From: Louis Newstrom (louisnews@comcast.net)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 06:39:54 MDT
From: "Eugen Leitl" <eugen@leitl.org>
> > Computers, such as we know them, cannot generate true random numbers.
>
> This is out of date. You might examine the code for /dev/random.
> Some chipsets incorporate high-bandwidth sources of entropy. It is only a
> matter of time until such machinery migrates into CPUs. Its chiefest use
> is defeating known state attack by mixing in true entropy into
> pseudorandomness.
>
Even if, by reading a "source of entropy", the simulation could get truly
random numbers, I think that that would be possible to detect.
Just as an example, if we did a statistical correlation between two
unrelated events (like meteor showers vs. robbery attempts) and found that
they had the same distribution pattern, that would be suspicious. If we
correllated other random events, and found that all random events had the
same distribution pattern, that would be a clue that they are being
generated by the same random generator. That would be an indication that we
are in a simulation.
This might be happenning, and no one noticed yet. But I don't buy the
argument that it would be impossible to tell. I think that if we ARE in a
simulation, we will eventually find out.
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