Kent Forbes, Does the Simulation Hypothesis Defeat Materialism |323|

I guess I'm trying to make this fit with Rupart Sheldrake's observation re the failings of genetics and how we've gone from this idea of DNA being a complete master computer code book to one that sees DNA as a small piece in a mystery we haven't unraveled (along with morphic resonance, precognition, etc.).

So, when I hear these guys say "we found this error correction code in DNA and it's exactly like the computer code in my browser and this means we're living in a simulation" I want to know what they're talking about... and/or if they know what they're talking about :)
For myself - I take the sincere work of R. Sheldrake as probing real natural effects.
And the Matrix as a great movie.
 
Something I read recently regarding negative near-death experiences. Some people do report going to a dark or terrifying place during an NDE, however a thought or a plea to a God (or their own concept of such) can bring immediate assistance and move the person into a place of light and love.

It occurs to me that this experience living on Earth can be much the same at times, where we can be trapped in a dark place but the same route out is available - if it is requested. The first step is to ask. There is the added dimension of material inertia here, it can take time for things to shift.

The concept of free will is key in this, the choices are ours to make.

Yes I have come across a few of those negative NDEs that were transformed instantly when the individual asked for help
I have also read a number of accounts of how some souls in the afterlife spend time assisting souls who have died in a low and negative state of being
They do what they can to assist the soul to realise it is dead and that help is at hand
Apparently it can take a long time for some souls to accept help

My own best guess is that what we experience immediately in the afterlife is determined by the state of being we developed in life and died in
If we led a dark evil life that state of being persists into the afterlife
It can and will be healed - and we are assisted in that if we want
There is no record of sin in the afterlife; and no judgement; but we must deal with whatever state of being we die in
 
I guess I'm trying to make this fit with Rupart Sheldrake's observation re the failings of genetics and how we've gone from this idea of DNA being a complete master computer code book to one that sees DNA as a small piece in a mystery we haven't unraveled (along with morphic resonance, precognition, etc.).

So, when I hear these guys say "we found this error correction code in DNA and it's exactly like the computer code in my browser and this means we're living in a simulation" I want to know what they're talking about... and/or if they know what they're talking about :)

Yes me too
I also like Bruce Lipton's work on epigenetics which also helps break us out of the old deterministic DNA master computer myth
DNA is not fixed; it is able to respond to the environment in an adaptive (intelligent) way
It's not going to make a prince out of a toad, but it can change and adapt
I dont think anyone knows how this is achieved
It may not even be something the DNA itself governs
 
Gates doesn't think we live in a simulation, or at the least in that Isaac Asimov debate he suggested there just isn't enough evidence to draw that conclusion.

AFAIK none of this stuff Gates talks about has been verified experimentally, it's just something that comes up in a particular string theory model if I'm understanding it right?
But to get back to his point about "strings of bits of ones and zeros, it's not even just is computer code, it's a special kind of computer code that was invented by a scientist called Claude Shannon" [I checked this, he meant Richard Hamming].

I do agree about it not being verified experimentally but I don't think it's about a particular string model and seems to be to with superstrings and M theory which are more overarching.

Found this by Gates, Does reality have a genetic basis? from 2009 so he's still putting this "computer code" idea forward in 2016. I'm kind of also interested in the history of ideas like this because I think it must mean something that the idea is still out there by him seven years on.


There's a tough debate I've read on a bit re experiments to verify string/M theory ideas in that many who promote and work on these say, well, we don't have to verify these ideas experimentally yet, so this goes against the issue of falsifiability. I wonder if it's along the lines of Democritus and his proposal of atoms? It took 2000 years to get enough content into theory and experiment to verify atoms, but the initial idea by Democritus was a valid one. Same with string/M theory work, so these guys say AFAIK. :)

Of course all of Gates' work could also verify God in some far future theory... but he doesn't know it yet. ;-)
 
But to get back to his point about "strings of bits of ones and zeros, it's not even just is computer code, it's a special kind of computer code that was invented by a scientist called Claude Shannon" [I checked this, he meant Richard Hamming].
On Hamming here The Laws of Cryptography .... http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/laws/hamming.html

"Richard Hamming found a beautiful binary code that will correct any single error and will detect any double error (two separate errors). The Hamming code has been used for computer RAM, and is a good choice for randomly occurring errors. (If errors come in bursts, there are other good codes.) Unlike most other error-correcting codes, this one is simple to understand."

