Are We In A Computer Simulation? Some Scientists Think So

Are we In A Computer Simulation? Some Scientists Think So

To Shakespeare, all the world was a stage. To natural philosophers of Newton’s era, it was a mechanical clock. Physicists of the 19th century viewed reality more like a steam engine. Today a fair number of scientists regard nature as a computer. You can’t blame scientists for conceiving of the universe in terms familiar from their everyday life. That’s just the way that thinking works, whether it’s about the laws of nature or anything else. And you have to admit that nowadays computers have invaded everyday life so thoroughly that it’s only natural for scientists to think about nature in a computational way. Fortunately, describing the universe as a computer does make a certain amount of sense. Laws governing how the universe works are expressed in mathematical formulas. You use those formulas to compute what nature will do, such as when the moon will position itself for the next solar eclipse. Just as you do a digital computation to figure out where the moon will be, nature simply conducts a real-time analog computation of its own that puts the moon where it is supposed to be.