Are we living in a simulation?
I was listening to a Dan Bongino podcast entitled, Ep. 1909 Are We Living In A Simulation? As a bit of a personal side note to his normal news aggregating and commenting, he began talking about the idea that we, humans, are living in a simulation. This subject is fascinating to Bongino and as he likes to say, he “brought the receipts” to back up this theory.
He informed his listening audience that there is an experiment, the Double-Slit Experiment – of which much has been written if you care to look it up – that strongly suggests we humans are being spoon-fed our perception. The strange thing about what the experiment reveals is this…
Each particle suddenly seems to exist everywhere, in many different places at once —like a wave spread out everywhere. This phenomenon is known as superposition.
However, particles only act this way when no one is looking!
Something strange occurs if someone is watching or if detectors are placed at each slit to see when a photon changes into a wave and goes through both slits at the same time. When there are detectors or an observer present, the single photon doesn’t become a wave. It remains a single photon and goes through only one of the slits. The photon behaves itself, as if it knows it is being watched. So photons appear to be aware! And the observer affects the behavior of the photon.
–Pamela Oslie
IANAPhysicist, nor is Pam (I only used her quote because it most concisely sums up the Double Slit Observer Effect, YMMV.). And then there’s this gem, by an actual physicist…
Let us pause here and be perfectly clear. Measuring the future state of the photon after it has gone through the slits causes the interference pattern to vanish. Somehow, a measurement in the future is able to reach back into the past and cause the photons to behave differently. In this case, the measurement of the photon causes its wave nature to vanish (i.e., collapse) even after it has gone through the slit. The photon now acts like a particle, not a wave. This paradox is clear evidence that a future action can reach back and change the past.
— Louis Del Monte
Whoa!
It was shortly after I’d begun reading about this phenomenon – the book, The Grand Biocentric Design by Robert Lanza, is pretty good – that I noticed a strange occurrence at work.
I’m in control of the security cameras at two of my employer’s facilities. There are more cameras than will reasonably fit on one computer screen for viewing purposes, so I have several views set up that are on a carousel, with each view displaying only some of the cameras for 10 seconds at a time before moving to the next view. There is the main security view, which shows the 2 employee entrances, both inside and out, as well as the break room and parking lots. Another view shows warehouse stuff, another production, etc.
It’s always been the case that not every camera’s shot comes immediately on when the carousel switches to the next view. I mean, the cameras are always on and recording, but when a particular view comes up, some cameras are immediately showing while maybe one or two might take a split second or so to come up. It’s just a minor nuisance. First world problems.
I’d had the feeling, a bit along the lines of a superstition, like a jinx or a watched pot, that usually it was the camera that I was most interested in seeing that was the last to come up. I passed it off as its being the proverbial last place I looked. Or maybe I just wouldn’t notice if it was a camera I wasn’t interested in to be the last up because I wasn’t focused on its place on the view’s grid.
Whatevs, right? Just passing thoughts on a minor nuisance.
Until, that is, Bongino’s podcast got me reading articles in my downtime at work about that Feynman Experiment. I mean, could it be that the time delay was due to the simulation’s going back in time to convert what I was looking at from a wave to a particle? …and because it was having to go back through the electronics of the camera, cable and software, this conversion was not instantaneous, and thus there was a delay in my desired camera coming up in the view?
I know this all sounds silly, it did even to myself, but boredom got the best of me, so I decided to put some science to it.
IFLS
After some thinking about it, I decided on testing 3 things:
- No Camera Preselected. I’d film my computer monitor as it scrolled through the carousel, then watch it later and note the delayed camera(s).
- Camera Preselected and Watched For. I’d watch the live feed with a predetermined camera to look for at each turn of the carousel, then note which camera was actually delayed.
- Camera Preselected, Not Watched For. Same as the above, with a predetermined camera to watch. But at the turn of the carousel I’d look at a different camera’s spot on the view’s grid.
The purpose of the 3 methods was to determine whether or not the “simulation” reacted to my intention or actual eyesight. Now, I’m not any kind of statistician, but from working in the business world for most of my life I’d come to understand sample sizes and distributions somewhat. So, the following became the parameters for my experiment:
- Number of Cameras: 23
- Number of Views/Grids in the Carousel: 4
- Number of Cameras per View:
- 9
- 16
- 23
- 6
- Seconds per View: 10
- Hours to View per Testing Method: 3
- Approximate Number of Carousel Turns per 3 Hour Test: 1,000
The results are as follows. For test #1, No Camera Preselected, upon viewing the recording of my monitor while the security camera app was on and going through the views carousel, there were 976 cameras delayed at the turn of the carousel. A graph of the distribution…
This appears to be sufficiently random to me. There look to be some wide swings, minimum count to maximum, but not after digging a little deeper. For example, cameras 5, 6, 9 & 11 are in all 4 views, so they’d have more odds of being delayed at a carousel change than say, camera 23, which is only in view 3.
I suppose there’s actually a way to figure out the odds, but it’s not like I was going to pay a pro to do this!
For test #2, I just sat and watched the security cam app feed when I had some spare time sitting at my desk. Before each carousel turn I referred to a check-off list that I’d made telling me which camera I would look at next, and I immediately looked at its spot on the grid when the carousel switched views. Now things start to get interesting. The graph…
…which turns out to be around 81% of the cameras I wanted to look at were in fact the, or one of the, cameras that were delayed.
But was it my eyesight causing this, i.e. the simulation reacting to what I was looking at, or my intent. I mean, would it be practical for the simulation to always be going back in time to fix things? Wouldn’t it be better if it knew before so it could fix things in real time?
Apparently the answer to that last question is no…
It only matters what I’m actually looking at that the simulation cares about. Though now that I think about it, reading people’s minds would probably be a fool’s errand, and even more inefficient than going back in time. But what could I possibly know about that?
As if any of this is even real, right?
Why Us?
And yet, real or no, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t quite believe the numbers from my tests. Surely I was doing something wrong. I didn’t actually expect to find that there just might possibly be some… thing… going back in time and changing light waves to particles, all for my viewing pleasure. What would be the point?
It’s not like my life is exceptionally interesting in any way. My life’s “A” reel is not unusual. I mean, when we humans play video games (and by “we” I don’t include myself; I’ve never owned a game system, only watched my kids play on them at times) we don’t watch people go to a desk job day after day.
Let me back up a bit. I’m just trying to figure out why we’d be in a simulation, assuming we’re not just bio-batteries like in the Matrix movies. When we play a video game, a simulation, we pretend to be special. Superheroes. Soldiers. Animals. Royalty. Central Planners. Sports Stars. Or there’s some interesting thing to do like solve an escape room. What part do I contribute to some alien’s entertainment?
I suppose I could be an NPC, a Not Player Controlled character. I at least understand the NPC meme, despite my lack of doing the role playing game thing. And since the NPC is considered a joke for its lack of nuance, could it be that in the future there’s an effort to make NPCs less of a joke and more interesting, complete with back stories? I suppose doing so would add to the simulation’s realism.
So, I’m an NPC. Who on planet earth are the simulation’s playing characters? Who on earth would an alien RPG player want to be that is more interesting than their real life? We humans already pretend to be something better or more interesting than human in our own games (our own simulations within the simulation), so wouldn’t the alien want to be something better than itself when playing in the simulation of us here on earth?
Who would the alien player want to be? A member of Seal Team 6? The President? A terrorist? A mass murderer? Could an alien player have been Hitler or Stalin, in a sort of Grand Theft Auto type game where you pretend at being the bad guy on a global scale?
But what if an NPC turned into something interesting? Would our alien player want to interact? If I were to become a Hitler by chance, would the player want to go to war with me? Would it want to be me? Could two alien players simply choose to become Hitler and Churchill, to take over their lives/souls/beings if such an interesting situation presented itself?
And how would I know if I were interacting with an alien player? Would there be a way to see the player, outside of this simulation, in his own environment? We have Wii sensors – and I guess there are other game systems with similar such devices – that allow the game to “see” the player. Yeah, there’s the video game controller, but that’s all it is, a controller. The Wii type cameras are actually looking at the player so the video game can see the player, allowing it, and even the NPCs, to interact with the game’s “vision” or “sensation” of the player. Would it be possible, within our simulation, to find the inputs from a Wii type sensor, and “see” the alien player in his own environment?
