Is the universe a simulation?

[The New Nonsense]

The New York Times has just published a fascinating article about the nature of the universe where scientists hypothesize that, statistically speaking, our universe is likely a simulation.

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But one fanciful possibility is that we live in a computer simulation based on the laws of mathematics — not in what we commonly take to be the real world. According to this theory, some highly advanced computer programmer of the future has devised this simulation, and we are unknowingly part of it. Thus when we discover a mathematical truth, we are simply discovering aspects of the code that the programmer used. This may strike you as very unlikely. But the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we are more likely to be in such a simulation than not. If such simulations are possible in theory, he reasons, then eventually humans will create them — presumably many of them. If this is so, in time there will be many more simulated worlds than nonsimulated ones. Statistically speaking, therefore, we are more likely to be living in a simulated world than the real one.

In many ways this mirrors Ligotti's sentiment that we are all doomed puppets of powers we cannot comprehend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/op...tion.html?_r=0

You can also read the scientific paper here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

[Törpe Könyvek]

Yes.

[qcrisp]

I was waiting for someone to say this.

Quote

If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rude as to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down the character assumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, would not such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment?

That's from Erasmus, In Praise of Folly.

I was going to say, but didn't, but now shall, that I liked the way this thread had got so many thanks, but no actual response, as if everyone were simply nodding silently in a nothing-to-be-said kind of way.

[Druidic]

I think the lack of responses, in part at least, is the simple fact we cannot know but only theorize. I posted my story "August Vinter" because I was fascinated by the idea that God, be it an alien being or a Universal Mind--a vast cosmic brain, say--created a jerry-rigged universe while also creating life by pure accident. So delighted by this, He then created dead spinning rocks, one after another, trying but failing to duplicate his ‘miracle’...until the frustration drove Him/It insane.
Today’s science is more fantastic than the science fiction we read in our youth. P. K. Dick would feel, one suspects, right at home in a simulated universe.

BTW, quantum computers (if they really exist) are also a fascinating development. The following link is to a Charlie Rose show that deals with these 10 million dollar beasts that demand cooling below absolute zero.

301 Moved Permanently

[njhorror]

Definitely fascinating, but I've got a bone to pick with the writer of this little simulation . . .

[bendk]

I remember hearing about this in a lecture by Sam Harris a while back. It was easy enough to find on Youtube. He pretty much states what the article has to say, but at the very end is a disconcerting bit of speculation.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=buWKH66OhhQ



The terror of Revelation and the eternal conscious torment in hell-fire could be "preordained" by some sadistic computer programmer. Our damnation has already been coded in. Things keep getting better and better.