General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Our universe is most likely a computer simulation [View all]cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)My thinking-aloud is that it is one thing to say, "Everything is made of an indivisible unit one plank-length in radius," and a different thing to say, "Everything is made of an indivisible unit one plank-length in radius and space and time are like a pegboard with the holes spaced one plank-length apart."
Using one plank-length in radius wouldn't help much in a simulation because there would still be an infinite number of places the unit could be. But the peg board model would always be finite, though involving huge numbers.
As long as there is any non-quanta element (like wavelength) then it seems like a simulation is problematic because the simulation (as we can imagine it with our four-dimensional brains) would include infinties... which seems like a problem.
On the other hand, I like the way Einstein would cut to the experimental chase when arguing with the quantum guys (even when he was wrong), so I suppose I could postulate an appearance, a simulation, of infinities that cannot be found-out as incomplete by a mind within the simulation. What appears an infinity to us may merely be a large number from a meta-perspective.
If plank-lengths came in four pieces how could we know? The limit that is real from our perspective precludes closer examination. But it need not be a real limit to the simulator... so, for instance, wavelength could be granular but at a resolution too fine to ever manifest itself in our equations about the universe as we perceive it.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to talk seriously to an untutored lay-person.