But first, I’d have to be able to tell the difference between an NPC and the alien player’s character. The most obvious way to find the alien would be to identify the most adventurous or interesting among us. Another way might be to attract the alien, by becoming a most adventurous or interesting NPC myself…
It’s been 38 years since I graduated, but to the best of recollection the two quotes do not represent what actually happens in the double slit experiment. Photons do not switch between waves and particles. They are both, at the same time.
I think the results feel unintuitive because our brains are wired with a fundimentally flawed understanding of the world.
I was trying to wrap my head around remote acting forces like magnetism and gravitation when the realization percolated through my head that nothing acts directly. Solidity is an illusion of remotely acting forces that tie the relative placement of the origination points to each other. Nothing actually touches all the way down. So getting tangled up in the remote forces of the narrow apertures and behaving in an unintuitive manner is normal for light.
Our brains are wired to perceive the world in a way that is useful to us. For example, it would do us no good to see IR light or hear low frequency noises. That’s important for some animals, but not us. We are not seeing all of reality as it is, because it wouldn’t help us survive as a species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton
The number of times the opening paragraph went “We haven’t been able to even show how this works mathematically” means the question is up in the air.
Up in the air, inside of us, down in the ground. They are everywhere.
or maybe not.
Upside down and inside out? Up in the air?
No, Over, Under, Sideways, Down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4DdAs0PddQ
Updside Down
Upside
The point is that because of the wave/particle duality, the photon can be in two places at once. But if you “look” at it, then it resolves to being in only one place.
The point is that because of the wave/particle duality, the photon can be in two places at once.
Nope. That’s not how it works.
I think that’s how it works in what they were trying to describe. As far as what’s really happening, who knows? There are dozens of different interpretations.
*tilts head like confused dog*
^^ This.
He must have gotten the good shit from the dispensary.
I think it is more that I lack the grounding in mathematics and physics to follow this as well as I would like.
My freshman year of college, I took a course (for non-science majors) called, IIRC, “Modern Physics and Reality.” All I really recall is that one day the prof wore a button that said “Heisenberg might have been here.”
https://twitter.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1452473813581533184
PH365 – Relativistic Physics.
What we affectionately referred to as “Magic”.
This place really is a wonderful nerdery.
So if we are part of a simulation, what is the point of going back and changing a variable? Isn’t the whole point to see what’s gonna happen? Or is that the point – fucking with us?
Whatever entertains…
It could be a bug in the code that updates the state of the elementary particles.
Are we in the Sims, SimCity, Populous, Syndicate, or something darker?
Something darker, with a weird sense of humor.
Pretty sure it’s Doom.
Negative. I am a DOS emulator running in Windows 3.1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBUu_FxCAgE
In Army Analytics, we rerun the simulation to see what weapon system to buy.
They did this on Through the Wormhole. It was very weird. Photons being in 2 places at once until being watched.
As for who the aliens would be in a simulation, the answer is Mark Harmon.
Mel Gibson.
DeCraprio (yeah, I spelled it that way) gets all the young chicks.
My money’s on Jackson Galaxy
https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ott-jackson-galaxy-0117-20200116-ayfhbuzyircpndt2brc6y3rtoa-story.html
Paywalled
Not for me, but try this.
You’re crazy man, I like you, but you’re crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvOHbxBAEN8
Ha! This does make me crazy if I think too much on it, which I avoid. At first I didn’t have “fiction” listed as a category, but I figured I’d tweaked the deets enough that I should add it. The reality is… There is a thing that happens with the cameras that defies statistics and it freaks me the fuck out. Should there be a followup article to this, I’m not sure where we’ll go.
Now they’re gonna have to reset the start point on the simulation.
Only this time Biden wins the Presidency. And it will be your fault.
OT:
So, Ukraine, about that promise of unwavering commitment…
https://twitter.com/MarketRebels/status/1645818835339976712
Signaling last call for our grifters and / or alien players to rack up currency points there before it’s shut down?
Holy shitballs… that’s a good… no… great thing.
For all intents and purposes, Yellen is running the administration right now. If she said that…
Of course, it may just mean that they’re going to shift to China/Taiwan on a shortened time scale because Macron kind of fucked things up for them last week.
