29 replies
18h18m
Only tangentially related, but the lovely (quite) short story "I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility" is fantastic and kind of hits on simulating worlds, in a sense:
25 replies
18h25m
Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to live in simulated universe.
6 replies
17h50m
When thinking about this one, I always wonder if it even matters.. playing both "Yes" and "No" scenarios doesn't really offer any insight for me. Maybe it's a degree of nihilism but it makes me not get overwhelmed.
5 replies
16h18m
A simulation has a nonzero chance of having exploits, and it's debatable whether it is in our best interest to discover them.
2 replies
16h13m
What's an "exploit"? Is electricity an exploit of that weird phenomenon where a balloon sticks to a wall sometimes?
0 replies
12h30m
I’d imagine that’s an application of a rule, whereas an exploit is a violation of a rule that allows for (a && !a) or some such inconsistency.
0 replies
5h41m
God created electromagnetism as a way to transmit power between the fusion plant and its simulated planet, and is now delighted that we also use it to trade Pokemons back and forth.
0 replies
3h34m
Consciousness is the exploit.
0 replies
15h8m
I consider biting my tongue when eating a glitch in the matrix. If there's a higher level exploit, I definitely don't wanna know!
4 replies
14h8m
Well you are in a way, what is a simulation ? It's just a set of rules you follow that are simpler than the more complex environment that it runs in: I suppose if we could "see" "outside" the "universe", we'd understand that maybe our reality is very simple and limited compared to the "reality" outside. Maybe this would be true infinitely, or maybe the outside reality would be much more logical than ours, and we'd accept it's finite.
But since we have a beginning, and a flow of time, we probably also have a birth, a mother, and maybe even a purpose... but that's a very human way to think, might all just be random soup.
But imagine there's a self-aware agent in a simulation we create, he starts thinking the same thoughts, everyone mock him "we're all just random, there is no God, no design, how could so much energy be spent on such a useless giant block of empty space for any reason", he would have to sort of agree, but he would be sort of wrong. And discovering us, would bring him no solace: we can't tell him of our own designers ourselves. Discovering them, would bring us no solace either, for the same reason. That's why the concept of God is stupid: God has a God too, so what do we do now, solved no problem to accept His existence.
2 replies
13h30m
I think modern people have so much faith in this reality, they'd have little chance accepting that it is other than it seems. Any evidence would have to be stark.
1 replies
9h34m
Actually, physics supports the probability that we live in a simulation. Our universe has the highest limitation of speed and the smallest units of length and energy.
0 replies
4h19m
Neuroscience, psychology, public opinion polls, and internet forums demonstrate that we do.
The problem is, the nature of this style of simulation, as opposed to the Bostrom theory ("the" simulation theory (singular, there can be only one)), makes it (nearly) impossible to realize.
This is both tragic and hilarious, especially since we have extensive knowledge of this flaw.
0 replies
3h18m
That concept of God is stupid, some are tautological, and some are experiential. Eg the concept of God is love (if you have faith in the concept and reality of love being real).
4 replies
18h18m
You say that as if you aren't. What proof do you have either way?
2 replies
15h57m
why does it matter?
If we are, we're in a sandbox that cant be escaped. live your best life and get on with it
If we aren't Live your best life and get on with it.
I've never seen the point of the question.
0 replies
15h23m
Sometimes people like to exercise their brains with random what-ifs. I've never seen the point of people that never let their brain wander.
0 replies
12h42m
What if we could escape the sandbox? Our software has crappy exploits all the time, why wouldn't theirs?
0 replies
18h6m
Pretty sure all of you are in my simulation... Right? Or maybe I'm just in a coma and this is a coma dream...
1 replies
16h45m
The energy and matter in the universe is actually a big analog quantum computer simulating the result of a set of equations.
Nobody said the simulation had to be run on semiconductors.
0 replies
9h3m
It's less commonly said, but the territory isn't the map either.
0 replies
13h35m
It would probably slow down or cause elevated heat between two mirrors.
0 replies
18h4m
“I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility” https://qntm.org/responsibility
0 replies
17h15m
The Universe tries its best to catch up with Math. So, Math isn't fully simulable by the real?
0 replies
17h26m
Watch the show Pantheon sometime! No spoilers, just highly relevant.
0 replies
16h47m
What's it even like to live in a non-simulated one!
0 replies
10h9m
It would be exactly like this one
9 replies
16h5m
There is an excellent hard science fiction book called permutation city that very related to this topic…it made me feel like i was in a dream when i read this post’s title
5 replies
15h10m
I havent yet read permutation city but Diaspora is one of my favorite sci-fi novels. I need to make time for it
2 replies
8h21m
there's a short story in his anthology that is a sequel to diaspora. oceanic.
1 replies
4h45m
I had no idea it was related to diaspora. After reading only the first few paragraphs I can't wait to read it all. Thank you!
