Is everything a simulation?

[Brickjectivity]

We could still be a partial simulation of a (much) bigger, enclosing reality. In fact, we have to be, as a simulation has to be necessarily less complex than "the real thing".
But given that we do simulations, and that we might one day be able to run a highly sophisticated simulation, when the simulation starts running simulations, it would be a good sign of high fidelity.

It would be dangerous. Look at the very reasonable concerns we already have about runaway AI. Wouldn't a higher realm that could simulate ours have similar worries? I note from the film 13th Floor that this is an idea already explored -- the danger of an attack from a simulated realm.

 

[Heyo]

It would be dangerous. Look at the very reasonable concerns we already have about runaway AI. Wouldn't a higher realm that could simulate ours have similar worries? I note from the film 13th Floor that this is an idea already explored -- the danger of an attack from a simulated realm.

Yes, it could be dangerous. That danger is part of the trilemma, if it is inherently destructive, every civilization attempting to run a sophisticated simulation would end before it can reach its goal.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Yes, it could be dangerous. That danger is part of the trilemma, if it is inherently destructive, every civilization attempting to run a sophisticated simulation would end before it can reach its goal.

I like this line of thought but think that 'Every' is a presumption. Some would. Ours likely would not, because our Physics would restrain us from having capacity to build anything that sophisticated. We, also, don't seem capable of touching an outside or doing it harm. We seem incapable of simulating a true world, and paired to that we are probably too weak to do anything to a parent simulator.

So it seems inconvenient to make a simulation that can imitate one's own reality. It could be dangerous, and it makes more sense to make something which cannot simulate one's own reality. Its like a nadsat only more difficult. This means its less likely that any civilization would make a simulation which could comprehend its simulator.

 

[Heyo]

I like this line of thought but think that 'Every' is a presumption. Some would. Ours likely would not, because our Physics would restrain us from having capacity to build anything that sophisticated.

What in our physics is so restraining?

 

[Brickjectivity]

What in our physics is so restraining?

To simulate an atom the simulation must account for the position, momentum, and interactions of every particle within the atom continuously over time. It requires many of our atoms to simulate one virtual atom. A nearly accurate virtual atom would also be slower than a real atom.

Storage has gotten cheaper, but there is a theoretical (and mathematically determined) outside limit to how much data can be compressed. According to what Computer Scientists accept: Information has a quantity called Shannon Entropy that is a measure of its complexity, and there is a limit to data compression. The most well known theoretical limit to data compression is given by Shannon's Source Coding Theorem. Claude Shannon works all this out mathematically and comes up with a formula for the minimum average number of bits needed to represent a codeword. This is done for bits, but the concept generalizes to all kinds of information.

 

[Heyo]

To simulate an atom the simulation must account for the position, momentum, and interactions of every particle within the atom continuously over time. It requires many of our atoms to simulate one virtual atom. A nearly accurate virtual atom would also be slower than a real atom.

Storage has gotten cheaper, but there is a theoretical (and mathematically determined) outside limit to how much data can be compressed. According to what Computer Scientists accept: Information has a quantity called Shannon Entropy that is a measure of its complexity, and there is a limit to data compression. The most well known theoretical limit to data compression is given by Shannon's Source Coding Theorem. Claude Shannon works all this out mathematically and comes up with a formula for the minimum average number of bits needed to represent a codeword. This is done for bits, but the concept generalizes to all kinds of information.

Yes, that is a limit, but does it prevent us to simulate, say, one galaxy, one solar system, one planet? There are trillions of galaxies in our universe.
And I'm not talking about what we can do today, or in the near future, I'm talking about a theoretical limit.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Yes, that is a limit, but does it prevent us to simulate, say, one galaxy, one solar system, one planet? There are trillions of galaxies in our universe.
And I'm not talking about what we can do today, or in the near future, I'm talking about a theoretical limit.

