The Universe is not a computer simulation

I don't think so. If the outcome of the simulation was already known by those who created it, there would literally be no reason to have the simulation.

It probably isn't known. That's on purpose of a sim - to find out what a result will be.

Look at weather modeling, a way to input a huge number of conditions and determine the possible outcome in the future.

a reply to: frenchfries

Hmm . . . .

maybe this will make sense to you...

Well indeed everything is computed in this reality but also the information in this reality comes from that higher reality. Therefore this Information makes this reality unpredictable (free will within the clockwork of this reality).

The analogy is that everything in computer memory can be predicted once the initial state is known that information of the initial state comes from physical processes (like typing , a soundclip etc).

So not a closed world but an open world and we (our conciousnesses) all are part of this higher reality.

Hmmmm . . . .

Okay, yes, I understand.

Let's say that the "lower" and "higher" correspond with the "body" and (indwelling) "soul" of religeon and reincarnation. I'll also add the idea of a Science of Possession. And a bit of vedic for good measure.

So:

Body = (the) Possessed = Asura

Soul = (the) Possessing = Deva

So, it makes sense to me that the concept of the computer/simulation/higher reality/soul would be synonymous. It would follow that the world of philosophy, religeon et al, would be the world of humans and come under the science of possession.

But that may not neccessarily mean that this higher world is everything. Only what could be called an entity.

It also follows that outside this entity is everything else.

I would suggest: the Devic world possess the Asura world as a conquering nation.

Deva meaning soul (higher), Asura meaning body (lower), but not limited to.

I would take it further and suggest: We, as humanity are the real aliens here on earth.


So "yes" the world of humanity is probably a simulation or program and the programmers are God(s).

But there is nothing to say it goes beyond humanity.

I'm stepping outside of the paradigm .. . . .


. . . . much friendlier outside.

originally posted by: Sump3
Our universe as you all like to call it is both analog and digital. Analog cannot fully be expressed by digitality but digitality can be expressed by analogy. Hence, analogy is superior to digitality.

It isn't complicated neighbours.

Analog can be expressed digitally. A good real-world example would be sound waves (which are inherently analog) being produced by pits on a digital compact disc.

In point of fact, the universe itself appears to have many natural examples of analog classical physics being represented by digital quantum states. The tricky part is the wave function, of course.

a reply to: Dudemo5

How does that make the wave-particle quantum mechanic/physic digital?

Present, past, future negation equation does not make the universe more digital then physical.

How can I or you know?

Stop exclaiming your answer as the holy grail.

Think about it.

a reply to: dfnj2015

The whole universe includes every atom everywhere, so we are part of that, and I will say I think I can feel it to be reality, then sometimes with time glitches (such as when you experiencing a car crash and time slows down) happens, I wonder. Can we manipulate it all by our consciousness?

I believe all this conjecture the Universe is really a computer simulation is because we are surrounded by computers in our everyday life. Just like religion from past centuries was surrounding everyone's daily life people thought everything about the Universe, physics, structure, origin, can be explained by religion. Both, computers and religion are a cultural influence on our observation of the Universe. Instead of our face in a religious book, prayer, or meditation, our face is glued to cell phone, computer, television, or video game. So of course we are going to have a eureka moment and think the Universe is a simulation since electronic simulations are everywhere in society.

originally posted by: game over man
I believe all this conjecture the Universe is really a computer simulation is because we are surrounded by computers in our everyday life. Just like religion from past centuries was surrounding everyone's daily life people thought everything about the Universe, physics, structure, origin, can be explained by religion. Both, computers and religion are a cultural influence on our observation of the Universe. Instead of our face in a religious book, prayer, or meditation, our face is glued to cell phone, computer, television, or video game. So of course we are going to have a eureka moment and think the Universe is a simulation since electronic simulations are everywhere in society.

I existed before computers, so I can speak from a different vantage point.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: dfnj2015

Once we begin to understand the dark matter and energy that comprise the other 95-96% of our universe we may come to a better realization of why the constants are such(cosmological constant, phi, pi), we might even discover a few more. Or even an underlying code that shapes the reality we think we experience.

We might also discover the old Testament God is actually real. I think both have about the same probability to succeed.

