My arbitrary line for (known) life is ATP. If there's ATP (i.e. cellular respiration) then there's life. I wanted to make it something about "a set of biological processes that seek to perpetuate their own existence" but that implied too much sentience. Probably something more like "energy currency exchange" might blanket extra-terrestrial lifeforms. *shrug*

[quote name='d000hg' timestamp='1356106565' post='5013167']
Wouldn't simulating a whole universe inside a simulation of a universe be the kind of thing that would break the simulator?
[/quote]

I think the idea is that a perfect simulator would (much like our current laws of physics and other sciences) define interactions at a low enough level to not have a problem running said "nested simulator".

It's the fact that we're getting closer to being able to describe and define all aspects of the universe (from the micro to the macro) based on limit values and mathematical rules that gives this the whisper of potential. And probably other things, I'll admit to not having read the article.

I don't think we can physically test such things, from my understanding, the core concept of this idea is that if we are in a simulation, then if we are able to simulate an accurate universe, that means we are a simulation ourselves. I can't be the only one seeing the problem with this?

This seems backward to me. Wouldn't simulating a whole universe inside a simulation of a universe be the kind of thing that would break the simulator?

we assume they are simulating a universe in equal size to their's, for all we know, the perceived universe we see could simply be a giant cube-map texture, being fed from their universe, or their universe is perhaps millions upon millions of times bigger than ours. so we could be a relatively small universe by comparison to there's. remember that we haven't even left our solar system(the computer they are using might be billions of cluster's of servers, think of each solar system, planet, or maybe even atom, could have it's own dedicated processor).

we truthfully have no possible idea how they could be doing this, hell, their universe could even operate completely differently than ours, and we are making assumptions that they are trying to simulate their own universe, for all we know, we could be some huge MMO to them.

we truthfully have no possible idea how they could be doing this, hell, their universe could even operate completely differently than ours, and we are making assumptions that they are trying to simulate their own universe, for all we know, we could be some huge MMO to them.

we truthfully have no possible idea how they could be doing this, hell, their universe could even operate completely differently than ours, and we are making assumptions that they are trying to simulate their own universe, for all we know, we could be some huge MMO to them.

That's a fascinating idea, that perhaps this simulation was never intended to simulate life and the creators never even knew there was life in the simulation. They are playing some game exploring the universe, waging war for fun when one day they meet natives..

this makes me think of that episode of futurama, where bender discovers god, but he doesn't even know about earth.