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@Dragline - That novel is not so much about THAT three-body problem. It refers to the Alpha Centauri star system which is likely a three-star system. In the book aliens live on a planet orbiting one of the three suns and because of the three body problem, climate changes in unpredictable ways making life harsh. Because of this, the aliens decide to invade Earth. To prepare the invasion, they send a single synthetic particle (called a sophon, a scifi concept) which also acts a supercomputer. The purpose of this particle, which moves as the speed of light and interacts with matter at will because it traverses the entire planet some 100 times per second at c-speed, is to destroy all the data collection for advanced physics projects, essentially injecting noise and confusion thus preventing human progress in science---keeping physics at a 20th century level and only allowing engineering to progress. The goal is to make the invasion easier---with exponential progress, who knows what science will look like in 2350 when the ships arrive. That was called the sophon lockdown.

The idea was/is presumably similar to the way the Allies couldn't act on all the information they found from decoding Enigma transmission and furthermore how they had to create fake missions in order to preserve the proper Gaussian noise level so the Germans wouldn't figure out that the code had been broken.

Point of my post above: You don't need computers or gods to explain quantum noise. It could also be other things.

jacob wrote:The idea was/is presumably similar to the way the Allies couldn't act on all the information they found from decoding Enigma transmission and furthermore how they had to create fake missions in order to preserve the proper Gaussian noise level so the Germans wouldn't figure out that the code had been broken.

Cryptonomicon by Stephenson details this. hilarious.

@brute - This is some seriously "cool stuff". For more popculture, also, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodyguard ... AFAIR, this kind of thinking (cybernetics and signal processing) was developed right around that time. Neal Stephenson's research borders on awesome. Probably because he has a background in physics

has jacob read Mother Earth, Mother Board? it's available free online (90s wired article). amazing. Stephenson follows a transoceanic cable as it's being laid, through sewers in the Philippines to old telephone museums in the UK. many of the locations in Cryptonomicon are actually taken from this article, where he visited them, or similar locations.

BRUTE wrote:

jacob wrote:The idea was/is presumably similar to the way the Allies couldn't act on all the information they found from decoding Enigma transmission and furthermore how they had to create fake missions in order to preserve the proper Gaussian noise level so the Germans wouldn't figure out that the code had been broken.

Cryptonomicon by Stephenson details this. hilarious.

I liked that book but I don't recall that it made me laugh.

@brute - I have.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultur ... simulation

I've always assumed most people had their tongue planted in their cheek when they talked about this stuff. I guess I was wrong.

Come on now! I wrote a piece of fan-fiction universe=simulation because Heisenberg uncertainty principle=discrete math simulation when I was 20---and probably lots of others did it too. That was in year 1995. Thankfully, my vodka-fueled works were eventually and permanently lost to software rot, because, sad, damn! This [line of thought] is not useful and it's pretty shameful or telling wrt current times that such sophomoric ideas now qualify as TED talks or CEO wisdom. Pfffft!

I communed with the Master Simulator and located your old works. But I won't reveal them if you send a healthy amount of Itunes gift card $$ and bitcoin to special accounts. I'll have my agent call you from an undisclosed location in Central Asia.

jacob wrote:Thankfully, my vodka-fueled works were eventually and permanently lost to software rot, because, sad, damn!

Jacobukowski

Vodka!? I would have imagined this as your drink of choice.

it's funny because jacob likes lentils

At this point, I'm sure poor @jacob regrets ever mentioning lentils to our community full of smartasses.

It even made it into Scientific American:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... mulation1/

I swear they are becoming more like Popular Science sometimes. I've subscribed since I finished college in 1987.

Vodka generally has the best Alcohol/$ ratio.

C40 wrote:Vodka generally has the best Alcohol/$ ratio.

Definitely, and easy to loose track of consumption.

@Jacob - Time for a literary revival perhaps ?

If life is a simulation, then the standard simulation has excellent graphics but could use better game play. : )

In my teens I decided to use this "simulation/dream" theory to try to make a life worth playing~

Dragline wrote:The next question was whether we could just invent machines to "cover" our own limited perceptions.

Sounds like transhumanism or augmented reality which could just be baby steps to complete life simulation. Don't hearing, prosthetic or visual aids already do this for those with more limited range than others?

This thread also reminds me of the Black Mirror season 3 episode 4. That'd be a pretty cool 'afterlife'.

Finally, this subject was covered in an Idea Channel episode when talking about No Man's Sky.

Also read Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence for a detailed philosophical exploration of this since simulating human intelligence is considered somewhat of an inflection point in that book.