0 replies
2h50m
tbh a number of the other short stories could be considered prequels to diaspora.
1 replies
14h15m
Diaspora gives me shivers just thinking about it. Permutation City is fun, but not as inspiring as Diaspora.
0 replies
5h19m
He - rightly, and often - makes these rounds here when simulacrums are at hand. Well deserved.-
1 replies
13h8m
Permutation City is briljant - Greg Egan has many (free) stories exploring physics on his website: https://www.gregegan.net/
0 replies
11h44m
Egan is one of those rare writers where reading his book made me realize just how much smarter he is than me. Not even in a negative way, it's simply like listening to a lecture by a brilliant, brilliant man.
0 replies
15h47m
I finished that book yesterday. I had exactly the same reaction.
4 replies
16h13m
written entirely in GLSL fragment shaders
What's the language for that?
(The music is pretty cliche. Maybe it was written by AI)
1 replies
15h47m
The music is "Adagio in D Minor", and probably cliche more because it's been used so much rather than because it was cliche when written. It was originally composed by John Murphy for the 2007 film Sunshine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine:_Music_from_the_Motio...
0 replies
4h22m
Sunshine is one really fine piece of film. Beautiful.
0 replies
15h18m
GLSL is the language.
0 replies
15h36m
Not sure if that's actually your question, but GLSL is the language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL_Shading_Language
3 replies
10h45m
Mm..cool but the last part where any civilization that has night lights would by definition burn all the fossil fuels and turn the place into a desert seems like an assumption based on only one possible trajectory of our own civilization, let alone all other possible alien civilizations. There's nothing to make death by warming and desertification any likelier than nuclear war or the development of clean fusion, or a plague or an invasion from another nearby procedurally generated earth-like planet.
Basically it's a cool sim when it's trying to simulate stuff that actually happened, and before it gets opinionated.
Moreover, it apparently equates heat with dryness, and also doesn't take into account the effect of additional CO2 on plant life. It is called a greenhouse effect for a reason. It's quite possible the equatorial belt could heat up to where it's uninhabitable by humans but overrun by jungle rather than desert.
2 replies
8h32m
While I have some doubts some of your statements your comment still resonates.
Unfortunately, we live in an “Excel world”. The predominant thinking is that our highly complex world can be modeled into an excel sheet. And based on the outputs we should make decisions.
This approach mostly ignores the second order effects you describe.
1 replies
7h8m
Climate change predicts a warmer wetter world The author just didn’t know this
0 replies
4h28m
The issue is, the locations where most humans live today, grew historically from the best spots our ancestors could find in the whole planet, taking many factors in consideration: proximity to water bodies, good climate, good agricultural lands, adequate rainfall, et cetera. These are not random locations, they grew around the best spots available. If climate changes, they tend to regress toward the mean, diminishing carrying capacity. Other places may even improve, from the POV of human habitability, but statistically those will not be the same we have a lot of people living today, but places like siberia, that historically were population voids, prompting the need for mass migration and mass resettlement in a world that is already full of borders, and all the associated problems this entails.
3 replies
18h1m
does anybody know what the music accompanying the full video was? It seemed familiar but I couldn't place it. Maybe AI generated?
1 replies
17h43m
Sunshine (Adagio in D minor)
https://open.spotify.com/intl-fr/track/50ExtKr8j9cHTY3OEw282...
I asked Siri to identify the song.
0 replies
16h46m
Sounds more like "jackhammer in D minor" rather than an "adagio"
0 replies
17h54m
It sounds an awful lot like "Maiden Voyage" (the instrumental version) by the clockwork dolls, but not quite.
2 replies
15h38m
Not sure why, but all the shadertoy examples embedded in the page play at like 0.6 FPS for me. When I open the linked "final shader" on the shadertoy website I get 60fps just fine ...
1 replies
15h13m
If your browser is like mine, there is a clipped play button below the rewind button that resolves the issue.
0 replies
14h50m
Ah, that indeed works.
Taking a look, the CSS throws warnings about being ignored; adding "position: absolute" fixes that and makes the button fully visible.
1 replies
13h52m
Back in 1996/1997 I worked on a CD-ROM game that simulated movement of the tectonic plates, as well as temperature, elevation, and precipitation, over millions of years. Amazing to see how evolution (heh!) of computing hardware and software have come so far in 28 years: https://www.kmoser.com/evolution/
0 replies
8h55m
I think you are the first person I come across that knows that game and you were an actual dev on it! So thank you! I played it when I was around 13(I think) and I loved it. The whole concept of simulating a planet and the animals on it was pretty much mind blowing for me at the time(it still is). I should have kept the poster that came with it...the different sapien evolutionary branches were really interesting.