Before we declare we have discovered reality's computer program we better make sure the code we have doesn't have any bugs. Testing and debugging are really hard without a debugger. If only we were not made of the very stuff we are studying. If only we were not apart of the very experiment we are conducting. It's too bad we can't have a laboratory separate from the Universe to hold the Universe in to study. If we use mass and energy to measure the speed of light then have we really said anything meaningful about mass and energy when we use them in an equation. There's something really polluting in the way we study the Universe from within it.

But even so, it's almost breathtaking that nature is so amazingly consistent in repeating exactly the same behaviors in a particular constrained context. I'm just floored by how nature never wavers or is so consistent. You never experience any glitches and if you do they are all located in the sub-nanosecond timescales. It's kind of amazing the sky is so consistently the same colors everyday and every time I drop an apple it always falls the same way. Superstition is practically dead nowadays.

originally posted by: AlexandrosTheGreat
a reply to: dfnj2015

From a Greek speaker...you speak of binary code. I myself don't know what I think of it. But think of this, Genesis says God speaks words and words manifest in the material universe. Characters basically make up reality. And God is Alpha and Omega yes A and "Z" but to the ancients alpha and omega were just as much 1 and 0 as they were A and Z. Some might say God is the material of the binary code and he is the living universe. Hell genesis gets into DNA code n all but only some languages like Hebrew and Greek van be read with an. Allegory appearing. Greek gives hidden meaning. English gives a bunch of stories. What a Shane to miss so much

God is the force in the Universe that keeps our full understanding of nature's behaviors just one-step beyond our full comprehension.

originally posted by: Sump3
a reply to: Dudemo5

How does that make the wave-particle quantum mechanic/physic digital?

Present, past, future negation equation does not make the universe more digital then physical.

How can I or you know?

Stop exclaiming your answer as the holy grail.

Think about it.

When you stop speaking "ancient drunken guru" and start speaking English, I'll respond to you accordingly.

originally posted by: Dudemo5

originally posted by: Sump3
a reply to: Dudemo5

How does that make the wave-particle quantum mechanic/physic digital?

Present, past, future negation equation does not make the universe more digital then physical.

How can I or you know?

Stop exclaiming your answer as the holy grail.

Think about it.

When you stop speaking "ancient drunken guru" and start speaking English, I'll respond to you accordingly.

Can a wave be physical and therefore digital?

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: andy06shake

Yeah. I was trying to not go back to less complex machines.

Maybe we should throw in Godel's Incompleteness to keep this stirred up.

edit:

I think some people aren't aware of computing before PCs and phones.

I was going to have a paragraph in my OP devoted to folding in Godel's Incompleteness proof by claiming the mathematics used in physics is axiomatic to the whole Universe. But I did not want to get into the argument over Godel's proof ONLY applies to basic number theory and nothing else as Godel claimed in an act of submission to the forces of academia.

They definitely are not aware!

originally posted by: hombero
a reply to: dfnj2015

I propose an alternative. The universe is the computer, with all the gazillions of interactions happening between particles serving at the beans sliding down the rod of the abacus. That's a pretty powerful computer, and there's no need to worry about trying to simulate it, since it is it. What if this universal computer is responsible for calculating the "A.I." of our minds?

Since the visible EM spectrum is so tiny compared to what's there it isn't really that unbelievable to entertain the notion that there could be more at play, in non intuitive ways.

First of all before you can have artificial intelligence you have to be able to understand what real intelligence is or how else will you ever recognize you've actually achieved the result. The reason I stopped studying artificial intelligence and got out of the field is my computer programs were only as smart as I was. I became convinced I was not qualified to write the program.

originally posted by: InTheLight

originally posted by: Dudemo5

originally posted by: Sump3
a reply to: Dudemo5

How does that make the wave-particle quantum mechanic/physic digital?

Present, past, future negation equation does not make the universe more digital then physical.

How can I or you know?

Stop exclaiming your answer as the holy grail.

Think about it.

When you stop speaking "ancient drunken guru" and start speaking English, I'll respond to you accordingly.

Can a wave be physical and therefore digital?

A wave can be physical. Waves of water are physical. Sound waves are physical. Typically we would refer to these waves as analog as, in the classical sense, they are continuous.

