The simulated universe theory implies that our universe, with all its galaxies, planets and life forms, is a meticulously programmed computer simulation. In this scenario, the physical laws governing our reality are simply algorithms. The experiences we have are generated by the computational processes of an immensely advanced system.
While inherently speculative, the simulated universe theory has gained attention from scientists and philosophers due to its intriguing implications. The idea has made its mark in popular culture, across movies, TV shows and books—including the 1999 film “The Matrix.”
The earliest records of the concept that reality is an illusion are from ancient Greece. There, the question “What is the nature of our reality?” posed by Plato (427 BC) and others, gave birth to idealism. Idealist ancient thinkers such as Plato considered mind and spirit as the abiding reality. Matter, they argued, was just a manifestation or illusion.
Fast forward to modern times, and idealism has morphed into a new philosophy. This is the idea that both the material world and consciousness are part of a simulated reality. This is simply a modern extension of idealism, driven by recent technological advancements in computing and digital technologies. In both cases, the true nature of reality transcends the physical.
Within the scientific community, the concept of a simulated universe has sparked both fascination and skepticism. Some scientists suggest that if our reality is a simulation, there may be glitches or patterns within the fabric of the universe that betray its simulated nature.
However, the search for such anomalies remains a challenge. Our understanding of the laws of physics is still evolving. Ultimately, we lack a definitive framework to distinguish between simulated and non-simulated reality.
Let’s hope so cause then they could reset :D
i think this is a solution in search if a problem. at no point does anyone try and start from our physics and end up over there in magical simulation land. theres no ‘weve noticed a pattern that can only be explained by simulation’… its all, lets see if we can find evidence for this crazy unobserved, radical notion with no actual reasoning to back it up but wishful philosophical nonsense.
/laymanrant
I thought I’d heard one defense that goes if it’s theoretically possible to simulate an entire universe, which I understand it is, then it’s just statistically waaaaaay more likely that we’re in a simulated universe. There’s only one real one (excepting multiverse stuff), and potentially infinite simulated ones.
I don’t remember where I heard this though, and I am a self-admitted idiot, so it’s extremely possible I’m extremely wrong.
I mean, is there really potential for infinite simulated ones? It doesn’t make sense to be able to simulate a more powerful computer than the one running the simulation, else any computer would be able to have effectively infinite processing power with recursive simulations, so each “layer” of the simulation is logically going to have less processing power available for it than the layer above, probably a lot less. After a certain point, shouldn’t it reach a state where reality as we perceive it is too computationally intense to simulate?
The latest season of Futurama actually illustrated this, that due to time being relative you can just slow down the simulation to reduce the requirement to run at a 1:1 performance ratio with our current environment.
It also describes that someone from flatland wouldn’t be able to tell that they’re missing out on a dimension, or quality, because it’s their only frame of reference.
Definitely not scientific in approach, but it is thought provoking around the possibility of a simulated existence.
I’d be curious to see evidence that it’s possible to simulate an entire universe. Considering a universe is infinite, it would take an infinite amount of memory to store the state of everything in the universe, let alone an infinite amount of compute to calculate steps in the simulation. I guess if you don’t simulate things that aren’t being observed (which I believe there is support for), there’s still a theoretically infinite number of observers.
The way I understand the potential for infinite simulated universes starts with the idea that once a species is cable of doing one, it makes sense to make more of them. If those simulations had their own simulations We also would not be able to tell where we where at the chain from our single point of reference.
Possibly true, but as much as that’s bandied around it’s rarely balanced against the fact that if it’s not possible then there’s a 0% chance of it happening (somewhat obviously). And it’s not like the possibility exists on a continuum where you could say it’s 50/50. It’s either one or the other.
My biggest issue with simulation theory is that original basis seems to be the assumption that whatever universe is simulating our own must follow the same rules as our own. However, that’s not true in the slightest.
We simulate worlds that operate under different rules than our own all the time. While they aren’t anywhere near as complex as our reality, we’re at least able to dream of worlds with magic or faster-than-light travel. In a few hundred (or maybe thousand) years, who knows, we might be able to simulate a reality that follows 90% of our physical laws while also allowing for magic.
For all we know, if our universe is a simulation, it could be a magical simulation of a mundane world, taking place in a scholarly wizard’s guild because they wanted to see what a mundane reality would look like.
In your first paragraph, are you referring to an assumption that the simulators would be running lots of what I think I’ve seen called grandfather simulations?
