I'm not a scientist man!

[Farm Boy]

It was a blade of grass. But it was purple.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, now you seem to be talking about matter, for some reason.

I thought we were talking about the basic structure of space (i.e. matter-less) being necessarily pixellated.

The computer simulation may be plausible, but I suspect unfalsifiable. And in any case would only defer the issue to another remove, i.e. this universe would have to be a computer simulation running somewhere. It just doesn't help me in my perplexity at all.

Yeah, well, that's because I don't really grasp what I'm talking about. You have to realise that BBC's Horizon and Trough the Wormhole taught me everything I know.

Matter, space. stuff. You know. Sh1t. When you look closely at sh1t and stuff.

And no it doesn't help. But the simulation is here on Earth, and in this simulation some day, we'll be able to simulate reality as well. And then you've got turtles baby, yeah!

 

[dutchfire]

Quantum gravity and space and/or time being discrete are all pretty speculative.

I once was at colloquium at some university which was sort of about this and at the end someone in the public asked the lecturer: "So, do you think that time is discrete or continuous?" The answer was "No". That gave us something to think about in the train back.

 

[Leoreth]

Quantum gravity and space and/or time being discrete are all pretty speculative.

I once was at colloquium at some university which was sort of about this and at the end someone in the public asked the lecturer: "So, do you think that time is discrete or continuous?" The answer was "No". That gave us something to think about in the train back.

That's an answer only a math person could possibly give

 

[dutchfire]

I think the idea was that it was something like the hydrogen spectrum, with discrete levels that at some point start forming a continuum because they are so close. I don't know as a function of what this "time spectrum" could be seen though.

 

[Zack]

Quantum gravity and space and/or time being discrete are all pretty speculative.

I once was at colloquium at some university which was sort of about this and at the end someone in the public asked the lecturer: "So, do you think that time is discrete or continuous?" The answer was "No". That gave us something to think about in the train back.

Man, advanced physics sounds freaking awesome. This high school stuff is boring.

 

[peter grimes]

That's an answer only a math person could possibly give

Not necessarily - the question is posed as an either or. But if the question is ill-formed, No would be appropriate.

Is a virus alive or dead? No - it's neither of those choices, but something else.

Perhaps that's what he meant?

 

[Borachio]

The question was "Do you think time is continous or discrete?" His answer was "No [, I don't think it is either continuous or discrete]".

Therefore he might [also] mean: "I know it is either continuous or discrete". Or, "Other people think it is". Or "I know for sure it is continous/discrete".

It's an ambiguous answer.

 

[Leoreth]

Not necessarily - the question is posed as an either or. But if the question is ill-formed, No would be appropriate.

Is a virus alive or dead? No - it's neither of those choices, but something else.

Perhaps that's what he meant?

I think the "no" meant he doesn't think it is either because he doesn't know. I'm just saying that this literal interpretation of such a question is typical for people working in this field.

 

[Zack]

It's a Mathematician's Answer, which is what I believe Leoreth was alluding to.

edit: something of a crosspost

 

[Borachio]

Also known as the "you're looking for a slap" answer.

And no it doesn't help. But the simulation is here on Earth, and in this simulation some day, we'll be able to simulate reality as well. And then you've got turtles baby, yeah!

So if we can simulate reality, then that simulation would also be able to simulate reality - that would certainly give turtles all the way down!

But there's a contradiction here, isn't there? If this reality is a simulation and is pixellated, any simulation inside this one must have a pixellation of a smaller size.

So I don't see how it would work, tbh. Assuming there is the natural limit of pixellation, of the Planck length. The smaller than which there is none smaller.

Whatever. I'm lost.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

So if we can simulate reality, then that simulation would also be able to simulate reality - that would certainly give turtles all the way down!

But there's a contradiction here, isn't there? If this reality is a simulation and is pixellated, any simulation inside this one must have a pixellation of a smaller size.

So I don't see how it would work, tbh. Assuming there is the natural limit of pixellation, of the Planck length. The smaller than which there is none smaller.

Whatever. I'm lost.

I don't think that's the case. Why would it have smaller scale pixellation?

 

[Borachio]

I don't know. But I've usually understood that, if x is inside y, x is usually smaller than y.

I can't think of any exception to this rule.

At some stage of this reality inside reality scenario, there must be a limit, disallowing the turtles all the way down.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I don't think that would be the case in a simulation. You can simulate something as big as the earth on something as small as a computer.

The limit could be the amount of processing power. At some point the turtle runs out of RAM.

 

[El_Machinae]

That's a remarkably eloquent example of puff puff pass.

