Simulations/matrix and the speed of light

[excreationist]

Premise: Anything is possible
Therefore: Anything is possible

Brilliant!

I think I can't prove the existence of an intervening intelligent force to a skeptic but I think there is a lot of good evidence that we could be in a simulation - such as how quantum physics handles observers, the "conservation of information", the apparent quantisation of space and time, the low speed of light, etc.

BTW I was under the impression that physics would still work if there was no cosmic speed limit... that's what Newton might have thought.

For everyone:

What would happen if there was no cosmic speed limit?

 

[fromderinside]

What would happen if there was no cosmic speed limit?

There would have to be another unifying limitation or everything would have fallen apart by now, or, or, we just have it all wrong.

 

[skepticalbip]

For everyone:

What would happen if there was no cosmic speed limit?

Uncle Al's theory of relativity would be nonsense.

 

[excreationist]

What would happen if there was no cosmic speed limit?

There would have to be another unifying limitation or everything would have fallen apart by now, or, or, we just have it all wrong.

If there was no cosmic speed limit, I think the speed you'd get to in a finite universe would also be finite... how would that make everything fall apart?

 

[excreationist]

For everyone:

What would happen if there was no cosmic speed limit?

Uncle Al's theory of relativity would be nonsense.

Yeah I'm talking about a different universe. In it quantum physics could still be true (if that is required to explain atoms, etc).... just no cosmic speed limit.....

 

[Jokodo]

So I already knew that it takes 8.3 minutes for light from the sun to reach us... but I found out that it takes 1.3 seconds for light from the moon and 0.13 seconds to orbit the earth (7.5 orbits per second) and 5.5 hours for light to reach pluto from the sun!
https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q89.html

That low speed would help in having less CPU usage in a simulation.

You know what would also help in having less CPU usage in a simulation? Skipping stars.

Yet there are 100s of billions in this galaxy alone.

 

[excreationist]

So I already knew that it takes 8.3 minutes for light from the sun to reach us... but I found out that it takes 1.3 seconds for light from the moon and 0.13 seconds to orbit the earth (7.5 orbits per second) and 5.5 hours for light to reach pluto from the sun!
https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q89.html

That low speed would help in having less CPU usage in a simulation.

You know what would also help in having less CPU usage in a simulation? Skipping stars.

Yet there are 100s of billions in this galaxy alone.

You don't understand how video games work.... "No Man's Sky" has 18 quintillion procedurally-generated planets yet it can run on an ordinary console. You don't need to constantly simulate every single particle in the universe... it is called "level of detail".

There is also "machine learning" in games... the most impressive example is Flight Simulator 2020

Stars have fascinated lots of people... they don't need to be simulated on a quantum level... they are far less CPU intensive than if the universe was filled with alien life.... (even though the same number of particles would be involved)

 

[bilby]

Premise: Anything is possible
Therefore: Anything is possible

Brilliant!

I think I can't prove the existence of an intervening intelligent force to a skeptic but I think there is a lot of good evidence that we could be in a simulation - such as how quantum physics handles observers, the "conservation of information", the apparent quantisation of space and time, the low speed of light, etc.

BTW I was under the impression that physics would still work if there was no cosmic speed limit... that's what Newton might have thought.

For everyone:

What would happen if there was no cosmic speed limit?

Then there would be absolute time - every clock would move at the same rate, regardless of how they accelerated.

This is how people (including Newton, who was no dunce) intuitively think the universe is. But that's not how it is. The idea of simultaneity is meaningless as soon as you consider acceleration. The Apollo astronauts have experienced about 0.25 seconds less time than anybody else. That's a non-trivial amount, though not enough to be really obvious.

The so called 'twin paradox' isn't a paradox at all - it's an inevitable consequence of the existence of a cosmic speed limit, and only seems paradoxical because humans are prone to assuming that infinite speed of transmission of information is a meaningful idea - but it isn't.

Heaps of science fiction falls down on this point. People in sci-fi travel faster than light, and people in sci-fi travel in time, but rarely is it made clear that these are synonymous feats, and often it's explicitly shown that they are dissimilar. The crew of the Enterprise are shown as routinely travelling at speeds far in excess of c; and yet are also shown as only travelling back in time under abnormal and infrequent circumstances. But you can't have one, without the other.

In short, the answer to your question is that without a cosmic speed limit, time as we know it, and causality, would be impossible. A limit is (at least according to Einstein, and I am happy to concede that he's both smarter and more knowledgeable than I in this area) a prerequisite for causes always preceding their effects, rather than effects preceding their causes.

