Simulation theory: Difference between revisions - VR & AR Wiki - Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Wiki

Line 50:

==Implications of living in a simulation==

It is possible that if we are living in a simulation there would be no way to identify it. The virtual reality would seem completely real. Even so, we could never be certain that we would not be living in a virtual reality <ref name=”6”></ref>. However, some researchers have suggested that simulations may have limits – that even posthuman simulators with advanced knowledge of the laws of nature would still not have a complete knowledge of them. These flaws would be subtle but could result in glitches in the simulation. Another possibility is that the simulators would try to fix these flaws by patching the virtual reality. These updates could result in changes to the laws of nature, over time. Living in a simulated reality would mean that occasional glitches would occur, along with small drifts in the constants and laws of Nature <ref name=”2”></ref> <ref name=”4”></ref>.

It is possible that if we are living in a simulation there would be no way to identify it. The virtual reality would seem completely real. Even so, we could never be certain that we would not be living in a virtual reality <ref name=”6”></ref>. However, some researchers have suggested that simulations may have limits - that even posthuman simulators with advanced knowledge of the laws of nature would still not have a complete knowledge of them. These flaws would be subtle but could result in glitches in the simulation. Another possibility is that the simulators would try to fix these flaws by patching the virtual reality. These updates could result in changes to the laws of nature, over time. Living in a simulated reality would mean that occasional glitches would occur, along with small drifts in the constants and laws of Nature <ref name=”2”></ref> <ref name=”4”></ref>.

A study published in the journal ArXiv, in 2012, suggests that there is always the possibility for the simulated to discover the simulators, and offers the prediction that there might be limitations on cosmic ray energy levels if reality is indeed a simulation. Furthermore, it predicts that the reason for the posthuman civilization to run simulations is to test out string theory. Detailed simulations could allow for future researchers to test hypotheses about the universe and disprove a number of possible different versions of string theory <ref name=”4”></ref> <ref name=”5”></ref>. This would give credence to the suggestion that the posthumans have an incomplete knowledge about the laws of physics, and therefore it is expected that there would be gaps and flaws in their simulations <ref name=”2”></ref> <ref name=”4”></ref>.