tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post743507994103444898..comments2024-01-06T05:34:00.027-06:00Comments on Blog Meridian: "Consider the source": The idea of the Universe as a virtual realityJohn B.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-15977698839754355672020-11-24T19:04:05.114-06:002020-11-24T19:04:05.114-06:00Nice post. I was checking constantly this blog and...Nice post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed! Extremely helpful information specially App development. Please see my site <a href="https://www.simwave.ca/" rel="nofollow">Virtual Reality e-learning</a>simwavecahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01874430571933790831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-86052178106810745312008-01-16T11:28:00.000-06:002008-01-16T11:28:00.000-06:00Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Anon.Yes--j...Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Anon.<BR/><BR/>Yes--just as you say. I get what the author of the piece says that this VR space we occupy <I>is</I> Reality for us, that there's nothing fake about it. But to refer to it as VR has a kind of knowing to it--it implies an Outside to this cosmos we inhabit and, because our experience of virtual reality is manufactured and managed by an John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-83066413793377323472008-01-16T10:07:00.000-06:002008-01-16T10:07:00.000-06:00This whole thing seems to be tied in with Frank Ti...This whole thing seems to be tied in with Frank Tipler. Basically, he says (if a whole heap of conditions are met in the future) we will end up with a computer so powerful it would be to all intents and purposes God and would be able to do two things your standard PC wouldn't: slow down the collapse of the universe (though it would have to be close to the collapse of the universe in order to useAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-76633788375674241222008-01-11T16:27:00.000-06:002008-01-11T16:27:00.000-06:00Winston, I wouldn't worry about your limitations a...Winston, I wouldn't worry about your limitations as an engineer. My father was an engineer and told me that if you put a beautiful woman on the other side of the room and told a math major and engineer that they could approach her, but only if they moved half the remaining distance with each step. He said the math major would just sulk because he'd never get to her. The engineer would take off Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-70594423315340889952008-01-11T14:32:00.000-06:002008-01-11T14:32:00.000-06:00The cool thing about keeping this blog has been th...The cool thing about keeping this blog has been that smart people show up on a consistent basis and say smart things, making me look and feel considerably smarter (if only by association) than I in fact am. This comments thread is a case in point. Thanks to all of you for chiming in and for re-chiming.<BR/><BR/>Rather than risk spoiling a good thing, then, I'll just stay out of the way for now John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-80564722746109379492008-01-11T08:16:00.000-06:002008-01-11T08:16:00.000-06:00et al -"The paper explicitly rejects an "objective...et al -<BR/><BR/><I>"The paper explicitly rejects an "objective reality" description of the universe on the grounds that widely-accepted theoretical physics nevertheless don't correspond to (or don't make logical sense given) the world we observe and therefore argues in favor of a virtual-reality model whose rules we (apparently) can discern but cannot know the origins of."</I><BR/><BR/>certainlyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-40420636116319717212008-01-11T06:17:00.000-06:002008-01-11T06:17:00.000-06:00Most likely a Mac. Haven't seen a BSOD yet. And it...Most likely a Mac. Haven't seen a BSOD yet. And it seems to be crash free, unless the code is so tight that it includes seamless re-entrancy without gain or loss along the time vector.<BR/><BR/>This coming from a guy who lives Windows. That's how I eat and pay for shelter and wine. Maybe I know too much about it, but I sure as hell don't want my current VR sim running on a Windows machine. Mac orAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-45951885947294265262008-01-10T19:47:00.000-06:002008-01-10T19:47:00.000-06:00Resistance is futile! More seriously your arguemen...Resistance is futile! More seriously your arguement about the power supply is related to what Dawkins terms the ultimate 747 gambit. Dawkins argues that God cannot be simple but necessarily (Dawkins claims) more complex than the Universe. This is because in order to keep track of everything in the universe must require more information than is present in the universe. I don't think Dawkins' Paul D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00535027161567978343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-29945574172121402422008-01-10T17:42:00.000-06:002008-01-10T17:42:00.000-06:00I will start where some others have ended: I am de...I will start where some others have ended: I am definitely full of crap.