# Do you believe it's possible the world is a simulation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 24, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543 "2016-05-24T13:34:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/61 "2016-05-25T01:12:32Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Unless you know something about simulators that I don’t know, there’s no requirement that they run at the same speed as the amount of time they’re meant to simulate. When NASA runs a simulation of the atmosphere over the next 50 years, they do not actually run it for 50 years. Run at the same speed as reality? Hell no. When you are doing very detailed simulation, it runs a lot slower. That’s why we have thousands of processors running microprocessor simulations. Now, if you model at a very high level, you can go faster, but you lose a lot of precision, and our universe seems to be modeled so the time step is one quantum of time. Unless physics is way different in the simulator’s universe, it would take 150 billion years to do our universe, and that with a stupendous number of parallel processors with amazing bus speeds between them. > [@](#): > > I do grant that, from what we can observe of our Universe, the amount of time inside the Universe seems excessive, as does the size and complexity. But that’s an argument against things like Intelligent Design, not an argument against simulation. It is definitely also an argument against Intelligent Design. But beings doing simulation are not going to waste that amount of time and resources. > [@](#): > > If I wanted to test AI, I would create a virtual world with just enough physics in it that my AI could develop sufficiently to operate in a world similar to ours - which doesn’t require quark-level precision by any stretch. The ground might just be large polygons. A creature might be a full creature object with a pre-dictated model which never changes. Why create something with small building blocks if that’s not necessary for what you want? Exactly. > [@](#): > > But if I want to see what happens if I dump a bunch of quarks into a single point of space, all of a sudden, then I would just model a quark, decide a constant number of them I want to dump, and tell the app to run. If 10^80 quarks is easy for my hardware to run and the app can run in a couple of days, why wouldn’t I use that many? NASA’s next climate simulator will have more polygons than the current one. The generation after that will have even more, and the generation after that will have even more. If one can have greater resolution, they may as well do so, regardless of the level of need. True. Different levels of modeling take different simulators. Cell library elements get modeled in SPICE at the transistor level, much gets modeled at the gate level, and architectural studies use modeling at the instruction set level. But you can’t run an entire processor in SPICE, nor would you want to. And mixing simulation levels often doesn’t work very well, since you lose information at the higher level. For instance a circuit design which is iffy in SPICE won’t show up as a problem at gate level. > [@](#): > > For what we know of our universe, its seeming complexity may just be an issue that we view ourselves as complex. From an outsider’s vantage, we might not be so far away from the AI example I gave. To us, it seems overdone. To them, it might seem very straightforward. Fundamentally, we have no capacity to decide what the functional and reasonable limits are in a universe outside of our own. Believing that we are hard to compute has no bearing on whether we actually are hard to compute. If time runs thousands of times faster there, then maybe. If their scientists can live 150 billion of our years, then maybe. Especially if they can wait a really long time to get tenure. But you are really shoving the problem under the carpet. > [@](#): > > Nor do we have any ability to know what the purpose would be for our creation. It’s unlikely that we’re a simple test of AI, as it’s more hassle than necessary to build up life from quarks. But, as said, we have no idea what the capabilities are in a universe outside our own. Emergent life from a chaotic system may be a simple and straightforward way to create intelligent creatures, once you have sufficiently amazing hardware. Just as we might try creating life on top of Conway’s Game of Life if we had enough CPU and RAM to do it. The system is so simple, at its core, that you may as well start the application and see if you can devise any way to spot the life among all the billions of cells. They might run through a hundred iterations, all the way from the Big Bang to the Heat Death simply because they’re testing their tools for scanning for larger and larger structures to see if any of them seem to be life-like. If you can do it, why not? Sure someone may want to do it. And in fact the diversity of planets and stars does your life experiment in parallel. But you are way underestimating the size of the problem. And the need for all of this stuff. > [@](#): > > But certainly, if we can envision ourselves doing it, at any level, we have to open to the possibility that others might and have. I see us speculating about doing it - but not really doing it. > [@](#): > > I’m a programmer. And I’m not clear what this has to do with anything? “It’s hard to make simulators, ergo, no one would ever build a simulator.” Strange hypothesis for someone who has in fact made simulators. It is not hard to build a simulator, or to put in single stepping or breakpoints, Quite easy, actually. But expecting someone to make effective use of them on a universe simulator is quite another matter. