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Science & Technology
Physicist creates AI algorithm that may prove reality is a simulation
2021-03-03
[Big Think -> Nature -> PDF]
  • Princeton physicist Hong Qin creates an AI algorithm that can predict planetary orbits.

  • The scientist partially based his work on the hypothesis which believes reality is a simulation.

  • The algorithm is being adapted to predict behavior of plasma and can be used on other natural phenomena
If this interests you go to Big Think read their synopsis and if you want to dig deeper follow their link to the PDF for the Nature article.
Qin developed this algorithm to predict the orbits of planets in the solar system, training it on data of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, and Jupiter orbits. The data is "similar to what Kepler inherited from Tycho Brahe in 1601," as Qin writes in his newly-published paper on the subject. From this data, a "serving algorithm" can correctly predict other planetary orbits in the solar system, including parabolic and hyperbolic escaping orbits. What's remarkable, it can do so without having to be told about Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation. It can figure those laws out for itself from the numbers.

Qin is now adapting the algorithm to predict and even control other behaviors, with a current focus on particles of plasma in facilities built for harvesting fusion energy powering the Sun and stars. Along with Eric Palmerduca, a Ph.D. graduate student at PPPL, Qin is using his technique "to learning an effective structure-preserving algorithm with long-term stability to simulate the gyrocenter dynamics in magnetic fusion plasmas," as he elaborated. He also plans to utilize the algorithm to study quantum physics.
Posted by:3dc

#14  Actually Reality is, by definition real.

The Physicist, however, is a simulation.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2021-03-03 21:00  

#13  John Von Neumann: "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, with five I can make him wiggle his trunk." An anecdote by Freeman Dyson relates that he was gently chided by Enrico Fermi using this quote -- the moral of the story was that hypothesizing without physical tests doesn't prove anything.
Posted by: magpie   2021-03-03 20:02  

#12  #10 Yeah, I saw this movie, its called The Matrix

I think "13th Floor" is more appropriate. A simulation within a simulation within reality (or simulation?).
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839   2021-03-03 19:48  

#11  

Well, if AI says we are a simulation then, we should strive to replace useless things with more usable things.

Our first priority:



Replaced with





Oil Refinery
Posted by: Gnomon Phones6812   2021-03-03 10:16  

#10  Yeah, I saw this movie, its called The Matrix
Posted by: Courts Snout8066   2021-03-03 08:41  

#9  Great! Now we can blame this recent clusterf%$k iteration we live in as a simulation gone amok. I suggest Hon Qin look into leftist policies as the cause for this current debacle.
Posted by: JohnQC   2021-03-03 08:24  

#8  The algorithm just printed out 42
Posted by: DarthVader   2021-03-03 08:24  

#7  #6, you forgot Global Warming.
Posted by: Spoter B   2021-03-03 06:52  

#6  If I understand correctly, the writers of the article possibly just needed a catchy title. Hong just based his work on the premise that the universe may be running off a set of parameters that recur and can be thus predicted. Discrete Field Theory is not the position that the universe is a simulation, it just treats the universe as one to catch patterns in it.

But the academics must have been drawn to only the words 'reality is a simulation' because it covers so many of their own suppositions like 'gender is imaginary', 'history is relative uhh.. because time is relative?', etc.
Posted by: Dron66046   2021-03-03 04:23  

#5  Aristotelian had it wrong? I'm figuring out how to pay the tax lady. I'll ponder the universe another day.
Posted by: Besoeker   2021-03-03 03:56  

#4  It's rediscovering laws of physics and other rules that govern behavior. How is that in any way "proving reality is a simulation"?
Posted by: Whaise Sforza1697   2021-03-03 03:52  

#3  GIGO
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2021-03-03 00:49  

#2  The AI knows, but it’s not telling us how it knows, because it doesn’t know. We don’t either, because we just built a computing structure. We didn’t program it.
Posted by: KBK   2021-03-03 00:32  

#1  Sussman and Wisdom showed that the solar system is chaotic, with expected stability less than 300 million years.

This leaves unanswered the question of why it has been stable for billions of years.

Though I’m very cautious about thinking this fellow has a handle on chaotic motion, I’m certainly going to read his paper.
Posted by: KBK   2021-03-03 00:28  

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