Kinda. My understanding is that that they aren’t starting with, “this pattern can only be explained by a simulation” but instead, “we haven’t been able to figure out what’s causing this, so let’s try a screwdriver instead of a hammer”.
It’s like the universe is a massive, exquisitely crafted wood table; composed of many intricate, delicate pieces made of different types of wood and held together without a single screw, bolt, nail, peg, or drop of glue. A true work of master craftsmanship held together only with extremely precise wooden joints.
Science is trying to figure out how the table was made. Due to the complexity of the table, there’s no way a single human could learn enough to analyze and study the entire table, so it gets split up. Neurologists get one leg, chemists get another, astrophysics get a corner, and so on. They study their pieces along with a picture showing how their piece fits with the neighboring pieces; and once they think they have a good understanding of it, they make a new one. It’s a really good replica and it’s a near-perfect copy of the original; good enough that no one can tell there’s anything wrong with it based on the picture they were given.
However, when the scientists reconvene with their new pieces, they find they don’t fit together like the original table. Not only that, but there are pieces that just don’t seem to fit or are straight-up missing; they can’t figure out what the purpose, shape or material these pieces are, only that they seem to exist and keep the table together.
Simulation theory, if I understand correctly, basically says, “maybe this wasn’t a table at all; maybe it’s a chair or a desk, and that’s why some pieces don’t fit while others appear to be missing entirely”.
In my recent research, published in AIP Advances, I used information theory to propose a new law of physics, which I call the second law of infodynamics. And importantly, it appears to support the simulated universe theory.
At the heart of the second law of infodynamics is the concept of entropy—a measure of disorder, which always rises over time in an isolated system. When a hot cup of coffee is left on the table, after a while it will achieve equilibrium, having the same temperature with the environment. The entropy of the system is at maximum at this point, and its energy is minimum.
The second law of infodynamics states that the “information entropy” (the average amount of information conveyed by an event), must remain constant or decrease over time—up to a minimum value at equilibrium.
Okay maybe I’m just not smart enough to get this, and I think that’s probably the case, but isn’t this more in the realm of social science? Is information quantifiable in physics? I know you can quantify data, but information?
I’m not doubting it but I’m just… confused. I don’t feel like article really explained what “information” means in this instance. They said “genetic information,” but that’s also not measured by the term information. I just need like a really dumbed down guide for this…
Also this article just feels like an ad for the author’s study :/
“my law…” “my study…”
yeah, i think the author wants a law named after them. the first half of the article is also… junk?
Information is quantifiable in physics. PBS Spacetime has some videos on information theory if you’re interested. A very simple example could be the spin of a particle (say it’s either up or down). That represents one “bit” of information because it only gives you a binary response - the same as in a computer. We don’t have any great models once you get to the size of biology but in theory you can layer it up all the way from the smallest of subatomic particles and “measure” the information of anything.
Interesting. And so what does the author mean by “event” then? Just literally anything happening? Does their “law” track with events happening?
I haven’t read the paper but an event is just any interaction between particles. Just literally anything happening. I wouldn’t be trying to learn much from this write up though and highly suggest looking into some better sources of information.
Since the second law of infodynamics is a cosmological necessity, and appears to apply everywhere in the same way, it could be concluded that this indicates that the entire universe appears to be a simulated construct or a giant computer.
This is such a huge leap to make. It’s nearly equivalent to saying due to the fact that your coffee gets colder over time you can conclude that the entire universe is a simulation.
A super complex universe like ours, if it were a simulation, would require a built-in data optimization and compression in order to reduce the computational power and the data storage requirements to run the simulation.
According to? Presumably if you can simulate an entire universe you have at least orders of magnitude more computational capacity than this universe. But apparently not too much more because you would “require” compression in order to fit all that data?
Just a few things that stood out to me as wtf moments.
EDIT: I forgot the best quote in the page:
We know the universe is expanding without the loss or gain of heat, which requires the total entropy of the universe to be constant.
Not even remotely true. It’s commonly accepted that the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing and it’s got nothing to do with the the universe as a whole being unable to lose or gain heat (from an outside source). Entropy increases because what’s inside, as a whole, is moving towards a state of equilibrium.
What would we do with this information? This debate feels more like philosophy than physics to me.
there may be glitches
There are already so many weird outcomes in physics (quantum uncertainty, quantum entanglement, holographic principle, etc.) that could either be interpreted as pointing to a simulation, or just be an indication of something we don’t fully understand.
What would we do with this information?
This is a very prudent question. Like, if we could somehow prove that we existed in a simulation, that would be an earth-shattering discovery about our origins… but then what?
