Look out folks! Incoming science nerd rant! XD
So… There’s a lot of speculation out there about how our universe was made and what it’s made out of. See, a lot of stuff kinda works the way we think it should, in a macro sense, but as I told you all a while ago, it doesn’t work EXACTLY how it should and all the rules just go out the window when you get down to the subatomic level. That seems to be the big problem of science right now; why do physics not work when things get small?! Let me tell you, it’s absolutely maddening to the science world. What could possibly be so complex about the universe to make it’s mechanics so far beyond our mental grasp? And that’s where the crazy starts working its way through the cracks…
I’ve talked about the new belief (yeah, I’m still sticking to that) in the string theory and the multi-brane thing, but this is some real fun kind of crazy science! Here’s the idea: science and technology have reached all new heights within just a short period of time and it keeps getting better and faster. What is believed to happen one day, is that our tech will be able to completely simulate reality! Total Matrix style too! So a simulation could be so perfect, every point in space can be tracked. Meaning atoms can be accounted for as vectors or pixels and interact through the program, thus creating an entirely “real” universe in a virtual space. This does get a boost in credibility because of the nature of quantum physics. We’ve got atoms that seem to arbitrarily get mass from some invisible place, gravity is acting strange, and even more weird, matter is coming into existence (in an absolute vacuum) and annihilating itself for pretty much no reason. There’s even that thing where firing electrons through a carbon atom makes a perfect geometric pattern. All very weird stuff!
Fear not good citizens! Your trusty Super Scientists are here to save the day! We are actually conducting experiments to test whether we are in a simulation or not! Well, trying to at least. “Lately” we’ve seen some interesting experiments to determine if the universe is a hologram through the observations of gamma ray polarization. So good news everybody! Seems that, as of now, it is unlikely that our universe is either a projection or hologram! Yay! Guess we still have a ways to go to see if the subatomic world is really made of pixels, but it is absolutely awesome to think that these experiments are happening. I mean, think about it, no matter what the outcome is, we are actually testing these things. I think it’s totally amazing that not only does our species come up with imaginative ways to explain our existence, but also invent ways to either prove or debunk them. Heck, we’ve even just started looking for microwave spheres in space to prove the collisions of bubble universes with our own! It’s very important for us as a whole to not only be skeptical and encouraging of creative theories, but also supportive of the means to their proof. If it costs a few billion dollars to prove the Higgs field exists, then it’s ok! If it doesn’t, then it’s not a waste of money, it’s the cost of progress!
Now, I’m not going to say this theory is impossible or any less valid than any of the other crazy we’ve come up with in the last half century, but I will say this… It’s probably not a bad way of explaining the nature of things. Ok ok, let me explain. It’s been said that when Einstein was working on uncovering the “equation of everything”, he would wake up every morning and think, “if I was god, how would I make the universe?” His answer was always, “make it simple.” That’s nice and a very mathematician thing to say, make things elegant, but I’m not sold on it. To me, a child of the techno computery world, it makes much more sense for it to be crazy complicated and intricate. What I mean is this, I see the world as working more mechanical than anything else. Our universe is governed by equations and variables that make up all the things we see. I’m not saying it’s a simulation, no… I’m saying we have more in common with a program than we like to realize. So here’s how I’d make it work… I’d first start with a very complicated set of rules and instructions; an OS if you will. This will give the language of how to interpret things… like an “outerverse” the new science dudes are talking about. Then you’d have the program, the set of variables and rules to tell how things act and interact. That’d be our universe. When you talk about science and the multiverse theories, the fact that electrons have a negative charge, things have certain mass, gravity acts like X, and the sky is blue… it all ends up sounding arbitrary. Speculations say in a multiverse, there might be one like ours that changes the speed of time or the power of electric force or anything. Oh right, and that simple elegant thing… If I was a believer in fate and predestination, I’d wager there’d be a seed in there! Seeds (as you MineCrafters know) is a simple phrase or numbers or whatever that can generate an exact outcome. So like in Minecraft, you’d type “yadayadayada” in the seed generator and, in theory, it would create the EXACT same world, down to every block, every time you used that seed. Anyways… that’s what I’d do. Complex to simple.
Then again, I think it exposes a fundamental flaw in the organization of things. Can we ever understand how things work? As a thought experiment, say we are in a simulation, could a program become self aware enough to dig through the OS and understand how and why it exists? And even if it could, what then? Could a program escape the confines of its mainframe? And if we’re just a program labeled “universe B” or “the fighting whitefish”, who’s running the show? Dunno guys, it’s a brain twister! I’m not exactly sure what boat I’m deciding to sail in here… this is all speculation and it would give a pretty dim outlook on life to know we were nothing more than sprites in a video game. And if the gods are some extrauniversal computer engineers, it’s only a matter of time before one of them tries to compile a copy of WoW on the system. Keep an eye to the skies for falling game cubes! We got some new found friends to defend!
