http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1LCVknKUJ4&sns=fb



Any thoughts on this?

Well, that sounds interesting and rather odd. I don't really know anything about string theory, and not much about supersymmetry either.

We'll see if theres anything to it in time I guess

i've added this to 'watch later' simply because i'm still busy reading hawking's book about string theory. probably in a few years when i understand a bit of it i'll check the video.

do you have that book in e-form by any chance?

nope i've only got a dutch 'analog' version.

it's hawking's "the universe in a nutshell", a book about time/space and everything related to that explained in a fairly understandable and illustrated way. it's very well known, so i'm sure you could find it somewhere.

Zell, I don't think any of that can be used to imply anything about the nature of reality. For example, one could regard some equation about acceleration like s=ut+0.5at^2, and observe that that's awfully computer-looking, amirite? Then conclude from that that the universe might just be running as a computer simulation. That leap is clearly nonsense. Which is not to say that the universe we know couldn't be running as a computer simulation, but then where is the simulation running? In its own universe, or is it just a simulation too? etc. This kind of "turtles all the way down" position doesn't and can't answer anything about the nature of reality.

The fact that the discussion conflates code and data, and nobody bothers rectifying the confusion bothers me too. Like the conflation is knowing, deliberate, and therefore malicious.

And the graph that is sometimes shown, those are Gray codes. I haven't looked into it deep enough to determine if this is just an error on the part of the video maker or not, but if what this chap has found deep in some representation of physics is gray codes, colour me very unimpressed.

About all I can determine from this is: seeing some pattern of data that resembles a pattern that folk have already done work with, might help in determining some of the fundamental physical laws. Nice, but not really shattering a world-view.

As for the guy at the end, it's an interesting psuedo-probabilistic approach but again it can't tell you what reality is. Furthermore, how could one determine the probability that a human who is running a simulation of a past reality would bother to simulate the entire universe? What kind of computing resources would one need to run such a simulation? A computer as big as the universe maybe? Ultimately, without known probabilities or at least ratios, it's not possible to make an actual probabilistic argument, therefore what he's saying doesn't stand up to analysis.


keywords for reference: Adinkra supersymmetry "block linear" "self dual" "error correcting code"

Whoa, thanks for that explanation Mix.
I didn't know you were so knowledgeable in physics!!

Anyways, the way you explained it makes it seem like bs. I hoped there would be some fact or proper basis for that "discovery" of his, as that would be quite cool.

Will watch the video later...and then will read what MixD wrote.

We definitely need a science topic!

+1

actually... yes.

i agree.

Well...nice.

I am no scientist, no mathematician...i am...almost nothing ^^

BUT...

Since i'm a child, i'm interested in nature. Especially astronomy.
I read quite a lot about it.

I'm thinking about it.
And i'm thinking a lot about the nature of "reality".

What is this world we live in?
What dafuq are we involved in?
And stuff ^^

Why am i saying this?

Because you don't have to be a scientist to do your own research about life.
Having a mind, having some "different" experiences in life, beeing motivated to understand is enough to do some research of your own.
And i'm doing that for more than 10 years now.

You know what guys...

Almost ten years ago, i had this thought : Maybe our universe is a computer simulation.
First time i hear some "scientist" saying that we could be in a simulation.

Look guys...

I still don't know how we could confirm or not this statement.

We need time to understand more and more about the rules of the universe.

As i see the evolution of computers, i cannot believe that it would be impossible to do such a simulation. We don't need a computer as big as the universe. We need powerful processors and such.

If we are in a simulation...
Who did this?

Maybe other "humans".

I believe that one day, we will understand all of this shit! ^^

How is it possible to know if we understand all of it?
By running an "exercise". A computer simulation.

Then, let the simulation run and see what's happening.

Time is not really...real!

This simulation we live in could possibly last 5 minutes for those people who created it. But for us, of course, it lasts...long! ^^

Maybe those guys who did this simulation didn't really know what would be the result.

