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I would be open to any theory about reality that explains quantum weirdness as eloquently as does the simulation theory. I am unaware of any that does.
Well, with all due respect, insisting on a better explanation isn't proper falsification - the world at large doesn't have to come up with a way to prove you wrong.
If you want a hypothesis to be tested using the scientific method, you pretty much have to be able to come up with a hypothetical set of data that would make you retract the hypothesis. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Kelvin's proof of the Earth's low age would have shot the ToE down in flames.
So, what evidence can we gather that disproves the simulation? I don't really see any - all available data can be simulated, right?
Which to my mind puts the idea in the metaphysics category, rather than natural science.
Or just that things get really weird when we look close. Our minds are evolved (yes, they bloody well are) to deal with matter on a level that reinforces our chances of reproducing. Perhaps our intuitive understanding about the nature of matter is simply wrong - a workable approximation for everyday purposes, but flawed once we approach the boundaries. Rather like Newtonian vs. relativistic physics...
Quantum physics MAKES SENSE if you assume reality is simulated. It doesn't under the objective reality hypothesis.
Why is it not possible that objective reality simply behaves counter-intuitively at the quantum level compared to our normal experience?
At the macro level, space becomes curved and time slows down in the presence of very strong gravitational fields. In a black hole, spacetime curvature becomes infinite. So, because this is very strange compared to our normal everyday experience, does this mean that black holes are also evidence that reality is a simulation?
Last edited by BigCityDreamer; 04-26-2012 at 02:26 PM..
If it were designed to do so, I suppose it could. But what if figuring out that it's "not real" is actually one of the goals of the game?
Okay now. Pause for a second and consider that statement. It is the explicit acknowledgment that the concept is completely untestable. If any feature can be waved aside with the ad hoc excuse that "Oh, it was just designed that way" then it is unfalsifiable by definition. It is the identical excuse made by creationists when pointed to things like shared ERVs between humans and chimpanzees. Unable to admit that they are proof that humans and chimps (and all other primates) share a common ancestor, they simply wave it off as deliberate on the part of the designer. They offer no good reason why a designer would do such a weird thing, but that's how they try to explain to away.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
Electrons are like bullets, except many orders of magnitude smaller. But they are matter, and in theory anyway, if you could shrink yourself down small enough, you could hold them in your hand just as you can bullets.
Sorry... I have a serious problem with that. Even in classical mechanics, scale is critical to the behavior and understanding of a physical entity. A mouse is even more like an elephant than an electron is like a bullet. I would suggest you consider how differently they behave when dropped a distance of 20 feet.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
When you fire bullets at a bulletproof barrier with 2 slits in it, you expect to get 2 vertical lines of bullet holes behind the barrier.
Yes, at the scale at which bullets exist, they behave according to the laws of classical mechanics.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
That is what the expected behavior of electrons is under similar circumstances.
That may have been true at one time... a time when we were largely ignorant about the behavior of any subatomic particle. But it was no more valid an expectation than had we tossed elephants and mice off of the roof anticipating the same results for both.
But more importantly... why would anyone have though to perform a diffraction experiment with electrons in the first place if the expectation was that they would simply behave like bullets? In actuality, that was not the expectation at all. When the experiment was performed, the expectation was that electrons would demonstrate wave-particle duality. In fact the result was predicted by Louis de Broglie in his PhD thesis in 1924.
So again... I am at a complete loss as to how one might test your theory. The "expectations" you use to justify it were not the expectations at all.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
And yet, it happens. Despite the fact that it's physically impossible.
Do you not recognize the complete contradiction contained in those two sentences? If it happens, it is not merely possible, it is certain.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
Now, if the electrons are not in fact physical, but if their behavior is probabilistic and calculated, and they are only "rendered" to the simulation when necessary (i.e. when observed), then the behavior pattern makes sense.
Why? Had you not already known how electrons would behave at all, and you were trying to support a simulation theory, would a diffraction pattern have been a prediction of that theory?
I can't see how it possibly could. In a simulation, all bets are off. The simulator could just as easily been programed to make the electrons fall in patterns reminiscent of gardenias and unicorns. There is no a obvious reason why a simulation should produce a diffraction pattern any more or less than a physical reality would.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
It has a greater than zero probability of going through both slits, so it's behavior is calculated as if it did, unless we alter the experiment by determining which one. Once that happens, the chance of it going through the other drops to exactly zero, and the results reflect that.
I have now read that a half dozen times, very carefully. I see nothing there to help me distinguish between a simulation and a physical reality.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
An objectively real electron CANNOT create an interference pattern.
Again, this assertion (beyond merely being empirically false) fails entirely because of differences in scale. It is the equivalent of claiming that "An objectively real mouse CANNOT survive a fall from 20 feet simply because we already know that an elephant can't.
