holding up the world, it's turtles (or universes) all the way down. There's only one "prime" real universe. So chances are, if this is happening, then we're likely in one of the simulations.

I think the physicist they spoke to guessed about a 20% chance we're living in a simulation.

Incorrect, it is impossible, and it is very, very easy to see why. Each nested simulated universe must be simpler and simpler; you cannot have a nested universe that is as complex or more complex than its host universe. In fact, each nested universe will be MANY, MANY, MANY orders of magnitude simpler than the universe it is spawned from. So you will VERY RAPIDLY reach the point where the simulated universes are so simple that intelligent life is impossible.

"Wah wah, but what if they just run the simulations slower?!?!1111"

You still need to store all the information in memory for each simulated universe. So if you run it slower, it doesn't decrease the complexity of the simulated universe. Furthermore, if each simulated universe runs more slowly, you will rapidly reach the point where huge amounts of time need to go by in the one, "real" universe before even ONE second passes in the "lowest" simulated universe.

So running each simulation slower and slower is not the answer.

[Stargate525]

You still need to store all the information in memory for each simulated universe. So if you run it slower, it doesn't decrease the complexity of the simulated universe. Furthermore, if each simulated universe runs more slowly, you will rapidly reach the point where huge amounts of time need to go by in the one, "real" universe before even ONE second passes in the "lowest" simulated universe.

So running each simulation slower and slower is not the answer.

Which is irrelevant. If a billion years passed on the top simulation for the lowermost one to advance a second, how would we know or care? A universe ten orders of magnitude more complex than ours could very well be stable for the length of time needed to do this.

Regarding storage, a sufficiently advanced society could run trinary programming by using positive/negative/neutral states of atoms to store data. doing this on a dense element such as gold would lead to massive storage arrays.

[Nuke]

That is, if the simulation of our universe takes place in our universe. But that is not how simulations work.

No simulation can operate within that same simulation, nor in a reality that is identical to the reality inside the simulation.

If the universe is a simulation then the laws of physics in our universe are just algorithms in a computer.

The actual reality in which there is a computer that simulaters our universe, would operate on rather different laws of physics than the reality in which we exist.

to run a simulation you first need a computer, and its performance is dependent upon our laws of physics. that includes things like the speed of light (also the maximum limit of how fast signals can propagate within your cpu), at what scale these machines can be made (such as being limited by the size of atoms). then again you can always use a bigger die to do more stuff in parallel but then you run into latency issues because there is more distance for signals to travel across the die (the speed of light is slow even at nanometer scale distances). you also have electrical noise, radiation, cosmic rays, and quantum effects all over the place that cause errors, which have to either be ignored or detected and/or corrected.

due to the complexity of simulating a universe, and the fact that a computer can only do a finite number of operations a second, it would be all but impossible to get real time performance out of the simulated universe. so the simulated universe will run at a much slower time scale than real time. with the current state of computers, even super computers, you are going to need to run the sim at a tiny ratio of sim time to real time. if the simulated universe has the same complexity as our own, then the time needed to simulate a single second of that universe may very well be longer than the life expectancy of our universe. if you wanted to see if intelligent life would arise in your universe for example, you would need billions of years of sim time.

you can of course reduce the complexity of the simulated universe. make it easier to compute. but reduced complexity results in reduced emergence.

[-Velocity-]

Which is irrelevant. If a billion years passed on the top simulation for the lowermost one to advance a second, how would we know or care? A universe ten orders of magnitude more complex than ours could very well be stable for the length of time needed to do this.

In order to get just a drop of like, 10 orders of magnitude, you need to make a computer as complex as an entire galaxy cluster!

My point is not that a string of simulated universes, in which each universe eventually evolves intelligent lifeforms that build a supercomputer capable of simulating a universe, and so on, is impossible (but I find it VERY HIGHLY unlikely), it's just that the string wouldn't be very long, as realistically, each universe would represent a drop in complexity of MUCH MUCH MUCH more than 10 orders of magnitude. 20, 30, 40, maybe even 50 or 60 orders of magnitude seems much more likely. You quickly, VERY quickly, get the point where intelligent life is impossible.

