Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation

LateX'Dog

LateX'Dog

LateX'Dog

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Physicists have devised a new experiment to test if the universe is a computer.

A philosophical thought experiment has long held that it is more likely than not that we're living inside a machine.

The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened.

And if it has? Well, then the statistical likelihood is that we're located somewhere in that chain of simulations within simulations. The alternative - that we're the first civilisation, in the first universe - is virtually (no pun intended) absurd.

And it's not just theory. We previously reported that researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany had found evidence the Matrix was less than fiction. That story was by far our most popular of the year - indicating it's something about which you lot have wondered too.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...niversity-of-washington-matrix_n_2282745.html

So if true, who built the computer we are simulated on?
 
Is it me... or is:

"The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened."

So painfully contradictory?
 
Surely this begs the question, though, of why any sufficiently advanced species would want to run a simulation of a universe?
 
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LewisStuart said:
nice uptime
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:p



Its a pretty crazy theory, the tests they propose won't tell us if we are living in a computer, just tell us if or not its possible and if it could be used as an explanation of the apparent discretisation of the low energy universe, and the apparent limits on the high energy...


Reminds me of this:

Watch it all, but it gets relevant at 14mins or so
 
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The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened.
Click to expand...

And if it has? Well, then the statistical likelihood is that we're located somewhere in that chain of simulations within simulations. The alternative - that we're the first civilisation, in the first universe - is virtually (no pun intended) absurd.
Click to expand...

Whoever wrote that piece is an idiot.
 
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