In relation to Gates ... Adinkras and the Nature of Reality

http://www.onbeing.org/program/unco...ymbols-power-adinkras-and-nature-reality/1460

Looking at this it seems that in order to maintain the property of supersymmetry (a symmetry between bosons and fermions) in the equations he studies, assuming SUSY does exist in Nature, there is only a special kind of "folding" between adinkra diagrams that keeps the SUSY property of the equations. Only a specific Hamming code maintains this particular folding, a "check-sum extended Hamming code".

I only understand from this that in order for SUSY to exist in Nature, an error correcting code is needed and Gates has discovered it. And at present SUSY has not been discovered in Nature. I get the feeling all this is more to do with the maths than it implies we're in a simulation and I hope Gates is not trying to over-egg his case (or I'm missing his point).:(
 
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I only understand from this that in order for SUSY to exist in Nature, an error correcting code is needed and Gates has discovered it. And at present SUSY has not been discovered in Nature. I get the feeling all this is more to do with the maths than it implies we're in a simulation and I hope Gates is not trying to over-egg his case (or I'm missing his point).:(

At the end of that (long, but interesting) Asimov Memorial Debate linked to earlier in the thread, Tyson asked the panelists what they thought the probability was that we live in a simulation. Gates' answer was 1%.

Pat
 
http://www.onbeing.org/program/unco...ymbols-power-adinkras-and-nature-reality/1460

Looking at this it seems that in order to maintain the property of supersymmetry (a symmetry between bosons and fermions) in the equations he studies, assuming SUSY does exist in Nature, there is only a special kind of "folding" between adinkra diagrams that keeps the SUSY property of the equations. Only a specific Hamming code maintains this particular folding, a "check-sum extended Hamming code".

I only understand from this that in order for SUSY to exist in Nature, an error correcting code is needed and Gates has discovered it. And at present SUSY has not been discovered in Nature. I get the feeling all this is more to do with the maths than it implies we're in a simulation and I hope Gates is not trying to over-egg his case (or I'm missing his point).:(
KeithA - I found this a very well constructed article and with a great expressed history of the ideas.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/unco...ymbols-power-adinkras-and-nature-reality/1460
 
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I only understand from this that in order for SUSY to exist in Nature, an error correcting code is needed and Gates has discovered it. And at present SUSY has not been discovered in Nature. I get the feeling all this is more to do with the maths than it implies we're in a simulation and I hope Gates is not trying to over-egg his case (or I'm missing his point).:(

From what I understood last, some folks were starting to get close to thinking about getting off the SUSY bandwagon, because we should have probably discovered super-symmetric particles at LHC by now. I guess you can keep tweaking the theory and pushing it to higher and higher energies, but at some point it may not seem reasonable to do so anymore. I think some folks are hitting that point, especially if the LHC continues to come up empty on SUSY.

So, yea, you might be right and this is more about math than reality

EDIT: from Peter Woit's blog, Dec 2015, quoting Peskin:

"Meanwhile, searches for particles predicted by supersymmetry, physicists’ favourite extension of the standard model, continue to come up empty-handed. To theoretical physicist Michael Peskin of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, the most relevant part of the talks concerned the failure to find a supersymmetric particle called the gluino in the range of possible masses up to 1,600 GeV (much farther than the 1,300-GeV limit of Run 1). This pushes supersymmetry closer to the point where many physicists might give up on it, Peskin says"
 
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At the end of that (long, but interesting) Asimov Memorial Debate linked to earlier in the thread, Tyson asked the panelists what they thought the probability was that we live in a simulation. Gates' answer was 1%.

