The Computational Requirements for the Matrix

goombah99 writes "Nick Bostrom discusses the computational requirements needed to simulate human existence. He offers a proof based on the anthropic principle, that you are almost certainly a computer simulation and not "real". The idea is that given that humans don't go extinct in geologically short time then eventually computer capability will allow complete simulation of the human cortex. Consequently, there must be far more simulations running in future millennia than seconds since you were born. Thus its astronomically more likely you are a simulation than real ... if humans don't go extinct shortly. Recalling the 13th floor, Robin Hanson discusses how one should try to live in a simulation. David Wolpert also weighs in on the physical limits of Turing machines for simulation of the universe. This also may explain why time travel seems impossible: we dont meet visitors from the future since only the present is being simulated."

and this my friends is why

[cyrax777]

drugs are bad mmmmkay

I Want Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the red pill?

The future men said you say this.

[Anonymous Coward]

They said someone would try to persuade me that time travel was impossible. You have just validated their existence.

woooah

[mjdth]

this article is way too deep for 3 am. i'll just wait until /. accidently reposts it sometime later this week at a more reasonable hour.

but either way, i wouldn't believe this because it would be too scary if it were true.

So...

[orange_6]

I'm simulated.

Can I still be stimulated?

Looks like a TNT32 card and a 500mhz to me

[CrazyJim0]

Its not bullet time, so much as FPS lag.

You mean I can dodge bullets?

[SolubleFrank]

No, I'm telling you your just trapped.

So that means...

[BanSiesta]

So I'm just a piece of code then? I bet I'm not even indented properly. Bastards!

I hope I don't get optimized away...

This brings to question....

[basser]

Does terminating the game of life make us mass murderers?

#include "universe.h"

[rice_burners_suck]

If we really are living in a simulation, I think we need to send someone outside to hook up a NAT server, so we can connect the Internet to the world that encloses ours.

Advantages: We will be able to communicate with the people who run our world from the "real" world. I can already see people on IRC asking all kinds of favors, like "I want to be rich. Someone important. Like an actor."

Disadvantages: Script kiddies will get into the machines of the "real" world and they'll perform a DOS attack. Next thing you know, you're just walking down the street minding your own business when suddenly the street you were on turns into a toxic waste dump and a couple of identical cats walk by.

But anyway, if we ever do build a simulation, we should definitely connect our Internet into the world we make. That way, people who figure it out will be able to communicate with us. We'll tell 'em we're God... Screw the Prime Directive.

Where do I submit patches

[Timesprout]

Cos I have a few changes I would like to make to this simulation. Simple things like

Person* Timesprout = GetPerson(xxxxx); Timesprout->physique = "Addonis";
Timesprout->attraction_level = "irristible to supermodels and actresses;'
Timesprout->wealth = BILL_GATES->wealth * 10;
Timespout->abode[0] = "Island paradise surrounded by beautiful nubile girls";
Timesprout->car[0] = "Ferrari spider";

I'll see how these work out before commiting more.

Whoa

[Iron Monkey543]

I just had my 8th Corona. All of this crap just made more sense.

life();

[aardwolf204]

So what your saying is that if life as we know it is a simulation then the meaning of life() is Return 0;

Re:woooah

[pyrote]

That's what they were wanting you to say... it's all written... here on this cd.

Re:woooah

[evilviper]

The /. has you...

Follow the white rabbit...

Best Post Yet -eom-

[schlach]

I think, therefore I think I am.

Re:Can the Matrix simulate independent thought?

[spacecowboy420]

So are you suggesting distributed computing via humans for our robot leaders? To what end? Do they wanna find aliens too?

Re:So that means...

[bnenning]

I bet I'm not even indented properly.

Then for your sake I hope the universe isn't a big Python script.

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[Treskin]

Taking bets on how many people actually say "Computer, end program" out loud while reading this post.

Re:This brings to question....

[CoolVibe]

No, that makes Conway a great sadist.

Birds, man.

[The Rolling Blackout]

Has anybody else noticed that the avian framerate is a little... er, off?

I mean everytime they move their heads there's like no interstitial animation whatsoever. Same goes for insects. Freaky. Plus my email has been acting up - yeah, I think the Gnostics had it right all along...

Re:Where do I submit patches

[Soko]

And the output:

Warning: Use of undeclared variables on line 1

Compiler error at line 2, missing ";"

Compilation aborted.

