Simulated universe is impossible

It seems impossible because of this very simple argument. Even if you could compute with the smallest/most fundamental particle, you have to build a computer around them right? In order to simulate the movement of any given particle or combination of particles your computer would have to be bigger than that thing you are trying to simulate. Is there a way around this?

EDIT: The title says that it is impossible but a few minutes later I realised that "seems" is the correct word to use here. It does make the title more interesting and dramating but that wasn't my intention and I'm sorry for that.

I do not see it that way. My audio player is not bigger than the world Tolkien is describing from it. My TV (while huge :) ) is not bigger than the Hawaiian Islands, but it does often take me to such places. My brain is definatley not all that big, but inside it is The Earth and the Sun.

I think your post makes no sense. Your brain contains the general idea or the description of the sun, not the actual sun with all its forces, nuclear reactions, the energy being created and beamed out. Your brain cannot possibly contain the information about every single proton and electron and quark, about their positions and what they are doing at every moment. I'm saying that a computer simulation simulating the universe would have to have all the information about every single particle somehow stored somewhere. Your brain doesn't literally contain anything except for things that are really inside for example the neurons and circuits that represent certain things.

So you mean like for every querk position, there shall be for example one byte of data, but this physical 1 byte part of the memory chip is actually composed of many atoms, and thus to simulate the universe, data chips themselves aren't even enough to place themselves, just themselves, into the simulation?

That makes sense.

A way I might imagine to get around this though is to form a system of macro entities under general set out laws of enteractions, evolutions, etc, but this might completely throw quantum physics out of the simulation, so....I'm stumpt lol :cheeky:
Maybe it would be better to ask the scientists or whatever professionals about these kinds of things lol

No you are right and I may have figured it out a few minutes ago. For example when you have a tiny equation of 10 characters long you can make an infinitely long graph and even if you make it pretty small there is much more data in the graph. So this way the computer doesn't need a physical representation for every particle, but a formula that can predict their behaviour. The idea sounds possible but I have no idea if it's actually possible. I should ask someone who is really good at math and computer programming.

EDIT: lol I just realized I just repeated what you said, excuse me because I just woke up :P

Depends what you mean by "universe". The argument doesn't stop us from simulating different universes, with less information than our own. For example, if we were allowed to use all the matter in the galaxy, we could presumably simulate a universe with a single solar system in it. And similarly, the argument doesn't prove that our universe isn't simulated, because the universe hosting this simulation could be bigger than ours.

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Originally Posted by Ginsan

I think your post makes no sense. Your brain contains the general idea or the description of the sun, not the actual sun with all its forces, nuclear reactions, the energy being created and beamed out. Your brain cannot possibly contain the information about every single proton and electron and quark, about their positions and what they are doing at every moment. I'm saying that a computer simulation simulating the universe would have to have all the information about every single particle somehow stored somewhere. Your brain doesn't literally contain anything except for things that are really inside for example the neurons and circuits that represent certain things.

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Just for fun here. How does your arguement make any sense. You seem to be saying a computer simulation would contain nuclear reactions and the energy created? That is ridiculous. A simulated universe would contain a simulation of the sun, not the sun. While my brain may only contain neurons and circuts, any simulation equipment would only contain artifical neurons and circuts. Those inside the simulation could get a simulated sun burn from your simulated sun, but on the exterior it would just be information.

A simple way the program could work, and I do believe the actual world works, is that no quark would have an assigned position until it was examined or interacted with some matter significantly foriegn to itself. There is no need for every fission reaction in the sun for billions of years to be calculated. There just needs to be a principle in place and a net end result calculated, plus a mechanism that can be observed, if and when anything cares.

I completely agree with you. But I still wonder if it is possible. To calculate the behaviour of more particles than your calculating mechanism actually has. Maybe a mathematician/computer programmer could answer my question.

No, it's not possible.

Why?

Because you need at least one bit to record the properties (position, velocity, etcetera) of each particle -- clearly you can't use any fewer than one, because that would mean using zero, and that would mean losing the data. And in a real computing device, you need at least one particle to represent each bit.

Essentially I'm just saying your original argument is correct.

But the exact interpretation depends on your terms, as I said previously.

I'd just like to step in on a particular point here.

