(ORDO NEWS) — Physicists have long tried to explain why the universe was originally created in conditions suitable for the development of life.
Why do physical laws and constants take on very specific values that allow stars, planets and, ultimately, life to evolve?
The expanding force of the universe, such as dark energy, is much weaker than theory suggests. that’s how it should be – to allow matter to stick together, and not be torn apart.
The common answer is that we live in an infinite multiverse, so we shouldn’t be surprised that at least one universe has turned out like ours.
But another option is that our universe is a computer simulation in which someone (perhaps an advanced alien species) is fine-tuning the conditions.
The latter option is supported by a branch of science called information physics, which assumes that space-time and matter are not fundamental phenomena. In contrast, physical reality is mostly made up of bits of information from which our perception of space-time emerges.
By comparison, temperature “emerges” from the collective movement of atoms. No atom has a temperature in principle.
This leads to the incredible possibility that our entire universe could actually be a computer simulation.
This idea is not so new. In 1989, the legendary physicist John Archibald Wheeler proposed that the universe is fundamentally mathematical and can be seen as arising from information. He coined the famous aphorism “it’s from a beat.”
In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom of the University of Oxford in the UK formulated his simulation hypothesis. This proves that it is actually quite likely that we are living in a simulation.
This is because an advanced civilization must reach a point where their technology is so sophisticated that the simulations will be indistinguishable from reality, and the participants will not be aware that they were in a simulation.
Physicist Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US has taken the simulation hypothesis to the next level by suggesting that the entire universe could be a giant quantum computer.
Empirical data
There is some evidence that our physical reality may be a simulated virtual reality rather than an objective world that exists independently of the observer.
Any virtual reality world will be based on information processing. This means that everything is eventually digitized or pixelated down to the smallest size that can’t be further divided: bits.
It seems to mimic our reality in accordance with the theory of quantum mechanics, which rules the world of atoms and particles. It states that there is the smallest discrete unit of energy, length, and time.
Similarly, elementary particles, which make up all visible matter in the universe, are the smallest units of matter. Simply put, our world is made up of pixels.
The laws of physics that govern everything in the universe are also like lines of computer code that a simulation follows when running a program.
Moreover, there are mathematical equations, numbers and geometric patterns everywhere – the world seems completely mathematical.
Another curious fact in physics that confirms the simulation hypothesis is the maximum speed limit in our universe, that is, the speed of light. In virtual reality, this limit would correspond to the processor speed limit or the processing power limit.
We know that an overloaded processor slows down the computer when simulating. Similarly, Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity shows that time slows down near a black hole.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the simulation hypothesis comes from quantum mechanics. This suggests that nature is not “real”: particles in certain states, such as in certain places, seem to be non-existent unless you observe or measure them.
Instead, they are simultaneously in a mixture of different states. Similarly, virtual reality needs an observer or a programmer to make things happen.
Quantum “entanglement” also allows two particles to be ghostly connected, so that if you manipulate one, you automatically and immediately manipulate the other, no. no matter how far apart they are, the effect seems to be faster than the speed of light, which should be impossible.
However, this can also be explained by the fact that in the virtual reality code, all “locations” (points) must be approximately the same distance from the central processor.
So while we might think that the two particles are millions of light-years apart, they wouldn’t be if they were created in the simulation.
Possible experiments
Assuming that the universe is indeed a simulation, what kind of experiments can we run inside the simulation to prove it?
It is reasonable to assume that the simulated universe will contain many information bits all around us. These information bits represent the code itself. Therefore, the detection of these information bits will confirm the modeling hypothesis.
The recently proposed mass-energy-information (M/E/I) equivalence principle suggests that mass can be expressed as energy or information, or vice versa. – asserts that information bits should have a small mass. This gives us the opportunity to search.
I postulated that information is actually the fifth form of matter in the universe. I even calculated the expected informativeness per elementary particle. These studies led to the publication in 2022 of an experimental protocol to test these predictions.
The experiment involves erasing the information contained within elementary particles, allowing them and their antiparticles (all particles have “anti” versions that are identical to each other but have opposite charges) to annihilate in a burst of energy, emitting “photons” or light particles.
I have predicted the exact range of expected frequencies of the resulting photons based on information physics. The experiment is quite achievable with our existing tools, and for this we launched a crowdfunding site.
There are other approaches as well. The late physicist John Barrow argued that the simulation would result in minor computational errors that the programmer would need to correct in order for it to continue working.
He suggested that we might encounter such corrections when conflicting experimental results suddenly appear. , such as constants of change of nature. So monitoring the values of these constants is another option.
The nature of our reality is one of the greatest mysteries. The more seriously we take a modeling hypothesis, the more likely it is that one day we will be able to prove or disprove it.
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