I always thought it to be the other way around. If you assume that we are living in a simulation, then gravity might well be an artifact of a simulation that runs on localized, loosely coupled nodes.
Because when you have mostly empty space, with low interaction, then the simulation is able to run at full speed, but the more particles you have interacting at close range, the slower the simulation gets as the local workload increases.
In this model the force called gravity would not be the source, and time dilation one of it's effects, but instead time dilation caused by interactions is the cause and the gravitational force is what we experience as the result.
seniortaco · 4h ago
The universe is not a flash game. By combining particles into a small number of large "objects" this doesn't reduce computational complexity. Every particle still must be simulated independently.
karmakaze · 3h ago
Citation? Even at the smallest scales, it's only evaluated when 'observed'.
aurareturn · 7h ago
On the topic of outlandish gravity ideas, I came across this video between Brian Greene and Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about how dark matter might not be matter but gravity leaking from another universe: https://youtu.be/1L6hinhDXQE?si=lfgOhk5phh88IMHO
karmakaze · 3h ago
Is that even wrong? We'd have to know something about another universe which we can't by definition. At best it's a backstory for our already outlandish idea of the placeholder particle that fits all our unexplained observations.
bell-cot · 5h ago
Call me extremely dubious. Even if we grant the plausibility of the universe being a simulation, adding gravity (to the rest of our current physical laws) enormously increases the computational workload - due to vastly more, and more complex, interactions between particles. Vs. if memory is tight - just dial down the resolution a touch on all the hydrogen gas. Or simulate a smaller universe. Unless you're a big fan of cosmology, there is no sign of our universe doing anything particularly interesting at a "the whole universe" scale.
amos-burton · 4h ago
> Unless you're a big fan of cosmology, there is no sign of our universe doing anything particularly interesting at a "the whole universe" scale.
to me it happens at such scales that i simply cannot fathom about it, only invent some story to myself.
To put a metaphor to it, it is like being a microbe within the gazillions of an human body. Those two world views operate at such different scales that they are appearing as different dimensions to both protagonists, IE, hardly visible to their eyes unless they produce a massive amount of intelligence.
gravity is a clue that what matters is that the experiment is actually going on, we are free falling, and because of my bias for survival, i feel like it must not stop, even though that seems counter intuitive...
to me it happens at such scales that i simply cannot fathom about it, only invent some story to myself.
To put a metaphor to it, it is like being a microbe within the gazillions of an human body. Those two world views operate at such different scales that they are appearing as different dimensions to both protagonists, IE, hardly visible to their eyes unless they produce a massive amount of intelligence.
gravity is a clue that what matters is that the experiment is actually going on, we are free falling, and because of my bias for survival, i feel like it must not stop, even though that seems counter intuitive...