Sivason, I hope I didn't misunderstand, but did you mean that we aren't possibly in a simulation ourselves because our sun is a real one, not a simulated one, for example?
If so, I'm not sure of that. I mean, we see the sun and everything else, but it's all stimuli. Simulation can create stimuli in our circuit brain. Kinda like when you're dreaming, it would be all real and so on, not stimuli, but exactly real experience-wise. The brain interprets the messages that reach it. It never actually 'contacts' reality. Like the matrix.
I hope I didn't misunderstand.
But I'm sure this is much more complicated than that. Lol I feel like a simpleton :cheeky: . plus, we need to be able to test these hypothesis or else we won't really reach any point. Without experiment, most ideas, even if they sounded very very logical and 'backed up', they turn out to be wrong. But science solves that by hard work and experimentation, and that's why I love it so much, it works!

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Originally Posted by LouaiB

Sivason, I hope I didn't misunderstand, but did you mean that we aren't possibly in a simulation ourselves because our sun is a real one, not a simulated one, for example?
If so, I'm not sure of that. I mean, we see the sun and everything else, but it's all stimuli. Simulation can create stimuli in our circuit brain. Kinda like when you're dreaming, it would be all real and so on, not stimuli, but exactly real experience-wise. The brain interprets the messages that reach it. It never actually 'contacts' reality. Like the matrix.
s!

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I think you did misunderstand me (I agree with your points). Did you see where I said my brain, while not large contains the Earth and the Sun? I believe this is a simulation made of the exact same stuff as dreams, but on a far grander level. The dreamer is a force beyond what we would even think of as God. Vishnu (Krishna), Shiva (Siva), and Brahma, are Gods, in that they are aspects of nature (grand representations of some fundamental principle, say like electro-magnetism and gravity) but even they (those things) are with in this dream and are not the dreamer.

I believe that this dream takes up no space. There is no space between me and you or any other point. This allows for infinite versions of our universe to exist at the same time. The grandness of scale can not be fathomed. Take the matrix. How big could the construct be? No limit. Could the computer in that story make a partition in its hard drive and run a separate version at the same time? Of course. How many versions? Depends on the computing power and hard ware. What ever runs this show has more than enough for infinite space reproduced in infinite variety.


So every one knows, I honestly believe this stuff. I was not raised Hindu and am independent of that religion in any organized way, following my own Yogic path. There was no family brain washing here. I have 20 years of formal education and my studies were in science. I honestly believe this and am not just throwing ideas around. It all makes perfect sense to me.

Oh, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

Well, I don't have much knowledge on this subject. I just wanna ask if this might be testable in the future, your stance. Not to undermine it or anything. I know that science is reaching these boarders. The discoveries are becoming even wierder than science fiction.
As Neil Tyson puts it: "scientific discoveries are becoming more bizzare than science fiction itself"

Also, of course I wouldn't say you're wrong just because it 'sounds insane'. That would be an argument from personal credulity. Like saying "I didn't come from no monkey!"

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Originally Posted by LouaiB

Oh, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

Well, I don't have much knowledge on this subject. I just wanna ask if this might be testable in the future, your stance. Not to undermine it or anything. I know that science is reaching these boarders. The discoveries are becoming even wierder than science fiction.
As Neil Tyson puts it: "scientific discoveries are becoming more bizzare than science fiction itself"

Also, of course I wouldn't say you're wrong just because it 'sounds insane'. That would be an argument from personal credulity. Like saying "I didn't come from no monkey!"

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The Big Bang: The center point was infinitely small, it is only a small step to say it just appeared suddenly out of nothing. It suddenly expanded far faster than light speed (not impossible, hmm wow) the few force we accept (electro-mag, gravity, and such) did not even exist. Some raw energy existed. Out of it formed concepts like electro-mag and gravity. The energy interacted with itself to form the appearance of matter, which leads to:

E=MC2: Energy is what makes up matter. Because of the energies ability to have directionality it can oppose itself like two positive magnets. Now you can form the building blocks of matter, but the core parts are still energy. There is still only that original energy that sprang out of nothing. In fact they say empty space did not even exist. There was nothing and then BANG there was everything.

That mess of energy sure pulled itself together in some very cool ways. Ways that seem very well planned out (not proof, but weird)

It is rather weird and complex, difficult. Well, I'll be waiting for the ToE, but if we know anything, it's that even the most hard things turned out to have naturalistic basis. Well of course, these observations are inside our universe, and the ToE might breach that. Sooo, could it turn out to be naturalistic but with different basis than we might think? I'm no expert though, just playing around, sooo, yeah I'll wait for the ToE and hold any judgments until then lol.

Louia what is ToE? A new satellite?

EDIT: Oh! OHOH!! Theory of everything! If that's what you mean, you should watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF4kvYZNeKQ
Some of your hopes about the theory of everything might shatter :P

Hmmmmm......
But.......but.......but........ Richard Dawkins thinks we might find the ToE in our lifetime!
Well I'll give the video a try

This fits very nicely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyH2D4-tzfM

Fortunately there's a very cool paper made on the subject, in case you haven't read it -
Are You Living in a Simulation?

