science

It seems to me the philosophical developments in worldview always reflect the spirit of the time.

Just like i've read an interesting article recently (i can't find the link anymore) about how energy is not conserved is cosmology (the expansion of the universe increases the mechanical energy of objects over time) that reflects the spirit of renewable energy (because energy can increase over cosmological time scales).

This is another example of it. For years, people were forced to follow rational rules in their lifes (just like an algorithm) because the industrial revolution has created a clear path forward for humanity how to build machines and operate them to increase our quality of life; now this article says that the universe cannot actually be fully understood as one gigantic algorithm; in other words, we're facing an unemployment phenomenon because we don't have a clear path forward, so it's difficult to employ people for that clear path forward. Therefore, our life is becoming less like an algorithm, a clear step-by-step explanation of what we have to do. :)

*right now...

Disclaimer: not a physicist, but I am familiar with mathematical logic side of things e.g. incomplete theorem and stuff.

I have to say, terrible paper. Very light on technical details, full of assertions not backed up by arguments. I wouldn't really take this too seriously. But this is just a letter, maybe the full paper, if they ever publish one, will have more substance? We will see.

From my non-physicist or mathematician reading of the article, it seems like it hinges on a specific computational theory of quantum gravity. I don't believe we have an experimentally verified theory that connects quantum gravity to macroscopic gravity so it seems like the whole analysis hinges on that.

Here's my proof....a dust in your eyes. Why? Why would anyone simulate us and give us dust in our eyes? Viruses, I can accept. But dust is not contagious or alive. It just happens to screw with you personally and in particular. Just you. So therefore there's no way we're a simulation.

Alright, come get me, I wanna see the mother ship!

All I read is "The computer simulation we're living in fooled some mathematicians"

Today's cutting-edge theory—quantum gravity—suggests that even space and time aren't fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information. This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm—a mathematical foundation more real than the physical universe we experience. It's from this realm that space and time themselves emerge.

I can't for the life of me find the term, but after going turbo-tism about researching the origins behind Three Body Problem's wacky physics (11-dimension manifold, dimensional unraveling, "Three-and-Three-Hundred-Thousand Syndrome," etc.), I stumbled upon a video postulating that our universe exists to "prop up" this "real" universe. The term that sticks in my head is "corkboard universe" or "anchor universe" but Google finds nothing. Anyway...

The idea is that our universe, and it's 3 dimensions across time, exists to clump things together in gravitational "hotspots" of spacetime. The matter and physics we experience is entirely a byproduct of quantum foam, that itself only creates matter on this side, isolating these 3 dimensions from an entire, larger, fuller universe on the other "side" of the quantum foam made of stuff we would most certainly not call matter, more like weird energy with effects we can't predict or comprehend, all within a much larger dimensionality than our own 3D+T.

This theory is used to explain why String Theory can only postulate higher dimensions as occupying impossibly small spaces in particularly strong regions of spacetime, which are only strong because of the relatively vast swaths of interspersed vacuum between spacetime hotspots (galaxies, mostly, but ESPECIALLY black holes). It's only the transition between low gravity and high gravity that gravity itself has any meaning, much like temperature. Those string universes that String Theory postulates, if real, may be the holes punched through the foam, pulling that real universe into ours at microscoping points. This "anchors" that universe in place, and likely results in some fundamental force on that side "keeping everything together," so to speak. That universe may be the cause of most if not all fundamental forces and constants in our universe, like the speed of light.

So... Basically... We exist as the living scum on the nails holding the corkboard to the wall. If you like. I'm sure the art pinned to the other side is very pretty. I'd hate for it to be a calendar or something boring.

Mathematical proof sponsored by:

I don't buy the simulation hypothesis, but I also don't understand why the simulation would need to be 'complete' as long as it's sufficiently consistent - after all, wouldn't the same argument apply to simulations we do have, such as emulators and VMs? But they work anyway

This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm

Friend-zoned by the universe. That's gotta sting.

Any claim of a proof of nonexistence should be taken with a handful of salt, you throw over your shoulder to drive the scary ghosts away. Happy Halloween.

Btw, this logical fallacy is a bunch of whoo.

Full paper is here for those looking for it

Would be a better article without the Ai slop

I personally don't believe we're living in a simulation, though it's a fascinating thought experiment and I can't say for certain that we're not. This article is frankly way too definitive about questions that I don't think we're equipped to answer yet, without actually explaining itself.

The simulation hypothesis was long considered untestable, relegated to philosophy and even science fiction, rather than science. This research brings it firmly into the domain of mathematics and physics, and provides a definitive answer.

I haven't read the full paper, but the article about it says the theory is now testable, but doesn't explain how they tested it to get their "definitive answer." They also don't address the fact that their research is based on their current understanding of reality. Usually assertions like this will include something like "as technology progresses, it's likely that more questions will arise and we'll have better tools to attempt to answer them." But nope, it's just a hubristic "here's the definitive truth."

Also, the generated images are infuriating. Either hire an artist, use public domain media, or just lean on the science and leave out the images. Not everything needs meaningless pictures.

Here ΣT is an external, non-recursively-enumerable set of axioms about T

https://jhap.du.ac.ir/article_488.html

So they claim there are no patches to the simulation and state is finite ? Absolutely because we live on flat earth in caves and are not constructed as optimization machines.
So here's my new patch to their equation because it's Friday.

#define TRUE  (1==0)
#define FALSE (!TRUE)

Because any putative simulation of the universe would itself be algorithmic, this framework also implies that the universe cannot be a simulation.

How do they conclude that any simulation would have to be (purely) algorithmic? (For a fictional counterexample, take Douglas Adams’ Total Perspective Vortex, which simulates a universe by extrapolating from a physical piece of cake.)

I thought we didn't understand gravity enough to prove it is quantum though? I think their results are based on the assumption that quantum gravity is the final explanation

It would be interesting to see someone with the background to understand the arguments involved in the paper give it a good review.

That said, I've never brought the simulation hypothesis on the simple grounds of compute resources. Part of the argument tends to be the idea of an infinite recursion of simulations, making the possible number of simulations infinite. This has one minor issue, where are all those simulations running? If the top level (call it U0 for Universe 0) is running a simulation (U1) and that simulation decides to run its own simulation (U2), where is U2 running? While the naive answer is U1, this cannot actually be true. U1 doesn't actually exist, everything it it doing is actually being run up in U0. Therefore, for U1 to think it's running U2, U0 needs to simulate U2 and pipe the results into U1. And this logic continues for every sub-simulation run. They must all be simulated by U0. And while U0 may have vast resources dedicated to their simulation, they do not have infinite resources and would have to limit the number of sub-simulation which could be run.