<BR/><BR/>As an Electrical Engineer AND an IT guy, my head is left spinning by the implications of <I>before</I> and <I>outside</I> the universe. My god, can you imagine the size of the power supply needed to run the sucker? And where does it plug in? And where is the ON/OFF switch? And who or what has access to it? The Borg?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-63632398314351107262008-01-10T16:50:00.000-06:002008-01-10T16:50:00.000-06:00I agree with Paul - I think biologists concern the...I agree with Paul - I think biologists concern themselves with physics (or attempt to have some awareness of the larger issues) - and like Paul said, perhaps it is a problem of scale. (But this is not always the case, and with kudos to the mighty microbe: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/276/5318/1499?ck=nckAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-45786064260120379042008-01-10T11:15:00.000-06:002008-01-10T11:15:00.000-06:00I think there is at least some awareness on the pa...I think there is at least some awareness on the part of biologists of the sorts of ideas physicists have about the universe, maybe less so in the other direction. Dawkins for instance is very interested in the multiverse idea and there is a lot of discussion of the anthropic principle.<BR/><BR/>Part of the lack of conversation may simply be the levels of analysis involved. To a cosmologist for Paul D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00535027161567978343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-28083463466795584532008-01-10T08:40:00.000-06:002008-01-10T08:40:00.000-06:00Thanks to all of you for commenting.I finished rea...Thanks to all of you for commenting.<BR/><BR/>I finished reading the pdf this morning, and you'll be pleased--and perhaps dismayed--to learn that the paper bears out your respective suppositions.<BR/><BR/>Its immediate concern is physics; it doesn't address biology and so avoids questions of evolution vs. ID. But it sure as heck raises them by indirection. The paper explicitly rejects an "John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-43599621907997343562008-01-10T07:40:00.000-06:002008-01-10T07:40:00.000-06:00deus ex machina, indeed!but in the literal 'god on...deus ex machina, indeed!<BR/><BR/>but in the literal 'god <I>on</I> a machine' interpetation.<BR/><BR/>in IT just now, virtual is huge. not just virtual worlds where one escapes or reinvents themself: virtual computors. <BR/><BR/>virtual computors that run virtual worlds.<BR/><BR/>virtual machines in computing create a layer between an underlying physical computer platform and upperlying softwareAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-3777193687391631712008-01-09T18:21:00.000-06:002008-01-09T18:21:00.000-06:00While I haven't read the pdf (I fear there are too...While I haven't read the pdf (I fear there are too many other things that I have to read tonight), this almost sounds as if it turns the universie into a...machine? All of those core physical properties are great, but what about DNA? It's pretty powerful stuff - perhaps fundamentally the building blocks of information processing - but it's the expression of this information that is unique, and Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-89411634758248370682008-01-09T12:03:00.000-06:002008-01-09T12:03:00.000-06:00What little I, the German literature/law guy, have...What little I, the German literature/law guy, have read about modern physics, shows that while it is impossible to know what is outside of or before the Universe, that doesn't keep the theorists from positing things like "Artificial Time," "multiverses" and the like, none of which can ever be proved or disproved.<BR/><BR/>Paul is correct that such a theory will/would be seized upon the the ID Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7640521.post-63117688336253059582008-01-09T08:48:00.000-06:002008-01-09T08:48:00.000-06:00I am not an information specialist but the structu...I am not an information specialist but the structure of the article seems very much the same as much of the writings about intelligent design. <BR/><BR/>The author starts out by noting a bunch of stuff we (or maybe more to the point) that he can't explain.<BR/><BR/>Next he poses two hypotheses: the OR hypothesis vs the VR hypothesis. Notice what he says here-the VR hypothesis depends on Paul D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00535027161567978343noreply@blogger.com