We Are Not Living in a Simulation. Probably | Hacker News Reader

We Are Not Living in a Simulation. Probably

fastcompany.com

2 pointsMauricio_5 comments

The authors talk about the possibility of replicating the universe rather than simulating it. They conclude that it is not possible to replicate, but I don't think that conclusion has much value. If it were possible to replicate digitally the universe with resources less than those of the entire universe, that would suggest that it is possible for the actual universe to exist in a simpler form. Occam's razor would then suggest that the real universe would simply take that simpler form. So if the universe is as simple as it can be, retaining all its currently observable properties, then it follows that is inherently un-replicable. Or, put another way, the universe is its own replication.

Simulation is another matter. Simulation by its nature cuts corners. Otherwise why bother? The challenge of the game of deciding if our universe is a simulation is finding a way to spot the shortcuts taken in the simulation.

It always seemed odd to me that we live on a round planet - perfect for limiting a simulation. And our built-in senses are very limited, considering that they don't go outside the game-area easily. I could go on, but it sure seems like most religion (outside of interpretations) could be understood more easily if "gods" were seen as those who are aware of the simulation and can only give very limited information about it, and were able to work with the "physics" outside our limited understanding.

Occam's razor cannot be used to assert that when something exists, if must be or indeed is likely, to be in its simplest possible form. Human DNA has plenty of redundant areas and yet we still exist. Indeed, probably all organism have a non-simplest form of DNA and yet still do just fine. We only have one example of a universe and even for that we have an imperfect understanding of its working. It is therefore impossible to know or assert that the universe is it its simplest possible form.

By form I don't mean physical form of objects in the universe, but the form of physical law which describes all observable events which compose the universe. That that form is the simplest it can be is exactly what Occam's Razor suggests. It is that form that must be grasped in order to assess the difficulty of replicating the universe in digital form, which is the topic of the linked article.

Neither I nor Occam assert that the universe is in its simplest possible form, Occam suggests that is the likeliest assumption, and so far he's been on the money. Reasoning from other assumptions would require extraordinary evidence.

People do use Occam's Razor to reason about the nature of the universe. Here is a reference to an argument that the Bohm-DeBroglie interpretation of quantum physics is incorrect because Occam's Razor: [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory...

fwiw - this article was worth glancing at just to get the link to the debate on the subject hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson : https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/podcasts/2016-isaac-...

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