If it does go somewhere, color me surprised, we're officially living in the god damned science fiction future.
If they succeed, then it's evidence supporting the fact that we, ourselves, are simulations running on a much grander computer.
http://www.simulation-argument.com/matrix.htmlBecause it would mean that at least one of the following is true:
(1) The chances that a species at our current level of development can avoid going extinct before becoming technologically mature is negligibly small
(2) Almost no technologically mature civilisations are interested in running computer simulations of minds like ours
(3) You are almost certainly in a simulation.
1) is saying that no civilizations ever develop the technology to run universe simulations (because if it cannot be done, then we can't be simulated beings).
2) is saying that no civilization would
want to. If even a single civ decides to do it, and has the processing power to do so, then the number of simulated beings outnumbers the real ones by powers of 10 (that is, 1 million people running the sim 100 times each would cause 100,000,000,000,000,000 more "people" to be created).
3) if the first two are not both false, then this is true and probability states that we don't really exist (probably).
((Protip: the developers of TUP are promising to include every game ever created + stuff. This would include TUP.* Which means that TUP would be capable of
simulating itself to n layers in
faster than real time meaning that the game would need to
intentionally slow itself down so we can interact with it at all, which would imply
infinite computing power))
*If TUP can simulate running a modern computer + stuff on a modern computer (stated goal**), then that simulated computer should be capable of simulating a computer + stuff. Which could then simulate another computer....which essentially implies infinite computing power.
**Ok they haven't explicitly stated that TUP will be able to simulate a computer. But I guarantee that simulating a single 32 bit computer would be easier than
simulating all of space in real time. Which is a stated goal.
==Side note==
The Infinity Computer.