Maybe our universe is not what they expected.
Maybe our simulation was created by some moron who forgot to put a coma after a line, so the simulation failed and here we are! ^^

And these guys who try to understand their reality...in what reality are they?
Ever heard of the infinite?
Russian dolls?

If this could be it...

Who started the first simulation? Maybe nobody.

Knowing the nature of reality is not the hardest thing to know about life.
Need time. And people trying to understand what's what.

Knowing the nature of reality won't give us answer about the why.

Any answers we get about life and the universe is great.
But some questions will remain totally unanswered.
Just because there are no way, no means to know about it.

Only a question of faith.

That's not science. And that's why life's so great too.
Science is one thing. Science is used to know about the rules of the universe.
I always liked mechanics. I was a motorbike mechanic 10 years ago.
I see the universe as mechanics.

"If you do this like this, it will do this and that. Everything is interconnected and if you change this, it has an impact on that. And that and that and so on..."

Now...
i read something one day, dunno where...can't remember nothing except that a guy stated that the mathematicians, when they come up with their math theories, are doing nothing else than explaining how the brain is functionning.
If someone had heard about that, or have links about that...i'd like to read about it.
That's all i can remember about this math thing. Maybe i misunderstood too. Been a while you know ^^

About this reality...beeing in a simulation and such.
What are we already doing?

Trying to simulate universe on our computers right?
To understand better. To verify if a theory is right or wrong.

Of course we want and we will simulate the entire universe. One day, this day will come.

I can see the universe like this.
As conscious people, imho, we have the need to understand what is this world we live in.
And it's part of our nature as self-conscious beeing to understand AND reproduce our reality.

And the computers are here now. They represent one major step to fully understand the universe and the nature of what we call "reality".

Combine the computers with our brains, and we have the perfect combination to understand.

But i think we need more people that can see the universe as a "whole".
We need people to relate all the different parts of science with each other.
As i'm no scientist and have interests in everything that could give me clues about what i want to know, i can tell that even me saw similarities between different areas in science.

Maybe the answer is just 42 by the way!

I had some other things to say but i forgot(10)!

I just wrote my thoughts as they came in my disfunctional brain of mine!

Please do continue to talk about this shit guys! ^^

I think you're right Pat ! (I hope so... ;o I didn't even read 2 paragraphs in your post xd)

My two cents on the subject of simulating the universe. I believe (prove me wrong, if you can) that it has no borders. In this case, how can you simulate it using a computer with limited amount of memory?
Even if you have processors powerful enough to produce all the necessary calculations real-time, you would still need infinite memory to store all the data about things being processed.

What if the universe itself is not actually infinite? Isn't the universe expanding due to the Dark Energy, which itself surrounds matter (the universe as we know it)? And so, couldn't it also be limited in amount and area?

In such a case a computer simulation is possible.

i think the computer simulation theory is a fun way to look at it, though i think it's too 'inside-the-box' to be true. of course that's only my way to look at it. if there really is something that 'created' the universe as such, that it wouldn't be by something so human as a computer.

i too try to 'do my homework' on this kind of stuff, but i still have a hard time understanding some of the more basic principles. i recently finished a book about the basic idea of einstein's theories, which i more or less understand (i had a couple of issues with the part about how space and time merge together and the effects, but i get it now), and i'm still reading hawking's a universe in a nutshell.

also, i just started with abbott's flatland, which is amazing to read, really. if someone doesn't know it: it's a 19th century novel about a two-dimensional world in which someone thinks about how a third dimension would look like, and actually gets visited by a three-dimensional person.

hopefully i'll be able to get my mind working properly soon and start to understand stuff as string theory and such. luckily i'm not a physics student, and not in a rush, but dang i find it interesting.

What if the universe is infinite...

And the way we see protons,neutrons, electrons etc...
while actually, some superbig species see the earth as such an electron, spinning around the sun.

So actually we are a very very tiny thing for those other species.

Now ofc, this can't be a full model since our solar system would be an atom, whilst it cannot react with other solar systems...

or maybe...

maybe our solar system is what we see as edal-elements ( not sure it's the correct English term).

*feel like a stupid*

blame your teachers D: