my thought exactly. There's no way processor speed can continue at its current pace to that point. It would have to be nearly infinately fast to simulate all the 10000000000000000000000000000000000's of atoms i can see right now, and even put an electron microscope up to and see formations of. There's just too much to simulate, that is, of course judging that this person is saying that WE will be able to do it eventually. I don't doubt that it's possible that processors are a lot faster beyond the matri
Well, you see, the funny thing is that you don't need to simulate the atoms at all. All that you need to simulate visually is the smallest object a person can resolve with his unadied eyes. Everything else is simply mapped on top of that.
For touch, you just simulate the smallest texture difference that a human can feel. For sound, all you need to do is simulate the sounds that a human can hear.
All of these would need to have a certain safely margin to account for people whose senses are better than oth
Incorrect. For a more primitive being, perhaps animals at the zoo, such an environment would suffice. However, if you are creating a virtual world where the smallest resolution is only a few microns, you will inevitably run into problems when the intelligent beings of that world attempt to use science to learn. If our world were virtual, and had no detail below 10 microns, or a tenth of one, or a thousandth, scientists with knowledge of what should be, would notice. Experiments could be devised using
Incorrect. All that needs to be simulated is what you actually perceive. In modern games, the engine calculates what can and can't be seen and doesn't draw the things that can't be seen. A simulation would use a much more sophisticated version of that algorithm. If you're looking through a microscope, microbes are individual simulated. If you aren't looking through the microscope, then they aren't simulated, or are simulated in the aggregate to calculate gross effects that might be perceivable (such as tainted meat causing food poisoning.)
Remember, the simulation has to know exactly what you're doing and what you're perceiving in order to feed the information to your brain. If you turn your head, that isn't a physical motion. The simulation detects the impulses that indicate you desire to turn your head, and adjusts your visual and physical feeds to simulate that motion. So it's certainly capable of determining that you are peering through a microscope and adjusting the level of detail accordingly. How detailed is the simulation? Precisely as detailed as it needs to be, but no more.
One interesting result of this is that observation would affect the behavior of the universe. Also, changes in the environment, such as the presence of a second slit in a screen, might alter the algorithm used to calculate the behavior of, oh, I don't know, maybe photons.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday June 01, 2003 @08:12AM (#6089288)
Cause and effect transcend observation. The only reliable way of simulating a world with certain basic rules is to simulate these rules all along, not simplifying them when no one looks. Simplifying the calculations removes information about the state of the simulation. That is most likely going to be detected at some point, and then the rules you want the inhabitants of your simulation to perceive would be invalidated. If you don't simulate all quarks, then the inhabitants will sooner or later realize (sic!) that quarks are not what you want them to be.
Well, it should be modded up, but it's not actually important. Humans will invent cause and effect, even if it doesn't exist. This thread is mostly about humans inability to see outside, and why that negates 'problems' like these.
The scientists are going to try to deduce what-caused-what even if the only actual 'cause' is some Matrix-generating heuristic that doesn't actually always tie to a simple law or rule. It could even be tied totally to something outside the 'Matrix'. For instance, if every other Tu
Certainly, simplifying the calculation removes information about the state of the simulation. So what? We don't have access to any more information than the simulation does; therefore we have no way to prove that the simulation's calculations are incorrect.
Your argument essentially boils down to the claim that we would be able to run our own simulation (either a computerized simulation or a pen-and-paper calculation), and compare the results of it to "reality." However, calculating the future state of a
But.... It doesn't matter if a simulation is only simulating things that are x small and y big. When we actually know that we are seeing x and y, we will think that they are the biggest and smallest things in existence.
We wouldn't be able to derive that we are actually within a simulation. We might also prove that our world can be digitally represented, but that does not infer that this is in fact a computer simulation.
As for trying to go beyond the limits of space, the number of atoms that need to b
The idea that a simulation would only need to compute what we observe seems quite wrong.. the simulation would only need to display what we observe, but it would need an internally consistent set of rules, an internal physics if you will, to govern the whole affair. Cause and effect require prediction. It is not enought to sipmly make up a more detailed image/information set on the fly every time someone looks through a telescope or microscope. The person looking through the device will have expectations as
One interesting result of this is that observation would affect the behavior of the universe. Also, changes in the environment, such as the presence of a second slit in a screen, might alter the algorithm used to calculate the behavior of, oh, I don't know, maybe photons.
Only if the simulation is poorly written, which we can't assume. It is not conceptually difficult to imagine that the "zoomed in" parts of reality exactly match the approximation to a fine enough level of detail that we can not tell the d
But in order to assure that observation does not modify the outcome of the simulation, they would need to simulate everything we could ever possibly observe, just so that they could know the exact outcome.
