We live in a computer.

Posted by Johnny at 1:23 a.m.

Yes, I mean that literally and no, I'm not insane. Allow me to explain from the beginning:

Ok, so I was reading about discrete space-time recently for some reason, and at first they lost me at "renormalization". But then after I waded through the scientific stuff that I don't understand (read: 99% of the material), I had an interesting thought.

If you're unfamiliar with this theory, a discrete space-time would mean that there is a physical limit on how small matter could be subdivided. Many believe this size to be 10^-35 meters, which is the Planck length or something. So basically under this theory, space is a 3 dimensional lattice in which matter passes through, but the matter does not move continuously through that lattice. Instead, each Planck chunk (1 x 1 x 1 Plank lengths) jumps from one cell in that lattice to the next. There is no in-between: matter jumps from one point in space to the next, but because it is so small, it appears to be a continuous motion.

I know what you're thinking: "Ok, this is pretty boring. Why do we live in a computer?" Well, I'll tell you.

For this theory to be correct, we have to accept the discrete space-time theory. Ok, done. Now, if you've studied computers at all, you would know that they only work with discrete quantities and can only approximate real quantities. So that means in a computer game, for instance, the characters move around in a 3-dimensional environment that appears continuous, but is actually made up of little tiny shaded and rasterized polygons, and is thus discrete.

Also, in computer games, every aspect of the virtual world has pre-defined limits. For instance, maximum travelling speed and the size of the world are all hard or soft-coded into the game. And, to ensure realism, parts of the game that you know exist but you can never reach, like the planet neighbouring your own, are drawn into the world but are never meant to be traveled to.

This lesson in computer games can now be extended into our world. If the discrete space-time theories are true, then our universe is made up of nearly infinitesimal grids, or polygons in gamespeak. We also have a maximum speed, the speed of light (c=3.00 * 10^8 m/s). Ok, this is nothing too fishy, but read on...

From our observations through telescopes we know that our world is surrounded by stars and galaxies that are from 4 to multiple billion light years away. Keeping this in mind, and the fact that traveling at the speed of light is now impossible and would probably kill you if you could do it, doesn't it seem like we will never go anywhere outside of our solar system? I mean, we can't even send a human to Mars yet.

So if it is physically impossible to leave our solar system, how do we know these places actually exist? Yes we can see them, but appearances can be deceiving.

What if some designer on a higher consiousness built our solar system and painted a universe around it? Think about it: our maximum speed is c, but even traveling at c, it would take 4 years to get to the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) and we know that it is pretty much impossible to go that fast. Thus, it would take us hundreds of thousands of years to get there traveling at conventional speeds. Impossible.

Are you catching my drift yet? We live in discrete space-time and have a finitely accessible universe, both of which could be digitized and stored in a computer. Infinity and continuousness are just illusions to keep us from catching on. We could, and possibly do live in a computer simulation. It isn't the Matrix, it's more like the 13th Floor but on a larger scale. We are artificially intelligent and God is a really clever software engineer on a higher consiousness level.

Of course, I don't really believe this, but it's a cool idea. I won't get into my explanation of miracles, religion, etc as they pertain to this theory because you can make those connections yourselves.