If something isn’t enough to perplex you, I’d like to pose a question to encourage you to explore the boundaries of your thinking. Skepticism, I suppose, couldn’t play such an annoying/scary role in any context. Every query about the cosmos, in my opinion, is a projection of both insanity and genius. I’d like to discuss the following with trying to don’t get lost in the fine line on this two oppositeness: Is everything possible to simulate? All of the things that we’ve seen, we’ve lived could be latent/covered form of 1 and 0? Let’s consider this possibility together if your sanity has a high threshold for doubts: Could we be made up of 1 and 0, not atoms? (Yes, I’m asking seriously :))
I’d want to make a quick note. When I write my articles, my main goal is to explain theoretical material in straightforward language while avoiding inundating you with unintelligible data. However, rather than offering knowledge, I shall ask questions in this essay. You know, in philosophy, the most important thing is to ask the proper question, not the answers. The answers to the questions that you can’t “discover” will already be our most valuable source of information.
If you have read the introduction and watched The Matrix, you may recall some of the movie’s sequences. Because when it comes to simulation, I think this perfect masterpiece, which immediately reminds us itself, is a great tool for introducing the subject. We can literally move on to the main part of the article with the following words of our character, Morpheus, who mentors our hero Neo in the movie.
What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking a what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
Our Senses
Touching, tasting, smelling… These things are the specific functions that performing by the our sense organs. We detects the reactions in outer world by the receptors of our sense organs. These perceived signals are transmitted to related part centers of the brain. Now just stop and think that everything in the place that you’ve been is a teamwork of your sense organs, isn’t it? Hence we can say the thing that we named ‘reality’ is just are signals which received and interpreted by brain… In other words, all that we’ve seen may be something different in the naked truth cause all these things are the “interpretation” of your brain, and when it comes to the frightening aspect of the affair, who knows how this pure reality is? The answer is nobody -this is the scary dimension of reality- Cause everybody lives their own interpreted reality. If it sounds absurd, I wanna remind you this phrase doesn’t contradict with objective medical informations. If we stop time in the life that we’ve already let flow and create an awareness for what happening in our life then we can understand that the universe is more complex, mysterious, but also fascinating than the ordinary human mind.
Technology
There are many developments in the technology sector day by day. But the point that make the developments important is this increase has acceleration. Such codes, products, ideas… Considering all these developments and products, nothing seems utopian for the near future. We have the weakness of human nature. So we can’t know everything, at least I’m sure we don’t know the whole truth. When we realize that what we know is the tip of the iceberg, it is quite normal that nothing seems utopian…
In today’s world we have self-learning artificial intelligence technologies, computer technologies that enable us to succeed in photographing a black hole. Let’s focus to our own personal experience in this topic. As the young generation, “most of us” computers became familiar in the early 2000s. Remember your first computer. In those years, if someone talk about carrying a tiny, touchscreen devices or the operations that we can do with our mobiles, it wouldn’t have been credible, right? However, just take a look at these huge developments in technology within 10 years. With today’s technology modeling a table, human, animal and stuff is a very simple by using a program. Simulation technology is advanced dimension of this simple program outputs. Using by simulation technology we can create a (virtual) world that doesn’t actually exist in reality beyond the modeled objects. Thus we are able to construct fake reality. In the near future, using this technology, we can create a simulation of the house, street, neighborhood and city we live in. Now I want to point out that: Today we can create small virtual worlds, but what about a world, a universe? This is definitely not impossible when we consider the progress reports on technology. We don’t even need an extreme instance like the universe. If all we have our own little worlds of simulation, this means we already belong to an holistic artificial world. Here is an another question, if the world can be simulated, what’s the proof of that this hasn’t been done before and that we aren’t living in a simulation? I talked about “wander around the limits of the mind” in introduction, I wish you not to stumble.
Let’s return to the subject. I mentioned quantum computers. In fact, quantum computers are the most important factors that cause simulation suspicion. If we make a simple comparison with classical computers, you can easily understand how powerful and fast quantum computers are.
