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[RadtheCad]

It's not like you would need to simulate every atom just to have a virtual environment or people to fuck around in.

And yeah, realistically, human psychology as-is isn't well suited for being a spaceship computer.  If you have the technology to do this kind of thing, you probably get the same results with a mix of conventional-ish computers and a huge NN (virtual?  mechanical?  wet?) on the same complexity scale of at least, I don't know, a dog, trained on simulations of space missions. 

In fact, there's a short story I recall reading online not so long ago that uses this "it's turtles all the way down" idea, where all-but-one all-but-one of the chain of 'realities' simulating themselves are shown to be merely recursive simulations (although where we start isn't that one that isn't in the middle of a chain), but I can't easily find it right now.

There's this: https://qntm.org/responsibility

[Max™]

I think that's just with todays technology, in the far future, who knows how advanced the capabilities will get.

No, those are fundamental physical restrictions. You cannot infinitely compress data, there is a hard limit for data compression.

To experience an accurately simulated version of another star you need to handle the volume experienced and any such volumes that might be immediately/have been recently visited, doing this at a fine enough granularity to break any efforts at testing whether or not it is real wouldn't require every particle and every event and every possible interaction and so forth to be modeled at the same resolution.

Most importantly, said simulation of the trip/local star environment will never begin to approach the energy expenditures involved in actually flinging a lump of matter--even one as perfectly condensed into a self-aware probe as it gets, much less one containing plumbing and air cleaning for a single fragile ape--from here to the actual star in question.

[KittyTac]

I think that's just with todays technology, in the far future, who knows how advanced the capabilities will get.

No, those are fundamental physical restrictions. You cannot infinitely compress data, there is a hard limit for data compression.

To experience an accurately simulated version of another star you need to handle the volume experienced and any such volumes that might be immediately/have been recently visited, doing this at a fine enough granularity to break any efforts at testing whether or not it is real wouldn't require every particle and every event and every possible interaction and so forth to be modeled at the same resolution.

Most importantly, said simulation of the trip/local star environment will never begin to approach the energy expenditures involved in actually flinging a lump of matter--even one as perfectly condensed into a self-aware probe as it gets, much less one containing plumbing and air cleaning for a single fragile ape--from here to the actual star in question.

It would still require... a lot of computronium to accurately simulate an entire solar system, much less a universe.

[Max™]

Full universe at the scale we think of as "human-ish" would need fudging at the microscale and macroscale, full universe at the microscale is no doubt beyond any sort of efforts which don't include a line stating "a wizard does something here" to cover problems like the sim having to accurately sim the particles which need to accurately sim the sim simming the particles, sim sim salabim!

It takes a whole fuckload less computronium to reproduce exactly what you determine to be the real universe around you, your local neighborhood, your view of the internet, of distant objects, other people, etc, but I'm pretty sure it would take less energy and use up less matter doing that than you would need to actually send yourself over to just the next closest stars, never mind anything much further out.

I mean, assuming we're not allowing flight plans like "coast on a trickle of laser energy from solar arrays on mercury until we hit a fraction of a 1% of the speed of light and reach our destination so far in the future that it is no longer the closest star and hasn't been for kiloyears" which would be much cheaper in terms of energy/matter costs.

[Starver]

In fact, there's a short story I recall reading online not so long ago that uses this "it's turtles all the way down" idea, where all-but-one all-but-one of the chain of 'realities' simulating themselves are shown to be merely recursive simulations (although where we start isn't that one that isn't in the middle of a chain), but I can't easily find it right now.

There's this: https://qntm.org/responsibility

Exactly the one I mean (with realisation I hadn't recalled it perfectly, but good enough to know that it is the one I meant).

[scourge728]

Very few people seem to realize the real problem with simming a universe inside a sim, that being the first sim needs to simulate that 3rd one as well, the farther you go, the worse it gets, until eventually the real universe can no longer keep up with the demand, and the system breaks

[Starver]

I mean, assuming we're not allowing flight plans like "coast on a trickle of laser energy from solar arrays on mercury until we hit a fraction of a 1% of the speed of light and reach our destination so far in the future that it is no longer the closest star and hasn't been for kiloyears" which would be much cheaper in terms of energy/matter costs.

Helpful diagram for planning..?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Very few people seem to realize the real problem with simming a universe inside a sim, that being the first sim needs to simulate that 3rd one as well, the farther you go, the worse it gets, until eventually the real universe can no longer keep up with the demand, and the system breaks

Depends. Maybe the "ultimate universe simulator" is an ultra-quine?

[Max™]

Yeah, that story is a fun romp once you set aside the hopes of it being some mind-breaking crunchy hard Baxter-esque "what if this one thing about the lasts of physics were a little different" exploration.

I mean, assuming we're not allowing flight plans like "coast on a trickle of laser energy from solar arrays on mercury until we hit a fraction of a 1% of the speed of light and reach our destination so far in the future that it is no longer the closest star and hasn't been for kiloyears" which would be much cheaper in terms of energy/matter costs.

Helpful diagram for planning..?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That is one of the various charts that popped into my head while I was pondering slowboating it out to a nearby star, yup.

[wierd]

You would also have to set your vector of approach such that you cross paths with your destination, since your destination is moving relative to you, and not in a vector that enhances interception. (meaning, when you set out, you would be pointed toward black empty space.)

Sadly, the laws of physics seem hell bent on telling you that "slow boating it" is the only way you are gonna get there.

[Starver]

Sadly, the laws of physics seem hell bent on telling you that "slow boating it" is the only way you are gonna get there.

Or you could "fast moon it"!

[Gentlefish]

Really, industry-wise I'm just looking forward to wholesale asteroid mining.

Considering a singe platinum-rich asteroid of average size contains more platinum than is found on earth, and most are iron- or nickel- rich, there's plenty of material in space to stop mining on earth. I'd say completely but considering all that slave labor we use down here in mines it'll probably continue happening for a while yet.

[Trekkin]

Well, that and shipping bulk metal down to Earth isn't economical.

[Madman198237]

It's very economical so long as you don't care about anything within a fifty-mile radius of the delivery zone.

Or, you know, anything on the entire surface of the planet, if you want to deliver metals in EXTREME bulk.

[Trekkin]

And why is that? Did we invent a magical teleporter to instantly move rocks from the Belt to Earth when I wasn't looking, or are we still in a world where delta-v has to be provided by the expenditure of reaction mass?

[Gentlefish]

It's not as if the asteroids don't contain ice which can be used to create rocket fuel on-site to get back home.