Weird Stuff (tinfoil hat wearing goons only, please) - The Bear and Badger

bad_hair_day

There have been advanced tech sightings, jury is out as whether it's aliens.

acemuzzy

Nah the last one will likely get proven at some point. Or it should be provable anyway, we may well self-destruct first.

Simulation though? Harder.

GooberTheHat

poprock wrote:

I reckon that those last two are unlikely ever to be proven and will forever remain questions for philosophers rather than scientists.

Alien life is provable and detectable. There is evidence that there was once liquid water on Mars, so we might even have proof of extra terrestrial life in our lifetime.

Edit: I'm not saying it's been detected, just that it's theoretically not all that difficult to detect.

For the simulation, all we have to do is crack the code, then "they" will pull the plug and run the hard drive through a degausser.

LivDiv

In one of his two Joe Rogan appearances Brian Cox discusses alien life in an interesting way.

Microbial life is highly likely to exist or have existed on Mars if not elsewhere in our solar system.

The jump from that to intelligent or even complex life though is absolutely huge and highly unlikely even in our galaxy. The reason being the conditions in our solar system have allowed Earth to exist in its state for much longer than is normal. Our solar system is incredibly stable thanks to Jupiter sucking in most dangerous things but Saturn keeping Jupiter from crashing into the sun.

Iirc he said it was almost certain there would be intelligent life in our observable universe but the distances would mean it would be impossible for them to visit us. If I remember there isnt conceivably enough time from the big bang for that form type of life to develop and travel to us. Currently all models for folding space time to create wormholes result in them instantly collapsing.

On that I agree with his conclusion that being the only ones is far more exciting and far more precious. We should use that to inform how our societies are run and not do things like blowing each other up.

SpaceGazelle

poprock wrote:

I reckon that those last two are unlikely ever to be proven and will forever remain questions for philosophers rather than scientists.

But they are provable (maybers) and are therefore valid science research topics. We'll detect alien life at some point if it exists and we don't die out.

Simulation needs an example of infinity because no computer can cope with that. Pi et al doesn't count because it doesn't need a computable infinity to be useful. It only requires however many digits it takes to scale down to planck lengths. If the Universe is infinite in size it's not a simulation, but proving that it is, even if it is, is impossible. A Universe that lasts for ever would also prove it, but try measuring that. It needs to be an example of infinity that doesn't just require mathematical proof of an infinity. The main problem is our Universe is granular/pixelated, there's a limit to how small it is. Any proof of the slightest bit of genuine analogue would prove it's not a simulation, but QM says no to that, even though it says yes to infinite universes.

SpaceGazelle

GooberTheHat wrote:

I reckon that those last two are unlikely ever to be proven and will forever remain questions for philosophers rather than scientists.

Alien life is provable and detectable. There is evidence that there was once liquid water on Mars, so we might even have proof of extra terrestrial life in our lifetime. Edit: I'm not saying it's been detected, just that it's theoretically not all that difficult to detect. For the simulation, all we have to do is crack the code, then "they" will pull the plug and run the hard drive through a degausser.

The thing about the simulation thing is it's generally thought of as some kind of Truman Show setup, where we're being monitored in some way in real(ish)time a bit like The Sims. I see it more like our entire universal is maybe being computed in a few seconds and then looked at afterwards, if at all. The startling thing is you can make a universe from a just few laws and a few constants, and from that arises great complexity. We could be the result of some alien kid's homework that's simulating billions of universes like ours (but slightly differing laws) in one mass batch just before he has to go down for dinner, and never gets looked at because he can't be arsed or our uinverse is not that interesting.

acemuzzy

You lost me. What, to you, would prove/dosprove the world is a simulation? Can you clarify what you actually mean by that word while you're at it? I'm struggling to get your point / thinking it sounds like nonsense... but maybe I'm just not getting ya...

SpaceGazelle

Having an infinite amount of time/space/energy etc. No computer has infinite memory. If something in the universe was truly analogue, that would be infinitely complex to simulate, so that too.

acemuzzy

So you're speculating about computers in a different universe, that created this one? What makes you think they couldn't have infinite stuff?

SpaceGazelle

And what I mean by simulation, is being a simulated model as a result from an "original" universe. There's a starting universe that appears, and from that and lots of time you get life and tech and simulations. And those simulations, when advanced enough, make more simulations, and before you know it there's an exponential amount of simulations but just one "original". We always like to think we're special but the biggest lesson science has taught us is we're not.

SpaceGazelle

acemuzzy wrote:

So you're speculating about computers in a different universe, that created this one? What makes you think they couldn't have infinite stuff?

Because then you don't have any laws at all, and you need laws to be able to make simulations.

SpaceGazelle

And Universes for that matter.

acemuzzy

SpaceGazelle wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

So you're speculating about computers in a different universe, that created this one? What makes you think they couldn't have infinite stuff?

Because then you don't have any laws at all, and you need laws to be able to make simulations.

Why does infinite stuff imply no laws?

And a simulation to me implies somebody doing the simulating, so I don't think that's a good word given your definition.

SpaceGazelle

acemuzzy wrote:

Why does infinite stuff imply no laws?

You're an educated man, just have a think.

LivDiv

Thermodynamics

acemuzzy

I'm struggling. You seem to be saying that if my computer had more RAM I'd no longer be able to write programs for it?

SpaceGazelle

acemuzzy wrote:

I'm struggling. You seem to be saying that if my computer had more RAM I'd no longer be able to write programs for it?

I'm saying if your computer had infinite RAM the universe would literally collapse.

acemuzzy

I don't understand why you're saying that. Cousin needed, etc.

I understand even less why you're saying it about some hypothetical other "universe" which is simulating this one.

But I'm going to sleep anyway.

GooberTheHat

Isn't he saying that "in order to simulate infinity you would need infinite resources" which isn't possible. Therefore any simulated universe cannot actually be infinite.

So if you can prove your universe is infinite you prove it cannot be a simulation.

acemuzzy

How do we know the simulating device can't have infinite resources?

SpaceGazelle

Oh ffs.

acemuzzy

I also don't see how that direction of travel helps price the reverse direction - ie that we are simulated?

And is the suggestion time is discontinuous too?

acemuzzy

Yeah I give up too

SpaceGazelle

Just read what Goober posted and go to bed.

acemuzzy

I read it. I disagree with it.

SpaceGazelle

Why now?

LivDiv

I could be way off on this but I always understood infinity to be almost a place holder to allow calculations without "but what about after that". So it doesnt have a place in the physical, tangiable world just in the theoretical.

SpaceGazelle

And forget about direction. One infinite is enough.

SpaceGazelle

LivDiv wrote:

I could be way off on this but I always understood infinity to be almost a place holder to allow calculations without "but what about after that". So it doesnt have a place in the physical, tangiable world just in the theoretical.

Pi is an example. It's demonstrably infinite but never needs to be computed in it's entirety, so it's allowed to exist to whatever number of decimal places it'll never be needed for but impossible to measure in it's entirety, and it doesn't matter that it'll never be known.

LivDiv

Yeah, that's pretty much how I was thinking of it.
Infinity equates to "Insert tolerance here"

So if we were talking about how much Ram is needed to simulate our known universe then that is actually a calculation we could make. A very complex one but it could give us an answer.
If we replace known by infinite (or unknown) the formula has insufficient data to be completed and collapses.

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