[EAS] Is the Universe a Simulation?

[Peter J. Kindlmann]

Dear Friends and Colleagues -

In an age when out-of-the-box thinking is often encouraged, here is 
the most encompassing instance -- the pursuit to see if we, and the 
entire universe, are in a box.

Prompted by investigations of computer simulations of the 
quantumdynamics of cosmological processes, researchers from the 
University of Bonn in Germany have launched a project that aims to 
discover whether the universe itself is a simulation -- at least in 
some ways. After they examined the nature of high energy processes, 
they discovered that a simulation's lattice spacing  establishes a 
fundamental cut-off energy that particles can possess. And there is 
indeed such a cut-off in the energy of cosmic ray particles, the 
Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin or GZK cut off.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429561/the-measurement-that-would-reveal-the-universe-as/

This article in MIT's Technlogy Review references further source 
material on arxiv.org
http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

It isn't often that scientists and mathematicians propose to probe 
whether we are living in a giant "Truman Show" (Peter Weir's 1998 
movie about a man who discovers his entire life is actually a TV 
show).  The only related instance I can think of, in the last 30 
years, is Prof. Steven Bram's 1983 book, more recently re-issued in 
paperback:
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/Superior-Beings-Exist-Would-Incomprehensibility/dp/038748065X>. 


"This book examines theology and the idea of a superior being in the 
context of game theory. The central question posed in this book is: 
If there existed a superior being who possessed the supernatural 
qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, immortality, and 
incomprehensibility, how would he/she act differently from us? The 
mathematical theory of games is used to define each of these 
qualities, and different assumptions about the rules of play in 
several theological games that might be played between ordinary human 
beings and superior beings like God are posited."
(See impressive comments from eminent people further down the page.)

Some things to think about on a fall Sunday.

    --PJK