Quantum Mechanics Suggests Reality is a Simulation (Comments of the Week)

I love the reader comments to my post on scientists' effort to determine whether or not reality is actually a massive simulation. Adeon Writer and Metacam Oh in particular have a lot of fun with the idea, pointing out that quantum mechanics seems to lend credence to the theory. First Mr. Writer:

"Quantum theory and the Observer Effect are just peeking behind the curtain into some resource optimizations. Why simulate the complex internal biological systems of some flower in a field in the middle if nowhere miles from anything 'important' until someone actually needs to examine it. Fill the details in when it's actually needed, I say.

"Ever wander into a room and instantly forget why you're there? Packet loss.

"Suddenly forget how to say the word you know you know? Chat lag."

Jumping off from there, Mr. Oh makes a point that's so interesting, I'm starting to freak out a little:

"Quantum mechanics and the spooky action at a distance could almost best be explained by a simulation analogy. Like [Adeon] said, why simulate every electron, every photon, until it actually needs to be measured? Look at quantum entanglement. How can anything travel faster than light? Well, in a simulation, space is just an illusion. Something can appear to travel faster than light because when dealing with data and simulating, it's taking place in a dimension outside the normal three dimensions."

OK, now I'm starting to think that... whoa.

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[Metacam Oh]

Here is an article I wrote in response to Rosedale's talk at the Singularity Institute (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C04wwLjJ0os&feature=player_embedded) Approx 5 min in he talks about this.

http://metaversetribune.com/2011/08/22/rosedale-makes-case-for-holographic-universe/

[Iggy]

Okay, what if:

--Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?
--Baby Superman's capsule had landed in inter-war Germany?
--Napoleon had a B-52 bomber at Waterloo?
--Schrodinger put a cat in a box and opened it to find a dog?
--Keanu Reeves could act with nuance and depth?

SNL covered the first three what-ifs long ago.

Moral: Somewhere in the multiverse we are all kings and queens. Somewhere we all drive avatars and no one carries smart phones. Somewhere we wear our underclothes as the outside layer.

Wait, that last is SL. Never mind.

[Riesstu]

I'm going to start using this as an excuse not to do something:

"Why bother, we're only simulations..."

[Arcadia Codesmith]

The universe is a really big snowglobe.

Reality solved. Carry on.

[Galatea]

Don't overlook the very foundation of quantum mechanics: that many physical properties are not infinitely divisible, as was once thought, but when you get down to the atomic scale, can only vary by discrete steps, jumping from one value to the next. This is just weird... unless you think reality is simulated and these values are kept in a floating point number with a less than infinite number of bits. Then it's perfectly natural and expected behavior. A lot of quantum weirdness seems not at all weird when it's looked at as the way a simulation operates at the limits of its numeric precision.

[Metacam Oh]

Galatea is this what you are referring to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect