Assuming our simulation is not designed to auto-scale (and our Admins don’t know how to download more RAM), what kind of side effects could we see in the world if the underlying system hosting our simulation began running out of resources?
You get stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_Winner and the same movie/media coming out over and over again
Mandela effect too
How would you know what physics runs the host universe? For all we know, things like ram limitations doesn’t even apply there
The server shuts down. Admin adds in few more sticks of ram and powers it on again.
The day is reset and we wake up again from the morning of that day where there was a RAM shortage.
Maybe we’re already there and death is just the garbage collector freeing up more space.
I love this concept
Could make a good book
For a simulation as complex and powerful as the universe. we would be running in a Real-Time OS. So applications couldn’t even run if the resources weren’t sufficient.
If our entire universe is a simulation so are our laws of physics, in the parent universe running our simulation the universe might be powered by pure imagination and the concept of memory or CPU cycles or even electricity might not even exist
We download more RAM.
This is the entire premise of No Man’s Sky.
I know exactly what would happen. It…uhh, what was I gonna say again? It just slipped out, it’ll come back…
Things will stop making sense, people will start to glitch and make horrible decisions that will affect millions, and…
Wait
These answers are all really fun but I didn’t see anyone point out one thing: why should we assume that our creators’ “computer” architecture is anything remotely similar to our technology? I’m thinking of something like SETI—We can’t just assume that all other life is carbon-based (though evidently it’s a pretty good criterion). The simulation could be running on some kind of dark matter machine or some other exotic material that we don’t even know about.
Personally I don’t subscribe to the simulation theory. But if it were true, why would the system have any kind of limitation? I feel like if it can simulate everything from galactic superclusters down to strings vibrating in Planck Time, there are effectively no limits.
Then again, infinity is quite a monster, so what do I know?
all other life is carbon-based (though evidently it’s a pretty good criterion)
The short version is that the only other element that allows 4 covalent bonds is silicon, but nobody has been able to find a solvent that allows complex silicon-based molecules to form without instantly dissolving any structures they form.
I remember reading about how silicon is theoretically possible, but I had (erroneously) assumed there were more potential candidates. Thanks for the additional info. This stuff is so fascinating!
Well, if we’re in a simulation, then any assumptions we have about definitions, limitations, they may not apply. So, we think storage needs ram, but outside our restricted simulation, it could be far different.
Like, I frequently ponder how did something come from nothing. But I know I’m making assumptions when I ask that question. It may not be linear, may not be either or, there’s something crucial im not seeing.
Who is to say that the sim needs ram. What if it were just a giant state machine where the current state only depends on the previous state. And the entire universe is the “ram”.
We are the RAM
The OOM killer goes on the prowl.
