[ExI] Which direction does the arrow of time point in Conway's Game of Life?

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting John Clark:


> It makes no difference. If 3D space is finite then it must be closed and
> curved and have no center just as the 2D surface of a sphere has no center.

If the universe were a simulation running on someones quantum  
computer, then it could be finite and flat or even finite and open.  
Once something crosses the cosmic horizon, there is no more evidence  
that it continues to exist than there is for gliders that that go off  
the screen in Conway's Game of Life (CGoL). All you are seeing is the  
photons from the final moment just after it crossed the horizon frozen  
in time and red-shifted like crazy. I say just after because the  
Hubble number(!) is supposed to be getting smaller. But if the  has a  
statistically significant difference in value every time they use a  
different method to measure it, then I am no longer confident that is  
the case.

As Spike has recently noted, quantum weirdness could be interpreted as  
evidence that we are in a sim. I would add to Spike's observation that  
the gravitational time dilation caused by massive objects in general  
relativity could also be interpreted as evidence of a simulation.  
Massive objects tend to be composed of more elementary particles than  
light objects. Each particle represents information in addition to  
mass, so the slowdown of the passage of time in the vicinity of  
massive objects could be considered the slowdown associated with  
overloaded information processing.

For example, think about the slowdown of video games at the more  
advanced levels when there are too many sprites moving around the  
screen at one time. With the conflicting values of the Hubble number  
measured by different highly precise instruments, perhaps the  
simulation hypothesis should be taken seriously by cosmologists. After  
all their old models aren't working all that well any more.

Stuart LaForge



Stuart LaForge