I partially agree with your theory. I don't think they've fooled people into think they're geniuses - I think that they're actually terrifically smart. But I don't deny that altered consciousness is likely involved.

I thought it was a good book. The pixelation of the Universe is a more 'accepted' theory than loop quantum gravity (or String Theory). You need to understand pixelation before either of those theories can be explained. So, Smolin gives a good foundation.

It's not an easy book, but it's a good intro to small-scale theoretical physics

 

[Farm Boy]

I partially agree with your theory. I don't think they've fooled people into think they're geniuses - I think that they're actually terrifically smart. But I don't deny that altered consciousness is likely involved.

I thought it was a good book. The pixelation of the Universe is a more 'accepted' theory than loop quantum gravity (or String Theory). You need to understand pixelation before either of those theories can be explained. So, Smolin gives a good foundation.

It's not an easy book, but it's a good intro to small-scale theoretical physics

Fair enough, I was joking rather than serious about the fooling part. I think I'm going to go watch some more symphony of science over lunch. Even if it doesn't really cover anything new, watching Tyson and Hawking, and others get auto-tuned puts me in a really good mood.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Quantum gravity and space and/or time being discrete are all pretty speculative.

I once was at colloquium at some university which was sort of about this and at the end someone in the public asked the lecturer: "So, do you think that time is discrete or continuous?" The answer was "No". That gave us something to think about in the train back.

Many physical phenomena can be modeled either way. Take light, for instance.

 

[peter grimes]

It's a Mathematician's Answer, which is what I believe Leoreth was alluding to.

edit: something of a crosspost

Hah! I never heard this term before. Perfect.

Also known as the "you're looking for a slap" answer.


So if we can simulate reality, then that simulation would also be able to simulate reality - that would certainly give turtles all the way down!

But there's a contradiction here, isn't there? If this reality is a simulation and is pixellated, any simulation inside this one must have a pixellation of a smaller size.

So I don't see how it would work, tbh. Assuming there is the natural limit of pixellation, of the Planck length. The smaller than which there is none smaller.

Whatever. I'm lost.

http://www.technologyreview.com/vie...reveal-the-universe-as-a-computer-simulation/

So an interesting pursuit is to simulate quantum chromodynamics on a computer to see what kind of complexity arises. The promise is that simulating physics on such a fundamental level is more or less equivalent to simulating the universe itself.

There are one or two challenges of course. The physics is mind-bogglingly complex and operates on a vanishingly small scale. So even using the world’s most powerful supercomputers, physicists have only managed to simulate tiny corners of the cosmos just a few femtometers across. (A femtometer is 10^-15 metres.)

That may not sound like much but the significant point is that the simulation is essentially indistinguishable from the real thing (at least as far as we understand it).

[snip]

They say that the lattice spacing imposes a fundamental limit on the energy that particles can have. That’s because nothing can exist that is smaller than the lattice itself.

So if our cosmos is merely a simulation, there ought to be a cut off in the spectrum of high energy particles.

It turns out there is exactly this kind of cut off in the energy of cosmic ray particles, a limit known as the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin or GZK cut off.

[snip]

In other words, the cosmic rays would travel preferentially along the axes of the lattice, so we wouldn’t see them equally in all directions.

That’s a measurement we could do now with current technology. Finding the effect would be equivalent to being able to to ‘see’ the orientation of lattice on which our universe is simulated.

 

[peter grimes]

...And bringing us back to the topic of the OP:

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/...panic-voters-a-gop-challenge-84620_Page2.html

Rubio also addressed the controversy surrounding his recent comments to GQ about the age of the earth.

“Science says it’s about four and a half billion years old and my faith teaches that that’s not inconsistent,” he clarified. “The answer I gave was actually trying to make the same point the president made a few years ago, and that is there is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively as at least four and a half billion years old … I was referring to a theological debate and which is a pretty healthy debate.”

“The theological debate is how do you reconcile what science has definitively established with what you think your faith teaches? For me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth there is no conflict: I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and I think scientific advances give us insight into when he did it and how he did it,” he said. “But I still believe God did it, And that’s how I’ve been able to reconcile that and I think it’s consistent with the teachings of my church. But other people have a deeper conflict and I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever we believe.”

“I don’t regret it,” he added, regarding his original answer to GQ. “I mean, I wish I would have given a better answer, a more succinct answer, but we went from talking about hip hop and then it got pivoted to the Earth — I’m not a robot, I got caught off guard I guess.”

As much as I'm annoyed to admit it, this is a reasonable response.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's a perfectly fine answer.