World as a Computer System/Matrix-Like Premise(RAR)

[Carinthium]

Say hypothetically you have a fictional setting where a world superficially like modern Earth is actually an incredibly sophisticated computer program, designed to work using real-world physics and real-world everything else (since as far as I know this doesn't make sense within real-world physics, we'll say that the outside world has different physics).

Because people on the outside are bored, 500 individuals WITHIN the program representing the 500 best hackers in the world gain acess (in locations designed to make it as easy as possible for them to conceal them) to 'special laptops', with the capacity to hack into the computer program that is their own world to their own advantage (with safeguards established so they can do whatever they like to that program, but not the meta-program to 'break out' or anything similiar).

Assuming the rules of how computer programs work remain the same, what is realistically likely to happen? And if you want to bend this scenario to something similiar to The Matrix, how far can you get within plausibility under the premise?

[Borgholio]

Well the hackers can't actually do anything to the meta-program, but you didn't say they can't examine it. I'd like to locate and release the source code for this "Matrix" and let the world work collectively to hack it.

[Dave]

We're talking about reading the source-code of the universe. You could run your own experiments on your own computer with that, able to get perfect resolution and effectively full understanding of the results of the experiment.

Once you've plumbed the depths of sub-atomic physics, you can probably work your way up to chemistry and biology. Being able to model everything perfectly ahead of time would be significant cost savings and you can probably rapidly accelerate scientific discovery and engineering.

[Starglider]

Once you've plumbed the depths of sub-atomic physics, you can probably work your way up to chemistry and biology

No, you couldn't, or rather 'work your way up' does not mean 'create a larger simulation'. Having the exact maths describing all of physics doesn't help much if that maths is totally computationally intractable. We can't simulate quantum chromodynamics now for anything more than simple particle-particle interactions, and we can't usefully simulate quantum electrodynamics for anything more than a few large molecules; and this is with a greatly simplified and optimised model.

The problem is essentially the same as trying to run the Minecraft software on a virtual computer made of rolling carts and switches inside a Minecraft game. The performance ratio (host computer to virtual computer) is something like 100,000,000,000 to 1. Practical large scale simulation uses regularities in the smaller scale processes to replace exact modelling with stastically equivalent bulk modelling, e.g. classical mechanics.

[Dave]

Once you've plumbed the depths of sub-atomic physics, you can probably work your way up to chemistry and biology

No, you couldn't, or rather 'work your way up' does not mean 'create a larger simulation'.

Hm, yes, I guess I got carried away with the value of seeing the 'source code'. I had computational cost in the back of my mind but it was suppressed by the "but you can read the source code for The Universe!" reaction.

[Carinthium]

Would it be possible for one of these hackers to delete objects to their own advantage, were they so inclined? That could be useful for some things (especially assasinations).