Ps… that’s Tampa in the background >)
Pss… totally a ReBoot reference!
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This makes my thinker box hurt!
mwahahahahaha! another mind melted! XD
welcome to the club!
I stopped reading for the moment when you mentioned scientists trying to determine if we are a simulation. I was reminded of Sims.
My next two thoughts were like this exactly:
INCEPTION!
and
Yo dawg, I heard you like sims, so we put some Sims in yo’ sims so you can sim while you sim.
I’ll go back to finishing it, and then maybe get off the internet. It’s clearly damaging my thinking ability.
lol, that would be the best thing ever! The Sims… SIMS! XD
Actually, in Sims two, (maybe the original as well) you can have them buy sims the game and they can play it on their computers.
Ever played the simpsons game? In the final level, you meet god, and he turns out to be a gamer, we are the game, BUT, then it turns out that GOD is a game as well…
it’s computers all the way down!!!
=Incoming game=
IRL we’ve got meteors, lightning storms and giant panda rants, but I guess that’s good enough. Coming back to the topic, yeah, same thinking in this part of town; rules are set in stone, but are they? If you think about it, there must be a hidden switch to e.g. invert colours of the universe - why not? A simple command would do, one composed of a particular set of bird chirp, volcanic gas and Lady gaga’s summer outfits. Again, why not?
Can’t tell how much joy this strip has brought! :D Especially that I’ve finished catching up on the series about two weeks ago. GAAAMES!
yup, pretty much all that stuff is completely arbitrary as to “why” it works. scientists are still confused as to why we have a universe of matter and not anti-matter. it functions the same way so why is it one and not the other? so who knows, maybe there’s another universe of antimatter. maybe another universe where everybody wears meat and Lady Gaga wears her sunday best. >)
man, I really gotta rewatch those episodes! it was totally the best series ever!
When Bob went face to face
to face to face with Hexadecimal.
His chances for survival shrank
from small to infinitesimal. >
You know, they say the User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure… But I intend to find out!!
Alphanumeric! :O
Pixelacious!
That is just so Fortran!
ive been in suspicion that im living on a simulation for a long time, when i think on a certain topic, i often find two people talking about it, when i think on an episode of a certain tv series, i sometimes see it that same day!
my life seems too good and that is getting suspicious. 0_0
so… about those lotto numbers… >)
If this is a simulation I can hack parts of it with my brain, I look at something for about ten minutes and it will either move a centimeter or fall over, and I can tell exactly what someone is feeling by looking at their face and eyes.
well, that’s my theory on if it is. all systems, no matter how near perfect, have flaws and vulnerabilities. so if we are in a simulation, then certain things can be exploited. like, couldn’t we virus the universe? hmm…
Maybe we already are the VIRUS on the universe or just subroutines doing things not planned for by the great programmer.
Damn that spaghetti code! Now where are those blasted comment files? What do you mean there aren’t any? Hoooo-Gaaaaan!!!!!
it’s kind of an interesting fractal concept. like, if we were able to find an emergence of “life” from our own creation, the internet/computers, by no means of our own (as in, not trying to make life… just an accident), it would be profound in the sense of “life all the way down”. but yeah, humans at least are a bit more akin to parasitic viruses than anything. >)
Shiver me templates!
hahahaha nice!
Nope. you cannot store the information of an atom’s position, rotation, and composition without having (at-least) another atom to store said data with.
In short, you cannot simulate a more powerfull computer than what you are running the simulation on. Thus, any world created is limited by the size of the computer used. You’d need a galaxy to simulate a planet. It theoretically could be done on such a scale, but would it be worthwhile?
Not going to happen. It’ll get close, but you cannot store that much data, let alone run computations on it.
ah yes, kinda like that whole entanglement thing, right? very interesting stuff that is!
well, of course the disclaimer here is “you can’t within our current understanding of science”… hell, we might all change our minds in 50yrs or some other arbitrary date of discovery. or it might be just what we think now.
as for actually being inside a giant computer, I’m not convinced, though it’s an interesting idea. however, when used to describe the universe around us, it can easily be described in terms of software and programming. but that might just be an “art imitates life” sort of thing.
I guess my real question is this… if there was a living entity inside of a computer simulation, how (if it even could) can it go about understanding what IT is and tap into the computer surroundings. like, how do you build a mechanism in Minecraft to escape the program? could SkiFree ever understand the inner workings of the motherboard and processor? maybe it can’t without outside help… or maybe it can like a virus or spyware. idk… I’m just thinking out loud here… but it seems interesting to apply the mechanics and language of software to the universe around us.