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lifeonmercury
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I've been reading about the sophisticated double-slit experiments currently being conducted by a team of physicists led by Tom Campbell. It's no secret of course that Campbell hopes that the findings of these experiments will strengthen the argument that our universe is a computer simulation. (I'm referring below to Campbell's article entitled "On Testing the Simulation Theory" published in the International Journal of Quantum Foundations in 2017.)
Campbell and his colleagues claim that to minimize computational complexity, the system performing the simulation would render reality only at the moment the corresponding information becomes available for observation by a conscious observer, and the resolution/granularity of the rendering would be adjusted to the level of perception of the observer.
Campbell and his colleagues are running double-slit experiments with two USB flash drives serving as recording devices. One USB flash drive records only the which-way data and the other records only the particle/wave impact pattern. They state that the experiment would support the hypothesis that our reality is entirely virtual if the USB flash drives storing the impact patterns show an interference pattern only in cases where the corresponding USB flash drives containing the which-way data have been destroyed before the impact patterns are viewed.
Let's say that Campbell's experiments give rise to his expected findings, and that these experiments are repeated by other scientists with the same results. How would scientists who are entirely dismissive of the simulation theory respond to this, and what would their explanation of these findings be?
Campbell and his colleagues claim that to minimize computational complexity, the system performing the simulation would render reality only at the moment the corresponding information becomes available for observation by a conscious observer, and the resolution/granularity of the rendering would be adjusted to the level of perception of the observer.
Campbell and his colleagues are running double-slit experiments with two USB flash drives serving as recording devices. One USB flash drive records only the which-way data and the other records only the particle/wave impact pattern. They state that the experiment would support the hypothesis that our reality is entirely virtual if the USB flash drives storing the impact patterns show an interference pattern only in cases where the corresponding USB flash drives containing the which-way data have been destroyed before the impact patterns are viewed.
Let's say that Campbell's experiments give rise to his expected findings, and that these experiments are repeated by other scientists with the same results. How would scientists who are entirely dismissive of the simulation theory respond to this, and what would their explanation of these findings be?