However, the entire universe is broken into quanta. The planck length represents the smallest anything can be. Therefore, even a wave is discrete, and provided it's number of possible states is not infinite, it is correct to refer to them as being digital on the quantum level.

There are also other examples. The wave function (which does not appear to exist in our reality in any way that can be directly observed) must collapse to a singular reality at the moment of observation. Here we have a wave that is manifested as a singular digital reality.

Lots of other examples.

originally posted by: roadgravel
5 1/4 floppies. Who can forget that clicking/buzzing (or however that sound is described) as the r/w head moved.

Imagine having a single picture on this disk and waiting for it to be displayed when opened. Modern, higher res pics wouldn't even fit.

The 5.25-inch diskettes were available in a capacity of 160 KB single Side, 360 KB low-density and 1.2 MB high-density sizes; by 1994, the 5.25-inch disk was extinct and was replaced by the preferred 3.5-inch disks.

I had an Atari 800 computer in high school. I used to imagine if you have a 5.25" disk, you could enumerate every pattern of bits on the disk and eventually you have every possible computer game that could be written to work on the Atari 800. All you had to do is insert the disk into the computer and see if the game came up and worked. The problem is there is probably not enough time in the Universe to fabricate every possible disk, insert it, and test it to see if it works.

Thinking reality is a computer simulation is a little like enumerating every possible pattern of bits on the floppy. In order to fully understand reality as a simulation you would have to make more measurements and have more bits of representation that all of reality itself.

Since reality is happening at the speed of reality, the hardware needed to simulate reality needs to be as fast and computationally dense as reality itself. A bit of catch 22 type situation.

But even then, unless you take into account the evidence presented by the wave nature of reality, then seeing reality purely as particle and not wave, is ignoring 1/2 the evidence that reality is just as much analog as it is digital. And it's only digital if you have a computer as big as the Universe itself and for all purposes and infinite amount of time to make all the initial measurements to program in the starting state of the simulation.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Even if we discovered some kind of code actually existed i don't really see how we could influence said code. It's not like we are going to attain the ability to edit it or supplement our own. Down that road lie pocket universe and the ability to manipulate space-time in ways we can only imagine.

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: andy06shake

Have you ever looked into Milo Wolfe and his space resonance theory? Some say crazy, some say it could explain much.

People who believe fabric of reality is discrete like a computer memory are just ignoring the scientific evidence to the contrary.

"The truth of the matter is, all the experiments, the observations the scientist make all agree there has to be a wave structure of matter, and ONLY a wave structure of reality."



The idea that particles exist is really a fabrication, a delusion, a construct in language representing patterns of nature's behaviors. In reality, everything is a wave of energy in every possible direction. There is fast energy. And there is slow energy. And the difference between the two we experience as particles and time. It's all waves bouncing around with arbitrary labels we attach to patterns and claim they are significant. It's like Technical Analysis in the stock market. "Heads and Shoulders" are just delusions representing something so complex it's laughable to think we are saying anything meaningful about reality.

Reality is not a computer simulation because reality is just way too messy.

In order to fully understand reality as a simulation you would have to make more measurements and have more bits of representation that all of reality itself.

I don't believe that is always true. If a person understands one of many, it doesn't necessarily require more than the many if it is a huge number. We understand what a glass marble is and there can be billions of then.

Since reality is happening at the speed of reality, the hardware needed to simulate reality needs to be as fast and computationally dense as reality itself. A bit of catch 22 type situation.

The speed and capacity of a simulation could be less than the containing universe or simulation.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: dfnj2015

Even if we discovered some kind of code actually existed i don't really see how we could influence said code. It's not like we are going to attain the ability to edit it or supplement our own. Down that road lie pocket universe and the ability to manipulate space-time in ways we can only imagine.

The ultimate goal of every hackers dream is to be able to spontaneous create reality the moment we imagine it. If were were able to see the code, the hope is, we would be able to hack it in such a way Harry Potter wands would actually work!

People who believe fabric of reality is discrete like a computer memory are just ignoring the scientific evidence to the contrary.

It's may not be the structure of the hosting device that a simulation appears to present.

Milo's 'Exploring the physics of the unknown universe' is an interesting read.