Scientists Used Quantum Computing to Simulate Artificial Life
A group of scientists just modeled life using quantum computing in order to answer questions about how our existence supposedly came about from inert subatomic particles and basic organic molecules.
Their success, which some compared to “playing Sims on a whole new level of physics,” leads one to question whether we’re getting closer to proving the simulation hypothesis – by creating our own artificial simulations of life, will we find we’re living in a complex simulation ourselves?
Their quantum model of artificial life proved successful at a basic level, encouraging the team to continue their study with more variables in the future.
Using an IBM QX4 quantum computer, the team coded units of artificial life with qubits – the quantum bits that can exist as both 1s and 0s simultaneously in an entangled state. One qubit represented a living organism’s genotype, the genetic code for a certain trait, and another qubit represented phenotype, the physical expression of a certain trait. They then added random changes in the rotation of the quantum state of these qubits to simulate genetic mutation.
Those particles were then automated to reproduce, mutate, evolve, and die, in order to simulate life and evolution.
“The goal of the proposed model is to reproduce the characteristic processes of Darwinian evolution, adapted to the language of quantum algorithms and quantum computing,” said the researchers’ paper published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
The results were interesting in that a quantum explanation for explaining the mechanism behind evolution matched many theoretical predictions, corroborating ideas proposed by quantum theory’s forefathers, i.e. Schrödinger, Pauli, and Von Neumann.
But while their goal was to artificially simulate life from the most basic particles first thought to exist in a “primordial soup,” the experiment remained far from answering the deeper existential questions about our existence, including what brought those particles and molecules into existence in the first place. Or how the interaction between these particles led us to become highly sentient life forms.
Quantum computing is advancing quickly, however the technology hasn’t quite developed to a practical level where it can be implemented effectively. Quantum computer processors are highly volatile requiring a sensitive atmosphere, high-powered lasers, and extreme temperatures to maintain stability. Variables as simple as loud noises can upset quantum states, causing particles to decohere.
So far, Google says it has achieved 72-bit processing with a quantum chip, though developing a processor to achieve “quantum supremacy” – a quantum computer able to outperform the world’s fastest binary computer – has yet to be achieved in a consistent manner.
For more on the nature of quantum physics and consciousness, watch this episode of Inspirations with New York Time Bestselling author Eben Alexander:
About the Author
Final Words Project: The Dying's Final Words Hint at Afterlife
What can the final words, spoken by the dying, tell us about life’s greatest mystery? According to the findings of a long-term research project, a great deal.
Lisa Smartt is a linguist who, in 2012, became interested in the words spoken by the dying when she noticed peculiar changes in her father’s speech as he was passing.
“So one of the things I noticed when I was sitting bedside with my father, well the first thing was he started talking about angels in the room, and my dad was a hardcore scientist. So when I heard my tough, gruff, cigar-smoking Papa talking about angels in the room, I took notice. Being a linguist, I pulled out my pencil and pad and started taking notes. Three days before he died, he shared that the angels say ‘only, three days left,’ and indeed three days later he was gone. And what began to emerge in my notes intrigued me, and led me to the language of the dying, but there wasn’t much written. So I attended a workshop with Dr. Raymond Moody and together we established the Final Words Project.”
Since the project began, Lisa has collected 200 accounts of the last words of the dying from those at their bedsides. Throughout more than a decade of analysis of 2,000 final utterances, Lisa has come to see many universal patterns and recurring themes.
“Specifically you see patterns about a big event coming, someone might say, ‘oh, the big dance is coming’ or ‘the big art show is coming,'” Smartt said. “And then people also talk about traveling, some say ‘the ship is ready’ or ‘the boat is ready,’ feeling that something is kind of moving them along that’s bigger than they are. And then another way that this hybrid language appears is someone may say ‘get me my checkbook, I need to pay at the gate,’ as if they’re referring to Heaven’s gate, so they’re bringing pieces of this world and beginning to talk with the other.”
“People might start talking about things that some family members or loved ones might think are nonsense like ‘my husband (who had died 10 years ago) is standing at the edge of my bed.’ Now to some people they may think that’s nonsense, but it seems from our research and others that there actually are visitors standing at the bedside with those who are dying and that’s not nonsense,” she said.
One particularly fascinating implication is the glimpse these final words seem to provide of what may come after physical death.
“There’s a lot of repetition, you know one well-known example of this is Steve Jobs ‘wow, wow, wow’ before he died, I think those were actually his very final words, and you can only imagine, what did he see? What did that exclamation refer to? People definitely start talking about how beautiful it is over there. I’ve come in contact with so many people who have had near-death experiences and there’s such a sense of peace, and you can see this in some people even before they die. There is this energy that seems to be moving toward some kind of new emergence or a new state of being,” Smartt said.