0 replies
14h25m
In truth, it must be said that some details were omitted by the simulation :)
0 replies
3h26m
Worlds within worlds
0 replies
12h27m
One of my favorite courses at university was energy policy analysis, where we played around with the EPPA model (developed at MIT) [0]. We made changes to certain parameters to see how things might work out, e.g. if cost of energy storage is reduced 10x.
Lots of fun, but I unfortunately never managed to find anything similar to do in my job.
[0]: https://globalchange.mit.edu/research/research-tools/eppa
0 replies
12h22m
Why only fragment shaders? If you had vertex shaders for a heightmap too then you could zoom down to the surface.
0 replies
16h15m
Today, a simple simulation at 60fps.
Tomorrow: "When you gaze long into the simulation, the simulation gazes back"
I'd love to read alternate endings to it.
I've been thinking about writing a story with a very similar plot for a couple of years, but it had a big plot hole: computation overhead between the universes, and I hadn't thought about quantum computers as a way to solve it.
The other main difference with the story that I had in mind is that the characters would write a story about it, which would be "my" story, and they'd find a way to make it so that the ending would tell the reader the universe depth they are in, by creating a variable whose value is incremented by 1 for each universe.
For anyone reading this on HN, you're 8474771628371839 levels deep.
Unless you're going hard sci-fi, you can do what this story did. Give them by fiat "infinite processing power and infinite storage capacity."
I think all of qntm's stories are hard sci-fi.
Infinite processing power, infinite storage, zero latency, etc is about as soft of a setting as it gets.
Is it? A new fundamental particle doesn't necessarily make it soft sci-fi. The story seems perfectly technical to me.
Can't black holes already encode an infinite amount of information past the event horizon?
No, current physics has a bunch of hard limits on information.
Calling something a particle doesn’t matter here. It’s a fully formed computational device that happens to magically solve all problems.
Consider, how do you encode and read information from such a particle. Qubit’s are physical properties of something, such as spin. Is this particle supposed to have infinite properties which you can access with infinite precision? No, it’s just a magic macguffin that does whatever the author wants.
They're pretty soft, I would say. Most of Fine Structure is basically just magic.
If you're going to accuse something of using magic, I'm surprised you didn't accuse Ra, which even has something called 'magic'. I've been reading Fine Structure this morning and it doesn't seem magical to me at all. It's about as magical as quantum physics would be, I guess.
I suppose even Ra still obeys the speed of light, though.
888 412 1289018?
0118 999 881 999 119 7253?
... 262144 4782969 100000000 2357947691 61917364224 1792160394037 56693912375296 1946195068359375 :)
"Do you know how big the average positive integer is?"
I remember watching a (wonderful) T.V. show[0] that came out within the last couple decades, and feeling like a certain scene was definitely a nod to this story. The drama, and physics (and resolution) was done differently, but it left me in a similarly, pleasantly pensive state. [0] I almost made the mistake of naming it, or the director - but caught myself, realizing the context of this comment alone could be a major "spoiler".
Maybe I've encoded the name in this comment (honestly though, I tried, and it's late - maybe search engines are good enough for it these days :) )
What's the name of the show?
U+200E before letters spelling out show in my comment. Just noting that while I would have enjoyed the show very much even if I had this "spoiler", it certainly would have lost some "magic".
you could use a url shortener to hide the link to the show's wikipedia page. For those who don't mind spoilers, they can know what you're talking about.
https://tinyurl.com/mrx6rfef
That is, in fact, a great tv show.
I think they definitely got "inspired" from qntm's story, but the ending of that TV show was unwatchably bad.
I’m not sure I really know how to handle this. Do I just read the latest version linked at the top of the page? Or is the one offered by this like somehow more canonical or something? I’m not sure I’ve ever been faced with different versions of a fiction before. Just textbooks.
I really love thought pieces like this if you refrain from poking holes in the logic or physics. I love the idea of a multiverse where they’re all actually just identical so it’s mostly moot.
You probably have, but haven't thought of it like that. Ever seen a Director's Cut version of a movie? :-)
Oh gosh it’s true. And that whole Star Wars thing.
I guess I’ve just not yet faced it with print.
Sure you have, if you've ever bought an Nth edition of a book (where N > 1). Editions aren't always just an artwork/formatting change, they sometimes contain changes to the text too.
Canon is just a construct invented to sell merchandise and keep out competitors. Enjoy whichever version of the story you’d like!
Enjoy all. Several, in fact :)
To deepen this tangent, I'll recommend Philip K. Dick's The Trouble With Bubbles which imagines 60s cocktail party guests showing off their miniature planet-scale terrariums.
Amazing, thank you for introducing me to this!
Thanks! For anyone who liked that here's another [0] short story in the same vein.
[0]: https://pastebin.com/raw/gA4aRc0T
I just love how a world-class quantum computer scientist who just made a discovery that just blows up everything known to mankind is up to the very end is worried about missing a bus.