Re:What If Time Really Exists? (2008)
by semi-extrinsic on Saturday January 07, 2017 @06:24AM
(#13343538)
Another big problem for these theories is the amount of memory needed to represent our simulation. We can easily estimate the lower bound on the number of bytes needed for this simulation, being the number of atoms in the Earth (assuming they can "fake" the rest of the universe by exploiting the low speed of light), which you would need to all know a number of properties off (at the very least position and momentum). That's at least 10^50, i.e. "frickin enormous". Where would they even put a computer of this size? How would they power it?
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There's no reason to assume they'd need to retain all this data. You'd "only" need to be able to reconstitute representations of details that are actually observed. Other than that you only need to be able to reconstitute a believable representation.
Some have floated the idea that this could be behind some of the peculiarities of physics. E.g. quantum effects, wave/particle duality etc. Of course that is purse speculation.
> That's at least 10^50, i.e. "frickin enormous". Where would they even put a computer of this size? How would they power it?
It's "frickin enormous" by our standards. If we are in a simulation we don't know the properties of the outside universe. E.g. for what we know it fits in some kids PDA.
The problem with even thinking about this is that we don't have any kind of references to go by at all for what is or could be possible.