Pat
Thanks for that. I wonder that otherwise he'd have to admit a Creator! - which he wouldn't anyway from the way he speaks.
 
From what I understood last, some folks were starting to get close to thinking about getting off the SUSY bandwagon, because we should have probably discovered super-symmetric particles at LHC by now. I guess you can keep tweaking the theory and pushing it to higher and higher energies, but at some point it may not seem reasonable to do so anymore. I think some folks are hitting that point, especially if the LHC continues to come up empty on SUSY.

So, yea, you might be right and this is more about math than reality

EDIT: from Peter Woit's blog, Dec 2015, quoting Peskin:

"Meanwhile, searches for particles predicted by supersymmetry, physicists’ favourite extension of the standard model, continue to come up empty-handed. To theoretical physicist Michael Peskin of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, the most relevant part of the talks concerned the failure to find a supersymmetric particle called the gluino in the range of possible masses up to 1,600 GeV (much farther than the 1,300-GeV limit of Run 1). This pushes supersymmetry closer to the point where many physicists might give up on it, Peskin says"
I've been following too and there's more recent as well by Peter Woit, WIMPS on death row ... http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8654

But then again he's not a fan of strings, SUSY etc. I remember that Witten said general relativity is actually predicted by superstring theory but yes, it's the dearth of SUSY particles that seems to be worrying people.
Latest I've found here from CERN and the LHC re the 2016 runs ... CMS hunts for supersymmetry in uncharted territory

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/64341
 
I've been following too and there's more recent as well by Peter Woit, WIMPS on death row ... http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8654

The null detection is incredible, with a fantastic slew of implications:
  1. Dark matter is most likely not made up, 100%, of the most commonly thought-of WIMP candidates.
  2. It is highly unlikely that whatever dark matter is, in light of the LUX results, will be produced at the LHC.
  3. And it is quite likely that dark matter lies outside of the standard mass range, either much lower (as with axions or sterile neutrinos) or much higher (as with WIMPzillas).

WIMPzillas! I love it - these names they come up with are great lol
 
Whenever I see a discussion of high energy physics, I always think of this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FOU0CXG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Although the author, rather irritatingly, lets his feelings show far too much (which makes it somewhat uncomfortable reading), he does seem to make some excellent points.

His points out that the particles that are now being 'discovered' only live for 10^(-25) sec - about enough time for a photon to cross the diameter of a proton - and that the detectors in these experiments have to filter a huge avalanche of collision decay products, looking for whatever particle is of interest. He claims that they process 10^12 events for every Higgs particle they detect - and remember, they only detect the decay products, and infer the original particle from the geometry and energies of these end products. So much data is generated, that it can't even be stored for later re-analysis, it is filtered by hardware, and the bulk is discarded!

Clearly it must be very hard to have confidence in results that only occur 1 in 10^12 times - particularly since nobody can re-analyse the raw data after the event!

I have seen the figure of 10^12 questioned, but no other figure was offered instead, but clearly this sounds like a recipe for false particle detections.

I think people interested in this subject should read this book (very cheap in Kindle format). I'd be really fascinated if EthanT were to give us a review of this book!

David
 
Whenever I see a discussion of high energy physics, I always think of this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FOU0CXG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
The fact that the Higgs was seen by two separate independent detectors and at 5 sigma each confirms it. This guy's clearly a @#@##@@ and the book isn't worth the paper it's written on. For decades particles with short lifetimes have been observed accurately (e.g. the W and Z 30 years ago), it's standard now, and this fellow isn't informed on experimental work then or now and taking into account the evolution of such work.
 
Transhumanist Prisco mentions the show but misspells Skeptiko ->

Consciousness, Reality, and the Simulation Hypothesis

Yesterday a post in the Turing Church Facebook group (h/t Martin C.) mentioned a Skeptico interview with filmmaker Kent Forbes, the creator of “The Simulation Hypothesis,” a recent film about the reality-as-a-sim concept, consciousness and quantum physics. Review and related thoughts below...

