Are we living in a matrix

El_mariachi

Comment: Isn't it amazing that scientists have finally had to admit that the design of the universe is so perfectly crafted so as to indicate intelligent design and yet they still try to avoid any explanation which includes the word God.

The multiverse theory has spawned another - that our universe is a simulation, writes Paul Davies.

If you've ever thought life was actually a dream, take comfort. Some pretty distinguished scientists may agree with you. Philosophers have long questioned whether there is in fact a real world out there, or whether "reality" is just a figment of our imagination.

Then along came the quantum physicists, who unveiled an Alice-in-Wonderland realm of atomic uncertainty, where particles can be waves and solid objects dissolve away into ghostly patterns of quantum energy.

Now cosmologists have got in on the act, suggesting that what we perceive as the universe might in fact be nothing more than a gigantic simulation.

The story behind this bizarre suggestion began with a vexatious question: why is the universe so bio-friendly? Cosmologists have long been perplexed by the fact that the laws of nature seem to be cunningly concocted to enable life to emerge. Take the element carbon, the vital stuff that is the basis of all life. It wasn't made in the big bang that gave birth to the universe. Instead, carbon has been cooked in the innards of giant stars, which then exploded and spewed soot around the universe.

The process that generates carbon is a delicate nuclear reaction. It turns out that the whole chain of events is a damned close run thing, to paraphrase Lord Wellington. If the force that holds atomic nuclei together were just a tiny bit stronger or a tiny bit weaker, the reaction wouldn't work properly and life may never have happened.

The late British astronomer Fred Hoyle was so struck by the coincidence that the nuclear force possessed just the right strength to make beings like Fred Hoyle, he proclaimed the universe to be "a put-up job". Since this sounds a bit too much like divine providence, cosmologists have been scrambling to find a scientific answer to the conundrum of cosmic bio-friendliness.

The one they have come up with is multiple universes, or "the multiverse". This theory says that what we have been calling "the universe" is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is an infinitesimal fragment of a much grander and more elaborate system in which our cosmic region, vast though it is, represents but a single bubble of space amid a countless number of other bubbles, or pocket universes.

Things get interesting when the multiverse theory is combined with ideas from sub-atomic particle physics. Evidence is mounting that what physicists took to be God-given unshakeable laws may be more like local by-laws, valid in our particular cosmic patch, but different in other pocket universes. Travel a trillion light years beyond the Andromeda galaxy, and you might find yourself in a universe where gravity is a bit stronger or electrons a bit heavier.

The vast majority of these other universes will not have the necessary fine-tuned coincidences needed for life to emerge; they are sterile and so go unseen. Only in Goldilocks universes like ours where things have fallen out just right, purely by accident, will sentient beings arise to be amazed at how ingeniously bio-friendly their universe is.

It's a pretty neat idea, and very popular with scientists. But it carries a bizarre implication. Because the total number of pocket universes is unlimited, there are bound to be at least some that are not only inhabited, but populated by advanced civilisations - technological communities with enough computer power to create artificial consciousness. Indeed, some computer scientists think our technology may be on the verge of achieving thinking machines.

It is but a small step from creating artificial minds in a machine, to simulating entire virtual worlds for the simulated beings to inhabit. This scenario has become familiar since it was popularised in The Matrix movies.

Now some scientists are suggesting it should be taken seriously. "We may be a simulation ... creations of some supreme, or super-being," muses Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, a staunch advocate of the multiverse theory. He wonders whether the entire physical universe might be an exercise in virtual reality, so that "we're in the matrix rather than the physics itself".

Is there any justification for believing this wacky idea? You bet, says Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, who even has a website devoted to the topic ( http://www.simulation-argument.com). "Because their computers are so powerful, they could run a great many simulations," he writes in The Philosophical Quarterly.

So if there exist civilisations with cosmic simulating ability, then the fake universes they create would rapidly proliferate to outnumber the real ones. After all, virtual reality is a lot cheaper than the real thing. So by simple statistics, a random observer like you or me is most probably a simulated being in a fake world. And viewed from inside the matrix, we could never tell the difference.

Or could we? John Barrow, a colleague of Martin Rees at Cambridge University, wonders whether the simulators would go to the trouble and expense of making the virtual reality foolproof. Perhaps if we look closely enough we might catch the scenery wobbling.

