Rome, Italy
E-mail vcoletti@libero.it
This text is an intellectual property of Vinicio Coletti, Rome, Italy. |
| Published on February 2nd 2005 |
I've been thinking for some years about the hypotesis that the whole universe could be only
a simulation inside a computer, run by someone we don't know nothing about.
Of course, I confess, I started thinking this way only after seeing films like "Matrix", by Wachowsky brothers
or "Nirvana" by Gabriele Salvatores. It looked like many film makers had decided, or had arrived
indipendently to the decision, to tell stories where our reality is not real, but only a simulated
subset or the real world, the one we don't know nothing about.
This idea is wonderful for a science fiction novel or film, but it looks a bit crazy, if you want to take it
for real (whatever meaning this word has here).
The second confession I have to do before beginning my reasonment is that I decided to write about this concept
only after reading, two days ago, the page on the simulation argument
created by Nick Bostrom, of the Oxford University in UK.
Apparently Bostrom had started from the same movie related hints, but, being a philosopher, had developed mainly
conceptual and logical deductions to decide the probability we have to be living inside a computer simulation.
Happily enough, I had followed meanwhile a totally different path, thus our views are to be considered as
developed indipendently.
In fact, I am not so interested in the philosophical and theological implications of this idea,
although this is probably the most important thing to consider. I am mainly interested
in the matter and energy behavior that could actually suggest we are living in a simulation. That is
the physics related aspects of this approach, although I have not a physics degree...
If the world is a simulation, so all the particles and energy quanta of the whole
universe are simulated. The processing power required by such a simulation is of course huge, at a point that
we could even think that this computation is simply impossible. But this reasonment would be fallacious, because
we cannot deduct what is the processing power of the real computers in the real world simply observing
the simulated machines in our simulated reality!
Even the law of physics could be totally different in the real world. As an example imagine a student writing
a simple universe simulation, where the gravity force is repulsive. If an intelligent lifeform springs out inside
this simulation, they would believe that a repulsive gravity is normal, whilst we know it is not.
Moreover, whatever is the reason for running our simulation, simulating everything is probably much more
interesting (what will happen?) than simulating just the human perceptions. Thus I think that if our
world is actually a simulation, then every single particle and energy quantum is simulated.
I think that if we are really living inside a simulation, we should look at the nature limits to find out something
strange and fitting this idea. We should then look to the most advanced theories being developed to explain
the behavior of the universe. As everybody knows, the universe at a large scale is explained
by the General Relativity theory, whilst the elementary particles are best described
by the Quantum Theory. There are four forces regulating all known interactions: the strong nuclear force,
the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force.
Some years ago the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force were actually merged by a new theory
in one single electro-weak force, thus we can also say that the forces we find in nature are only three.
But what we lack is a unified theory able to explain what happens to the matter and energy both at a large
and at a small scale. Quite many physics are studying the so called big unification and they are
following different paths.
Apparently, to unify all forces of nature, we must describe a universe totally different from the
daily experience and also totally different from the classical four-dimensional universe (three
dimensions for space and one for time).
Some theories describe a multi-dimensional universe of seven or even eleven dimensions.
Other theories say the universe is intimately made by unidimensional entities called strings,
that vibrate, form rings, etc.
Others show that nature laws, although working in our three spatial dimensions, look like they
are coming from a bidimensional world. This is called the holographic theory and it is
really exciting, from the point of view of the simulated-world theory, because we could
say then that we are living inside a simulated hologram!
I really wish I were a quantum expert, to make some deep reasonment about the implications on
quantum theory of the simulated-world theory. But, well, I will try to say something, nevertheless.
What is intriguing here, is first of all the Heisenberg principle: you cannot know everything
about a single particle. If you read its momentum with a great precision, you can say nothing about its
position and, vice-versa, if you look at its position with a great precision, you lose the information
about its momentum. I think this is also true for other quantic values about particles (I hope not to
say silly things here), so that you cannot know everything about a single particle.
Moreover, the state of a particle depends also on our observations: all interactions will change
its state.
From the point of view of the simulated-world theory, I could suggest that all this happens because
the simulated particles of the universe are fully computed only when they interact with some
other thing. When they are not interacting, there is no influence on the simulation, thus
they can be ignored. When we try to know a particular state of a particle, it is that information
that is instantiated, while the others are lost. A particle actually exists as long as it
interacts(1).
Recently I read an article(2) on "Le Scienze", the Italian version of "Scientific American", an article
that really impressed me. It was about the development of a Quantum Gravity theory, as a way to unify
the laws of nature. What is important here is that the authors say that these researches describe
a discrete space and also a discrete time.
That is, not only matter and energy are not continuous, but the space itself has a
minimum step, a quantum of space. Of course I can interpretate this a bit freely, saying that
universe has pixels.
And even time is not continuous and we have minimum amounts of time, time quanta, that
regulate the rythm of all interactions. Here I can say that it looks like universe has a clock.
Are we reaching the limits where we can discover than our universe is a mere simulation?
I think I must say somenthing on the theological implications of this therory, because we are
talking in fact of the creation of our universe.
My opinion is very simple: look at the following two sentences.
I decided to publish this article very quickly, but I will later add the references to the
materials I cited and also new things.
Perhaps only one idea is totally shared between me and Bostrom: even if our universe is a mere
simulation, this should not affect our way of living. After all, simulated or not,
this is the world we live in.
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Vinicio Coletti Rome, Italy E-mail vcoletti@libero.it |