No, we're not living in a computer simulation, say theoretical physicists

[Exterminator]

No, we're not living in a computer simulation, say theoretical physicists

Are we living in a computer simulation? This question may seem absurd at first, but the possibility that existence is an illusion has challenged philosophers since antiquity. In fact, early last year, high-profile physicists and philosophers gathered at the annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate to try to figure out whether such a hypothesis could be true.

Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, then moderator of the debate, put the odds at 50-50 that our entire existence is a program running in a computer. As explained by Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at MIT, characters in a computer simulation would eventually find that the rules of their universe seemed "completely rigid and mathematical", mainly because those rules would be based on a computer code. Interestingly, that is exactly what physicists have been finding about our own universe as our knowledge about it evolves.

Of course, not everyone believes this hypothesis holds true, and as put by Professor David Chalmers, from New York University: "You’re not going to get proof that we’re not in a simulation, because any evidence that we get could be simulated".

It turns out that a paper published in the journal Science Advances last week by theoretical physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin, from Oxford University, has finally arrived at a conclusion for this debate: we're not living in a computer simulation. But in contrast to Professor Chalmers' claims, it could be proved so because it was found to be not just a practical matter, but based on principles.

Ringel and Kovrizhin have proved that it is impossible to simulate quantum systems exhibiting anomalies, such as the quantum Hall effect studied by them, which is characterized by an electrical current in metals that appears under specific circumstances. But it turns out that to store the information about just a couple of hundred electrons pertaining to this current would require more computer memory than what could be built by using all the atoms that exist in the universe.

Finally, the quantum Hall effect would be only one among many other physical systems that exists in our universe and couldn't be simulated by a computer because of the anomalies they present. Therefore, the idea that we live in a simulation could easily be considered far-fetched.

Source: COSMOS

Just a little something to ponder for the day

 

[Weebarra]

oh well, i can do and say what i like as none of it may be real anyway . The possibilities are endless but then i would find out it was all real and i would be in big trouble, lol. I'll just carry on as i am then

 

[RoboMan]

What if the computer simulation programmers programmed them to say that huh, what about that?!

 

[frogboy]

Great it is nearly bed time here now I am going to have nightmares.

 

[Deletedmessiah]

What if the computer simulation programmers programmed them to say that huh, what about that?!

You're the suspicious one here Mr Robot!

 

[brambedkar59]

What if the computer simulation programmers programmed them to say that huh, what about that?!

Digital inception

 

[XhenEd]

Every computer system has bugs.

So, let's find Neo!

 

[mlnevese]

I agree with Mr. @RoboMan ... That's just what the simulation authors want you to think

 

[tim one]

Well I think this hypothesis is very controversial and if we think about the concept of reality, today we have computers, software and mathematical models that allow us to use a more technical language, but the result, conceptually, is not so different. In fact, the notion itself may be deeply wrong.
The point is not if the world in which we live can be a simulation. But a simulation is the kind of thing that could be, considering a sufficient computational power, exchanged for a world?
Or the simulations and the ways are fundamentally different things?

It is enough for a headache IMO

 

[mlnevese]

Basically I believe it's possible to reach the kind of computational power required to simulate an entire universe down to sub atomic interactions. I don't think we live in such a simulation or that it would even be ethical to create such a simulation if we had such technology.

 

[Local Host]

 

[TairikuOkami]

So a bunch of people met at the beer and decided, that it is not true, without actually testing anything. I will rather believe Elon Musk on this one.

 

[Weebarra]

Are you trying to spook me @Local Host ? Good Lord, i am afeared, very afeared

 

[Kwan ST]

Maybe we are not living in simulation but rather our visible universe is the simulation created by some high intelligence.

 

[mlnevese]

If we're a simulation I hope someone is keeping a backup copy and is running excellent security software... just imagine if the Universe was infected by ransomware...

 

[bribon77]

Well, now I'm calmer with this news..

 

[Arequire]

Here's a video I'd highly suggest watching for anyone remotely interested in the simulation debate:

 

[Fuzzfas]

I don't know if one should feel relief or sorrow. Life would be much less stressful if they decided it's a simulation. You know, "relax, it's just a simulation".

 

[Arequire]

Life would be much less stressful if they decided it's a simulation. You know, "relax, it's just a simulation".

Relaxing wouldn't be an option because we'd still be reliant on everything we've built up as a species inside the simulation. We'd still need food and water to survive, we'd still need money to pay for goods, we'd still need laws and governance to maintain peace and order. Absolutely nothing would change besides the fact that we collectively know everything around us is simulated, but knowing that is irrelevant as we've never known anything else.

 

[Fuzzfas]

Relaxing wouldn't be an option because we'd still be reliant on everything we've built up as a species inside the simulation. We'd still need food and water to survive, we'd still need money to pay for goods, we'd still need laws and governance to maintain peace and order. Absolutely nothing would change besides the fact that we collectively know everything around us is simulated, but knowing that is irrelevant as we've never known anything else.

The way i see it, the difference is this. In a simulator, someone else makes the rules. In a simulator, the other "human" is a program you can't change or reason with, because someone else controls it. So instead trying to make someone change his "mind" for example, you just have to think "ok, incompatible program, no need to waste my time". Or, anything happening, can attribute it to the will of the external programmer/simulation supervisor.