If you're going to program life, you'd better be a damned good coder.

Soko

log file

[Spazmogazm]

So the whole life flashing before your eyes when you die is just your log file being tared, gzipped and dumped to a tape on a shelf somewhere.

The Matrix?

[Sunlighter]

You can download the Boost library for C++ and have a Matrix in your own computer already. I think it even has a Matrix class. So you can pose and possibly answer important questions like:

• Is the Matrix square or rectangular?
• If it's square, what is the Determinant of the Matrix? (My hypothesis: The One. But we'll have to see the last movie to find out.)
• If it's square, what is the Cofactor Matrix?
• If the Matrix is square, does it have an Inverse? What is it?
• Is it a floating-point Matrix, a Matrix of exact arbitrary-precision rationals, or a Matrix of bits like the ones Knuth used in his MMIX processor? (Maybe it's a Matrix of Unicode code points, which would explain those freaky green displays.)
• If it is floating-point, how does it deal with round-off errors? How does it deal with denormals, infinities, and NANs?
• If it is rectangular, what would be the result of Gauss-Jordan elimination? (I can imagine Agent Smith wanting to use that.) How long would it take to compute? (If it's not wider than it is long, Gauss-Jordan won't do much good, although in that case you could use Gauss-Jordan on the transpose of the Matrix. If the Matrix is square, Gauss-Jordan will only produce the Identity Matrix.)

Sure is interesting to think about. (Heh heh...)

Re:woooah

[MainframeKiller]

I don't see how it's truth would change anything (from your mind's perspective, at least), so I'm not sure why you would find it "too scary." Consciousness built on neurons made of atoms is no more real than consciousness built on simulationed neurons made of simulationed atoms. Consciousness is as consciousness does.

My Momma always said life is like a box with a cat in it, you never know if it is alive or dead...

What do you expect, it's 5 am and I'm stuck at work!

That explains why...

[foobario]

... so many people I meet could be replaced by small shell scripts without any noticeable effects.

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[MyHair]

No, silly. That's passe. People will be sshnuke'ing the whole internet looking for backdoors (and wearing tight leather). That's the current hip thing.

Re:Not really

[AvantLegion]

Even if we cannot simulate the entire world it is very possible that we could simulate entire towns/cities non-stop for the minds of those enslaved/inside.

By Jove, I've figured it out! Like, there's not enough power to simulate all of America. So only the coasts are simulated! That's why nobody knows anyone that actually lives in, say, Topeka or Tulsa! THERE IS NO TULSA! Only fake video feeds of it!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Obligatory matrix bastardisation

[comet_11]

Trinity: Morpheus, the post was modded down, I don't know how.

Morpheus: I know, they used the overrated exploit. There's no time, you're going to have to get to another post.

Trinity: Are there any trolls?

Morpheus: Yes.

Trinity: Goddammit.

Morpheus: You have to focus, Trinity. There are mod points at Wells and Lake. You can make it.

Trinity: All right.

Morpheus: Go.

Re:Episode of Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Me:"Computer, end program." DSFSDVXcvxvxcvzzzz [NO CARRIER]zzzzzzzz

Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus saves,

but God make backup copies!

Re:why ohh why..

[stwrtpj]

reminds me of that theme song from mystery science theater 3000 (something like) "if your wondering how they eat and sleap and other science facts, repeat to yourself its just a show you shood realy just relax"

Oh great. That means not only are we a simulation, but I have the likes of Crow T. Robot watching it and making pithy comments about my life.

Re:Remember...

[bumby]

And sometimes he make rollbacks, that is when you experinse Déjà Vu :-P

Re:Where do I submit patches

[robbo]

If you're going to program life, you'd better be a damned good coder.

Well, the preferred method seems to have less to do with good code and more to do with greedy self-replication. The good code grabs the mutex, consumes all the IO resources and forks like crazy while the bad code starves until it catches the 'kill -KILL' signal.

Biggest flaw is...

[Pedrito]

I think the biggest flaw in his argument actually supports possibility of living in a "matrix" even more. He assumes that the consciousness of 6 billion people in the world are being simulated. Why? What if I'm the only simulation? All the other people in the world could just be representations for me to interact with.

I know you think this is your simulation, but sorry, it's really mine. I'm the "real" on here.

Re:Really good eipsode

[nomadic]

Since the holodeck routinely causes that kind of severe trouble for the crew, you'd think they'd stop using the damn thing. It's like, if every other week my toaster tried to kill me, I'd eventually get rid of it.

