Inspired about this topic after seeing this book brought to me by my friend, who began to immerse himself in the idea that we were living in a simulation. What college did the author go to spout such madness? Said to be from MIT. Boston MIT right? Check. It is said that the ‘simulation hypothesis’ is not the realm of science fiction today, but is being supported mainly by scientists, computer engineers, and physicists who study quantum mechanics. Didn’t even Elon Musk say we have a one in a billion chance that we’re not living in a simulation? In this book the author, a game developer and computer engineer, summarises the reasons why this hypothesis is gaining strength in all areas of physics/computer science/philosophy.
In short, if the development trend of today’s video games maintains the current pace, it is expected that in the near future, simulations will be able to reproduce the reality we live in and the simulated characters living in it will be able to develop vivid simulations that they do not even know they are a simulation. The author calls the ‘simulation point‘ that makes it possible to implement such a ‘simulation’, but if we can achieve that level of development, paradoxically – we are in the simulation run by the advanced life forms before us, and we are very It is a highly advanced technology that we cannot even suspect.
Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, in his 1993 paper. Are you living in a Computer simulation Considering the technology, it is said that it is possible to run hundreds of thousands of simulations instead of just one or two, and if so, it is said that they have shown a kind of thought experiment that probabilistically we are more likely to be ‘simulated’ rather than ‘real’. (Nick even proved it by using math with difficulty – who said that if you go out with philosophy, you will starve to death?)
From the first chapter to the ‘simulation point‘, the author introduces step-by-step what technologies humanity has already prepared and what more skills are needed in the future. It is said that the game progressed like a kind of mind map – in which the computer writes the worldview, the player types Yes/No, and moves on to the next stage – since it was not possible to implement the game with graphics in the early days of the computer. Then, 2D RPG games were introduced in the 80’s when some poor graphics became possible. It is said that the adventure format, in which different scenarios are performed according to the world view/state of character/character selection, is popular and has become the basis of more complex MMORPG games in the future.
In particular, it was the first game to play a first-person shooting game called Doom that brought about a dramatic change in graphics – I was happy to remember playing a Wolfenstein (Nazi-killing game) game with my brother that was a trial version of the same company before that. He said that it was groundbreaking that he started rendering in 3D from a first-person perspective (like Super Mario) from 2D until then. Also, Doom allowed two players to participate in a shooting game at the same time, which was later referred to as an MMORPG game. (MMORPG Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game – Like Wow).
It is said that non-playing NPC characters in the game are also meaningful in the simulation hypothesis. In other words, the Nazis shot in the picture above are not players in the game, but characters created in the game, and this is said to be AI in a sense. If there is a simulation point that enables the technology to bring people and the world to life as if in real life, this person in front of me right now is ‘playing character; real human’ or ‘non-playing character; It is said that it will not be able to distinguish whether it is a virtual human or an AI.
It is said that his curiosity about games and the world began when he was a child playing F1 games. I really liked f1 games too. Basically, racing cars can’t get off the track, but who lives in the city over the mountains? What’s the name of the woman in that crowd? I also liked to open up the same imagination. The author said the same… so sometimes I purposely get off the track and drive my car into any field, but I can’t see anything.
Anyway, I have a feeling that the topic is leaking because I am talking about the game. Today, like CG in movies, graphics are developing tremendously. However, it is said that video games or online games are not easy because graphics must be implemented according to the movement of the player in real time, rather than graphics that appear at a fixed time from a woven angle like a movie. The development of VR and augmented reality AR is also said to be approaching the simulation point. Personally, I remember the moment when I used Oculus and was thrilled – the author tells the same story. However, compared to the groundbreaking development, it is becoming less popular now, and the need to use those ‘goggles’ is acting as a kind of obstacle. However, if the technology develops further, it may be possible to do something like a mind interface. I’m talking about something, but I can’t think of anything technical.
He also talked about the possibility that the realm of our ‘consciousness’ would be downloaded in digital form and stored on silicon or USB. This is a setting from a comedy series called upload, which I saw on Amazon, and it was interesting to say that the ‘information’ and ‘data’ of our consciousness in the end (even if the language we use is different) corresponds to the realm of neuroscience and even religion. .
And it is said in Chapter 2 that the simulation hypothesis becomes more powerful the more you study quantum mechanics, not just imagination. Chapter 2 is to be continued…
We know that quantum mechanics deals with the fact that the laws of physics that we know work well in the macro world, but do not work in the micro world of atoms and electron nuclei. In the double slit experiment to determine whether a substance is a particle or a wave, a conclusion is drawn based on the ‘phase’ that comes out of passing the material through a certain plate. The phase shows that the substance is a wave wave, but a ‘detector’ is installed If we check this, we conclude that the substance is a ‘particle’. The fact that the very act of ‘observing’, ‘detecting’, and ‘recognizing’ something determines whether the properties of matter are particles or waves must have been a great shock to modern physicists of the 20th century who have studied Newtonian physics, and it is true for me as well. .
Perhaps, modern intellectuals think that science, logic, and reason rule the world, but when we move into the quantum world, we know very little, and in the end, why the hell does matter react in this way in the quantum world, and what physics we know really is. It raises the original question of whether it is based on The simulation hypothesis is a hypothesis that emerged from the struggle of modern physics based on quantum mechanics at the same time as the development of ultra-high-level video games. It may still sound absurd to some, but haven’t we always come up with a theory to explain the world first, and then adopt a new theory that best explains the world? Then, it seems the time has come to actively consider the simulation hypothesis.
In particular, the fact that our act of ‘recognition’ determines the properties of matter is that when a user plays a game today, only the image and world that appears in front of him are realized on the screen, and the world beyond that is the user’s ability to reach or Proponents of the simulation hypothesis say that it is similar to rendering in which images are not realized until the screen is turned and ‘looked at’. One of the many hypotheses that explain the particle-wave riddle of quantum mechanics is the multiverse, so at every decision moment, the universe physically branches and creates infinitely many physical worlds, isn’t it too inefficient? Rather, everything exists as probabilities and information of possibilities, and when we perceive and actually make certain observations, the world is realized in front of us. It is as if the wavefunction of matter is broken down into particles through the act of observation.
The author (Rizwan Virk) takes Zeno’s paradox as an example, and says that the concepts of time and space are not continuous as we have thought, but rather discrete units. Einstein’s Quanta A small unit of light… It was interesting to compare this story to the segmental pixels of an online game. Just as DNA contains our individual information, everything in the world is now becoming ‘information-based digital’ rather than ‘physical’ due to the rapid development of digital. if it is condensed. We will be able to download and play consciousness and history at any time, so there is no reason not to assume that we are now avatars running in simulations. After all, we are information.
And it was interesting to have a 3D printer as one of the examples that showed the possibility. After all, doesn’t a 3D printer implement a physical/three-dimensional object with only ‘information’ about the object? Now, of course, there are limits to what 3d printers can implement. With the development of the present speed, if a 3D printer can one day realize even the units of ‘atoms and electron nuclei’, it will eventually be possible to create everything in this world. If so, the saying that in the end, everything exists only as information comes to mind.
If we look at the examples of leaves and crystals resembling fractal principles in our natural world. In fact, based on this fractal principle, computer graphics implement graphics similar to nature. Is this really a coincidence? Isn’t the fractal principle coded in someone’s computer being implemented in the natural world we see?