You could simulate the entire universe on a Commodore 64. You would just be simulating the entire universe very slowly.

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Originally Posted by Marvo

You could simulate the entire universe on a Commodore 64. You would just be simulating the entire universe very slowly.

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As I always suspected, the C64 *is* the ultimate computing machine!

Also, don't forget that the universe contains the C64 simulating the universe which contains a C64 simulating the universe which contains...

Hey Ginsan!

Watched the movie The 13th Floor ever??

Soo good and very this thread

There is a simulated universe inside my head. You are all there.

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Originally Posted by sivason

There is a simulated universe inside my head. You are all there.

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But is every atom simulated in there?
If we held you in a room, connect your brain to a thingy and use your full brain capacity and power to simulate an isolated environment, would the outcome in 5 years for example be accurate?
It can't in our brains bcz we perceive what's going on but don't perceive everything around us(physical laws, molecules). Our brain works on very little data, not enough to simulate, but just to perceive and make simple predictions.
Truth is, every molecule is a factor in our universe.

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Originally Posted by LouaiB

But is every atom simulated in there?
If we held you in a room, connect your brain to a thingy and use your full brain capacity and power to simulate an isolated environment, would the outcome in 5 years for example be accurate?
It can't in our brains bcz we perceive what's going on but don't perceive everything around us(physical laws, molecules). Our brain works on very little data, not enough to simulate, but just to perceive and make simple predictions.
Truth is, every molecule is a factor in our universe.

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You make an assumption that all of those molecules are actually real. I make no such assumptions.

You can't simulate the universe in complete detail in real time from within said universe. This is a basic principle of reality and computer science. You can possibly do it slower than real time, but that might still take infinite memory, which the universe (at least, the observable universe) doesn't have. There are only something like 10^80 particles in the observable universe, which is a lot, but far less than infinity.

Of course, if you reduce certain parts of reality to abstractions and never simulate them in full detail until they're actually needed, then it is totally possible. So, for example, the sun only needs to produce gravity and light and evidence of nuclear fusion going on in its core. Unless we somehow actually travel into the core, the universe doesn't need to simulate the actual particle interactions. And even then, it would only simulate the particles nearby. This makes one think about all sorts of odd things in physics that might indicate a simulated universe, like the speed of light. If the "simulator" knows that you can't ever exceed the speed of light, then it knows which parts of the universe don't need to be simulated in full detail at any given time, and so on. Same goes for quantum mechanics: it behaves differently when you're looking at it.

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Originally Posted by cmind

Of course, if you reduce certain parts of reality to abstractions and never simulate them in full detail until they're actually needed, then it is totally possible. So, for example, the sun only needs to produce gravity and light and evidence of nuclear fusion going on in its core. Unless we somehow actually travel into the core, the universe doesn't need to simulate the actual particle interactions. And even then, it would only simulate the particles nearby. This makes one think about all sorts of odd things in physics that might indicate a simulated universe, like the speed of light. If the "simulator" knows that you can't ever exceed the speed of light, then it knows which parts of the universe don't need to be simulated in full detail at any given time, and so on. Same goes for quantum mechanics: it behaves differently when you're looking at it.

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This is where I really start having to wonder about things, because for all that can be said, we are really just experiencing the limits of our perception of reality. Eventually despite the tools and technology we can come up with, there is going to be an end to what we can actually be able to tell directly about anything. Even if we can tell things like dark matter exist indirectly by observations of the effects of its existence (just as an example), eventually even what we can discover this way will likely become harder and harder without conceivably changing significantlyhow humans experience reality.

Similar to how many people have strikingly similar psychedelic and near death experiences. Is it really because that is the true nature of reality, or is it simply something we all experience more or less the same because we are all running on virtually the same hardware? The answer may not be the same when you pose the question in various circumstances, but I definitely believe that NDEs and psychedelic experiences on more powerful chemicals like DMT and DPT are more or less a result of all simply being human.

It is possible that we are in a simulation right now, and that our perception of free will and choice is simply programed into that simulation. This will remain a possibility until it is proven impossible. Some info about the simulation hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

The key point is what the purpose of the simulation is. If it's essential to convince the entities in it, that it's not a simulation, the one major consideration would be 'what can the entities observe or prove in theory'. In the context of humans, it would mean that the very far away objects, like those outside our solar system, could be represented by very few attribute like gravity and emissions of various kinds. There would be absolutly no reason to simulate an environment of any kind - just some properties of the effect of one.

