New documentary about people who think we're living in a simulation

They cease to exist.

And yet another cyclical topic which pretentious experts will pontificate upon ad nauseum.

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Nope. Not a true hypothesis… similar to what was before the Big Bang. And, of course I have a link for the most interesting, recent theory about that. Rooted somewhat more in physics rather than compsci. :wink:

The basic idea for the Black Hole Big Bang Theory (BHBBT) is that matter from a mother universe collapses into a black hole. The singularity of this black hole is at a single point in space with respect to anyone in the mother universe. But, because of the reversal of time and space for anyone inside the daughter universe, that point in space r=0 become their initial point in time, t=0. Hence, what was a singularity in space is now a singularity in time, just like the Big Bang.

This means that any matter falling in from the mother universe will disappear from that universe and emerge at the initial t=0 point of the daughter universe thoroughly scrambled.

Not only that, but what emerges at the Big Bang is not just the matter that was there at the black hole’s formation but all matter that ever fell into it. That is because time at the black hole’s singularity is essentially perpendicular to time in the mother universe outside.

(This theory is rising because we’ve recently determined that the background radiation is just too darned homogeneous… something scrambled the density of the start of the universe a bit too well for our expectations. And having a black hole at the other end be the “information scrambler” fits quite well.)

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Don’t talk about my mum like that, she deserves to be the centre of everything.

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Hah, and we’re back full circle. :stuck_out_tongue:

“Oh, and in case you were wondering, this Universe was created specifically for you to come to. You are therefore the most important person in this Universe. You would never,” he said with an even more brickable smile, “have survived the Total Perspective Vortex in the real one. Shall we go?”

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You will wake up naked in an energy-collection pod, your body pocked and sprouting tubes galore. At least that’s what the people running the simulation want us to believe right now.

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Whoa, that’s deep.

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Planck’s constant. That’s super not how quantum mechanics works. Time could be discrete, but Planck’s constant isn’t evidence thereof. Unless you’re talking about some plank of time you’ve discovered, in which case please remember me when you accept your Nobel Prize.

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Well, I did call it a pet theory. I didn’t mean to say that there was anything verifiable or provable by it. :smiley:

That said, the Universe is constructed in such a way that we just cannot measure what happens in that duration of time. Attempting to narrow the Heisenberg uncertainty at this resolution would result in a photon that had such mass it’d create a tiny black hole. Planck length - Wikipedia

So: It’s highly unlikely that time is quantized. And if it were, it’d have to occur at below the Plank Time scale, which is unobservable. So anyone can slot any theory they want into what goes on down there… it just won’t be a disprovable hypothesis.

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And yet the idea of God doesn’t

Indeed! I’d forgotten about the bifringence detection, that was exciting news.

I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts on this paper:

Edit: Hah! This was the first comment on the top answer, and was addressed.

Well, like all theories, even pet ones, we have to allow for them to die.

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Oh! And I HIGHLY recommend the series of books “Magic 2.0” by Luke Daniels. It follows a computer engineer who discovers how to hack reality, finds he can teleport to any point in time in the past, and decides to set up shop as a medieval wizard.

You’d think it was heading in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court territory, but it takes a wonderful turn quite rapidly and becomes quite a romp.

Disclaimer: I’ve only listened to the first few books, it could take a turn for the worse.

I also highly enjoyed We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse series (again, only got through the first one or two so far).

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I’ll check out the paper. Thanks for the link. While my focus isn’t quantum gravity or cosmology, from my outside perspective loop quantum gravity is one of the more interesting candidates, somewhat more so than string theory. My main skepticism with regards to a discreet spacetime is reconciling it with the smoothness constraint of the wavefunction, since we know that wavefunctions are at least astoundingly accurate approximations of physically real phenomena. That said, QM is manifestly an incomplete theory, so that can’'t rule discreetness out entirely. And again, foundations of quantum mechanics isn’t my focus.

Sounds like something Rudy Rucker would write.

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I must, if only to break up the monotonous mental masturbation:

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So would having an omnipotent being who created the world. It’s just a new form of faith that can’t be proven one way or the other, but with a “scientific” veneer.

avengers-thor-nope

So you do believe in God?

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Yeah, it’s SMITE in the other simulation!

image

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Well, Willy was a monk

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I’m… not sure why you would bring religion into my dialog. The full quote:

I thought it was clear that I was using constructed in the form of “The universe is [built up from fundamental particles/laws], which force into existence explicit limitations.”

If you are genuinely interested in my personal beliefs: I was raised in a nondenominational religion, the leaders of which were hypocritical… I’ve since distanced myself greatly from that religion. I still hold onto and appreciate the original teachings of compassion and genuine love for fellow creatures that the religion purports to be based on. I do have a cognitive dissonance in this area that I have yet to fully process, in regards to the beliefs of some overarching deity.

So I do what I can to make the world a better place in the interim, through compassion, empathy, and love.

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A Planck time unit is the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length in a vacuum, which is a time interval of approximately 5.39 × 10−44 s.[35] All scientific experiments and human experiences occur over time scales that are many orders of magnitude longer than the Planck time,[36] making any events happening at the Planck scale undetectable with current scientific technology. As of October 2020, the smallest time interval uncertainty in direct measurements was on the order of 247 zeptoseconds (2.47 × 10−19 seconds).[37]

Thus, yeah, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” kinda thing.

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The idea of a constructed universe comes straight from religion. :woman_shrugging: There is a lot of cross over in some pseudo-science ideas and religious ideas, frankly. Especially their basis in non-falsifiablity. Faith is usually used interchangably with religion, but one can have faith in any number of things that are not able to be proven or disproven, because so much of the world is hard to pin down. I see no real way to actually prove that we live in a simulation that is constructed by some being outside our knowledge, just like we can’t prove that an omnipotent being exists that constructed the world. I don’t see much difference between the two beliefs. I don’t necessarily think that’s bad, though.

That’s great. Me too. I hope we all do (but plenty of people don’t, of course and that’s not just religious people).

Awesome. Me too. Again, I hope we all do this most basic of things. It’s sad not enough people do.

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