Edited April 24, 2014 by |Velocity|

[Nuke]

in our universe, the performance of a computer scales inversely to its size.

[Idobox]

due to the complexity of simulating a universe, and the fact that a computer can only do a finite number of operations a second, it would be all but impossible to get real time performance out of the simulated universe. so the simulated universe will run at a much slower time scale than real time. with the current state of computers, even super computers, you are going to need to run the sim at a tiny ratio of sim time to real time. if the simulated universe has the same complexity as our own, then the time needed to simulate a single second of that universe may very well be longer than the life expectancy of our universe. if you wanted to see if intelligent life would arise in your universe for example, you would need billions of years of sim time.

you can of course reduce the complexity of the simulated universe. make it easier to compute. but reduced complexity results in reduced emergence.

You are thinking in terms of conventional computers doing a brute force simulation. What could you do with a quantum computer the size of a galaxy? and if the rules of physics are different in that other universe, they could do much better.

Anyway, even if we are close to the bottom of the nested simulations, we have no idea how many levels there could be above us. It's turtles all the way up, in a way.

[rkman]

rkman: You say that if we were a simulated universe, we would have different laws of physics.

That's not what i'm saying. I say that if our universe is a simulation then the laws of physics of our simulated universe are just algorithms in a computer, and they'd be different than the actual laws of physics of the universe in which there is a computer that runs the simulation that is our universe.

Just as the laws of physics that we put in our simulations are different than the actual laws of physics of our universe, due to the fact that our knowledge of those laws is incomplete, and because we have to short-cut/simplify for performance reasons.

to run a simulation you first need a computer, and its performance is dependent upon our laws of physics.

The laws of physics of our universe apply to computers in our universe, not to computers in a different universe (one that would be real, as opposed to ours if ours is just a simulation).

What i'm saying is that the computer that runs the simulation that is our universe, can not reside in our universe.

Same way that we can't put a computer on which we run a simulation, inside the simulation that it runs.

I suppose we can have nested simulations but not recursive simulations.

So the computer that runs the simulation that is our universe must be in another universe, which likely has different laws of physics than ours.

Edited April 24, 2014 by rkman

[Mazon Del]

Quantum computing is not exactly useful for something like this (at least as it was described to me) QCs still have a clockspeed to them, its just that through some fancy tricks they can churn through a lot of possibilities quickly. Think of it this way. X + Y = ?. If X and Y = 2, the QC and a standard computer of equal clock speeds will take the same period of time to say 4. Now lets make it a little more complex. X + Y = 4. You are looking for what X and what Y make 4. X = {2, 3, 5, 7, 9}, Y = {1, 4, 6, 8, 10}. A normal computer would need to run X + Y 25 times in a worst case scenario (X = 3, Y = 1 being the last one checked), where as the QC would run a single calculation and spit out the result. This is because the QC can look at all possible X/Y combinations at the same time. X + Y = 4, X/Y = Z. In a best case set of operations (the first guess is the right guess), the conventional computer has to do twoactions, 3+1, then 3/1. The QC must also do 2 actions, get 3 + 1, then 3/1. This is because while QC can look at all possibile combinations of X and Y for the first question, the second question (what is Z?) has to wait till the first is answered. On average the QC will be more efficient at this question because you cannot always guarentee a convention computer will be given the right data the first time, every time.

The reason this doesn't end up helping too much with a universe simulator is that basically all operations that happen are simultaneously sequencial operations. In a cause/effect chain, you cannot calculate which direction Atom 3-Z will fly after being hit by Atom 3-Y until you calculate how 3-Y flew after being hit by 3-X, etc. These actions will/may be simultaneous with the interaction of 2-Y and 4-Y, so you can have parellel processing occur (something which isn't aided by QC, but that can aid QC), but the ability to look at all possible inputs for a closed ended question (something with countably infinite possibilities or less, but not actually infinite) and find the right answer does not help you in sequencial operations (A-B, B-C, etc).

That said, a galaxy sized computer of any type would be pretty spiffy.