It depends upon how slow you run that simulation and how accurately it duplicates our reality. The smallest unit of time is Planck Time which is extremely short compared to how we usually think of time, but things do happen in that short time. That unit of time is, unfortunately for us, 5.39x10^(-44). That means for every second in the simulation our computer will have to update all of its quanta about 1.85x10^43 times. Not one time. Not a million times. Its a lot of updates. A single atom will contain multiple quanta and interact with numerous other quanta. Plus there are photons and other energies which also much be updated. The accounting starts to become silly.

The fastest modern supercomputer (Frontier) can only compute an exaflop (quintillion) calculations per second. A quintillion is 1x10^18. Therefore we now know find out how many simulated quanta the Frontier computer might update in one of our seconds. We will then work towards finding out how many Frontier computers will be needed to simulate a given number of atoms in real time so that the simulation runs at the same speed as our own time. (Hint: we won't be able to get enough computers)

We have calculations per Frontier per second, but we need quanta calculations per atom per second. From there we'll be able to find out Frontier computers per atom. That item we need depends upon the type of atom. An atom with lots of protons has lots of quanta. A Hydrogen has 1 proton and 1 electron; but many atoms have a lot more. Suppose the average atomic mass of an atom is 1x10^(-26)kg. Use a helium atom to represent all other atoms, since I don't want to do all of the accounting. A helium atom is 1x10^(-27)kg and contains lets say 14 fundamental particles (leptons etc). Each of these has position and momentum and interactions in 3 dimensions. So for a helium atom each fundamental particle will be stored as a vector of data with 9 items of data ---> so 9 x 14 = 126 data items. Each of these must be updated 1.85x10^43 times per second which brings us to a total of 25.9 x 10^(43) calculations per second per helium atom.

Almost there. Frontier can do a quintillion (10^18) calculations per second. Lets try to get the number of atoms a Frontier computer can keep updated. We'll divide the calculations per second for a helium atom by the number of calculations a Frontier supercomputer can do per second. [ 25.9 x 10^(43) ] / [ 10 ^ 18 ]. Oh wait that actually gives us the number of Frontier supercomputers needed to almost perfectly simulate a Helium atom, and the number is 2.59 x 10^26. To simulate one Helium atom in real time.

I guess we'll have to run the simulation slower than human time or make some shortcuts. Perhaps the simulation will have larger chunks of time than we have, fewer sub particles or no sub particles etc. That's what engineers do and what meteorologists do. Their simulations aren't simulations at all but games relative to the actual kind of simulation being discussed in the thread. It is an impossible attainment.

 

[Heyo]

It depends upon how slow you run that simulation and how accurately it duplicates our reality. The smallest unit of time is Planck Time which is extremely short compared to how we usually think of time, but things do happen in that short time. That unit of time is, unfortunately for us, 5.39x10^(-44). That means for every second in the simulation our computer will have to update all of its quanta about 1.85x10^43 times. Not one time. Not a million times. Its a lot of updates. A single atom will contain multiple quanta and interact with numerous other quanta. Plus there are photons and other energies which also much be updated. The accounting starts to become silly.

The fastest modern supercomputer (Frontier) can only compute an exaflop (quintillion) calculations per second. A quintillion is 1x10^18. Therefore we now know find out how many simulated quanta the Frontier computer might update in one of our seconds. We will then work towards finding out how many Frontier computers will be needed to simulate a given number of atoms in real time so that the simulation runs at the same speed as our own time. (Hint: we won't be able to get enough computers)

We have calculations per Frontier per second, but we need quanta calculations per atom per second. From there we'll be able to find out Frontier computers per atom. That item we need depends upon the type of atom. An atom with lots of protons has lots of quanta. A Hydrogen has 1 proton and 1 electron; but many atoms have a lot more. Suppose the average atomic mass of an atom is 1x10^(-26)kg. Use a helium atom to represent all other atoms, since I don't want to do all of the accounting. A helium atom is 1x10^(-27)kg and contains lets say 14 fundamental particles (leptons etc). Each of these has position and momentum and interactions in 3 dimensions. So for a helium atom each fundamental particle will be stored as a vector of data with 9 items of data ---> so 9 x 14 = 126 data items. Each of these must be updated 1.85x10^43 times per second which brings us to a total of 25.9 x 10^(43) calculations per second per helium atom.

