Tag Archives: reality

We Don’t Live in a Computer Simulation (Is That a Good Thing?)

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Every now and then, somebody is amazed at the ever-increasing power of computers to simulate reality. The accuracy of these simulations increases every year, in step with the increase in computing power. This has led some to extrapolate that eventually we will reach the ability to simulate an entire Universe, perhaps even including conscious beings. And if so, what if we’re a simulation ourselves? According to new research, this is, in principle, impossible due to, you guessed it, the most mysterious of phenomena: quantum effects.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-find-we-re-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation^

The article above presents this as good news. For me, this is neither good nor bad news. Actually, thinking of myself as a simulated object never dulled my sense of reality, nor my respect for life. And besides, if I’m simulated then perhaps there are some mighty creatures watching over my destiny. What I experience right now sure doesn’t feel fake so I couldn’t care less about the technology behind it. In any case, theories come and go and who knows what the future holds? Probably not even the simulators ;).

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Quantum Supersampling

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It’s been quite some time since the last major breakthrough in computer graphics. For the past few decades, graphics quality has been steadily improving, but this has been mainly due advances in semiconductor technology and secondly due to software evolution. Little has changed when it comes to the way images can be efficiently rendered. Ray-tracing^ has been around for a while but it is too computationally-intensive to match rasterisation^.

At long last, an evolutionary leap might soon be upon us thanks to quantum computing. There are myriad applications for this emerging branch of technology, but one of the most interesting I’ve learned about lately is this fascinating proposal called quantum super-sampling. It’s a process combining ray-tracing with quantum computation. Here’s a (long) video presentation describing the process, by the author himself:

https://vimeo.com/180284417^

Eric Johnston is quite well known in the computer graphics world. Seeing such a proposal from him fills me with enthusiasm. It might take a decade or more for this technology to become mainstream, but when it happens – when, not if – we will witness a major improvement in graphics rendering, possibly leading to real-life quality video games and experiences.

Combined with the instant transfer of information that is made possible by quantum entanglement, this might mean that a powerful central server could render realistic graphics for a very large number of people. Perhaps us becoming capable of projecting universes might be proof that this Universe is a projection?

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