The main theme of the computer world is 1s and 0s. The basis of everything you see on a computer is bits that take the value 1 and 0. In classical computers, a bit can only take the value 1 or 0 at a time. In other words, with the combination of many 1s and 0s, we can do a lot of things in today’s technology. The bits we refer to as 1 and 0 are actually 5 and 0 volts. Transistors in computers controls electricity. (Transistors consist of logic gates and logic gates creates various process modules.) So we can think of the transistor as the gatekeeper of the data path. And this gatekeeper opens or closes the door at certain moments (Volt is already the movement of free electrons and 5V represents 1 bit in this movement.). Today’s all creative and fascinating ideas are built on the basis of 1 and 0. Unfortunately, with classical computers, as the complexity of the process increases, it takes more time to reach the result. In addition, for accomplish some operations they requires higher processing power. Therefore, quantum computers and supercomputers become significant today.
Quantum computers has “qubit”s instead of bits. Unlike bits, qubits can take the value 1 and 0 at the same time. Qubits can consist of 2-state systems based on quantum principles, e.g. an electron… 1 and 0 values can be represented by the electron’s spin up and spin down states. However, electrons can take the values 1 and 0 at the same time due to they can have both up and down spin state. Or consider a photon (particle of light). We said that the 2-state system that based upon quantum principles can be represented by qubits. Photons can be polarized horizontally or vertically. Thereby one of these two states can represent 1 and the other 0. However, in quantum mechanics, there is a circumstance where all possibilities can occur simultaneously. The element in superposition has all of the possible states at the same moment. Hence, because a photon can be both horizontal and vertical at the same time, it can contain both 1 and 0 values.
Now let’s consider 3 bits. Since the bits can take the value of 1 and 0 in the classical computer, we can perform any operation in ²³ different ways, that is, one of 8 states. However, in a quantum computer, since we can have both 1 and 0 at the same time, we can have these 8 states at the same time when we have 3 qubits. In other words, we don’t have to be in only one state since superposition allows us to include these eight states at the same time. This means that while solving a problem, numerous solutions can be tried simultaneously. Let’s suppose that we have a problem that we want to reach the optimal solution among billions of solutions. In classical computers, these billions of solutions are tried one by one until the desired result is obtained. The optimal solution can only be determined after all solutions have been obtained. However, in quantum computers, these billions of solutions are already accessible at the same time, so they can be processed in parallel at that moment. Thus the time spent on the solution becomes much shorter.
Indeed, according to a claim made by Google and NASA in an article I read, if we try to calculate a solution that a quantum computer performs in 1 second with a classical computer (single core), this process may take 10.000 years.
I hope you now have a better understanding of quantum computers’ speed and processing power. When you examine some more, you can see that quantum computers are extremely useful for creating universe simulations, comprehending them, and generating livable virtual worlds.
Hypotheses…
If you stop and say “could it be?” then it means the article has achieved its purpose. While we are almost at the conclusion of the article I’d like to share some of the arguments on the simulation. Most hypothetists’ primary focus on the subject is video games. How can we prove that we are not in a simulation world, Considering the current rate of development of video games and their relationship with virtual reality?
One hypothesis is that we’re just players in a multiplayer online role-playing game, each with our own unique character. Furthermore, the hypothesist claims that, this virtual world is far too impeccable to be differentiated from reality. The owner of this hypothesis studied computer science at MIT and is currently working in the game development industry. R. Virk also wrote an article about the potential of artificial intelligence being the god.
In his article, Nick Bostrom, an Oxford University professor, also gives place to fantastic ideas ike the one above. Futurists predict that in the future, we will have extremely powerful computational capability. Assuming we have this ability, future generations will be able to simulate their ancestors. Because the computers will be powerful enough to produce many excellent simulations, as they say. If a sufficiently detailed and impeccable simulation is used, simulated humans can be made to believe they have consciousness. Then, can’t we be simulated ancestors by future generations with brilliant technology?
A Nutshell Review
In the final section of the article, I’d like to bring all of the questions together.
- Is it possible that everything is a simulation?
- What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking a what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
- Isn’t everything you sense in your environment a teamwork of your sense organs?
- All of the things you perceive could be something else in pure reality; after all, this is just your brain’s “interpretation,” and who knows what pure reality is like?
- If the world can be simulated, what will prove us that this hasn’t been done before and that we aren’t living in a simulation?
- How can we be sure we’re not in a virtual reality?
- Can’t we be simulated ancestors by future generation with perfect technology?
The worrisome part is that we, as humanity, do not have a clear answer to all these questions…