Almost there. Frontier can do a quintillion (10^18) calculations per second. Lets try to get the number of atoms a Frontier computer can keep updated. We'll divide the calculations per second for a helium atom by the number of calculations a Frontier supercomputer can do per second. [ 25.9 x 10^(43) ] / [ 10 ^ 18 ]. Oh wait that actually gives us the number of Frontier supercomputers needed to almost perfectly simulate a Helium atom, and the number is 2.59 x 10^26. To simulate one Helium atom in real time.

I guess we'll have to run the simulation slower than human time or make some shortcuts. Perhaps the simulation will have larger chunks of time than we have, fewer sub particles or no sub particles etc. That's what engineers do and what meteorologists do. Their simulations aren't simulations at all but games relative to the actual kind of simulation being discussed in the thread. It is an impossible attainment.

Sounds like a BIG SCARY NUMBERS argument - and ignores exactly what I had asked for. You are calculating with a current digital computer. We will have quantum computers, even in the near future. Quantum computers aren't a silver bullet for all computational problems, but do you know what they do excellently? Computing quantum states.
Quantum computers of today still have a lot of technical problems, but when we can overcome those, the computing power will rise exponentially with linear addition of q-bits.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Sounds like a BIG SCARY NUMBERS argument - and ignores exactly what I had asked for. You are calculating with a current digital computer. We will have quantum computers, even in the near future. Quantum computers aren't a silver bullet for all computational problems, but do you know what they do excellently? Computing quantum states.
Quantum computers of today still have a lot of technical problems, but when we can overcome those, the computing power will rise exponentially with linear addition of q-bits.

I was attempting to answer your question, however I will re-aim. Suppose you could crank the size of the computer down to a single atom and could simulate one atom with one of our atoms. Would that not also demonstrate the difficulty in simulating things? I'm not the first to imagine this scenario. See this link about Rolf Landauer who suggests that to simulate a universe would require a computer the size of that universe.

If the universe is a giant computer simulation, here's how many bits would be required to run it

How many bits does the universe contain? A lot.

www.livescience.com

So under optimal and perhaps magical conditions you might simulate a planet using a planet sized computer.

 

[Heyo]

I was attempting to answer your question, however I will re-aim. Suppose you could crank the size of the computer down to a single atom and could simulate one atom with one of our atoms. Would that not also demonstrate the difficulty in simulating things? I'm not the first to imagine this scenario. See this link about Rolf Landauer who suggests that to simulate a universe would require a computer the size of that universe.

If the universe is a giant computer simulation, here's how many bits would be required to run it

How many bits does the universe contain? A lot.

www.livescience.com

So under optimal and perhaps magical conditions you might simulate a planet using a planet sized computer.

Yes, that is definitively a limit. And people have thought of planet sized computers like the Jupiter Brain or even solar system sized Matrioshka Brain computers. And, of course, we are talking about perfect simulations without shortcuts. The assumption that shortcuts have been used has led some physicists to ideas to verify - or falsify - the simulation hypothesis. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314153135_On_testing_the_simulation_hypothesis)

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

In logic, to me, we are created and simulated by the manifestion from the "AI" artificial intelligence from the first failed spirit through the mortal flesh for the soul of the Being in the Body. We become immortally manifested from the "RI" real intelligence of creation through one in being together for the Father and the Son, becoming again glorified and transfigured reimaged united with all mankind through the Power of The Intelligence of The Divine Spirit.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

 

[shunyadragon]

We Live in a Simulation. The evidence is everywhere. All you have to do is look. (youtube.com)

This youtube video presents the thought-provoking idea that our reality is in actuality a simulation. It touches on the idea of God being the "ultimate simulation". And we are mere images.

We could not tell the difference whether our physical existence was simulation or not, because we could not detect the difference, Everything appears natural.

Personally I am indifferent to the question, because if it is a simulation it is a very real and natural simulation.

