Virtuality
Why Our Universe Is A Virtual Reality
The title is a bit misleading. The article is not postulating that we are living in some sort of universe-sized Matrix movie. The idea is to use a computer simulation analogy to demonstrate a point of logic: if you invert the causality between classical physics and quantum physics, many of the thorny issues suddenly go away. In simplest terms, while you can't drop quantum physics into the shoebox of reality and get a logical result, you can drop reality very neatly into the shoebox of quantum physics.
By painting the universe as a simulation generated by the "computer" of quantum mechanics, the author effectively simplifies famously complex problems. The arguments concerning tunneling and entanglement are particularly compelling. The causality issues of simultaneity (Einstein's "spooky effect at a distance") and observer influence suddenly disappear when you look at it from the perspective of a computer rendering a virtual reality, a la video games.
It's an interesting logical tool, but I don't buy all of it. For example, in trying to explain gravitational distortion as a second-order effect, the author conflates the Casimir effect with gravitational weak force. That's a bit of a (pardon the pun) quantum leap of illogic as far as I'm concerned.
In any case, it's an entertaining read and there are several "things that make you go hmmm..." items within it.
(Yes, I know the article is a year old. But since time doesn't actually exist, it's not a problem.)
The title is a bit misleading. The article is not postulating that we are living in some sort of universe-sized Matrix movie. The idea is to use a computer simulation analogy to demonstrate a point of logic: if you invert the causality between classical physics and quantum physics, many of the thorny issues suddenly go away. In simplest terms, while you can't drop quantum physics into the shoebox of reality and get a logical result, you can drop reality very neatly into the shoebox of quantum physics.
By painting the universe as a simulation generated by the "computer" of quantum mechanics, the author effectively simplifies famously complex problems. The arguments concerning tunneling and entanglement are particularly compelling. The causality issues of simultaneity (Einstein's "spooky effect at a distance") and observer influence suddenly disappear when you look at it from the perspective of a computer rendering a virtual reality, a la video games.
It's an interesting logical tool, but I don't buy all of it. For example, in trying to explain gravitational distortion as a second-order effect, the author conflates the Casimir effect with gravitational weak force. That's a bit of a (pardon the pun) quantum leap of illogic as far as I'm concerned.
In any case, it's an entertaining read and there are several "things that make you go hmmm..." items within it.
(Yes, I know the article is a year old. But since time doesn't actually exist, it's not a problem.)
posted by Jar(egg)head at 16:31
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