Yeah, this is a pivot. No way War, Inc will tolerate peace.
“But first, I’d have to be able to tell the difference between an NPC and the alien player’s character. ”
Simple, You have to put on the glasses.
IOW this is too advanced for me to follow properly but interesting nonetheless. Thank you. I’ll have to go back and see what I can get from this.
*takes a hit*
If time travel was ever possible, wouldn’t we have met a lot of people from the future?
What makes you think they want to talk to you?
I’m not implying that at all.
How do you know you haven’t?
Maybe you can only travel forward?
Preposterous.
I was thinking of that.
The other option would be a short story (that I think was) called “The Slow Way” talking about a couple that were on missionary work to Central America in the 50’s/60’s to be locked up for 15-20 years or so with no real contact with the outside world. The story was focused on how much culture shock would come from even that brief of a time difference.
It was a Spider Robinson story, and I believe it was in the first Callahan’s collection.
At the rate of 1 minute per minute?
Didn’t Timecop explain that?
Recorded: https://youtu.be/1qfH1zBMZic?t=51
Every time I’ve gone back and killed Hitler, Roosevelt blows up the planet.
Lesser of two evils.
My wife’s comment: “Thank you for proving the existence of god.”
Lol.
Glibs are full of surprises.
*rereads article*
I’m missing out on all of the secrets of the universe.
God must have a good laugh at the high-end physicists and astronomers trying to unlock secrets to the universe that don’t actually exist.
Who on earth would an alien RPG player want to be that is more interesting than their real life?
Definitely not me.
How about – it used to be a preindustrial fantasy game, but the system kept running after the players stopped playing.
Speaking of alternate realities
The Biden administration is reportedly set to boost fuel-efficiency standards in a way meant to dramatically speed the adoption of electric vehicles, or EVs. The New York Times reports that the goal is to boost EVs from less than 6% of new-car purchases today to nearly 70% by 2032.
One way to do that through regulatory power would be to crank up the fuel-efficiency standards automakers must meet. The current rules require automakers to average 49 miles per gallon (MPG) per vehicle, across their fleets, by 2026. Raising that to 60 or even 70 MPG would leave no choice but to rapidly roll out EVs. The Environmental Protection Agency is due to spell out its approach on April 12.
The key fact here is that it’s nearly impossible to make gasoline-powered cars more efficient than they already are. After 100-plus years of innovation on the internal-combustion engine, we’re far down the curve of diminishing returns.
But EVs are a step-change in efficiency, at least the way the government measures it. Most EVs average more than 100 MPG-equivalent, a measure that equates electrical power with what a gas engine produces. The thrifty Honda Civic, by contrast, averages just 35 MPG. So if Honda built more gas-powered Civics, it would actually harm the automaker’s fleet-wide fuel-economy. More hybrids, with both a gas engine and a battery, would barely help. The only way to reach a lofty new federal MPG requirement will be with electrics.
A made-up solution for a made-up “crisis”.
The fuckers are just relentless. I guess you have to give them credit for that.
The thrifty Honda Civic, by contrast, averages just 35 MPG.
Heavy and bloated Honda Civic. FFS, my wife’s Passat gets better mileage than that!
I had a 1984 CRX that got mid 50s. The problem isn’t the technology, it’s all the stupid shit regulations that require every vehicle to be bigger, heavier, more complex and more expensive.
Amen.
Yes – had an 89 Civic that never got less than 40.
My Brother had an ’86 Accord that was significantly smaller than a current Civic, and the Civic precursors we used in Drivers Training were as small as the original Mini Cooper.
Our Road Test was done in a ~ 1970 Plymouth Satellite, which was monstrous.
Did mine in a Mercury Grand Marquis wagon that was about a mile long.
I remember when Civics got better gad mileage than that.
The best mileage I ever got out of my old Crown Vic (early 00s manufacture, V8) was 30 MPG. I had the cruise control on on a flat highway with a tailwind.
My V6 Genesis has gotten 33 MPG on the highway with cruise control on.
A solution in search of a problem. A former boss was well known for finding new high-tech equipment, aka toys, that he’d want to install in one of the plants. Many a time we were tasked with finding an application for this equipment. This boss’s yes-men would stumble over each other trying to invent a problem it would solve, just to be able to tell the boss what a genius he was.