He even suggests that a glitch in our simulated cosmic history may have already been discovered, by John Webb at the University of NSW. Webb has analysed the light from distant quasars, and found that something funny happened about 6 billion years ago - a minute shift in the speed of light. Could this be the simulators taking their eye off the ball?

I have to confess to being partly responsible for this mischief. Last year I wrote an item for The New York Times, saying that once the multiverse genie was let out of the bottle, Matrix-like scenarios inexorably follow. My conclusion was that perhaps we should retain a healthy scepticism for the multiverse concept until this was sorted out. But far from being a dampener on the theory, it only served to boost enthusiasm for it.

Where will it all end? Badly, perhaps. Now the simulators know we are on to them, and the game is up, they may lose interest and decide to hit the delete button. For your own sake, don't believe a word that I have written

SOL

Sorry but, the fact that life as we know is based on an atomic level and at the second timescale doesn't make it perfect. For all we know there are interactions inside neutron stars that are self aware but on an entirely different level and timescale? If you pick any other set of circumstances the chances for alternate life in such a universe would apper to be similar, would they not?

Son Goku

El_mariachi wrote:

Comment: Isn't it amazing that scientists have finally had to admit that the design of the universe is so perfectly crafted so as to indicate intelligent design and yet they still try to avoid any explanation which includes the word God.

Isn't it amazing the bollocks some people will try to pass off as the opinion of scientists.
I particularly love the part in bold, which comes out of nowhere and no major physicist has ever claimed this.

First of all, this piece takes a pragmatic interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and makes it sound like it's what science claims is the truth.

The Computational/Simulation view of QM is the standard one for somebody researching Quantum Computing like Davies.
Just like the many-worlds interpretation is a useful interpretation for somebody working in non-linear crystal studies.

Cosmologists have long been perplexed by the fact that the laws of nature seem to be cunningly concocted to enable life to emerge.

No they haven't. The Antropic Principle, e.t.c. is considered a boring side issue, at best, by most Cosmologists. At worst some consider it unscientific.

Since this sounds a bit too much like divine providence, cosmologists have been scrambling to find a scientific answer to the conundrum of cosmic bio-friendliness.

No they haven't. Look at any history of modern Cosmology, nobody ever started "scrambling" over this.

The one they have come up with is multiple universes, or "the multiverse". This theory says that what we have been calling "the universe" is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is an infinitesimal fragment of a much grander and more elaborate system in which our cosmic region, vast though it is, represents but a single bubble of space amid a countless number of other bubbles, or pocket universes.

Again, no.
Everett cam up with the Many-worlds interpretation in his Ph.D. thesis in 1953. It's useful way to think about things in certain situations, but Cosmologists definitely don't use it. It would be useless in Cosmology.
Finally it doesn't say:
"Rather, it is an infinitesimal fragment of a much grander and more elaborate system in which our cosmic region, vast though it is, represents but a single bubble of space amid a countless number of other bubbles, or pocket universes."
It says:
"The U process (Schrödinger Evolution) is preserved over a Bloch Sphere".

Things get interesting when the multiverse theory is combined with ideas from sub-atomic particle physics.

Combined with?
It's derived from them.

Evidence is mounting that what physicists took to be God-given unshakeable laws may be more like local by-laws, valid in our particular cosmic patch, but different in other pocket universes. Travel a trillion light years beyond the Andromeda galaxy, and you might find yourself in a universe where gravity is a bit stronger or electrons a bit heavier.

The Evidence is decreasing. The Hubble Deep Field and the WMAP studies have shown that the physics in other galaxies is identical to our own to within, at least, 99.9995%.

It’s a pretty neat idea, and very popular with scientists.

Useful to some physicists in certain areas.

Now some scientists are suggesting it should be taken seriously. "We may be a simulation ... creations of some supreme, or super-being," muses Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, a staunch advocate of the multiverse theory. He wonders whether the entire physical universe might be an exercise in virtual reality, so that "we're in the matrix rather than the physics itself".

Is there any justification for believing this wacky idea? You bet, says Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, who even has a website devoted to the topic ( http://www.simulation-argument.com). "Because their computers are so powerful, they could run a great many simulations," he writes in The Philosophical Quarterly.

