[altrego99]

I have always found the connection curious. In video games, for example, you do exactly this - not calculate something unless it is being observed.

Who is to say the quantum effects are not actually artifacts of some optimizations in the simulation we are in?

[comicjk]

That's not what quantum mechanics really does. The wavefunction, which is the core of a quantum calculation, "runs" all the time whether any part of it is observed or not. A given observable property of the wavefunction may not be predictable without looking, but that doesn't make the wavefunction any easier to simulate. And without the wavefunction running, we wouldn't observe the probabilities which we observe in experiments.

[erikpukinskis]

> The wavefunction, which is the core of a quantum calculation, "runs" all the time whether any part of it is observed or not.

The wave function doesn't really have to "run" to exist though... a wave doesn't actually have any influence on anything until it is collapsed. If nothing observes the wave, it won't have any affect at all. It will just be there, in some cosmic register, waiting for some dust cloud to inquire about it.

Consider a polygon in a game engine, which started at 0,0 and has a known velocity. You are at tick 4762, and that polygon is represented by a position function, but it doesn't actually "run" until you declare a tick, and do the math.

[robotresearcher]

> The wavefunction, which is the core of a quantum calculation, "runs" all the time whether any part of it is observed or not.

How can you tell?

[obstinate]

Or who's to say that they didn't try exact simulations and find it too boring?