Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Are we a simulation?

In my last post I listed five off-the-cuff reasons that might help explain why aliens haven't made formal contact (in the event they're visiting us in the flesh -- or its alien equivalent). But there's another possibility that begs consideration: That our universe is a simulation with finite boundaries. Maybe we have yet to achieve contact with aliens because the universe we observe is a computational artifact and there are no aliens . . . except, possibly, for the ones responsible for the simulation in the first place.

It's a lavishly paranoid idea, but not without a perverse philosophical appeal. Achieving mainstream popularity in 1998 when "The Matrix" hit theaters, the concept isn't as new as it might seem. Science fiction author Philip K. Dick pioneered the sort of solipsistic dream-or-reality fiction that would later find renewed urgency in the cyberpunk novels of the 1980s. The idea's staying power is arguably due to the fact that there doesn't seem to be a convincing technical reason why our world (if not the Cosmos itself) couldn't be an incredibly rich software program operating according to set parameters (which we might interpret as physical laws and constants such as Einsteinian relativity and the counterintuitive domain of quantum uncertainty).





Novelists and philosophers alike have devised myriad reasons why an advanced intelligence might create a simulated world. Arbitrarily capable scientists might want to tinker with physics, recreating the "real" world while incorporating experimental content: an endeavor to which our own scientific community aspires, often aided by advanced computational models. Or maybe we're an anthropological experiment set loose in an agar of code; somewhere, overseers could be watching our plight with keen interest.

Metaphysicians typically refute the idea that consciousness can be reproduced through purely mechanical means, in which case the argument for our existing within a simulation (with or without simulated aliens) can be summarily forgotten. But if self-awareness is indeed epiphenomenal -- the inevitable outcome of physical processes within the brain -- then the possibilities become effectively endless. For example, we may not only be a simulation, but a simulation within a simulation. Or, more demeaning yet, a simulation within a simulation within a simulation.

If so, the question of whether or not we're alone in the Cosmos is faced with some unexpected variables, none so vexing as our potential inability to determine whether there really is an "out there" or if we're merely staring at the bars of a cosmic jail cell.

This piece originally appeared at aboutSETI.com.

7 comments:

drjon said...

One of my pet theories is that our Universe could all actually be a *natural* simulation within deep-space Boltzman Brain arrays.

Mac said...

I'm aware of Boltzman Brains, but how would a BB array work? Isn't the concept inherently solipsistic?

Anonymous said...

Have you read Seth Lloyd's "Programming the Universe" Mac?

I'm only about 60 pages in, but the main idea is that physics and information are flipsides of the same coin, leading to the idea that the Universe is one giant quantum computer, computing itself.

It was a pretty interesting segue for me to go from Jacques Vallee's "Dimensions" to Lloyd's "Programming the Universe" (reading choices I made, apparently, at random). In Dimensions, Vallee ends off musing that the frustratingly strange and anomalous UFO phenomena (plus fairy lore, religious experiences, psychic powers, etc) could be more easily understood if we took an information-based view of reality, rather than a wholly physical one.

Not that I claim to understand how this all works to explain anything, but understanding the "physics of information", as Vallee put it, seems to be a really important piece of the puzzle.

Mac said...

@Justin

Is this the same guy who wrote "Hacking Matter"?

I'm inclined to agree that the universe is essentially information. (Of course, the whole of that information would seem to be more than its sum.)

What a wonderful irony if we could gain insight into the ultimate workings of the Cosmos by studying the antics of ufonauts! And who knows -- maybe that's the point.

Anonymous said...

No, Hacking Matter is by Wil McCarthy (I'm about 1/2 way through that one).

Seth Lloyd's at MIT. As I recall, his book had some impact on Rudy Rucker's Post-Singular, and especially Hylozoic (which I'm anticipating quite a bit): the whole idea of using reality itself as a computing substrate, with the sylphs and the creek eddies and what not - and the ensuing problem of what would happen if an alien race came along and hijacked our 'cpu time'.

And yeah, the amount of information in the universe is staggering. Lloyd introduced (to me at least) the notion that entropy can be defined as 'hidden information' - all the stuff going on in the tiny spaces where we can't see. The visible information we see around us is just a tiny fraction of what's actually going on. I don't have my head wrapped around this new view of entropy myself, but it's fascinating stuff nonetheless.

Now I'm wondering if Vallee ever further developed the ideas he introduced in the closing pages of Dimensions.

Anonymous said...

BS! This is like trying to explain God. I think your afraid of something and use this thinking as a way to quell it. Just my thoughts.

Anonymous said...

The Beatles...Strawberry Fields...

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn't matter much to
me.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right, that is I think it's not
too bad.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think I know I mean a 'Yes' but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.