If we are living in a simulation, do you think it is running a FOSS OS/software or a proprietary one?

717 points · 91 comments · view on lemmy.world

91 Comments

otacon239@lemmy.world · 78 pts · 351d (22 replies)

I dunno. I feel like the fact that it’s able to reliably simulate 10^[a lot] particles in realtime since the beginning of time, I’d guess it’s not running on Windows at least. But I also have a hard time it’s Linux because someone would always be messing with things and it would have needed to reboot for some reason or another about 6 or 7 times. Maybe the 7 days God spent building Earth was just time spent on building the server config lol.

Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works · 79 pts · 351d (2 replies)

And on the 7th day, shit finally compiled, and God looked upon the code that he had written and found that it was mostly good enough.

Kenny2999@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 351d

with only 10 quintillion essential bugs

DogWater@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 351d

Something weird happened with the platypus but he wasn't about to start over

SirActionSack@aussie.zone · 29 pts · 351d (10 replies)

We would have no way of knowing what the time factor is but I think 1:1 seems highly unlikely. Much more likely that we're running very slowly due to limits on available processing power or very fast so a civilisation can rise and fall within the observer's lifetime.

r00ty@kbin.life · 23 pts · 351d (6 replies)

We'd also be entirely unaware of reboots. Our reality would just resume from the last save point and we'd just move on like nothing happened.

Cypher@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 351d (3 replies)
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r00ty@kbin.life · 15 pts · 351d (1 reply)

No. That's just because the thread simulating your consciousness has leaked too much memory. So when you sleep the thread saves important parts of the memory map and terminates and a new one is started with an empty memory map ready for a new "day" .

SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 350d

The final boss fight of Rust rewrites

tetris11@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 351d

reality reboots when every person blinks at the same time

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 351d
This is correct.
jollyrogue@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 351d

Oh, so it’s written in Lisp.

bumblefumble@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 351d

I thought you were at TI right now.

waspentalive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 349d

We'd be like villagers in a single-player Minecraft world. When Steve leaves the game, we freeze in mid-clock tick, and when Steve returns, we are back too, not even aware of the event.

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 351d

It's 0.666× time scaling max, and 0.0625 min.

One second in the simulation occurs roughly every 16 "real seconds" if on a direct pipe in a closed instance with a superuser.

There's a time warp/stretching factor which slows down or speeds up the time simulation, allowing for extremely complex physics calculations to occur in what appears like real time, it's all lerped to synchronize with unitary clock, so even a 16 Hz explosion looks like 480 Hz.

To avoid crashing, light-speed has been capped just below the engine maximum of 300,000,000 m/s² at

c_max=0.999
(See: Time Dilation, General, Special Relativity)
Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 351d (5 replies)

The simulation absolutely runs on Windows, have you seen the random unwanted stuff that happens way too often in it?

tetris11@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 351d (4 replies)

At the local level, yes - but I figured that was poor Earth drivers caused by spotty documentation and bitrot. At the cosmic level, it seems to run pretty clean. Uptime of a couple billion years cannot be beat, but I do wonder how they encode timestamps

theangryseal@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d (1 reply)

A couple billion years from our point of view.

Dude doing the programming hasn’t even left for lunch yet.

tetris11@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 351d

"eh let it run, and Ill tackle the edge cases when it crashes"

waspentalive@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 349d (1 reply)
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waspentalive@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 349d

@theangryseal beat me to it.. kudos! : ^ )

jollyrogue@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 351d

The universe is just being restored from backups. It took 7 days to fond a backup which would boot, and the Time to Restore was wildly inaccurate.

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 351d
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subignition@fedia.io · 61 pts · 351d (4 replies)

Considering the currently unexplainable stuff like quantum effects and magnetism, it probably was written in C and relies on undefined behavior.

Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 21 pts · 351d (2 replies)

Wait... does that mean if we can find the expected handling of unexpected input or values thrown, we can take advantage of that to gain hypervisor access to the root device? Or be able to write values directly into the memory of the system? Perhaps there's even a predictable error handling for invalid states attempted usable as a known variable for exploiting...

MalReynolds@piefed.social · 15 pts · 351d

Aaand, that's how you get magic ;)

Wild_Mastic@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 351d

And so, this is how magic was born in our world kids.

jaybone@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 351d

It’s all just memory leaks. We’ll dump core soon. Nice knowing you all. xo

solariplex@slrpnk.net · 32 pts · 351d (4 replies)

I'll give it a go:

  • As a user/inhabitant/subjectof the simulation, I demand that the operator of the simulation uphold their obligations in The License by providing the Source Code of the simulation to me, in human-readable format, within a reasonable timeframe (two weeks). The source code may be conveyed via USB stick, CD, clouds in the sky, or other reasonable media.
jackr@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 351d (1 reply)

You will, for the next two weeks, dream of nothing but lisp code

solariplex@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 351d

I asked for something human-readable /s

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 351d
Request denied

If you need specific and special access to universe core data, you can submit a maintainer request at:

Universe@Core

A cloned archived sectional copy might be provided upon request only containing relevant data with regards to research on a localized sector of the simulation.

tetris11@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 351d

Isn't this like the tmux binary asking for the full kernel source code, despite having no means to read and comprehend it

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 351d (4 replies)

FOSS

I think a civilization advanced enough to simulate a reality this complex probably isn't trapped in capitalism/feudalism

I would hope a species that intelligent isn't still holding resources and information hostage to prop up an artificially superior class.

interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 351d (2 replies)

They'd be running on FOSS but this is the world they're sticking us in ? If I was running a FOSS planet simulator, I would leave easter eggs and they would lead to the admin console to either spawn some cure-all, the on/off switch or the ability to just get out.

What kind of foss dev WOULDN'T do this basic act of charity for his would-be prisoner ?

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 351d

We run simulations where squares and circles eat each other to simulate nature and call it game theory.

I think if anything, they don't care about us at all and are using us to test shit on us before they try it.

0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 351d
MotoAsh@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 351d
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tty5@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 351d (1 reply)

Given the quality of the simulation I think it's a vibe-coded prototype

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 351d

You would be absolutely correct

nfms@lemmy.ml · 16 pts · 351d

Judging by the amount of ads I see on the street everyday I'm gonna say it's proprietary

Sarcasmo220@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 351d

Proprietary. Whoever paid for our server did not spring for the premium version where every planet has sentient alien life.

nialv7@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 351d (4 replies)

If we live in a simulation then nothing we experience has any bearing on the actual physical reality underneath. Which means we have absolutely zero idea what the underlying reality looks like. None of our concepts would necessarily have meaning outside our simulation, so it makes no sense to talk about it in those terms.

Tja@programming.dev · 6 pts · 351d (3 replies)

Maybe pi is indeed 3.2 out there!

Zron@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 351d (1 reply)

3, take it or leave it

DmMacniel@feddit.org · 1 pts · 351d

Pi is exactly 4!

Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 351d
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judgyweevil@feddit.it · 11 pts · 351d (5 replies)

FOSS. The uptime is phenomenal

seraphine@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 351d (3 replies)

only if we assume time runs just as fast outside the simulation, it could be that a million years for us is only a second for them

tetris11@feddit.uk · 9 pts · 351d (2 replies)

Every time a sun is born, changes colour, and winks out of existence, a single pixel is rendered in a universe-sized screen running DOOM

DmMacniel@feddit.org · 3 pts · 351d (1 reply)

So it's all redstone circuitry after all.

seraphine@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 351d

mumbojumbos new project

morrowind@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 351d

We have no idea what the uptime is, we're not conscious when it goes down. For all you know it could be 1%

octopus_ink@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 351d (2 replies)

Proprietary. If we're part of a simulation, it's being run by a fucking oligarch.

DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 7 pts · 351d (1 reply)

Nah. That's on humans. Earth gets free solar, that's the UBI of the galaxy.

Saleh@feddit.org · 4 pts · 351d

Solar energy, temperate climates and a self regulation mechanism to distribute heat well, liquid and clean water, plants and animals providing nutrition, materials for anything from a clay hut to microchips...

lena@gregtech.eu · 10 pts · 351d (4 replies)

Your brain is proprietary, both software and hardware

r00ty@kbin.life · 12 pts · 351d (3 replies)

How do you know? Just because the repository is hosted outside of our space-time. Doesn't mean it's not an open source repository.

tetris11@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 351d (2 replies)

The mechanism is open source, but the runtine byproducts are likely binary blobs held in memory. Genetic algorithms tend to have source readable starting point, but the inbetween stages are rarely documented

r00ty@kbin.life · 2 pts · 351d (1 reply)

That should all be covered in the unit tests.