What would we do? Some people would probably go nuts living with that information and certain philosophies/religions would have to reckon with that, but there isn’t anything we could do differently, and it wouldn’t alter our lived experience in any way, aside from maybe coloring it in a new light.
Not to say that seeking answers for the pursuit of knowledge itself isn’t worthwhile, but… yeah, what would it even matter to most of us outside of academia/philosophy?
That’s kind of where I’m at with the whole idea too. Should we be in such a situation, it just moves all our existing questions about “What is reality and the universe?” up one meta-level to the theoretical actual reality. I doubt we would stop finding out as much as is possible about this layer, but we would be wholly unable apply our findings or assumptions to the true reality.
But even if that true reality remains forever unknowable, it at least sets what I would consider some “sensible” bounds on our universe. As things are now, I’m not sure if I’m more dumbfounded by the idea of an infinite universe or a finite one - both boggle the mind for different reasons.
It does appear to be more of a philosophical issue than a physical one. The beauty of it, as I see it, is that it doesn’t really matter if true or not. Even if true, pain and pleasure will still continue to be ‘real’, so will hunger or addiction, at least as real as we can tell. It won’t lead to any sort of mass detachment from existence or to any ‘there is no spoon’ moment.
I was going to say that finding out it’s a simulation would lead us to try and hack it. But then it dawned upon me that it’s what we’re already doing.
No matter what, business as usual.
So, I was talking about my own thoughts on this, and it can’t be disproved, so it’s not really something I can believe in per se, but I think it’s an interesting idea nonetheless. I’m just gonna paste it here because I’d genuinely like to discuss it.
So like, we agree here that the universe could be a simulation, right? That this could be possible, regardless of whether or not that’s true of our particular universe?
I sorta had this idea on christmas last year but I was thinking…
If it’s possible for a universe like ours to exist; for it to be created and to live out its life, etc.Maybe the idea that mathematics predicts a universe like ours, the stars, the planets, the division of anti-matter and matter, etc., maybe this entire thing is actually just that prediction. Not actually having “come true”, but moreso a figment amongst other figments that the mathematics of reality predict.
To draw an analogue, if an infinitely intelligent, thoughtful, and knowing being had infinite brainpower running at infinite speeds, any time they thought of a universe, a world, a person, they would think with such clarity and depth that the person within it could live an entire life, could have evolved, would have existed in every way that we can perceive. They would have consciousness in any way we can recognize, and themselves wonder about the nature of their universe, and where it came from. But the reality is that it’s just the thought of a being of infinites.
This would be deism, but if even I believe what I said above to be true, I don’t think I need to be a deist.
Because maybe simply the possibility of that happening – the plausible reality of everything existing – is what all it takes.
It’s something that’s churned in my head for a long time, and I really have no reason to believe it; it’s inherently unprovable, and thus isn’t really something I can believe in. But I think it’s an interesting concept.
idk maybe I’ve made some foolish error in the arrogant pursuit of conceptualising all that which I do and don’t understand to be real lol
Basically I postulate that the universe could be in a state of quasi-existence wherein it doesn’t actually need any sort of trigger or anything to exist, because it doesn’t even.
It’s an interesting thought. I don’t pretend to know an infinite beings thought process, but what does thought entail for them? Presumably an infinite being imagining our universe would come up with some universal laws, begin from singularity, and work from there event by event. How does general relativity factor in? Is the being simply doing those calculations too?
Overall, if our universe is is merely a prediction (and importantly, predictable), I just don’t see the practical difference between a perfect being capable of cheap, infinite thought and a merely clever being with a really, really powerful computer. It’s a different medium, but it doesn’t say anything different about our universe as simulation. Whether the perfect being thinks of and builds the universe in their head, or the clever universe-software developer comes up with a framework for a universe and runs it on their super computer, it might as well be the same universe from our perspective if the initial conditions and laws happened to be the same.
And both were triggered by ideas, which surely didn’t come from nowhere, but even if it did it only brings us back to the age-old question: what created the Creator? So it doesn’t really answer the “why” and “what triggered it” questions either.
Yeah, brining up such a being was merely an analogue. The actual idea I’m putting forward is there is no need for a means of “the universe” to begin. If it can, it does, and we’re simply within a figment of possibility and potential.
Why “can” it? What defines what “can” and can’t be? Why exactly should possibility imply reality? Why can’t possibility not necessarily imply reality? Seems to me like a philosophical kick the can down the road thing - which to be fair is pretty much all philosophy.