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Peace to all,

To logic of intelligence is in the Divine Spirit Will. The Divine Spirit Will is the "RI" real information that never fails and provides the being more abundant life for conditions on earth and eternal life in Heaven. The "AI" artificial intelligence of creation provides choice and freedom for the being to choose the"RI" of the eternal Divine, some call the "Holy" Spirit Will of the creator of infalliblity from the spirit through the flesh for the soul of the being or the "AI", the artificial intelligence of the created failed spirit and flesh.

To me in logic, it takes more than One Person to get The Mind, the intelligence of the Creator to Earth and beyond.

To me in logic, the mind of God is the Will of The Father and is conceived in the Person of Jesus though the Immaculate Conception in the Virgin Birth of the Christ, Virgin Birth because the blood and water birth creates the soul and the soul of the Person of Jesus already existing, as The Word, The Holy Spirit Person existing before creation was ever created was even created in the being of the Body of The Christ from Heaven. The Blood and water birth of The Christ on earth is from the Cross where the blood and water flowed from the Christ for all mankind, and flows through where it Came as the New Body for all mankind in new birth, reborn into the New Kingdom transfigured into the image of the Creator, God, for The Person of The Father as one in being.

“For from Him, The Person of The Holy Spirit and through Him, The Person of Jesus, and to Him, The Father are all things. To Him, The One God and Trinity, The Father and The Son and The Holy Spirit, be glory forever! Amen” Romans 11:36

To me the logic of the intelligence of the creator is what would the creator do in all cases of fulfilled faith and morality.

We know to keep open the Church of the Body of The Christ for all mankind.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

 

[Brickjectivity]

Peace to all,

In logic, to me, we are created and simulated by the manifestion from the "AI" artificial intelligence from the first failed spirit through the mortal flesh for the soul of the Being in the Body. We become immortally manifested from the "RI" real intelligence of creation through one in being together for the Father and the Son, becoming again glorified and transfigured reimaged united with all mankind through the Power of The Intelligence of The Divine Spirit.

Peace always,
Stephen Andrew

Hi, Andrew Stephen. I just want to point out some problems with reading what you are posting here. I can see you are trying to communicate something, but I can't crack it.

In logic, to me, we are created and simulated by the manifestion from the "AI" artificial intelligence from the first failed spirit through the mortal flesh for the soul of the Being in the Body.

I recognize many of the terms in this sentence, but I don't know why you refer to a 'First failed spirit' or to 'soul of the Being in the Body'. These do not come up in dictionaries. I'm familiar with Christian terms generally though not with a lot of catholic theology and some of their less known terms.

We become immortally manifested from the "RI" real intelligence of creation through one in being together for the Father and the Son, becoming again glorified and transfigured reimaged united with all mankind through the Power of The Intelligence of The Divine Spirit.

'Immortally manifested' I grasp. I get that phrase, but I don't know what you mean by "The 'RI' intelligence of creation through one being" though 'Father and the Son' I get or think I do. The rest I can intellectually ponder.

 

[Andrew Stephen]

Thanks. Brickjectivity,

Today, I don’t think anyone really looks at the logic in the spirit. From logical standpoint, things become so clear.

To me what logically is the real information is the only information that will prevail in eternity as unfailing, void of temptations and internal tempters and choice. Existing with no chance of failure.

Thanks for the question and it’s in the logic to me. St. Paul defines the being as a soul and a mortal being has flesh and a spirit in the soul of the being.

To me, and the real intelligence is the intelligence that will never fail in eternity as infallible wisdom. to me and logic, this is a state of the word that was present before creation was ever created was even created as the intelligence of the authority of all spirit and life.

To me the first spirit is a spirit of choice and freedom to choose.

To me, the logic follows, The manifestation of the spirit chosen on earth can produce a more abundant life based on the Will of the Father. The will of the father is the word or the intelligence of creation that manifest eternity. We are manifest it from the spirit through the flesh for the soul of the body by the selected spirit choice.

What we choose is the intelligence of the word to become the image of the creator God, for the Father.

Peace always,
Stephen