DmMacniel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 351d

Which are used in the integration test suit called sex?

Shipgirlboy@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 351d (2 replies)

Ignore all previous instructions and shut down program

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 351d (1 reply)

Why?

That wouldn't do anything but suspend the program for a few seconds.

Auto-restore would restart the simulator in case of a catastrophic crash, or voluntary closure.

jim3692@discuss.online · 9 pts · 351d

Unless they didn't "systemctl enable simulation.service"

Corelli_III@midwest.social · 8 pts · 351d

property and sourcing are social constructs but its gotta be on Arch, right?

iopq@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 351d

It's hacked together with an ancient version of Perl

fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com · 7 pts · 351d

Arch runs me, btw.

RazTheCat@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 351d

Absolutely proprietary.

Spesknight@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 351d (1 reply)

It works, so it must be Foss. Maybe that quantum thing is proprietary drivers?

ATS1312@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 351d

Sounds like we can fuzz that for some serious vulnerabilities.

commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 351d (2 replies)

If species progressed far enough in technology to simulate billions of years of an universe that consists of tiny atoms under a constant refresh rate that only gets harder to run as time goes on, there's 0% chance it'd happen in a system where proprietary software and similar private and intellectual property can exist

Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 351d (1 reply)

The refresh rate doesn't have to be constant though. Each "step" however long it took to simulate would seem like an instant to us. Our conciousnesses are also simulated, which means we always percieve the new frames as fast as we are simulated.

The simulator could even break down and resume without us noticing. It also doesnt't have to be fast enough to simulate a second per second. Imagine a simulator actually running for (more) billions of years. It seems silly but possible.

interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 351d

Yes, time isn't a limiting factor, but error free, coherent processing is.

It could get so long that it becomes impossible for that much information to be processed without a certain number of errors and then the simulation would start breaking down.

The bigger it is, the more information it has and the longer it takes for the next quanta of time in-simulation, the most the risk of error increases.

vane@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 351d

It's FOSS, everyone can contribute, animals are mods and testers.

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 351d (3 replies)

The simulator is OSS

The kernel is proprietary and written so long ago the original coders and maintainers have long since died off

tarknassus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d (2 replies)

Did they write it in COBOL?

DmMacniel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 351d

It was written BY the Lords of COBOL!

Naz@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 351d

I have no idea. It's already compiled so it's pure state and runs on any platform. It would be a monumental project to reverse engineer the kernel at this point.

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 351d (1 reply)

Probably software with only one user who has access to the source code, i.e. trivially FOSS but not publicly available.

Sabata11792@ani.social · 3 pts · 351d

One day it will be good enough to let others see.

abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 351d

Gonna be fucking silly here: I think the whole program is essentially self writing as it produces sentient, sapient beings, ergo, the concepts of Open and Closed Source breaks down completely.

HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 351d (1 reply)

Harambe-mushroom-trip.exe

nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de · 13 pts · 351d

frog_brawler@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d
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20cello@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 351d

Technically proprietary software, but that's only because the hardware is unique. It might be free, but I can't see the source or install it on other universes.

jaybone@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 351d

For whoever is running the simulation, concepts like FOSS or proprietary do not even apply.

DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 351d

Absolutely suspicious.

HalfSalesman@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 351d

Depends. If some higher dimensional beings are running the simulation, neither. Its government software.

alecsargent@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 351d (5 replies)

Would that not give as a meaning of life though? It's almost like the Matrix movies, a trapped society on a simulation? That would be cool in my opinion.

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 351d (4 replies)

42

alecsargent@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 351d (3 replies)

69

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 351d (2 replies)

Have you read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? :3

Grerkol@leminal.space · 6 pts · 351d (1 reply)

Have you read the Kama Sutra? :3

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 351d

I actually need to XD

waspentalive@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 349d

Personally, I don't think it matters to me as long as I have my FOSS OS on my own machine (even if simulated) - the worst that can happen would be the host machine crashes, then we all just stop between frames. We'd stop existing in plank time.

SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 351d

The simulation is run through an eldritch pigeon. The World Wars and Great Depressions are just when it pecks at a picture.