Due to my poor understanding of quantum mechanics, I submit a counterargument to myself: The simulators picked an arbitrary resolution, and decided that if we observed quantum events or anything on that scale or smaller, we *would* change the outcome. That's why observation changes the double slit experim
Don't even need to bring in QM... observe the simple, high-school level formulation of the gas laws, which with only a few more twists works on a wide variety of real gases, and adequately describes the macroscopic behavior of gas with only a few equations, yet this gas consists of trillions of molecules.
Also compare "lazy evaluation" in computer science; if nobodys looking, it doesn't need to be done.
Finally, "observer" is an easy word in QM to get hung up on. "Observer" in QM is any other particle, only
Incorrect. All that needs to be simulated is what you actually perceive. In modern games, the engine calculates what can and can't be seen and doesn't draw the things that can't be seen. A simulation would use a much more sophisticated version of that algorithm. If you're looking through a microscope, microbes are individual simulated. If you aren't looking through the microscope, then they aren't simulated, or are simulated in the aggregate to calculate gross effects that might be perceivable (such as ta
Wrong. A simulation that would be able to fool us must simulate the whole ball of wax. A game engine, to maintain consistency and continuity so that the players do not notice problems, must continue to simulate even what is not currently being viewed.
So it's certainly capable of determining that you are peering through a microscope and adjusting the level of detail accordingly. How detailed is the simulation? Precisely as detailed as it needs to be, but no more.
That reminded me of lossy compression algorithms used for music and video (eg. MP3, MPEG). The ears and eyes can only detect so many sounds and colours. We are able to manipulate more sounds and colours, but we can't actually ear or see them.
Perhaps we only think there is infinite detail, wh
But if all particles are not being continually simulated, the effects will be apparant if the virtual scientists try to, for instance, measure the effect of gravity. For instance, if for the sake of saving processor power by omitting a vast amount of unseen matter, the simulation were to ignore and leave out every bit of matter say, 50 meters below and deeper than sea level, this would be very noticeable. Shock waves from earthquakes, for instance, would not transmit correctly unless the simulation were p
In that case the simulation would be for the benefit of the simulator, not one (or all) of the minds in the simulation, so each of us would vanish the moment his or her attention was diverted. That we are all always on all the time suggests we are not simulations.
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
and this my friends is why (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:5, Insightful)
For touch, you just simulate the smallest texture difference that a human can feel. For sound, all you need to do is simulate the sounds that a human can hear.
All of these would need to have a certain safely margin to account for people whose senses are better than oth
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, the simulation has to know exactly what you're doing and what you're perceiving in order to feed the information to your brain. If you turn your head, that isn't a physical motion. The simulation detects the impulses that indicate you desire to turn your head, and adjusts your visual and physical feeds to simulate that motion. So it's certainly capable of determining that you are peering through a microscope and adjusting the level of detail accordingly. How detailed is the simulation? Precisely as detailed as it needs to be, but no more.
One interesting result of this is that observation would affect the behavior of the universe. Also, changes in the environment, such as the presence of a second slit in a screen, might alter the algorithm used to calculate the behavior of, oh, I don't know, maybe photons.
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:2)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:3, Insightful)
The scientists are going to try to deduce what-caused-what even if the only actual 'cause' is some Matrix-generating heuristic that doesn't actually always tie to a simple law or rule. It could even be tied totally to something outside the 'Matrix'. For instance, if every other Tu
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:3, Interesting)
Your argument essentially boils down to the claim that we would be able to run our own simulation (either a computerized simulation or a pen-and-paper calculation), and compare the results of it to "reality." However, calculating the future state of a
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:1)
We wouldn't be able to derive that we are actually within a simulation. We might also prove that our world can be digitally represented, but that does not infer that this is in fact a computer simulation.
As for trying to go beyond the limits of space, the number of atoms that need to b
Exactly my thoughts (Score:2)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if the simulation is poorly written, which we can't assume. It is not conceptually difficult to imagine that the "zoomed in" parts of reality exactly match the approximation to a fine enough level of detail that we can not tell the d
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:2)
Due to my poor understanding of quantum mechanics, I submit a counterargument to myself: The simulators picked an arbitrary resolution, and decided that if we observed quantum events or anything on that scale or smaller, we *would* change the outcome. That's why observation changes the double slit experim
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:2)
Also compare "lazy evaluation" in computer science; if nobodys looking, it doesn't need to be done.
Finally, "observer" is an easy word in QM to get hung up on. "Observer" in QM is any other particle, only
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:3, Funny)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:1)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:1, Funny)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:1)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:2)
That reminded me of lossy compression algorithms used for music and video (eg. MP3, MPEG). The ears and eyes can only detect so many sounds and colours. We are able to manipulate more sounds and colours, but we can't actually ear or see them.
Perhaps we only think there is infinite detail, wh
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:1)
Re:and this my friends is why (Score:1)