And yet such a fall would be entirely harmless to a mouse.
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Originally Posted by DentalFloss
Well, if you think that, explain it to the rest of the world. Not even Hawking thinks that.
Okay now. Pause for a second and consider that statement. It is the explicit acknowledgment that the concept is completely untestable.
Perhaps. I'm not a physicist. I'm not a scientist. I'm just a guy with way above average intelligence, an active imagination, and a thirst for expanding my intellect. I'm not going to be writing peer-reviewed papers, nor will I go down in history as the originator of this theory, even if it becomes widespread, mainstream, or even provable/proven. If you look around, you'll find many actual scientists working on this theory all on their own.
So the fact that I'm incapable of "proving" it to a reasonable scientific standard is of no concern to me, I merely present the data along with my interpretation. Now, if you show me an error, in my thinking, in the data, in my analysis, I'll listen. I'm hard-headed, but not stupid. If I'm demonstrably wrong, I'll eat crow and come up with another theory.
Or not.
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Sorry... I have a serious problem with that. Even in classical mechanics, scale is critical to the behavior and understanding of a physical entity.
True. But you're forgetting (or ignoring) one critical fact. The fact that when we start measuring which slit, the results change.
OK, the detectors are causing a behavioral change. Except they're not.
They've done every permutation of the experiment you can imagine, it turns out the cause of the result changes is not measuring, it's not recording the measurements, it's not analyzing the results, it's whether or not that information is AVAILABLE here, in this reality. Every experiment done where the information ultimately is NOT available results in an interference pattern. Every one done where the in information is available results in 2 vertical lines, like what you would get from bullets.
Quantum eraser experiments, where the data is retained on path A and destroyed on path B result in 2 lines at the end of path A, and an interference pattern at the end of path B. The ONLY difference between path A and path B is whether or not the "which slit" data remains available!
How does that imply a simulated reality?
It's simple, really.
In a simulation, it's most efficient to only render things as necessary, which is to say when they are observed or measured. When you play a simulated war game on your television, only that which needs to be displayed at any one time is rendered. The rest is tracked, else every time you turn around you'd find something different, but it's rendered only when necessary.
The results of the experiment act as though they are catching that render on demand engine red handed.
When we don't look, there is no reason to render the electron until it hits the measuring screen, so it's calculated behavior is as if it went through both slits and interfered with itself. When we DO look, it must be rendered AT the slit, which means it went through one slit OR the other, with a zero probability of both, and it behaves that way.
They've done the experiment successfully on C60 atoms (called buckeyballs, because they resemble the appearance of a soccer ball). Buckyballs are SO big they're described as "almost macro". It's said you could do it with toaster ovens, but that's not practical as they would have to be molecularly identical (a practical impossibility) and the distances between the "slits" and the "measuring screen" would be measured in light-years (another one).
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So again... I am at a complete loss as to how one might test your theory.
To a certain degree, so am I. The experiments we've discussed seem to indicate the simulation theory is at least viable. I've tried, without success, to think of some others which might do the same.
As for disproving it, ditto.
Of course, if the theory is genuinely true, and we DO live in a simulation, would disproving it even be possible?
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Why? Had you not already known how electrons would behave at all, and you were trying to support a simulation theory, would a diffraction pattern have been a prediction of that theory?
Because of the aforementioned principal of rendering only when necessary.
At the macro level, space becomes curved and time slows down in the presence of very strong gravitational fields. In a black hole, spacetime curvature becomes infinite. So, because this is very strange compared to our normal everyday experience, does this mean that black holes are also evidence that reality is a simulation?
Some have said yes, though I'm not familiar enough with their theory to articulate it.
But the very fact that time is relative is indicative of a simulated, as opposed to an objective, reality.
In an objective reality, time simply is. It cannot change, it cannot be changed. And yet, in our reality, it does.
Tennessee's Governor didn't sign the "Monkey Bill", but creationism will have a place in the classroom.
Each step forward for creationism is a step backward for science.
I think faith-based education doesn't belong in the public schools... there isn't anything wrong with it, you can teach it at home or enroll your kids in a religious educational school... with that said, I consider Global Warming to also be faith-based education... I don't that should be taught in public schools either...
I think you may be typing "falsifiable" when you mean to say "falsified". Because the ToE, like any sound theory, is eminently falsifiable - if Lord Kelvin had been right about the age of the Earth, that would have been it. It's just that it's never been successfully falsified.
But if you feel like taking a swing at coming up with falsification criteria for the Designer hypothesis, I'd be interested. What positive evidence would you accept as ruling out the existence of a Designer?
Thank you. I did mean "falsified." And no, I don't really have the armament to fight this battle like some of you do.
I have not done anything related to this kind of science in a looooooooong time.
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