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/62 "2016-05-25T01:29:30Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just me? Depends on who you ask…and who’s asking… Or so I keep telling myself… > [@Lemur866](#): > > Right, but if you only turn on the Crab Nebula when someone is looking at it, why bother simulating it in the first place? Why not make the stars little dots of light moving on a solid dome? This is assuming the point is to simulate the Earth. > > The universe is really really big. Much bigger than it needs to be, if all you want is to watch the monkeys dance. As I said, in that case you just need the Earth and the Sun in your simulation. And not even that, what’s the point of having a giant simulated Sun? . . . The only answer I can give, alas, is an argument from ignorance: we have no way of knowing what the purpose of the sim is. Ultimately, we can never totally rule out such irrational possibilities as diabolical spirits, mad Lovecraftian gods, some form of personal insanity, or simply a higher universe with very different laws of physics, such that our universe, complex as it is, is just a cheap and easy “Wa-Tor” style sim to them. We’re some junior-high-school kid’s summer-school project. We can never disprove any of this. > [@Voyager](#): > > This. I’m fairly confident that those who have come up with the simulation hypothesis have never written a simulator in their lives. I’ve written several, and know quite a bit about many more. . . . So I’m not buying it on any level. Any level? It is literally impossible for you to imagine situations in which this can work? Again, as above, how do you rule out a higher plane of existence, with totally different laws of physics – possibly even different rules of arithmetic – where your experiences have no meaningful application? Yes, definitely, such hypotheses are “nonsense” in the scientific jargon. There’s no possible falsification. But that’s the problem: you cannot dismiss these ideas, either. You can’t falsify them a priori. The most you can do is say “If the higher universe has laws similar to our universe, then the idea of a sim is not workable.” But that’s an assumption we don’t know enough to make. > [@Voyager](#): > > Run at the same speed as reality? Hell no. . . . Unless physics is way different in the simulator’s universe, it would take 150 billion years to do our universe . . . For those of us inside that universe, the time-scale is not discernible. Maybe it has taken 150 billion years to do the 15 billion years of our perceived universe. How would we know? So, even if the laws are physics are largely the same…your argument doesn’t work. And since you note the possibility that the laws of physics might be different – and how different? What are the limits? – you don’t succeed in wholly discrediting the notion. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/63 "2016-05-25T03:05:11Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Great, so you only need to simulate the 10^50 atoms in the world? That still a reasonable prospect with a computer you can build with resources you gather from the world? If you think you don’t need to use that many particles, how many do you need for intelligent life to evolve and run its own simulation? I don’t have to simulate any atoms any more than Call of Duty does. You don’t see every single atom when you look at a tree. You just see “tree”. The level of detail might only increase as you get closer to it, just like a videogame. If you are “simulating” every single atom in the universe, that’s not a simulation. That’s an actual universe you created. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/64 "2016-05-25T06:08:36Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Any level? It is literally impossible for you to imagine situations in which this can work? Again, as above, how do you rule out a higher plane of existence, with totally different laws of physics – possibly even different rules of arithmetic – where your experiences have no meaningful application? But my experience has nothing to do with the laws of physics. I can write a simulator where I change Planck’s constant or Newton’s laws or c. But I’d make the range of the simulation just big enough to test what I want it to test. As I said, unless the simulator writers have infinite time and resources at no cost, they would follow the same logical path as I would. And our universe is not like that. > [@](#): > > Yes, definitely, such hypotheses are “nonsense” in the scientific jargon. There’s no possible falsification. But that’s the problem: you cannot dismiss these ideas, either. You can’t falsify them a priori. The most you can do is say “If the higher universe has laws similar to our universe, then the idea of a sim is not workable.” But that’s an assumption we don’t know enough to make. > > For those of us inside that universe, the time-scale is not discernible. Maybe it has taken 150 billion years to do the 15 billion years of our perceived universe. How would we know? Sure it is not quite falsifiable. So it is not even wrong. And sure it might take 150 billion years (though I wish I had a simulator that ran at only 10% of real time.) Who is going to waste that time. Bostrom’s trilemma depends on universe simulations being relatively easy for a civilization to do, such that many will do so, and they will do a lot of them, so many as to outnumber naturally developing universes. That is pretty clearly not true. One culture doing this (doubtful as it is) is not going to make the trilemma work, and so there is no good reason to believe we live in a simulation. Especially, to repeat again, since our universe does not look like one a simulator developer would create. And this has nothing to do with physical laws at all. On the other hand perhaps we can start a new religion of God, Programmer. An all-powerful God doesn’t create the universe with a wave of his hand, he codes it. Makes a lot more sense than Genesis. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/65 "2016-05-25T06:10:38Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I don’t have to simulate any atoms any more than Call of Duty does. You don’t see every single atom when you look at a tree. You just see “tree”. The level of detail might only increase as you get closer to it, just like a videogame. Then you have to monitor every conscious entity in the universe in order to switch simulation levels when it looks at something more deeply than your fast simulation. That makes the problem even worse. I’ve seen people try to do this kind of thing, and it never works very well, though it is possible. > [@](#): > > If you are “simulating” every single atom in the universe, that’s not a simulation. That’s an actual universe you created. I’d say you can’t really tell the difference. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/66 "2016-05-25T09:42:42Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I think I heard right here on the SDMB that if you removed all the empty spaces between bits of matter all the matter in the universe would likey fit into a bucket. But if the bucket is made of matter, how would that work? ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/67 "2016-05-25T14:57:23Z")
Computer, Pause simulation… Hmm, no response Computer, Arch… Still nothing Computer, end simulation… Nope, everything is still here, looks like reality is real to me, unless the commands have been locked out… ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/68 "2016-05-25T15:26:36Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Then you have to monitor every conscious entity in the universe in order to switch simulation levels when it looks at something more deeply than your fast simulation. Um…what makes you think there are any other “conscious entities” in my simulated universe besides you? I don’t think people are getting the concept of “simulated universe”. Other than your own consciousness (and maybe not even that), you can’t take anything else for granted as how the “real” universe actually works. Our “sim” universe may be as different from the actual universe as SimCity is to an actual city. > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I think I heard right here on the SDMB that if you removed all the empty spaces between bits of matter all the matter in the universe would likey fit into a bucket. A couple of points: 1. If the universe is infinite, wouldn’t we still need an infinite bucket? 2. How do we know it isn’t already inside a bucket? 3. What does “fit” mean anyway when you are talking about putting the entire universe into something? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/69 "2016-05-25T15:36:36Z")
\*\* does a Find for “solip” on the web page \*\* OK just making sure someone already said it. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/70 "2016-05-25T15:46:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Um…what makes you think there are any other “conscious entities” in my simulated universe besides you? > I don’t think people are getting the concept of “simulated universe”. Other than your own consciousness (and maybe not even that), you can’t take anything else for granted as how the “real” universe actually works. Our “sim” universe may be as different from the actual universe as SimCity is to an actual city. I think we’re just working from different assumptions about what simulated universe means. I’ve been taking it to mean that the universe is what’s being simulated. If you’re thinking of the simulator as following only a single individual or a city, then that’s a different scope of simulation entirely and I don’t think it would be appropriate to call it a simulated “universe” anymore. In terms of the sim being different from the universe… our scientific investigations have at least determined the rules of our current situation, be that real universe or simulation of universe. Our current knowledge says that it would be all but impossible to simulate the entire universe the way we know it to work. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/71 "2016-05-25T16:31:33Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I don’t have to simulate any atoms any more than Call of Duty does. You don’t see every single atom when you look at a tree. You just see “tree”. The level of detail might only increase as you get closer to it, just like a videogame. Last I checked, no entities within COD have developed human level intelligence and started running their own simulations of the universe. If COD was a model of simulations supporting Bostrum’s Trilemma, then it would spawn intelligent entities who create and run their own simulations within it. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/72 "2016-05-25T17:06:12Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Unless you have evidence that the rest of the universe, outside of our solar system, is just a wall painting and not actually there, the current indication would be that the simulation encompasses the whole universe (if it is one). > Yes(ish). We have world simulators, that are used to study the atmosphere, global warming, weather, etc. They simulate the entire Earth but probably fit within a regular desktop computer. > > The nice thing about data is it can be represented by very small particles. > > If you have a universe with 10^1000^1000^googleplex particles, it wouldn’t be too hard to create a machine with enough RAM to represent 10^1000^1000 particles. > > If we’re a simulation, the only thing we could infer is that the parent universe is larger than ours by a significant amount. > Evidence that we’re a scientific simulation rather than, for example, a holodeck simulation for entertainment. Though, in the interest of the holodeck, presenting a realistic universe could still be a goal. Neither you nor I have any evidence that the scientists reporting about the larger universe are telling the truth. All science news could just be copied reports from the real universe, created and distributed by non-AI NPCs. > > As the OP mentioned, we could just be brains in jars, with all of the sensations and information we encounter being faked. > Why bother simulating anything at all? > > It’s just going to depend on what the goal was of the person who developed the application and/or the person who’s running it. Possibly science, on the interaction of quarks, on the possibility of emergent structures in a random environment, or entertainment. > > It’s likely that Earth is just a side-effect of the science. > It’s what we’ll call it when we create such simulations ourselves. Those Earth simulators aren’t very accurate. Can they predict a tornado? No. They are crude models. And yes it would be very hard to create a machine with that much RAM. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/73 "2016-05-25T17:15:33Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Um…what makes you think there are any other “conscious entities” in my simulated universe besides you? > I don’t think people are getting the concept of “simulated universe”. Other than your own consciousness (and maybe not even that), you can’t take anything else for granted as how the “real” universe actually works. Our “sim” universe may be as different from the actual universe as SimCity is to an actual city. Now we’re throwing in solipism also? A big universe is even sillier in this case. Plus, while I’ve had an interesting life if the universe revolved around me I’d expect it to be slightly more interesting. In any case we don’t simulate an entire processor to look at one gate. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/74 "2016-05-25T17:21:31Z")
I though of another reason that even one simulation is unlikely and many are next to impossible. Computation takes energy - that is a basic law of thermodynamics and I’'m not sure a universe without such a law would be stable enough to lead to any intelligent life, or maybe even matter. I got rid of my information theory book decades ago but I’d suspect using immense amounts of RAM and updating every atom in the universe would require an amount of energy that several supernovas a second would not satisfy. Plus you’d have to figure out how to get rid of the waste heat. Nope, not buying that our simulators can make anything 100% efficient. This is kind of like four-sided triangles of tri-omni gods - easy to describe and talk about, but basically logically of physically impossible. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/75 "2016-05-26T03:34:46Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > In terms of the sim being different from the universe… our scientific investigations have at least determined the rules of our current situation, be that real universe or simulation of universe. Our current knowledge says that it would be all but impossible to simulate the entire universe the way we know it to work. Right, but my point is our knowledge can only tell us how our “simulated” universe works based on the information provided. And again, you haven’t actually conduced these tests yourself, have you? So much of what you “know” about how the universe works may be what the simulation told you. I mean why even assume that it’s a passive simulation someone created and let run? > [@Voyager](#): > > Plus, while I’ve had an interesting life if the universe revolved around me I’d expect it to be slightly more interesting. In all fairness, I expected you to do a lot more in the sim.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/76 "2016-05-26T05:27:08Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Now we’re throwing in solipism also? A big universe is even sillier in this case. Plus, while I’ve had an interesting life if the universe revolved around me I’d expect it to be slightly more interesting. > In any case we don’t simulate an entire processor to look at one gate. I think you’re missing something…or probably _I_ am. You don’t need to simulate an entire universe. _I_ don’t know there’s proof of an entire universe. I just have you guys telling me there is. If I’m the only one in a simulation,…well you see where I’m going. “I’d expect my life to be more interesting.”-Noted. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/77 "2016-05-26T06:15:28Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > I think you’re missing something…or probably _I_ am. > > You don’t need to simulate an entire universe. _I_ don’t know there’s proof of an entire universe. I just have you guys telling me there is. If I’m the only one in a simulation,…well you see where I’m going. > > “I’d expect my life to be more interesting.”-Noted. The OP is about whether we live in a simulated universe. All of us, not just me. If I’m in a holodeck with my environment projected, it isn’t really a simulated universe, but more of a Potemkin universe. And to paraphrase Dylan, there’s no use simulating me, you might as well be simulating you. Now if we can convince Trump that he is the most important person in the universe (which wouldn’t be hard) maybe we can get him to walk off a pier or something. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/78 "2016-05-26T06:16:31Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > In all fairness, I expected you to do a lot more in the sim.😉 I’ve been on Jeopardy, what more do you want? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/79 "2016-05-26T06:27:17Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The Planck length and quantization in general do kind of look like pixellation, right? Yep, and delayed-choice experiments/uncertainty collapse look a bit like reverse raytracing and rendering-on-demand, and the whole wave-particle thing looks a bit like the code is happy to convert between integer and floating point math on the fly, depending on the output required. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543/80 "2016-05-26T06:55:19Z")
BTW, this is nothing new. Ed Fredkin dropped into one of my MIT classes in 1973 and mentioned his universe as a simulation idea. He said that miracles in the past were bugs in the code, and the lack of miracles today come from it being fixed. And Planck time is the simulation time step. That is the one place where the universe does match what you expect to see in a simulation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-its-possible-the-world-is-a-simulation/755543.md?page=5)