Taken even further one could imagine a super dynamic simulation that only simulates elements that could be observed in some fashion. That is jump to the result at the time of observation rather than simulate all the processes that would have made it. In the extreme the world as we know it, could have been a day old and all physical objects and memories are only emulated to be the result of a longer millions/billions of years process. Like a 3rd person shooter just booting up :)

Okay, that got pretty extreme, but the point I'm trying to make is that without knowledge of the purpose of a simulation, we can't say if it's possible or not to make one (or more to the point, it would seem asburd to simulate trillions of grains of sand f.ex on a world a billion light years away, if the purpose is to make humans on earth believe in the reality in a specific way ie. scope of the simulation is directly related to the purpose of it).

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Originally Posted by snoop

Similar to how many people have strikingly similar psychedelic and near death experiences. Is it really because that is the true nature of reality, or is it simply something we all experience more or less the same because we are all running on virtually the same hardware? The answer may not be the same when you pose the question in various circumstances, but I definitely believe that NDEs and psychedelic experiences on more powerful chemicals like DMT and DPT are more or less a result of all simply being human.

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Well, in the case of psychedelics, it's the hardware. Most of the stuff people experience has been explained pretty well by science. Things like form constants, activation feedback loops, and so on. This article does a good (though dense) explanation of a lot of it:

Selective 5-HT2A agonist hallucinogens: A review of pharmacological interaction and corollary perceptual effects

But I still consider these experiences to be spiritual, despite their completely natural origins. I say "spiritual" in the sense that someone like Sam Harris uses the word, not the religious version. In my view, religion is actually a cheap copy of natural spirituality, but I'm rambling now...

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Originally Posted by cmind

Well, in the case of psychedelics, it's the hardware. Most of the stuff people experience has been explained pretty well by science. Things like form constants, activation feedback loops, and so on. This article does a good (though dense) explanation of a lot of it:

Selective 5-HT2A agonist hallucinogens: A review of pharmacological interaction and corollary perceptual effects

But I still consider these experiences to be spiritual, despite their completely natural origins. I say "spiritual" in the sense that someone like Sam Harris uses the word, not the religious version. In my view, religion is actually a cheap copy of natural spirituality, but I'm rambling now...

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I remember you posting that same page a long time ago, I don't know if I liked your post then, but I guess I will now.

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Originally Posted by VinceField

It is possible that we are in a simulation right now, and that our perception of free will and choice is simply programed into that simulation. This will remain a possibility until it is proven impossible.

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I liken theories like this to religious claims for God's existence. It is interesting to think about, but it isn't scientifically viable as a valid explanation of anything because it isn't falsifiable. Arguing that it is true or isn't true is a waste of time in my eyes, but coming up with the theories themselves and expounding upon them isn't. What I mean here is that it is a great creative exercise and can even lead to other discoveries, not to mention promotes thoughts on the subject of reality in general. However, to go beyond merely speculating what is clearly and can only be speculation and claim that it is factual is a waste of time.

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Originally Posted by snoop

However, to go beyond merely speculating what is clearly and can only be speculation and claim that it is factual is a waste of time.

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Did someone do this, or is this just a random thought?

The most useful part comes from what the possibility implies. If (it is :shadewink: ) all simulated, then more things can be reality then otherwise. Think of science, Star Trek envisioned cell phones,, that would exist 400 years in the future. They pictured cheap ship to shore flip phones. In no time devices were made that put that to shame. Devices will be made to shame the ones we have now. I feels like man could dream up and eventually create anything. In this philosophy, it does not need to relie on what is now, what is science and what is real. The rules can shift based on the need of the stimulation. Maybe what the scientist needs is one of those "rare earth metals?" The program may invent a principle of this rare thing that will lead to new techs.

My point is that if the world is less real than we assume, we have no reason to doubt what could happen. Could a family of ducks walk across a crowded freeway and live? Sure! Could I someday win the lotto? There is a chance. Could you someday discover the workings of human energy and enter a whole new way of experiencing life? Well????? If it is a simulation, you sure as hell can. Realizing that it is now likely even is the first step to being open to it.

This thread is very intersting stuff :alien: sorry i dont have much to contribute exept that just now its great convo to follow and ponder :parapet: Thanks!

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Originally Posted by VinceField

Did someone do this, or is this just a random thought?

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Random thought--or a related thought, but not directed at anybody.

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Originally Posted by snoop

I remember you posting that same page a long time ago, I don't know if I liked your post then, but I guess I will now.

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I think I got it from someone else posting it on this forum ages ago, and I bookmarked it because it's so interesting.