Untestable, but it seems like it would be a lot of trouble.
The laws of physics seem to go back all the way, so at the big bang or before.
Doesn’t look like it.
If I imagine making something like the universe, it would be because I could—and a little scientific curiosity.
Not sure. Our universe runs on pretty complicated and high-energy physics. If we’re running inside a computer in a universe similar to ours, this computer would have to have a vastly higher maximum energy splitting than ours, or more generally work on physics that made computation really easy.
Actually, answering that last question led to an interesting thought. Ease of computation puts an ordering on the universes that can simulate each other. If our prior probability of the universe existing is can be thought of as a function of ease of computation in the universe (probably not, but simplifying), that puts an upper limit on the “tower o’ universes.” Then we can make assumptions about how rarely universes bother to simulate whole other universes and actually get finite numbers rather than pesky infinities! Thinking this has caused me to revise my probability of being in a simulation down.
Doesn’t look like it.
Untestable, but it seems like it would be a lot of trouble.
The laws of physics seem to go back all the way, so at the big bang or before.
Doesn’t look like it.
If I imagine making something like the universe, it would be because I could—and a little scientific curiosity.
Not sure. Our universe runs on pretty complicated and high-energy physics. If we’re running inside a computer in a universe similar to ours, this computer would have to have a vastly higher maximum energy splitting than ours, or more generally work on physics that made computation really easy.
Actually, answering that last question led to an interesting thought. Ease of computation puts an ordering on the universes that can simulate each other. If our prior probability of the universe existing is can be thought of as a function of ease of computation in the universe (probably not, but simplifying), that puts an upper limit on the “tower o’ universes.” Then we can make assumptions about how rarely universes bother to simulate whole other universes and actually get finite numbers rather than pesky infinities! Thinking this has caused me to revise my probability of being in a simulation down.