Are we living in a Computer Simulation?

Ooh, you mean like the bit where Neo jumps across tall buildings, fails, falls, and then bounces of the asfalt unharmed?

Yeah.

Let's not explore. Sounds entirely too painful to me.

Once you start digging, it seems it is not the case. A team of theoretical physicists from Oxford University in the UK has shown that life and reality cannot be merely simulations generated by a massive extraterrestrial computer. The finding -- an unexpectedly definite one -- arose from the discovery of a novel link between gravitational anomalies and computational complexity. In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhi show that constructing a computer simulation of a particular quantum phenomenon that occurs in metals is impossible -- not just practically, but in principle. The pair initially set out to see whether it was possible to use a technique known as quantum Monte Carlo to study the quantum Hall effect -- a phenomenon in physical systems that exhibit strong magnetic fields and very low temperatures, and manifests as an energy current that runs across the temperature gradient. The phenomenon indicates an anomaly in the underlying space-time geometry. [...] They discovered that the complexity of the simulation increased exponentially with the number of particles being simulated. If the complexity grew linearly with the number of particles being simulated, then doubling the number of partices would mean doubling the computing power required. If, however, the complexity grows on an exponential scale -- where the amount of computing power has to double every time a single particle is added -- then the task quickly becomes impossible.

yeah interesting but not convincing for me. But that's why we are exploring it.

"There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality," Elon Musk said tonight on stage at Recode's Code Conference, meaning that one of the most influential and powerful figures in tech thinks that it's overwhelmingly likely we're just characters living inside a simulation.

The Verge co-founder Josh Topolsky got half-way through asking Musk if he thought our existence was simulated before the Tesla CEO jumped in to finish his question for him. "I've had so many simulation discussions it's crazy," Musk explained. "You've thought about this?" Topolsky asked. "A lot," Musk replied. "It got to the point where every conversation was the AI / simulation conversation, and my brother and I agreed that we would ban such conversations if we were ever in a hot tub."

https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11837874/elon-musk-says-odds-living-in-simulation

And then explain how binairy code was discovered during experiments?

Elon Musk . . . ah-hahahahahahahahaha . . .

Now there's the voice of authority.

it's a start.

I'll listen when he sells a real vehicle at a profit, not when he sells more inflated stock.

When Musk talks about a colony on Mars, it's clear that he has no clue about the conditions on that planet, nor about the dangers to colonists who will have to spend months in space to get there. I guess he's what people call an "ideas" man.

Interesting! I had no idea.

I think we've got an Elon Musk fan boy here--there'll be no talking sense to him.

I like Elon Musk. Which is not the same as saying I believe everything he says. I think humanity needs people with worthy goals even if those goals don’t always evolve as planned.

Doesn't this sort of work assume that the Laws of Physics outside the computer simulation are the same as the Laws of Physics for us inside the simulation? If we are a simulation, the Laws of Physics for the programmers could pretty much be anything.

Would Mario (from the video game) ever be able to prove that he was a simulation? His proof would likely involve big, slow moving bullets.

Are you trying to tick boxes for the amount of nonsense threads you post?

You've got a few more to go before you get your tin foil hat. 9/11 was an inside job, the Queen of Britain is a shape shifting lizard, the Illuminati rule the World, the Holocaust never happened and Trump is a competent and respected World leader.

The point is that the "laws of physics" in our allegedly simulated universe are too complicated to be simulated by any computer, and that is a matter of mathematics, not physics. If you want to postulate an exterior universe where the "laws of mathematics" are different, you are into woo-woo land.

I think you are confusing mathematics with Physics. For example, it is easy enough to imagine an exterior universe where the conservation of energy doesn't hold... or that entropy can decrease... or that the beings programming have a lifespan of 700 billion years. Any of these things would impact the abilities of a extra-universal computer to make these calculations.

Can you postulate an exterior universe without going into "woo-woo land"?

My field of study was Physics, not mathematics... but I have had some exposure to advanced Mathematics. There are really smart Mathematicians working on exactly this problem; could you have a universe where the laws of mathematics are different.

I suspect that most advanced mathematicians would say yes, the "laws of mathematics" could be different. But we would have to find some advance mathematicians to speak to this.

Trying to do computer simulations on human behavior used to be a joke with my classmates a long time ago. It is much more difficult than doing mechanical models. All you may end up getting is a digital game.

I don't dislike him. I am vastly amused by the sainthood he has apparently risen to in the eyes of many young men. At one forum, which I no longer visit, I responded to typical adolescent stupidity--"After we colonize Mars, how long before there is a war between Earth and Mars" (them boys is war-obsessed; I think they feel deprived because they haven't had one)--by listing the conditions on Mars. I gave the mean surface temperature (about 220-230 Kelvin), the mean atmospheric pressure (about 10-12 millibars, as compared to 1013 millibars at sea level on our planet), the total lack of any protection from solar radiation (just riding around in a rover would get you the equivalent of a chest x-ray, every day), the enormous problems of creating an atmosphere, the problems of building safe habitats which would not explode in the low atmospheric pressure. In short, I rained on his parade, tropical downpour style. I ended my post with the question: "What did you say you wanted this planet for?"

I got a lot of upvotes in a very short period of time, that same day. Lots of comments from people laughing at the Elon Musk fan boys. The post was removed in under 24 hours. There are those who consider it blasphemy to criticize Musk, even though I had not actually done so in my post.

As I said earlier, he's an ideas man. His reported personal fortune of $20,000,000,000 wouldn't be seed money for starting a colony on Mars. That doesn't make him a bad man, nor have I said so. But his devoted worshipers seem to be more than a few bricks short of a load. Witness the author of this thread, and go look at his no-moon-landing thread.

So, if I gather this correctly, we should henceforth no longer call him Elon Musk, but instead st. Musk, patron saint of the gullible idiots? Well, I suppose somebody should fulfill that role.

I recall reading the Red Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson, and being astounded by the amount of effort it would take to get a colony set up over there. It's scifi, so I'm sure part of that was contrived, but it was a convincing read in any case.