 

[excreationist]

....In short, the answer to your question is that without a cosmic speed limit, time as we know it, and causality, would be impossible. A limit is (at least according to Einstein, and I am happy to concede that he's both smarter and more knowledgeable than I in this area) a prerequisite for causes always preceding their effects, rather than effects preceding their causes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality
"Closed timelike curves, in which the world line of an object returns to its origin, arise from some exact solutions to the Einstein field equation....implying a theoretical possibility of retrocausality"

Doesn't retrocausality conflict with "...causes always preceding their effects..."?

BTW normal simulations always require causes to precede their effects.

...The idea of simultaneity is meaningless as soon as you consider acceleration...

I don't understand how acceleration stops simultaneity in a universe without a cosmic speed limit...

BTW Einstein apparently rejected "spooky action at a distance" yet that is easy to do in a computer simulation (since there isn't real distance).

 

[atrib]

So I already knew that it takes 8.3 minutes for light from the sun to reach us... but I found out that it takes 1.3 seconds for light from the moon and 0.13 seconds to orbit the earth (7.5 orbits per second) and 5.5 hours for light to reach pluto from the sun!
https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q89.html

That low speed would help in having less CPU usage in a simulation.

We have no reason to believe that the universe we observe is coarse grained in distant areas - that is, to claim that a distant galaxy is really 4 pixels wide in a deep field photograph rather than a collection of 300 billion star systems. We have sent probes out to distant planets and their moons, and there is no evidence of coarse graining at any level to minimize cpu flops.

Second, if the universe is a simulation, why couldn't the simulation be an actual physical model made of matter/energy, all interacting using the laws of physics, instead of a prediction made using binary bits in a computer?

Third, sentience is always based on complex neural networks. Does that mean that each sentient character is based on a physical neural network plugged into the simulation similar to the Matrix concept?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So I already knew that it takes 8.3 minutes for light from the sun to reach us... but I found out that it takes 1.3 seconds for light from the moon and 0.13 seconds to orbit the earth (7.5 orbits per second) and 5.5 hours for light to reach pluto from the sun!
https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q89.html

That low speed would help in having less CPU usage in a simulation.

We have no reason to believe that the universe we observe is coarse grained in distant areas - that is, to claim that a distant galaxy is really 4 pixels wide in a deep field photograph rather than a collection of 300 billion star systems. We have sent probes out to distant planets and their moons, and there is no evidence of coarse graining at any level to minimize cpu flops.

Second, if the universe is a simulation, why couldn't the simulation be an actual physical model made of matter/energy, all interacting using the laws of physics, instead of a prediction made using binary bits in a computer?

Third, sentience is always based on complex neural networks. Does that mean that each sentient character is based on a physical neural network plugged into the simulation similar to the Matrix concept?

Denoting the wobble of stars due to the pull of large planets in orbit or light dropping when a planet passes in front of its star would really put a damper in the resolution argument. And as telescopes get better and better, that also tosses resolution out.

All things being possible, this could be a simulation, but if I was to argue simulation, I'd look at the argument at the subatomic level. Ultimately, if all things are possible, and this can be a simulation, it would seem impossible to tell the difference between a perfect simulation and whatever the heck we are in. So the observation provides us no viable conclusions.

 

[excreationist]

....We have no reason to believe that the universe we observe is coarse grained in distant areas - that is, to claim that a distant galaxy is really 4 pixels wide in a deep field photograph rather than a collection of 300 billion star systems.

I didn't say the simulation would be the same as a game like No Man's Sky. I am talking about simulations that are "indistinguishable from reality". (quote and video of Elon Musk) He's saying that it would happen eventually even if it takes 10,000 years.

We have sent probes out to distant planets and their moons, and there is no evidence of coarse graining at any level to minimize cpu flops.

That would involve observers so then the objects' "level of detail" would increase.

Second, if the universe is a simulation,

Elon Musk and I are saying it is a video game.

why couldn't the simulation be an actual physical model made of matter/energy, all interacting using the laws of physics, instead of a prediction made using binary bits in a computer?

Because the point of the video game is just to be indistinguishable from reality (using "level of detail") as efficiently as possible. So then each video game wouldn't simulate every particle of the universe for billions of years.

Third, sentience is always based on complex neural networks.

And machine learning (like in Flight Simulator 2020) is also based on neural networks I think.

Does that mean that each sentient character is based on a physical neural network plugged into the simulation similar to the Matrix concept?

No the neural networks could be simulated within the game. They are called "artificial neural networks" (have you seriously not heard of them?). That way they could run at any clock speed...

 

[excreationist]

Denoting the wobble of stars due to the pull of large planets in orbit or light dropping when a planet passes in front of its star would really put a damper in the resolution argument. And as telescopes get better and better, that also tosses resolution out.

