Science

Lheurch

(65 posts) Mon Jun 24, 2019, 04:29 PM Jun 2019

The Simulation Hypothesis

Philosopher Nick Bostrom postulated the most popular version of this argument, but it has been around far longer. In 2003 he said one of these three things was almost certainly true:

1. The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;
2. The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
3. The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.

From a sheer logical/mathematical perspective, we are likely living in a simulation, but recently I compiled a list of other reasons we likely are. There are two main ones that are somewhat related.

1. Quantum entanglement/nonlocality

Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance" and refused to believe it was true. However, Niels Bohr and others said it was an provable part of reality at the quantum level. Several experiments have been done and so far they all confirm it is true. I remember reading about an experiment done in I believe China where they entangled photons and measured the time it took for the second one to react to what they did to the first one. After eliminating the measuring time, the conclusion was that it was at least 144,000 times faster than the speed of light. General relativity states that no information and no "thing" with mass greater than 0 can ever travel faster than the speed of light. However, quantum mechanics states that this "communication" between entangled items happens instantaneously. That means if we shot one half of an entangled pair into space say eight light minutes away (around the distance of the sun from Earth) and had a crew in a ship looking at it, they would observe the change instantly even though they could not tell us about it for eight minutes. The same could be said even if these two particles were galaxies apart.

Now, think of an environment where this is also true. In a video game, all points of space represented in the game are equidistant from the processor running the game.

2. The more compelling case - the double slit experiments

I am guessing most of you have heard of the double slit experiments. Basically you shoot two photons or electrons (though they have now done this with whole atoms and even buckyballs) at a piece of paper with two slits cut out. On the far side you have a screen that absorbs them. When this was first done, the photons formed an interference pattern, implying they had gone through both slits and behaved as waves, not particles. Later, experiments were done that placed detectors before the slits to see if they were indeed going through both. Surprisingly, once measured they behaved as particles, only going through one of the slits and formed clump patterns on the screen. Amazingly, this showed that the photons did not actually exist as a particle until they were measured. Until then they existed as a "wave of possible locations." John Wheeler designed a further experiment where the detectors were placed AFTER the slits which meant the photons had to decide if they were waves or particles before they were measured. Shockingly, the experiment yielded the same results. If they were eventually measured, they behaved as particles even though that would mean they had to know what would eventually happen before it happened. Some people believe this implies retro causality, that is, they communicated back into the past as to how to behave. Let me be clear, almost every physicist I have heard talk about that does not believe they are communicating with themselves in the past, but the results SEEM to imply this to me.

A further experiment was done in 1999 that is known as Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser. It is a bit complicated, so if you want to see the complete setup just Google it. Basically a photon is fired at the slits the same as before but is then split into an entangled pair using a prism, meaning that whatever happens to one will happen to the other as I explained above. Photon one is directed at a detector immediately while the second one passes through a maze of half-silvered mirrors which mean each photon has a 50% chance of going to one route or the other. Google for the whole explanation but basically at the end of the maze are four detectors, two of which we know for sure which slit the photon passed through and two where we do not know because of the path. In every case, when the photons were matched up to their entangled pairs at detector one, the pattern matched as either a wave or particle depending on if we had the data knowing which slit it went through. That meant that the photon at detector one made its "decision" to behave as a wave or particle BEFORE its entangled pair had gone through the maze and knew whether or not it was going to be detected. That implies backwards time travel to me, but physicists say it does not and I am not a physicist.

Now, the idea that reality is not real until it is measured or observed is the same idea in a video game. The background and items are not rendered on the screen until they are needed. This would also make sense if you were building a universe simulation to save on processing power.

So, ultimately if we are living in a simulation it would answer these questions:

1. Explains how quantum entanglement can happen instantaneously at unlimited distances
2. Explains why particles do not exist until they are needed to exist
3. Explains the Fermi Paradox. Why do we have no evidence of alien life even though the universe is full of the same elements that are common on Earth and we are made up of the most common elements? This would make sense if the simulators wanted to save on processing power.
4. Explains Donald Trump. Seriously, the simulators would be interested in watching turning points in history, not boring stuff. All of our memories before the events leading up to the last election could be simulated too. It is also possible and I would argue likely that any simulation is not going to be running in real time. If they are simulating all of history, it is possible the past 13.7 billion years of history ran in just a few seconds on a computer. The simulators could slow it down, rewind it, reboot it, all without us being aware.

What do you think? I think we most likely are.