God as computer

[Mister Agenda]

It is possible if, and only if, the universe we are experiencing is a computer program, otherwise we could only ever make an approximation of the real universe (like we do with modelling weather patterns and you see how well that works).

Since we are only capable of experiencing an approximation of the real universe in the first place, wouldn't a simulation only have to be good enough to fool us?

However, in terms of computing power we would need to keep beating Moore's law for another thousand years or so before we would build a computer powerful enough to accelerate time in that universe relative to our own.

We do it with just our own brains. Remember that the universe we're aware of exists entirely in our brains. Before the idea of computers being able to simulate a universe like ours came along, we had the 'brain in a jar' dilemma, we have no way of knowing for sure that we're not disembodied brains being fed sensory information that doesn't correspond with the 'real world' at all. If Moore's law holds, you get about a 30,000-fold increase in computational power in about 15 years, and that would put computers capable of forming accurate models of every part of the human brain appearing around 2025. And 30,000 times THAT by 2040. I don't expect Moore's law to hold forever, but I'll be a little surprised if a desktop couldn't deliver a simulated universe that we couldn't tell from a real one by 2050, provided we're able to interface our brains directly with the virtual envrionment efficiently enough.

By then - all bets are off. Impossible to know what we might be capable of.

You're definitely right about that, my friend.