Ok, this may sound bizzarre but think about carefully
Are you not surprised by the validity of mathematics to describe so accurately the physical laws of the Universe? How come mathematics can describe so well, say, the flow of a liquid in a channel? What are mathematics? :confused:
Is possible that mathematics is a programming language in some huge computer, and our Universe a mere program? Ir possible that General relativity is only shareware in a colossal computer? What do you say?
How come there are objects like tensors that are used in so dispair theories as General Relativity and Classical Electrodynamics? What are tensors?
No, i don't want the technical description, i can consult it in an encyclopedia. It amazes me that tensors can have a so wide range of use
How come all electrons have exactly the same charge? what's happening here? Was the charge of electrons a variable in some computer program?
Have you ever experienced a virtual reality experience? Amazing no? in the future these experiences must be even more real, thanks to the advances in microprocessors and PCs. Perhaps there will arrive a moment in which will not be possible to tell if you are in real life or playing in your personal virtual machine
My principal question: is the universe we inhabit the result of a computer program?

Years ago I wrote a SF story with that theme;

"and then through the wispy mists of half sleep I suddenly felt a great preasure as if the walls were shaking the words into existance "DESIGN ME A UNIVERSE', and don't make it complicated."

Was kinda how it started :) Ok, so lets design a universe, and lets make it so that it is as simple as possible and make it so that the electron charge is as it is because it couldn't possibly be otherwise.

How would we start ?

Probably posted in the wrong forum ;)

I have a deterministic view on the universe but it does not include vast simulations. It seems unlikely that we are a bunch of Sims.
But ill look for SimEarth 2005 in the computerstore :D

Vern you could join me on one of my AI simulated worlds if you want to :p
Ill make the lifeforms and you make the reallity as similar to what we live in.

sounds like a plan to me :D

Can anyone think of an experiment that would argue for or against such an idea?

Well are we simulated as Intelligent beings or as a deterministic chain of events?

If the latter, then Nope.
If the prior, then perhaps.

the computer itself is a program. a reduction of some aspect of the great computation. watch out for the sentinels they are selling keys on amazon.

That makes it difficult dosen't it? Here's an idea.

Space has been described as "foamy" or "granular" at the Planck scale of things. Imagine spacetime as a four dimensional matrix. Could elementary particles be comprised of "pixels" of spacetime at the Planck scale? Could each particle of a type be a self contained algorithm, performing a fixed set of simple instructions governing interaction? There could be a nearly infinite number of identical copies of particle "subroutines" representing all particles of a given type.

The universe could be both the computer and the program. What is it trying to figure out? Perhaps it's a simulation. Maybe there was a universe in which a god-like being evolved, and it managed to avoid the collapse of that universe. Now, it is running simulations in an attempt to recreate the initial conditions that resulted in it's creation.

Hum,
Well this theory was recently the big talking point amongst cosmologists, but it was only for breaking the ice at the cheese and wine partys…
Laypeople sometimes don’t get the joke.
But come to think of it, neither did Plato, with his cave of shadows (see book VII of Plato's Republic)

That's it. Time for a reboot. Everybody hold on...

blobrana, are you talking about the Simulation argument?
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
It comforts me that some professional scientists share some of my ideas. I feel a bit of a freak proposing that the Universe is a computer program, but i do sincerely think that it is

Yeah,
But, hey,
tnx for that link...

Lots of brain food.
(though i personally don’t believe in it due to the `Heisenberg uncertainty principle`, which basically voids the theory -(<i>but that’s based on what i know</i>... I’ll work through that list of links)

Isn't this kind of an unknowable? Kind of like the whole idea of a two dimensional being living on a flat two dimensional surface not realizing that the universe he/she/it lives in actually three dimensional? If you can't exist outside the program you could never discern the existence of the program.

If the universe is a result of a computer program, what is the computer program a result of? Some beings similar to us, perhaps? But if so, how do we know they aren't the result of a computer program themselves?

What we end up with is an endless chain of computer program results. Similar to religion.

I'm skeptical of the speculation.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857237242/qid=1109322422/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-5809524-8419648

COSM
Amazon.co.uk Review
Alicia Butterworth is a physicist from U.C. Irvine who's trying to recreate the conditions that existed just before the big bang using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider on Long Island. Something goes wrong during one of the collider runs and part of the machine explodes, leaving behind a strange metallic sphere. Butterworth sneaks the object back to Irvine, where she and a colleague determine that what they have on their hands is a window into a miniature universe, or cosm. The cosm is evolving far faster than our own universe, giving Butterworth a ringside seat as the history of creation replays itself. Her theft turns out to be just the start of what, at times, is a boisterous adventure as she becomes ensnared in the intrigue of cloistered academic and scientific circles.

I haven't read this book myself, but my sis says it's not bad, but that there are better ones out there. This just seemed to suit this thread.

Ok, this may sound bizzarre but think about carefully
Are you not surprised by the validity of mathematics to describe so accurately the physical laws of the Universe? How come mathematics can describe so well, say, the flow of a liquid in a channel? What are mathematics? :confused:
Is possible that mathematics is a programming language in some huge computer, and our Universe a mere program? Ir possible that General relativity is only shareware in a colossal computer? What do you say?
How come there are objects like tensors that are used in so dispair theories as General Relativity and Classical Electrodynamics? What are tensors?
No, i don't want the technical description, i can consult it in an encyclopedia. It amazes me that tensors can have a so wide range of use
How come all electrons have exactly the same charge? what's happening here? Was the charge of electrons a variable in some computer program?
Have you ever experienced a virtual reality experience? Amazing no? in the future these experiences must be even more real, thanks to the advances in microprocessors and PCs. Perhaps there will arrive a moment in which will not be possible to tell if you are in real life or playing in your personal virtual machine
My principal question: is the universe we inhabit the result of a computer program?


Well, I'm not sure if this will help, but I do think that it can be argued that the universe is both analog and digital, and that it is like a quantum computer.

That we are a computer simulation is a moot argument. You cannot test it without being outside of it, so it's moot from the start. If it's a completely simulated reality, you will not be able to discern it from the real thing... so there is no case to be made.

A while ago, I tried to emulate the universe on my computer, by putting in ever single possible force into action, having everything from photons, to molecules. From my results, I think that the universe can NOT be created on a computer, because everything is too complex. Even if you wire up every single computer on this planet, to do that, there are simply to many forces, and objects to look after.

1. Our technology is "not there yet".
2. I think you'd need a quantum computer.

1. Our technology is "not there yet".
Well then, when will it be? How sure are you of this?

2. I think you'd need a quantum computer.
It would be great to have a quantum computer. :D But, I seriously doubt that a quantum computer would be more powerful then all the computers in the world, connected together.
Here is the reason that I think why the computers can't simulate the universe:
1. The universe is said to be expanding, or infinite.
2. The universe is said to have reset itself many times before, and each time, lasting much longer.
3. There is said to be an infinite number of universes that somehow correspond with each other, in quantum physics.

No matter how much ram you stuff into a computer, and no matter how small all the circuits are in a microchip, the computer would always have a limitation. If at some point, we create a multi-quantum computer, or something, and try to simulate the universe in some way, in every millisecond, everything in the universe would dramatically slow down, because of all the computation of all the forces applied on all the object, and eventually the computer would run out of memory, because of all the partials infinitely expanding into the artificial space.

The universe is program inside a biological computer which you call my body.

It's interresting that this has been stated in religious scripts, ages ago.

The universe is a creation of the MIND, the universe is IN the mind and the mind fills the entire universe.

Because there are infinite minds there are infinite universes.

Or many subjective perceptions of reality.
---

Anyways chances are Earth is a giant supercomputer and we all are going to be killed by space aliens building a new hyperspace bypass. :m:

Seems to me that we probably designed computer programs to have an architecture like that of the universe we live in, not vice versa. Could be wrong tho, oh no, system crash!!!

Or many partial participations (subjectivities) in a single whole that is an All-Subject.