The opinion of a single philosopher and a single astronomer, do not amount to the general opinion of the physics community.

He even suggests that a glitch in our simulated cosmic history may have already been discovered, by John Webb at the University of NSW. Webb has analysed the light from distant quasars, and found that something funny happened about 6 billion years ago - a minute shift in the speed of light.

This I'm not even going to refute, because the author hasn't even bothered to get the facts or speak in a scientific manner.

Last year I wrote an item for The New York Times

If that’s true, then sweet lord how is the public supposed to understand anything.

seamus

It's something I heard a few years back and it's certainly intriguing -
Imagine the human race in a few thousand years. It's quite probably that the computing power will exist to run simulations of the human races of past - that is, to simulate the entire universe. Now, in order to study the universe accurately, you would need to run the simulation millions if not billions of times.
But of course, that's no problem. It's reasonable to assume that at some point running billions of universe simulations concurrently is nothing. Thus if there are (or will be) innumerable possible universes being simulated, and only one real universe, the chances of us actually living in the actual universe are very slim.

I prefer to run on the multidimensional theory. If everything that could possible happen at every instance, does in fact happen, then it's not all that odd that carbon just happened to be formed in this universe, since it failed an infinite number of times in other universes.

legologic

Really this postulating is pointless as these theories could not (if true) ever be proven, this isin't physics it's philosophy and metaphysics. Leave that stuff to the budhists. what is the sound of one hand clapping??? who gives a ****, check out my laser!

EDIT: sorry I don't mean to be so dismissive. The multiverse theory is great but the whole living in a dream/simulation thing is a rediculous thing to even debate.

Son Goku

legologic wrote:

Really this postulating is pointless as these theories could not (if true) ever be proven, this isin't physics it's philosophy and metaphysics. Leave that stuff to the budhists. what is the sound of one hand clapping??? who gives a ****, check out my laser!

EDIT: sorry I don't mean to be so dismissive. The multiverse theory is great but the whole living in a dream/simulation thing is a rediculous thing to even debate.

Not if it is true but it's application.
The OP shows that some believe that certain things are theories when they are working interpretations in physics.

For instance it's the Many World's Intepretation not theory, it's important to demonstrate that.

SOL

I think that people should try understanding the nature of "computing" and information before saying that it is possible to model the universe...

And that speed of light thingy is classic. Do you remeber in the 80's when they thought the sun was going to be .33 its current brightness in 100,000 years because they thought neutrinos travelled at the speed of light?

Yeah, good times, now comeone should silence this thread :>

seamus

SOL wrote:

I think that people should try understanding the nature of "computing" and information before saying that it is possible to model the universe...

Actually, if you understood the nature of computing you'd find it impossible to deny the possibility of modelling the universe eventually.

SOL

Well, now there is an interesting dilly of a pickle, i would beg to differ...

Son Goku

Modelling is a very vague term, it depends on what you mean by modelling.

SOL

I suppose you're right but in our "model" we go right down to sub quark particles that have randomnicity....? is that even a word?

mr_angry

I recall an episode of Horizon (not known for its accuracy in detail, I know) discussing something like this. Apparently if computing power continues to accelerate at its current rate into the distant future, there would be a 99.999999% chance that we are just a historical recreation running in a computer simulation.

Then again, mainstream media's interpretation of science is frequently hysterical.

El_mariachi

lol Banana theory...sound like it???? now that i got every1 so UPSET over this go to where i found the link to that little thing..... www.psipog.net..... go to their forums for intersting reads like that.......

SOL

mr_angry wrote:

I recall an episode of Horizon (not known for its accuracy in detail, I know) discussing something like this. Apparently if computing power continues to accelerate at its current rate into the distant future, there would be a 99.999999% chance that we are just a historical recreation running in a computer simulation.

Then again, mainstream media's interpretation of science is frequently hysterical.

I presume it also said that the current rate of development wont be sustainable... ?

Son Goku

SOL wrote:

I suppose you're right but in our "model" we go right down to sub quark particles that have randomnicity....? is that even a word?

Nobody is ever going to be able to model the world on the quark level.
I couldn't imagine the computing power that would take.