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Simulating the Universe

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Numsgil:
It is kind of odd.  There would presumably be an upper computational limit of the amount of material you're using for your computer.  As you say, any computer simulating the universe is also simulating itself, which creates a kind of paradox.

abyaly:

--- Quote from: Numsgil ---It is kind of odd.  There would presumably be an upper computational limit of the amount of material you're using for your computer.  As you say, any computer simulating the universe is also simulating itself, which creates a kind of paradox.
--- End quote ---
That's why we just need to catch Laplace's demon and keep him in a basement  hooked up to a computer display.

Elite:
I found something similar to the simulating the universe idea


--- Quote ---Omniscience through counting

All knowledge in the universe can easily be displayed on your computer screen. How? I hear you cry (as well you might). It is quite simple, and requires nothing more than a computer than can count (which is what they are best at). Imagine, if you will, and 8x8 grid of pixels. This grid (or bitmap) contains 64 pixels, each of which may be 1 or 0 (on or off, black or white). The total number of combinations of on/off pixels is 2^64 (which is an extremely large number). This simple 8x8 grid can easily hold such images as all the letters of the alphabet, the digits 0-9, pictures of space invaders and PacMan, different shades of grey and so on. To display all the possible combinations simply requires the computer to treat the 8x8 grid as a 64 bit binary number (1x64 instead of 8x8). If the computer starts at zero and counts up to 2^64, displaying the binary number in the format of an 8x8 bitmap, it will show all the possible combinations of pixels that there are (including the above-mentioned letters and Pacmen).

If we expand this concept a little, it is easy to see that an entire computer screen may be treated as a single binary number. If your display is 1280 x 1024 pixels (quite a common size) then it could be treated as a single 1310720 bit binary number. It can store all the possible numbers from 0 to 2^1310720-1 (which is more than the number of particles in the universe).

If you set your computer (admittedly, it would have to be quite a fast one) counting, from 0 up to 2^1310720-1, it would display all the knowledge in the universe. Every frame from every movie, every page of every book, the DNA of every creature that has ever lived, the face of every person who has ever lived, the complete source of every computer program ever written, the entire life history of every single living organism, a picture of every square inch of every planet in the universe. Everything, ever would appear on your screen. There would be an awful lot of meaningless junk, but in amongst it will be all the knowledge in the universe.

And that's just with a single bitplane. If you treat a 24-bit display as a single binary number, you'll get the same information, but in colour!
--- End quote ---

Numsgil:
Hehe, now if only my computer wasn't dead.

Maybe I can just do it by hand...

Testlund:
If I understand Elite correctly, that whould just be a bunch of numbers all over the screen, right? I was thinking Nums meant a program that whould paint up the whole universe where you could access every solar system there is and look at the planets and suns. Very graphical intensive!  

Hmm... Maybe I will live to buy a quantum computer someday. Otherwise the one I'm thinking of buying in september will probably be the last one.

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