Scientists hope to prove we are living inside a simulation

Discussion in 'Intelligence & Machines' started by Magical Realist, Apr 19, 2013.

  1. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    ..I am not certain that there is even 1 thing, in reality, that would ALLOW the possibility of this all being a simulation - just about anything and everything else in existence throws a "bagful of wrenches" into the "at all possible machine"...
     
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  3. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    While of the firm conviction that a material world does exist, you argument at best only shows that any simulation can not be with discrete quantized variables. Analogue computers existed before digital ones did and made many models of many real world events. That is what all simulations are - models of real world events.

    One I liked as an under graduate physics student modeled the trajectory of electrons in a CRT with a rubber drum head. There were wooden slabs the could depress the rubber membrane to represent voltages applied to electrodes, etc. There is still in use, I think, a large (about an acre in size) model of the Chesapeake bay and of course the Navy has the David Taylor model basis that every new ship design must pass thru. Wind tunnels* do the same for air foil designs, etc.

    * The Wright brothers designed their wings and propeller with their wind tunnel models. That is why I admire them - they were the first, I think, to approach the problem of fight in the scientific manor, instead of "cut and try." The fact that they only had a powered glider that never could even regain its launch altitude is not as important - they get credit for the wrong reason, but deserve credit.
     
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  5. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Oh yeah Analog, why the fuck not? What a minute would that not add noise into our universe from this bigger arch-universe? Maybe that is where virtual particles come from

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  7. R1D2 many leagues under the sea. Valued Senior Member

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    Analog my A$$! Were part of a huge complex system we don't understand.
    We may figure out somehow we are in this system doesn't help. We need out of thee system.
    Oh and Billy T I liked the old avatar better.
    The write brothers get all the credit but what about Leo Divinci?
     
  8. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Speaking of bigger (or at least more powerful) arch-universe, I like the idea of many Gods, same as was once the universal belief, each with an area of responsibility - e .g. the rain god, etc. I figure there is a "deus school" for young gods and our universe was a homework assignment for one student god. BTW he/she/it got a grade of F.
    Leo had ideas only, even for a helicopter, but never tried to fly. There is a whole thread on this "who flew first" question so I'll be brief here: For me first flight must demonstrate: (1) take off from level ground with no assistants who pushed remaining on the ground. (2) directional and attitude control in the air. (3) climbing to an altitude where "ground effect" is not important. (4) a landing the pilot can walk away from.

    Except for failing (3) a New Zeelander was first. (He flew into many hedges, but then took off from a river bank, and flew over the river, with strong ground effect, until running out of fuel five or so minutes later.* The wrights in their Kitty Hawk efforts failed (1) & (3) but soon in Ohio, were the very best at all, especially (2), making sharp banking turns that no one else could do. A Brazilian, long time resident of Paris, with very rich father (Coffee exports so large he built is own railroad to the port) was the first to fly. (achieved all four of my requirements) in front of a crow of several hundred people near Paris; however, only he could do (2) in his plane as its relative large canards out front make it inherently very unstable. He had had years of experience flying powered cigar shaped balloons. Two of the three 100 year anniversary replicas crashed first time skilled Brazilian Air force pilots tried to fly them. The third was modified to make the canard rigid and some tail rudder like control added - then it could be flown by pilots with less skill than Santos Dumont had. All the world, except the US (and a few extreme Russian nationalist) recognizes Santos Dumont as the first to fly.

    * He swam away, did not walk away after landing, but we can accept that.
     
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  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    A simulator would only have to simulate reality up to the point of where it is being noticed. If noone is around to notice the movement of water and grains of sand then the simulation can blank out. Sort of like how the holodeck of the Enterprise stopped ITS simulation at the limit of human vision.

    Also, nobody's really observing reality at such a minute particulate level. It would only be sufficient to simulate macro-visible images of water and sand moving much as our own TV does. Much as some of the best CGI in the movie industry already does as well.
     
  10. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps but if next AM when I am first to return to same section of the beach that I was the last to leave from the night before, I would find it very strange that the cigarette but now being wet and moved by a wave, was in the same spot it was last night. etc for thousands of other things that should have changed while no one was looking. How would the simulator know, unless it was controlling my every thought, what I would pay close attention too? I like the simulation ideas I linked to in post 80, as then it is possible that not everything is just parts of an externally controlled, complex machine.

    Also why do humans have special importance to the simulation? Does not the sand need to appear to be following the laws of nature for the sand crab or ant?

    Your POV, the simulation controlling everything, is much like that of Bishop Berkeley's:
    but he only had to do that for one persio's "observations" and thoughts, not a whole simulated universe as you appear to be suggesting.
     
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  11. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have any idea of the computer processing required to produce just a few seconds of the CGI you seem to be referring to?
    The processing power required to maintain a "minimum of perceived reality" for just one individual over the course of a lifetime would be phenomenal.

    When you state : "...nobody's really observing reality at such a minute particulate level." - Would not trying to ascertain if we are indeed, "...living inside a simulation...", require really observing reality, at the very least, at such a minute particulate level?
     
  12. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    For a simulation to cheat by just simulating things well enough for fool our senses, then it would need specials angels/agents invisibly running around making sure all instrumentation behave as if it was seeing a real universe and to erase our memories of the many many bugs that would creep up in our reality as a result of shoty simulation approximators.

    Anyways as I was saying before extreme computing power could be accomplish by computers that operate hypertemporally: that can do iterations by sending the result of the previous iteration back in time to its self and repeat: thus completing an infinite number of calculations per instant of real time. The only problem is some problems are exponentially complex and would require sending more and more data back in time to its self per interaction until it reaches the the data transfer limit of this hyperloop. The solution would be a computer whose components are hypertemporal via connecting many many hyperlooped calculators together to create a nightmarish mainframe that does not exist in normal time, at which point the problem is how to get data back out of the thing into normal time... if we exist in such a simulation there would be no escape.
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    It wouldn't be that difficult to simulate moved things in accord with the laws of the landscape. Change is embedded as part of the program.
     
  14. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    ... Hey anyone want to play Kerbal Space?
     
  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know what that is but if I'm just simulated, the simulator can and will answer for me. (hey perhaps it just did?)
     
  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  17. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    ...the usual response...
     
  18. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Google is your friend
     
  19. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Prior to Moore's Law catching up far enough, CGI involved Render farms that followed a method of Compositing. This basically means that a model run is done, then layers are add for lighting, shadowing/shading etc

    Compositing was the best method as it allow the same render farm to be reused there by reducing the load at any given time. With advances in computer equipment and implimentations of parallel processing etc, it's getting closer to a reality that CGI can be be pre- to post- production in one parse.
     
  20. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Hardly, people watch television and assume they see people on the screen in front of them. They wouldn't take into consideration that the moving image in front of them is a slide show running at 27-30 frames a second (albeit newer iterations might increase the number of frames further) The human mind is very capable of attempting to fill in spaces when necessary, allowing us to become blinded to things that should really be obvious. There are plenty of examples of sensory deception.
     
  21. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Do you play video games? The kind of fuck ups possible for approximated physic and reality are things anyone would notice!
     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  23. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    That is the difference however, we aren't talking about a simulation that is only a facsimile with corners being cut (like for instance polygons being texture to create objects or having gamma applied to increase lighting contrast.)

    The sort of simulation that is currently being contemplated is an absolute uncompressed recreation which in turn brings the topics of redundancy schemas and data retention up.
     

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