Re:and this my friends is why

[frankthechicken]

This is the future, and I think we'll see it far sooner than most people realize (20 years tops).

Ahhh, this must be the Duke Nukem Forever game you are talking about.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Chakde Phate!]

Incorrect. All that needs to be simulated is what you actually perceive. In modern games, the engine calculates what can and can't be seen and doesn't draw the things that can't be seen. A simulation would use a much more sophisticated version of that algorithm. If you're looking through a microscope, microbes are individual simulated. If you aren't looking through the microscope, then they aren't simulated, or are simulated in the aggregate to calculate gross effects that might be perceivable (such as tainted meat causing food poisoning.)

This is the premise of Stephen Baxter's short story 'Phase Space'. It was some time since I read it, but the idea was that all humanity lives in a simulation which does exactly what you describe, and simulates only what we are looking at at the time. The 'hardware' behind the simulation gets more and more complicated over time to cope with our increased understanding of the universe.

Eventually, the simulated universe ends because some human suspects this and fires a laser beam at Alpha Centuri to prove it. He reasons that it would be impossible for the simulation to expand to fill such a large volume that quickly, and so the laser beam wouldn'd bounce back...unfortunately, the simulation just shuts down. As the great Terry Pratchet said, if someone put a big red button in a cave with "End of the World Button -- DO NOT TOUCH" written on it, the paint wouldn't have time to dry...

The Matrix test

[juha0]

1. Get your self few smoke grenades.
2. Now, make a nice light smoke screen around you.
3. Spin your self around like a maniac.

If your frame rate drops dramatically, it's time to call your Matrix administrator.

recursion

[Anonymous Coward]

stand back! this guy keeps forgeting to hit preview, then posts a correction with errors in it.

Re:Plato's Cave

[pi_rules]

(yeah, ive had a lot of Dick to catch up on)

No, File under: "Things not to say in prison."

Re:and this my friends is why

[Glytch]

Who's to say that maybe a single second in our simulated world takes a million, maybe even a billion years to compute in "real time"?

Man, this place looks expensive. I feel like I'm wasting a fortune just standing here.

Re:Cani do this?

[glenstar]

Just do a simple: make world. If your kernel config file is propery set up (don't forget the "SIMULATE_EXISTENCE" flag!), upon reboot you will be living in a simulation.

Re:and this my friends is why

[Anonymous Coward]

so if a simulated tree falls in a simulated wood and no sim is there does it make a simulated sound?

Re:God playing SimCity?

[Idarubicin]

Seeing as how God was supposedly vengeful in the Old Testament, and hasn't rained down sulfur much lately, I'd say it's possible we all exist in a very advanced version of SimCity.

So you're saying that God just got bored and went away?

What happens when He discovers Quake? Is the Uncertainty Principle the result of sloppy overclocking?

Finally, what happens to us when His mom tells him to shut down the computer and go outside to play?

Re:why ohh why Does the Matrix need People?

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> Someone above made a comment about using humans
> as "processors", which would have made a much
> more plausible technical reason for the AI
> keeping the humans around

It would certainly fit in with agents taking over anything "still hardwired to the system", i.e. programming the wetware of a copper top's brain, overlaying the agent's mind so the agent could take over their avatar.

Remember the Woman in Red scene?

Which reminds me, this was left on the cutting room floor, for obvious reasons:

Mouse: How do the computers know what chicken tastes like? Maybe that's why everything tastes like chicken. They didn't know what it tasted like in reality!

Switch: That's why the Woman in Red's kootch tastes like chicken, eh Mouse?

(Everyone laughs. Mouse is redfaced.)

Dozer: Switch, you goddamned dyke. You are da shit! (High-fives her.)

If this is just a simulation...

[Geek of Tech]

Okay. If this is just some simulation, then when (and if) we get to the point in our simulated time where we have technology to simulate the world, that would me the computers supporting us would have to use double the resources, because it would be simulating us simulating the universe. So everytime the new simulation got to the point (assuming the guy in charge of us doesn't shut us down) where their technology could simulate the universe then it would require more power. Eventually, to support all the simulations, it would seem that we would need an infinite ammount of memory, because every level of simulation would add so much overhead. One more thing... just still assuming we are in a simulation... do you think we're running under Windows, *nix or Mac? Hmmmmm........