In a way we might hope that this man, placing rocks in an infinite desert for eternity, might notice if a false vacuum decays into true vacuum. The handful of misplaced rocks, perhaps, that entail an obvious, nullifying cascade such that more and more rock zeros appear in subsequent rows from the mistake, the true vacuum engulfing our reality at light speed from the apparent position of the error.

And he tuts. He spends aeons rewinding the rows like crochet or knitting after a mistake and then resumes forward again, across the desert.

Not his pet reality. Not if he can help it.

And then perhaps, one day, it occurs spontaneously anyway, as a result of the calculations. No mistake. Pure consequence. He has infinite time to think. Perhaps he can patch the simulation.

Maybe that’s all the control any creator god has.

There isn’t any point praying. Such a god can’t hear you. He’s just out there… shuffling rocks.

https://xkcd.com/505/

Alt text:

I call Rule 34 on Wolfram’s Rule 34.

This is by far my favorite XKCD comic. It reminds me of “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question

He skipped over the time spent screaming insanely.

XKCD should be posted with the title text/tool tip.

Sometimes I meet people who say math can’t have feelings, and I think of this comic.

Reminds me of this recent numberphile video where they talk about the largest number in jainism, a very old Indian religion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqceEImtew