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OKIsItJustMe

(20,249 posts)
21. No... to simulate what we perceive as reality, you need a computer more complex than reality
Sun Oct 29, 2023, 09:16 PM
Oct 2023

Last edited Sun Oct 29, 2023, 10:59 PM - Edit history (1)

You also need room for it. That’s why I mentioned Feynman Quantum Computers. He wrote a seminal paper, Simulating Physics with Computers

The first branch, one you might call a side-remark, is, Can you do it with a new kind of computer--a quantum computer? (I’ll come back to the other branch in a moment.) Now it turns out, as far as I can tell, that you can simulate this with a quantum system, with quantum computer elements. It's not a Turing machine, but a machine of a different kind. If we disregard the continuity of space and make it discrete, and so on, as an approximation (the same way as we allowed ourselves in the classical case), it does seem to be true that all the various field theories have the same kind of behavior, and can be simulated in every way, apparently, with little latticeworks of spins and other things. It's been noted time and time again that the phenomena of field theory (if the world is made in a discrete lattice) are well imitated by many phenomena in solid state theory (which is simply the analysis of a latticework of crystal atoms, and in the case of the kind of solid state I mean each atom is just a point which has numbers associated with it, with quantum-mechanical rules). For example, the spin waves in a spin lattice imitating Bose particles in the field theory. I therefore believe it's true that with a suitable class of quantum machines you could imitate any quantum system, including the physical world. But I don't know whether the general theory of this intersimulation of quantum systems has ever been worked out, and so I present that as another interesting problem: to work out the classes of different kinds of quantum mechanical systems which are really intersimulatable--which are equivalent--as has been done in the case of classical computers. It has been found that there is a kind of universal computer that can do anything, and it doesn't make much difference specifically how it's designed. The same way we should try to find out what kinds of quantum mechanical systems are mutually intersimulatable, and try to find a specific class, or a character of that class which will simulate everything. What, in other words, is the universal quantum simulator? (assuming this discretization of space and time). If you had discrete quantum systems, what other discrete quantum systems are exact imitators of it, and is there a class against which everything can be matched? I believe it's rather simple to answer that question and to find the class, but I just haven't done it.


Now, if you wish to assume that you are the only individual, and that we only need to simulate your personal experience of reality, that would be difficult, but conceivable. But, let’s just call that phenomenology, and forget about the computer simulation.
And I'm convinced that the person running our sim leftieNanner Oct 2023 #1
Who was that 'child' on Star Trek that vexed them all and Spock figured out that he was actually a child? keithbvadu2 Oct 2023 #7
Are you thinking of Trelane, the Squire of Gothos? tclambert Oct 2023 #9
Yes. Trelane. I gave Spock extra credit. Blame it on the vastness of space. keithbvadu2 Oct 2023 #10
Trelane (William Campbell) was great! PSPS Oct 2023 #11
We might conclude... WheelWalker Oct 2023 #2
computer, end program. hear me , end program. AllaN01Bear Oct 2023 #3
Back in the days of BASIC computer language, there was a story / joke that someone had invented a voice commanded com keithbvadu2 Oct 2023 #8
This "theory" has always struck me as BS OKIsItJustMe Oct 2023 #4
Ditto. Because it's BS. enki23 Oct 2023 #12
Actually it seems less plausible OKIsItJustMe Oct 2023 #13
Except biology pulls it off so techology should be able to do it as well in time. cstanleytech Oct 2023 #18
Technology IS distinguishable from magic OKIsItJustMe Oct 2023 #19
I'm not talking about magic I'm simply pointing out the fact that there is physically nothing to prevent cstanleytech Oct 2023 #20
No... to simulate what we perceive as reality, you need a computer more complex than reality OKIsItJustMe Oct 2023 #21
That's according to our current knowledge but new unexpected discoveries can and do happen such cstanleytech Oct 2023 #22
Thank you caraher Nov 2023 #25
My personal theory is that it originated with a couple of stoned sophomore philosophy roommates OKIsItJustMe Nov 2023 #32
on a holo cube on some star ships captains desk. or space people playing marbles . AllaN01Bear Oct 2023 #5
If we are all living in a simulation, I hope the being in charge has a really good battery backup. n/t royable Oct 2023 #6
So the premise is that a conscious being is projecting illusions to conscious beings sanatanadharma Oct 2023 #14
Brahma's dream Ponietz Nov 2023 #29
Mobius-Brahman sanatanadharma Nov 2023 #31
The efforts of religion to supersede science would be amusing except for the fact they result in so much agony. n/t. NNadir Oct 2023 #15
Theories like this are no more outrageous than the various religions of the world. Chainfire Oct 2023 #16
Which is to say, they aren't remotely scientific caraher Nov 2023 #26
If it is then the programmers are assholes. cstanleytech Oct 2023 #17
how do we hack it? nt Javaman Oct 2023 #23
Well I don't even know if these mashed potatoes are real n/t. airplaneman Nov 2023 #24
Everything in our lives happens in the universe that lies between our ears. Chainfire Nov 2023 #27
Correct airplaneman Nov 2023 #34
Ooooo noooo... if we're all inside a simulation, grumpyduck Nov 2023 #28
"The Matrix" Bayard Nov 2023 #30
This subject has come up more than once at science fiction cons. PoindexterOglethorpe Nov 2023 #33
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