On universal simulation and invisibility (Cool tricks to play in the Matrix)

[dsrtao]

If the universe is in fact a simulation, then it stands to reason that some parts of it are processed at lower resolutions than others. If nobody is paying attention, then there's no reason to render it in smaller chunks -- much of interstellar space is probably statistical, for instance, with the typical cubic kilometer simply characterized by how many hydrogen atoms are notionally present. Spaces closer to intelligences are often rendered in each metric voxel, and ordinary life is perhaps modelled mostly at the nanometer level. Only when some entity is paying attention to the potential results is it worthwhile to muck around with all the tedious quantum nonsense and generate the right statistics, so I would expect the simulationspace to implement a flag, or a similar mechanism. This flag would track whether an intelligent entity is observing closely enough to potentially see quantum-uncertainty-related events. The obvious everyday candidates are folks working with fringe interferences, polarized light. photoelectric effects, oil-drop experiments and the like.

When the flag is set, significantly more computrons need to be allocated to the simulation of underlying reality.

Now, invisibility. Invisibility starts with meditation, and very close observation of a space, perhaps viewed through tightly-closed eyelashes. Armed with an excellent sense of timing, one observes very closely, and slows the local refresh rate... then steps ahead of a cycle, moving in the same direction as the update before it can catch up with you. Your effects on the world are not rendered, but as long as you continue to flag for sufficient excess processing power, the update may be slow enough not to catch you. Stop paying attention, and you become visible again. This also explains walking through walls and similar feats...

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

So, hiding next to a butterfly swarm is a good idea?

Unfortunately I think the Matrix is rendered on a highly parallel processor, i.e., the world, and so has plenty of computational resources to go around. Perhaps with truly aggressive (mis)use of cycles nearby...

[feoh.livejournal.com]

One might think that the drift caused by the 'on demand rendering' you describe would make Cosmology a real bitch :)

[jducoeur]

Taking this entirely seriously: after some years, I'm starting to drift away from thinking of it in terms of being rendered "on" anything, and starting to view the universe as simply a whole bunch of math, that exists just by dint of its own potentiality. There's an LJ posting in that, one of these days, but I have to figure out how to lift the description out of the mystical and explain it comprehensibly.

Just to give the drift, though: consider a trivial universe that is simply a triangle, moving along a spatial axis that correlates with the time dimension. It's simplistic, but it has an object, space, time, and rules that correlate the lot. Whether that universe is rendered on a machine (or, indeed, on many machines) has no impact upon its existence or lack thereof: the universe is really just a mathematical description. In computer terms, it's the software that matters, not the fact that that software is being run.

Extending the above metaphor to a rather larger scale (with contained entities that are complex enough to be self-aware) is left for the moment as an exercise for the reader. (As is why this tends to lead me towards the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics...)