Best case scenario, that’s all this EV crap is. But I fear the current regime really does want to “stop the motor of the world.”
True believers. They will stop only at the die-off of most of humanity.
It’s pure fantasy, because what’s gonna power all these new cars? Certainly not our existing energy infrastructure, or any of the green energy boondoggles being added to it. If they’re serious about converting to electric, then we better start building a shit ton of nuclear plants, starting now.
To quote Mayor Pete, when Thomas Massie asked him how the grid could support the equivalent of each hose adding a refrigerator, “It’ll have to”.
*house, not hose
Well, electricity flows like water, so just increase the pressure all it’ll all be good, right?
/snark
Makes about as much sense as what he said.
We’ll just up the voltage to everyone’s house to 480 triple Phase.
No problem… until you try to unplug something and blow your smoking corpse across the room.
Power comes from the outlet. Food comes from the store. Government programs just need a little more money to work. I still have checks left.
You’re right they are living in an alternate reality.
FFS. That just sums up this kind of magical thinking perfectly.
In the coming months, Klaus will reveal a plan to capture the energy generated during male masturbation. Infinite power! And sticky car seats!
Are there enough raw materials to build these cars? We hear about peak oil, but is there such a thing as peak lithium, or peak cobalt?
Not everyone who wants to drive gets to drive. You will remain in your walking sector near your pod, drone.
You’re right, Cars are only for the inner party members.
fold s/b folk
Peak Oil is a convenient tool for the usual suspects to further their agenda.
The others aren’t, so they don’t matter.
So that’s how the math works out. We reduce the total number of total vehicles, then it’s a lot easier to get to 70% EV’s. That would also solve the power grid problem.
Also, fuck the poor. They don’t deserve affordable transportation.
“Cash for Clunkers” apparently didn’t go far enough.
Cash for Clunkers II: Nothing for Clunkers (and you’ll like it)
Turn in your car and we won’t have to give you these little, fast moving pieces of metal.
Apparently the govt workers had mass shooter training today.
One of the ladies was concerned that someone could come in the building and shoot the lock off of the vault we work in with an AR-15.
When I told her that’s not how it works in real life, she said she didn’t know anything about “high powered rifles”.
I tried to explain that an AR isn’t that high powered, but I’m not sure she got my point.
I then said if they were serious about preventing mass shootings then why don’t they just make the base a gun free zone.
It took her a minute to realize the sarcasm, she looked at me like I was stupid first.
Then she said something about never knowing if you would make it home every day and didn’t believe me when I told her the most dangerous thing she does is drive to work.
I work at a bank and somebody shot up a bank yesterday – I could be killed any minute!
I’m always amazed at how my imagination comes up with all these articles about how my imagination works.
I had a 1984 CRX that got mid 50s. The problem isn’t the technology, it’s all the stupid shit regulations that require every vehicle to be bigger, heavier, more complex and more expensive.
I think a “lightweight” car these days is 3000 pounds.
*I did a random check- Toyota Yaris = ~2500 lbs
I’d need to know more about your camera set up. In this day and age I’d assume it’s DVR based on a network. Which leads to quirks like this, as the cameras aren’t all being pulled off the same server. So it would be a bit like a website where different elements loaded off different servers. Each element would randomly load differently based on other usage of the server from what the other servers are doing.
Not that I would know anything about systems like….look at that shiny thing over there!
All I know is that it’s server-based with IP cameras. Beyond that, I manage the app, creating whatever views and carousels I or others want.
Schrödinger’s proton.
Which is exactly how we ended up with Stay Puft
Not wrong.
Every girl knows not to cross her friend streams.
I’ve thunk myself into a corner and I can’t get out, and I have to have this project at least halfway presentable before 5p.
Crowd-source it to Glibs. That should at least be good for entertainment value.
I don’t want to shit on Plisade’s article and 3p links is too late.
I hope you put it down for about 30 minutes, did something else and them came back to it with clarity.
I think I’ve whipped it into adequate shape. I may even be able to make it into an article here.
I hope you do well!
/looks around in a daze
Got out of mandatory DEI hiring training. Only person without pronouns. Main takeaway is I’m instructed to believe any negative perceptions I have about a non-white or female candidate is due to racism.