...Forbes’ thesis is that our universe, in view of the findings of modern physics, is best thought of as a computation (“simulation”) running in a higher level of reality. Despite the frequent use of scenes from popular films and games, the filmmaker doesn’t propose a stereotypical naive simulation theory with a bored alien teenager playing us like Sims on a super Xbox in his parents’ basement or a mad scientist studying us with a super supercomputer in a military alien facility. Instead, “The Simulation Hypothesis” blends the reality-as-a-sim picture with esoteric interpretations of quantum physics that point to new digital physics before space and time, from which space and time emerge, and assign a role to our consciousness as part of the fundamental fabric of digital physics, and co-creator of reality...

...The physics in the film is sound and well-explained, or at least I haven’t been able to spot anything wrong, only a few things that I would have said differently. For example, “[Materialism and idealism as defined previously] are mutually exclusive and are in fact opposites, both cannot be true. Either mind gives rise to matter, or matter gives rise to mind” sounds too black/white to me, and I can think of shades of grey in between. It’s interesting to see how analogies with computer games can help thinking about the limit speed of light, quantum entanglement, high energy thermodynamics, and quantum indeterminacy (it doesn’t make much sense to compute something that nobody is looking at).

Among the many scientists featured in the film, Max Tegmark, James Gates (the physicist who found error-correcting codes in physical laws, a result that suggests the reality-as-a-sim idea), and two interesting scientists I wasn’t familiar with: Brian Whitworth (see his in-progress book Quantum Realism) and Thomas Campbell (see his wittily titled book “My Big Toe“).

“Was everything here created by God?,” wonders Campbell in the film.”Well, if God is the larger consciousness system, yes.” “So who is the programmer?,” reads a question in Whitworth’s Quantum Realism FAQ. ” Answer. I don’t know. I guess everything is. Every choice we make changes the program.”

Researching Whitworth and Campbell I find (surprise surprise) that they are often accused of “pseudoscience” – a typically dismissal used against those who put too much imagination in their science to the point that (God forbid) it sounds like religion. In the interview, Forbes explains why many scientists hide behind skepticism, and his explanation makes a lot of sense...

One skeptic mentioned in the interview is Sean Carroll (who, I must say, is a great writer and a great teacher of physics). Carroll concedes that we don’t know everything about physics, but insists that the physics that we do know – the “Core Theory” that comprises quantum field theory, general relativity and the standard model – is experimentally confirmed, and will continue to be valid as the physics underlying everyday life. Carroll concludes that there is no room for survival of consciousness after death.

Now, with all due respect, Carroll’s argument doesn’t seem watertight to me. In particular, “experimentally confirmed” and “valid as the physics underlying everyday life” don’t mean the same thing. In fact, parts of the physics underlying everyday life could escape standard experimental methods (for example, psi phenomena could be real), in which case the Core Theory would need appropriate modifications. “[Any] respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking [questions about the appropriate modifications],” says Carroll, but then admits that “[nobody] ever asks these questions out loud, possibly because of how silly they sound,” at which point the argument begins to sound very circular to me.
 
The fact that the Higgs was seen by two separate independent detectors and at 5 sigma each confirms it. For decades particles with short lifetimes have been observed accurately (e.g. the W and Z 30 years ago), it's standard now,
I think that there is event at the level of energy Higgs predicted and this confirmed by the data. What that data mean is surely not nailed down. That it is a particle whose materiality coveys amazing properties is doubtful for me. What is a formal definition of a particle anyway? Is it more than a class of of math abstractions in modern physics? Where is the cut-off between particles that are virtual and those that exist as a transition state of affairs - for so short a measure of time?

What is real about these particles except that they may be actual in their contribution to the realm of actual information. If these thing wink in-and-out of existence and make no change to reality - are they material?
 
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