Simulated universe theory: Wrong or meaningless?

published Aug 15, 2007 11:46   by admin ( last modified Aug 15, 2007 11:46 )
It is popular today to speculate that we live in a computer simulation. There are at least two problems with this theory:

1) We have no idea if computers can ever be as powerful as to do this simulation. In effect, we already today have big problems getting complex systems to work. Mac OS X was preceded by botched attempts by Apple to create a new operating system from scratch. Windows NT (and its descendants 2000 and XP and Vista) was created by hiring Dave Cutler et consortes who made Vax/VMS. Just extrapolating the curves may well be naïve.

2) If we indeed are simulated, than why specifically by a computer? We know that our current computer systems have problems "evolving" into more meaningful complexity. Why not by something completely different? If we agree that there are different kinds of simulations than by a computer, maybe there are more of these other kinds of simulations? Maybe they vastly outnumber computer simulations? In that case we can just state "We live in something that is guided by something", which is getting close to standard physics. Maybe there aren't turtles all the way down?

Disclaimer: I'm a layman.