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
Robert Moss Describes Parallel Realities He's Accessed in Dreams
There is far more to existence than we realize. We spend our day-to-day lives focused on the most immediate concerns of family, work, chores, and entertainment. However, for those adventurous enough to consider other realities, the potential for experiencing parallel realities is fascinating and rewarding.
In a recent interview with Regina Meredith and bestselling author Robert Moss, gives an eye-opening description of life beyond the five senses that turns conventional thought about the boundaries of existence upside-down.
“I’ve long been fascinated by dream experiences of parallel lives,” Robert Moss wrote. “These can take many forms. We find ourselves in the situation of a person living in a different time. We seem to be enjoying — or not enjoying — a continuous life in another reality. We slip into the perspective and apparently the bodies of other people (including even members of other species) who may be living in our present world, but are not ourselves.”
In speaking of his book Mysterious Realities, Robert Moss noted that his personal experiences give evidence for multiple dimensions, not only of time and space but also of the self. In other words, it may very well be that we exist not only here in this world in which we read these very words, but also in dimensions beyond our conscious awareness. Moss characterizes experiences of other dimensions as fun, entertaining, and illuminating.
Dreaming is one way to explore, firsthand, one of the many possible alternate worlds, says Moss. If you monitor your dreams and write them down, he says, over time you will remember instances of when you’re not in your present life. Sometimes we understand there are parallel gifts of creativity, for example, or that we have a chance to change our plans or decisions to make things come out differently.
The imaginal realm implies reams of reality created by imagination over the millennia that we may all share in our travels. Everything that exists does so due to human imagination, including environments that rise up when we die.
