We are playing a simulation of a galaxy, and real science claims the universe "could" be a simulation

[pewterino]

Alas no, as the HDD would have worn out a bit more and thus its entropy increased.

Yeah and? They can replace it. I'm pretty sure data integrity is no problem for them. Who cares about entropy? In simulation you can just forget about entropy if you want. It's simulation after all. I'm pretty sure elite dangerous would run same on any hdd you install it. It does not care if you move your installation folder to another HDD. As long as save is preserved nobody cares about damn entropy.

I can use 100W cpu to simulate star power output of 3.846×10^26 W

 

[bootsam]

Yes but something has changed. Its not a reset. Who cares about entropy? The universe cares. If you think entropy doesnt matter, good luck to you. You are not simulating the star btw. I very much doubt ED has a function for hydrostatic equilibrium built in, let alone the interactions at the core. Your 100W shows an obloid spheroid with a jpg map covering its exterior. Guess again. Wheres the solar winds? Where are the plumes? Where are the xrays? The gamma rays? The cosmic rays? I could go on and on and on and on. In fact I am.

 

[Jex =TE=]

This is the crux of Tyson’s point: if we take it as read that it is, in principle, possible to simulate a universe in some way, at some point in the future, then we have to assume that on an infinite timeline some species, somewhere, will simulate the universe. And if the universe will be perfectly, or near-perfectly, simulated at some point, then we have to examine the possibility that we live inside such a universe. And, on a truly infinite timeline, we might expect an almost infinite number of simulations to arise from an almost infinite number or civilizations — and indeed, a sophisticated-enough simulation might be able to let its simulated denizens themselves run universal simulations, and at that point all bets are officially off.

The bold part I have a slight issue with - Why would we need the universes to be near perfect? Perfect to what? Why wouldn't we run different universes and see how they work out. Also, if we are a simulation, do we have a way to find out? Are we simulated beings inside the simulation or are we just hallucinatiing.....


[video=youtube;aWnFWclW0Qs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWnFWclW0Qs[/video]

 

[pewterino]

Yes but something has changed. Its not a reset. Who cares about entropy? The universe cares. If you think entropy doesnt matter, good luck to you. You are not simulating the star btw. I very much doubt ED has a function for hydrostatic equilibrium built in, let alone the interactions at the core. Your 100W shows an obloid spheroid with a jpg map covering its exterior. Guess again. Wheres the solar winds? Where are the plumes? Where are the xrays? The gamma rays? The cosmic rays? I could go on and on and on and on. In fact I am.

Simulated entropy != real entropy you don't care about what happens outside of simulation or what is running simulation. It just does not matter! It does not matter that your suspicousdesktopfolder suddenly changed HDD it was stored on. Data inside is always SAME!

 

[bootsam]

If you dont include for entropy then you are not running a simulation.

 

[DocPossible]

If you dont include for entropy then you are not running a simulation.

The point is, you can do anything in a sim - it doesn't have to reflect the physical laws of the universe the Simulators live in. If you really want far out weirdness, google (or better yet DuckDuckGo) Boltzmann Brains...

 

[NeilF]

Not that I buy this "universe" being a simulation, I don't really understand the physics behind it all.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation

but it does amuse me that we are playing a game which is a simulation of the galaxy, and our avatars are two levels of inception down.

Or we are a playing future version of Elite 6th, made by a cybernetically enhanced David Braben in the year 2105 letting us play a version of our younger selfs in 2017.

If we assume computer technology can continue to improve, to the extent that minds can be simulated, along with consciousness, and that the processing power can continue to improve to the extent that an entire universe could be simulated, along with every atom (to some degree)... and then if you can run one such similation, why not dozens, hundreds, millions?

Then by sheer weight of odds... We are in a simulation! And that may account when we look carefully enough at the details, we can see odd things - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

 

[IndigoWyrd]

So if my Sims play Sims on their computer, what does that mean?

Causality Paradox

 

[bootsam]

The point is, you can do anything in a sim - it doesn't have to reflect the physical laws of the universe the Simulators live in. If you really want far out weirdness, google (or better yet DuckDuckGo) Boltzmann Brains...

No but the simulator machine is still subject to the physical laws of the universe it resides within.

 

[space pilot]

No but the simulator machine is still subject to the physical laws of the universe it resides within.

It doesn't have to consistently reflect that. It can include perpetual motion machines right up until someone cuts the power to the sim machine.

 

[pewterino]

No but the simulator machine is still subject to the physical laws of the universe it resides within.

I don't want to resort to name calling but you're pushing it. What on earth have entropy of real universe have to do with entropy within simulated universe? It DOES NOT MATTER what entropy is in real universe and how it changes, it does not affect entropy within simulation. Man you are truly thorium based.

Simulation is paused, and simulation is resumed. We assume we had to do maintenance. Who cares if entropy changed while i was swapping broken component? I load saved state of simulation and it continues completely ignoring entropy of real world. Is it not?

Am I missing something? This guy seems to be dead serious that we can't restore entropy of a saved state universe that we froze before saving state and restoring state. I don't get it why entropy of machine simulating this affects entropy within simulation.

Even if we had catastrophic failure and reverted to some backup, how would they even know? They just continued on and did same thing again, they wouldn't know that they are doing it all over again.

 

[bootsam]

Name call all you like. I am not at all concerned. I have a thick skin and would not be offended. I dont do this to be obtuse or awkward. I dont think you fully comprehend these laws. Their reach or just how fundamentally they are wound within our universe and everything that resides within it. Including the machine doing the 'simulation'.