My point is all of the particles in the universe don't need to be constantly simulated. Perhaps sometimes every particle in some stars need to be explicitly simulated... but not for every star.

All things being possible, this could be a simulation, but if I was to argue simulation, I'd look at the argument at the subatomic level. Ultimately, if all things are possible, and this can be a simulation, it would seem impossible to tell the difference between a perfect simulation and whatever the heck we are in. So the observation provides us no viable conclusions.

Yes Elon Musk is talking about simulations that are "indistinguishable from reality" - from the point of view of observers that have a limited awareness (not being explicitly aware of every particle in the universe)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So the particles were all active in the star that would supernova 20,000ish years ago for Kepler, among others, to observe it on Earth in 1604.

 

[excreationist]

So the particles were all active in the star that would supernova 20,000ish years ago for Kepler, among others, to observe it on Earth in 1604.

No I'm talking about an efficient video game using machine learning (which is not widespread yet... except for Flight Simulator 2020) When the game noticed that that star was being observed it would work out what it would have looked like 20,000 years ago. And you wouldn't need to simulate all of those particles. You probably wouldn't need to simulate all of the particles in the sun either - I just brought that up as a worst case scenario.

BTW here is some info about using AI and machine learning to do physics instead of ordinary math....

 

[DBT]

Denoting the wobble of stars due to the pull of large planets in orbit or light dropping when a planet passes in front of its star would really put a damper in the resolution argument. And as telescopes get better and better, that also tosses resolution out.

My point is all of the particles in the universe don't need to be constantly simulated. Perhaps sometimes every particle in some stars need to be explicitly simulated... but not for every star.

All things being possible, this could be a simulation, but if I was to argue simulation, I'd look at the argument at the subatomic level. Ultimately, if all things are possible, and this can be a simulation, it would seem impossible to tell the difference between a perfect simulation and whatever the heck we are in. So the observation provides us no viable conclusions.

Yes Elon Musk is talking about simulations that are "indistinguishable from reality" - from the point of view of observers that have a limited awareness (not being explicitly aware of every particle in the universe)

If a simulation, the simulation is our reality. And unless we are allowed by the 'programmers,' we have no means with which to access another reality.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

My point is all of the particles in the universe don't need to be constantly simulated. Perhaps sometimes every particle in some stars need to be explicitly simulated... but not for every star.


Yes Elon Musk is talking about simulations that are "indistinguishable from reality" - from the point of view of observers that have a limited awareness (not being explicitly aware of every particle in the universe)

If a simulation, the simulation is our reality. And unless we are allowed by the 'programmers,' we have no means with which to access another reality.

It is a recognition of complete uselessness. And sure the heck seems unfalsifiable.

 

[excreationist]

It is a recognition of complete uselessness.

Well the concept of a game "indistinguishable from reality" gives the games industry a goal to pursue...

And sure the heck seems unfalsifiable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
In the Elon Musk Wiki page, which is "protected" until June 2021, there is a sentence that they won't remove:

Harvard physicist Lisa Randall disputes this and has argued the probability of us living in a simulation is "effectively zero"

It is from a FOXBusiness opinion article:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/the-chances-that-life-is-really-a-computer-simulation

The author ends the article saying "At least someone has her head on straight". So that physicist isn't very open to the possibility of a simulation....

 

[excreationist]

....And sure the heck seems unfalsifiable.

This is the start of a webpage I'm making in the "Scientific Proof?" section: (work in progress....)

It is possible that we are in simulation that is indistinguishable from reality. Since this theory can't be disproven it could be considered to be "pseudoscience".

If we are in a simulation there could be interactions with external intelligent forces such as its creator/s. They could noticeably interact with the simulation without significantly breaking immersion by ensuring that skeptics can explain away these interactions as coincidence, hallucinations, delusion, or fraud.

(fraud is a new addition to the list... it is relevant to supernatural phenomena where fraud like magic tricks can be involved)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/

Princeton University historian of science Michael D. Gordin adds in his forthcoming book The Pseudoscience Wars (University of Chicago Press, 2012), “No one in the history of the world has ever self-identified as a pseudoscientist. There is no person who wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself, ‘I’ll just head into my pseudolaboratory and perform some pseudoexperiments to try to confirm my pseudotheories with pseudofacts.’”

But I'm saying my ideas could be "pseudoscience"....

 

[excreationist]

In our civilization the cosmic speed limit would just be a bit of a nuisance with long-distance communication but in the future this problem would be more dramatic... a von Neumann probe could colonize the entire Milky Way in 500,000 years...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft

but to send a message from one end of the galaxy to the other it would take 50,000 years... maybe one of the reasons for the slow speed of light is to prevent the very CPU intensive scenario of instant communication throughout the entire universe...