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A comment on Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (2012). Parent comment

Re:Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (2012) by 21 on Friday October 14, 2016 @06:59PM (#12711708)
"really big" and "really detailed" is relative.

We have no absolute scale to measure against. Our 10^80 particle universe (or whatever the number is) could live in an 10^8000 particle one.

So our whole universe could literally be contained in something as "big" as a grain of sand in the host universe.

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Re:Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (2012) by comicjk on Friday October 14, 2016 @08:23PM (#12712019)
Yes, I'm referring to big and detailed relative to what we can simulate with foreseeable technology. Sure, we can see how to maybe simulate a universe the size of a cell, and a much much larger universe could maybe simulate everything in ours. But in either case, the larger universe is going to view the smaller one as a simplification.
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Re:Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (2012) by mikermcneil on Saturday October 15, 2016 @06:10PM (#12715863)
If I'm running Linux in a VM, I don't think of it as a simplification-- but it is way easier to just shut it off and reinstall if something goes wrong.
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