Are we living in a simulation?

I could jump straight to the answer to this but surely it is better to walk you through some of the thinking for and against this idea.

Could we be living in a simulation - in the sense of a being within a matrix, computer type entity. Alternatively, there is the idealism view where we emerge from a mental pool, and all things give us the appearance of physicality. Whatever the case, nothing is quite what it seems.

Anyone that believes that we are living in a computational/mental state simulation is likely to have an intelligence/knowledge deficit.

Do you have what it takes to appreciate why a computational simulation of the world around us is beyond impossible?

This will be a test:

How do you double a number in computer memory? How do you go from 6 to 12 in one fast simple step? If you can’t answer that please do not waste more of your time or other people’s time discussing simulations, matrixes or mental state nonsense.

How do you double six quickly and easily in a computer?

Well 6 in binary is 0110. What is Twelve?

Why do I ask people this? Well, doubling some numbers is fast and easy. One simple computer instruction will double the number without the need to shift items in and out of registers. Doing divisions is much more complicated. It may take 90 instructions depending on the processor.

The computing required to simulate things is phenomenal, so much so that in computer games and virtual reality, programmers use shortcuts and tricks. The biggest trick of all, rounding, approximating and ignoring the overwhelming vast majority of things one ought to take into account.

To sum it up neatly, computational simulations can’t deal with transcendental numbers. Numbers such as 1/3, 0.333333.. The computer will round it up or round it down a little. Enough to stop it being a true representation of what happens in ‘reality’.

The distance between these grains of rice will be approximated in a simulation. And that matters. The errors in approximations will alter whether a neutrino travelling for light years across the universe and through the atmosphere and into to heart of an atom in the rice will clash or not.

To simulate something as simple as these two grains of rice is most difficult. To the human eye they appear stationary. However, the molecules within are vibrating incessantly in pseudo random ways. The effects of gravity from both the earth and the moon and passersby need to be simulated. Radio waves. Sound waves. Gamma rays. Heat and convection currents in the air. And so on. Every molecule in the rice will be affected from within and from things around it. Electrons change state according to the light interacting with them. Magnetism. And I have not mentioned the damn bacteria on them that is slowly ingesting parts of them. The water being soaked in and evaporated off.

The rice grains are made from quasi-physical stuff, stuff that came from nothing – non interacting states. Nevertheless, we are not living in a matrix / simulation / mental states system.