Observations don’t always agree with theory. That’s not usually a problem as theorists can often accommodate the observations as often the error bars around the measurements are wide enough to accommodate the theory. But, when observation and theory really collide, especially when it comes to those fundamental Big Questions, and also especially with the conflicts continue over many, many, years; then it’s time for Mr. Spock to raise those eyebrows! However, there is an easy solution, albeit one which won’t sit well with 99.99% of readers. The solution is that you, the reader, don’t exist! Well you do exist, just not in a real reality sense but as a virtual reality created by others. What’s the evidence?
You do exist, just not in a real reality sense but rather in a virtual reality created by others; you are generated as part and parcel of computer software programming by someone, or something else, as is the entirety of life, the Universe and everything else you perceive with your five senses. Because a simulated or virtual reality can be manipulated or rerun, that leads to a multi-path ‘reality’.
Okay, that’s an interesting idea, but how do you prove it? Presumably the beings that we create in our virtual reality simulations and video games have no comprehension that they are only virtually real. If you could interview them, they would no doubt verify their really real existence, even though we, their creators, know better. In parallel, why would our existence and our perception of that existence, if we are virtual beings created by others, be any different? If we have no comprehension that our reality is a virtual one, what might alter that perception? Well, perhaps by looking at all of the impossibilities and paradoxes that are part and parcel of our reality. If they cannot be understood and resolved, then that might provide an “eureka” moment that we are virtual; we exist in a virtual, not real cosmos.
In baseball terminology, here’s the knuckleball! There’s only one way I know of to generate convincing impossibilities – virtual reality; a simulated universe where there need be no connection at all between what you observe and what theoretically caused the various things that you observe.
If you construct a simulation or virtual reality of any kind, the backdrop against which the real interest or action is played out is just loosely sketched in. You don’t waste time, energy, expenses and resources on what’s aesthetically pleasing but relatively minor and not overly relevant in what transpires. That’s very obvious say in animated or cartoon features. And so we note that most theory versus observation anomalies tend to be background ones. So while you don’t expect gross violations or anomalies in physics in your day-to-day affairs (you get out of bed, you don’t float out of bed) that doesn’t apply to your background environment where attention to detail isn’t as relevant and so that’s where anomalies are probably going to occur. Translated, the required details in the software that generate you and all of what impacts on you directly must be not only highly detailed but consistent. What’s not overly relevant can be generated with much less detail and thus you will get an ‘oops’ now and then.
So I’ll start with my universal “Resolution” to theory versus observation anomalies - Our reality, our Universe starting with the Big Bang (and leading up to ultimately you) is nothing but a computer-generated program, software created by some entity, probably an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Having set up the parameters, it’s just a matter of ETI hitting the ‘start program’ key and seeing what happens. We humans have already done this sort of virtual creation activity; not just video games but for all sorts of practical applications as well – like training exercises and simulating interesting like ecosystems for example - so there’s nothing implausible about this possibility.
Now I’ve often wondered if some great extraterrestrial computer programmer (our ETI) specializing in generating or simulating virtual reality worlds and universes would leave enough clues to his (its) created ‘subjects’ that they in fact were just software generated virtual beings in a simulated universe. One such type of clue, as hinted above, would be their simulations, their software, isn’t sophisticated enough through design or accident to reconcile their creation’s observation with their creation’s theories when it comes to the backdrops. One such case, of many, is the case of the Big Bang event backdrop which I’ll get to momentarily.
So what follows are a number of theory-versus-observation anomalies coupled with four bits that come before the already given virtual reality ETI “Resolution” – “Theory”, versus “Observation”, the resulting “Conflict” and a what-does-it-all-mean “Discussion”. We’ll start with the biggest of all the Big Questions – the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and everything via the Big Bang event.
THE BIG BANG EVENT: This is no doubt a concept that nearly everyone has heard about, and swallowed hook, line and cosmological sinker because scientists present the scenario as fact. It’s not fact; just the most viable theory of many theories and it has serious flaws.
Theory: The creation or event that kick-started our Universe off not only created all of matter and energy, but all of time and space, and this creation event all took place in a volume less than that of a pinhead.
Observation: At best observations that support this are indirect being made some 13.7 billion years after-the-fact. Those indirect observations that provide evidence for the Big Bang event are the fact that the Universe is expanding; the Universe has a temperature – the remnants from the hot Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and the amounts and ratio of hydrogen to helium. In reality there are no direct observations as nobody was present at Ground Zero all those billions of years ago.
Conflict: The conflict is three-fold. You have a violation of causality. You have a violation of several conservation laws or relationships. You have a violation of pure common sense that tells you that you can not stuff the contents of the Universe into the realm of the quantum.
Discussion: What if the Big Bang is a theoretical impossibility of physics pure and simple, despite the observational evidence? My scenario: the expansion; the CMBR; the ratio of hydrogen to helium, are all simulated evidence, probably by ETI.
QUANTUM GRAVITY: We have observations of four physical forces yet no theory which unites the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force) with the one classical force – gravity. Theory needs to be satisfied.
Theory: All of the four fundamental forces should be interconnected, some sort of unification principle that relates all four.
Observation: There are four fundamental forces that govern the Universe and no observation of any obvious unification.
Conflict: If the Big Bang theory is to be proven correct as stated, scientists must of necessity come up with a viable theory of quantum gravity that is an acceptable unification. There is no viable theory of quantum gravity despite thousands of physicists searching for one over many generations now.
Discussion: It’s like there are two sets of different software running the Universe. Well, how many sets of software collectively operate all of your PC operations?
MONOPOLES: We all know about magnetic fields having two sides, whether it’s a bar magnet or the Earth’s magnetic field (or those part and parcel of many other astronomical bodies) – there’s a south pole and a north pole; a positive and a negative. It will probably come as a surprise that there should also be a monopole – a magnet with just one pole, north OR south; positive OR negative.
Theory: One of the many Big Bang ‘in the beginning’ predictions of theoretical things is magnetic monopoles – magnets with either a south pole or a north pole, but not both.
Observation: Alas, we’ve never ever found and confirmed the reality of even one monopole.
Conflict: Theoretical prediction and observation are not in harmony.
Discussion: So strange is this anomaly that a new concept states that the very early Universe underwent an additional oomph of very rapid inflation which so diluted the Big Bang created monopoles that there are no longer any monopoles in our neck of the woods. That does appear a bit like clutching at straws. Of course resorting to ETI and virtual reality is also a clutch, but equally as viable, maybe more so.
To be continued…
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