Small Universe Theory
in [Physics]
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From: Hein Hundal on 20 Jul 2010 12:47 This is just an idea. It is not rigorous in any way. Small Universe Theory Hypotheses 1) Our universe can be simulated by running a program on a super big computer. 2) That program is among the shortest programs that can simulate intelligent life. Supposing that 1) and 2) are true, I think it might explain the following observations about our universe: a) Our universe is only 3 dimensional. b) Our universe does not seem to have existed forever. It has a beginning. Our universe is only 13 billion years old. c) Our universe seems to contain a finite amount of matter. It contains significantly less than 1 google atoms. d) Quantum mechanics exists. e) There are physical laws for our universe that do not seem to change much outside of our solar system or outside of our galaxy. Furthermore, the physical laws do not seem to change much with time. f) The physical laws of our universe can mostly be written down using fairly short formulas. Cheers, Hein
From: Androcles on 20 Jul 2010 14:14 "Hein Hundal" <hundalhh(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:1b5c4651-0acb-40bd-abae-610579985960(a)x21g2000yqa.googlegroups.com... | This is just an idea. It is not rigorous in any way. | | | | Small Universe Theory | | Hypotheses | | 1) Our universe can be simulated by running a program on a super big | computer. False hypothesis, the universe contains the computer. Therefore the computer must also simulate itself. | 2) That program is among the shortest programs that can simulate | intelligent life. Beam me up, Scottie, there is no intelligent life down here. | | Supposing that 1) and 2) are true, But they are not. | I think Do you have any empirical evidence to support such an absurd assumption?
From: Hein Hundal on 20 Jul 2010 16:45 On Jul 20, 2:14 pm, "Androcles" > | I think > > Do you have any empirical evidence to support such an >absurd assumption? I can type somewhat lucid responses to questions, and I might even be able to pass the Turing Test if you were not the judge. :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
From: Androcles on 20 Jul 2010 18:32 "Hein Hundal" <hundalhh(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:a07555a6-6a12-4882-956a-938a885fae32(a)5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com... On Jul 20, 2:14 pm, "Androcles" > | I think > > Do you have any empirical evidence to support such an >absurd assumption? I can type somewhat lucid responses to questions, and I might even be able to pass the Turing Test if you were not the judge. :) =============================================== Hmm... you responded to the question but you didn't answer it. That would classify you as merely simian according to the Turing test, which was designed to test whether an intelligent and logical machine could act as stupidly as a human being and thereby emulate one. Passing the Turing Test is extraordinarily difficult for a computer, it must appear both intelligent and stupid at the same time. It is of course easy for a human being to appear stupid and not be able to multiply 23364901 by 57906 in a microsecond; computers will invariably give the correct answer and thereby fail the Turing Test, since one would not expect a human being to able to do so as quickly. Computers do not think, they grind data according to pre-programmed rules. Do you know what evidence is? Do you know what empirical means? Do you know what empirical evidence is? When was the last time you had a thought that wasn't just a parroted echo of someone else's thought? If you've ever had a thought of your own, describe your thought. If you wish you can cite a patent.
From: Hein Hundal on 20 Jul 2010 21:16 If you are not Androcles, you might just want to skip to the section that begins with ************************** below. HH wrote: >>>>I think Androcles wrote: >>> Do you have any empirical evidence to support such an >>> absurd assumption? HH wrote: >> I can type somewhat lucid responses to questions, and >> I might even be able to pass the Turing Test if you >> were not the judge. :) Androcles wrote: > Hmm... you responded to the question but you didn't > answer it. That would classify you as merely simian > according to the Turing test, which was designed to > test whether an intelligent and logical machine could > act as stupidly as a human being and thereby emulate one. Hmmm. You're bit hard on humanity here. > Passing the Turing Test is extraordinarily difficult > for a computer, it must appear both intelligent > and stupid at the same time. It is of course easy > for a human being to appear stupid and not be able > to multiply 23364901 by 57906 in a microsecond; > computers will invariably give the correct answer > and thereby fail the Turing Test, since one would > not expect a human being to able to do so as > quickly. Computers do not think, they grind data > according to pre-programmed rules. > > Do you know what evidence is? > Do you know what empirical means? > Do you know what empirical evidence is? I think so. > When was the last time you had a thought that wasn't > just a parroted echo of someone else's thought? I am still thinking my original post was not really a parroted echo of other people's thoughts. I know, Kolmogorov complexity is someone else's idea, and I know that the idea that this universe is just a simulation is someone else's idea. But, I am thinking that maybe my imagined consequences of the hypotheses of "small universe theory" SUT might possibly be unique to me. The last original thought that I posted before SUT was "Standard Deviation of Bowling Scores" posted on Dec 28, 2009 to sci.math. http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.math/2009-12/msg02181.html Now you might rightly claim that that post was merely a little statistics and a lot of algebra and it was in almost no way original. So if the bar is raised that high, I would say the last published truly original thought may have been the paper "An alternating projection that does not converge in norm" published in Nonlinear Analysis Volume 57, Issue 1, April 2004, Pages 35-61. (Does not appear to be available on-line.) Von Neumann proved that the method of alternating projections converged if you were projecting onto subspaces (subsets of a Hilbert space that are closed under addition and scalar multiplication), but he did not publish any results about the more general case when the two sets were just intersecting closed convex sets. The conjecture of convergence in this more general case was discussed at least 30 years before it was settled in the paper above. The 26 pages of math used to prove the result were elementary (i.e. understandable by a good undergraduate math student in his/her senior year and all the math used was known to von Neuman) and the article was not even partly based on anyone else's work so I'm going to boldly claim that the article was an original thought. (Ever since Star Trek, I have loved splitting infinitives with the word "boldly".) > If you've ever had a thought of your own, describe > your thought. If you wish you can cite a patent. Patent number: 6129631 Filing date: Feb 25, 1998 Issue date: Oct 10, 2000 http://www.google.com.tw/patents/about?id=ZSwFAAAAEBAJ Now the evidence cited above is not empirical in the sense of an experiment, but it is empirical in the sense that you could say "I observed the article and the patent and based on that empirical evidence, I think he is a thinking being." I hope that the above evidence settles the "I think" part of my original post. (I am rather embarrassed that I used my real name in the original post, but it does have the advantage that I can dispute the conjecture "he does not think" with existing publications.) ************************** Now, can we get back to the "small universe theory". I believe the main arguments against it may include 1) It's not experimentally falsifiable and hence does not qualify as a theory. 2) Conway's game of life is 2D and Turing complete that implies that the hypotheses of SUT do not explain why our universe is more-or-less 3D. 3) 10^40 particles should be more than enough to simulate intelligence. Human beings are composed of only 10^27 particles. 4)..... I was hoping for more arguments like 1), 2), and 3) in response to the original post. Anyone want to give it a shot? Cheers, Hein
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