Fuck. Apparently not giving a shit about immutable characteristics while wanting the best person for the job is racist. This is insanity.
Our propaganda is online so I can mute it, shove it to the background and go back to work.
Thank God for that! Skip and/or mute and answer correctly at the end.
Ours is normally online and I can mute/skip. This was a live session with specially brought in
consultantsgrifters.Only person without pronouns.
If forced, I plan on using the most ridiculous option available.
%$* / %$**
Rat/Bastard
I think I was the only one at my DEI sessions who declined to announce my pronouns.
Weirdly, I kinda liked our DEI grifter. He admitted there was zero data to support the just-so proposition that diversity makes us more productive, that obsessive focusing on race, etc. just gives it more power. His basic message was that we ought to try to be more self-aware and more open to where other people are coming from.
“try to be more self-aware and more open to where other people are coming from.”
Just say that then. Sounds good. Are we done here. Sounds like we’re done.
“My pronouns are ‘I’ and ‘me.’ You may refer to me as ‘you.’ Duh!”
I identify as a bridge. My pronouns are over/it.
But I persist with Pope Cerebus’s Most Holy/Most Holy/Most Holy’s. Try to object and I’ll hit them up with a religious discrimination suit so fast their heads will spin.
Alas, Meine Liebe Sabine has debunked that. PBS Spacetime guy even chimes in agreeing with her in the comments!
However, she does have something genuinely trippy: The Quantum Bomb Experiment.
https://youtu.be/RhIf3Q_m0FQ?t=322
I thought this was going to be an article about The Residents.
Nobody should go away sad. How about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkcZp-ofXEE
Mark of the Mole is a work of genius. So is the Commercial Album. They bought 1 minute radio ads for each song on the album, so the whole thing got airplay.
Glad I got to see them before the singer passed away. They came through Dallas.
Yeah, I saw the 13th(?) Anniversary tour. I think I still have the tour poster.
Maybe there isn’t an alien player, maybe we’re just ants in an ant farm and they’re just trying different things.
oooo…. I can’t wait for the magnifying glass part.
That would explain spontaneous combustion wouldn’t it?
And somebody’s five year old got ahold of us?
That would also explain Joe Biden.
I get an internal server error repeatedly.
Wow. It doesn’t like what I’m typing.
My Crazy Alien Theory: Aliens are time-traveling humans from the distant future.
• They seem not to really interfere with the machinations of society because they’ve seen (or are aware of) the rules of Back to the Future. No landing smack-dab in the middle of Times Square.
• A biology presentation in high school that future humans would evolve to look pretty much like grey aliens.
• The common abilities of UFOs to disappear from visuals and radar.
Fuck off, cunt.
OFFS!
Gov. kinnath: I won’t stand over the bodies dead children and tell people they are monsters if they don’t vote the way I want them to vote. Nor will I let other people stand over the bodies of dead children and tell me how to govern. The legislature exists for a reason. Go cool off, then work through the system.
Spot on
https://twitter.com/notsethsimons/status/1645866984628797441
Lols.
Puppyphiles.
Republicans, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory since 1865. What a fucking knee-jerk, stupid, short sighted, dipshit reaction.
BTW, where’s the goddamn manifesto? They ever release it?
Not that I’ve seen.
No. Nor will they for years. It is now “evidence” in the hands of “law enforcement”. Of course, the shooter is dead, so there’s no criminal charges, so it’s not clear what they need the evidence for or even what they are “investigating”, but no matter.
*insert gif of Ark of the Covenant being put into giant warehouse*
Top. Men.
No. God only knows what is in it.
Exactly, so how do we know mental illness was the prime, or any, motivator? Sure it’s a safe bet but I don’t trust these douchebags any further than I can throw them.
The classic:
Respond to a shooting by doing things that would have zero effect on that shooting or future shootings.
What a spineless cunte.
While fucking over your base so…bonus?
Respond to a shooting by doing things that You wanted to do anyway.
FOR THE CHILDREN!
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/punch-face-xi-caricature-taiwan-air-force-badge-goes-viral-2023-04-10/
lulz
FREE GUY!!!
Is there a catalog I can pick from or is it dealer’s choice?
Seriously, I love that movie.