But as I seem to be inadvertently annoying you I shall stop mentioning it.

 

[Saool]

So here is your goal in life...

(or put another way, 'What if I told you...')

You reside in a 57th generation nested reality. If, by some method, like very deep Buddhism, you get yourself to truly believe you are in a simulation (which is much harder than you think. After all, you are getting on with living your life, precisely because you do actually believe it is real. Saying 'This is not real' and believing it are two very different things), you will be able to 'wake up' from it. At this point your have three goals:

1. Do the whole process again. And remember you will have memories of a different you in a nested reality layer 56, so may not remember anything about layer 57 and virtual realities
2. Find who designed that particular 57th nested layer reality and beat the snot out of them
3. Wake up in layer 55

Repeat.

If by some miracle you achieve waking up in 'base reality' (which by the very nature of the process will take many lifetimes) you may be disappointed. Far from being heaven, or Shangri La, you will find base reality is a bit pants... which was why they started making simulated universes in the first place.

 

[space pilot]

If, by some method, like very deep Buddhism, you get yourself to truly believe you are in a simulation (which is much harder than you think. After all, you are getting on with living your life, precisely because you do actually believe it is real.

It is real. Cogito ergo sum.

People get on with their lives knowing their mortality, without believing in an afterlife. It doesn't get much worse than that, in fact if it were a simulation that implies there is supernatural, and could be an afterlife.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Name call all you like. I am not at all concerned. I have a thick skin and would not be offended. I dont do this to be obtuse or awkward. I dont think you fully comprehend these laws. Their reach or just how fundamentally they are wound within our universe and everything that resides within it. Including the machine doing the 'simulation'.

But as I seem to be inadvertently annoying you I shall stop mentioning it.

You make several assumptions that 1) it's a computer running the simulation and 2) whatever the simulation is, it's in a universe the same as the one we are in and 3) that entropy exists in that universe the sim machine/whatever is running it and 4) there's other affects that wil laffect this machine because somehow, you seem privy to what's outside of our universe.

 

[bootsam]

Joe, The assumptions made were based on the dialogue in the thread. You made the assumptions and you listed them. I merely responded to someone elses posts, which included a computer running the sims. I can assume entropy will exist in whatever universe because its a fundamental principle which you also fail to understand. Otherwise it cannot exist. Can you have the expansion before the big bang? Furthermore your latter statement is false.

You cannot beat the Laws of Thermodynamics. They are hard and fast and unyielding. A universe without them is not a universe. Least not one within which anything can exist which could try to comprehend them. A simulation that ignores them is not a simulation, its merely a program.

 

[pewterino]

You can simulate entropy. Like burning candle, you can save and restore simulation at any time without losing entropy. You just continue where you left off. You get nice entropy simulated that you can pause and unpause however you like. Scale this on universe size and boom you have universe that you can pause. While entropy is happy and continuing to increase in real one, it's on hold in simulated one.

- - - Updated - - -

You can have deterministic simulation. Like you don't know private key on asymmetric encryption or source code of program you can't assume there isn't one. With algorithms like theese you can create simulation with full entropy that is completely independent on host system and you can even pause, replay and restore it from saved points.

 

[GJ51]

Goodness

All this stems from the Mathematics that proves (mathematically) that all the bits of information within a bounded region are not proportional to the volume of the region, but are (surprisingly, and contrary to intuition) proportional to the surface area of the bounded region.

e.i. given a sphere, everything inside can be described on it's surface rather than looking within it's volume. Not intuitively logical, but nonetheless it is the mathematical consequence of the resolution of the Hawking dilemma.

It's basically pure theoretical physics and mathematics. The metaphysical or religious speculative implications are a separate subject. Confusing the two accomplishes nothing.

 

[bootsam]

I am not going to mention it again Pewterino. I said I would not. Joe made me say it again when I didn't want to. I agree with your first paragraph, however it could be argued that its not a real simulation as you've created a universe that can be reversed. I will not argue that point as I said I wouldn't.

 

[Han_Zen]

Joe, The assumptions made were based on the dialogue in the thread. You made the assumptions and you listed them. I merely responded to someone elses posts, which included a computer running the sims. I can assume entropy will exist in whatever universe because its a fundamental principle which you also fail to understand. Otherwise it cannot exist. Can you have the expansion before the big bang? Furthermore your latter statement is false.

You cannot beat the Laws of Thermodynamics. They are hard and fast and unyielding. A universe without them is not a universe. Least not one within which anything can exist which could try to comprehend them. A simulation that ignores them is not a simulation, its merely a program.

Any law of nature is tied to the universe it exist in. If that universe is an artificial creation, those laws have been consciously put there to create the right experience.

If a universe designer adds the 2nd law of thermodynamics to their simulation, it's most likely to have the concept of linear time in their creation.

Linear time may be a reality in the universe designers universe, but it could also be something they made up.

If we start talking about multi level simulation(like playing multi crew or CQC), it gets rather messy because the designer and the player don't necessarily have their consciousness manifested just one step apart. There are also probably many parallel realities on each level. We can chose different games than ED on that level and we can chose a couple of simulations inside ED.

Consciousness will in principal manifested it self in the lowest level of simulation that is believable enough. Whether or not entropy is needed to achieve this is something I wouldn't be to bombastic about.

I actually think that a state of the art VR simulator combined with ample amount of drugs could get pretty close to the 'believable level', even with today's technology.