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?
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
UNIQUENESS: In the real world, the macro world, the classical world, no two things are identical down to the last microscopic detail – you are unique; every bacterium is unique; every house, den, nest, and ant hill is unique; so is every baseball and grain of sand. In the unreal world, the micro world, the quantum world, all fundamental particles of their own kind (i.e. electrons or positrons or up-quarks or photons) are identical to the last measurable detail. Why? Who knows!
Theory: In the macro world, no two things are identical, so in theory, the micro world should follow suit.
Observation: In the micro (quantum) world, all the individuals of any species of fundamental particle are identical to any degree of precision that you care to descend to.
Conflict: The macro world and the micro world appear to be fundamentally different, yet the macro world is built up from micro foundations which should imply that all baseballs for example should be 100% identical.
Discussion: A possibility from the ETI simulated universe hypothesis is that there is one software code or sequence of bits and bytes for each type of fundamental particle. So every time that sequence is used, you get that type of entity and only that type. All baseballs aren’t unique because as backdrop items, the software don’t construct them using the exact same number of that sequence of bits and bytes.
PHYSICAL CONSTANTS: There are constant reports of physical constants that aren’t – constant that is.
Theory: Physical constants are just that – a constant. They have just one value, everywhere, everywhen, and no exceptions.
Observation: Apparently some ‘constants’ have more than one value depending of where and/or when.
Conflict: Theory and observations (if correct) are yet again not in harmony.
Discussion: That’s totally nuts! Of course computer software is often in need of tweaking or upgrading, which is what physical constants that aren’t constant might represent – ETI tweaking their virtual reality software.
TIME TRAVEL: Time travel to the past is a staple of science fiction, but surprisingly has actual viability in modern relativity physics.
Theory: In physics, time travel to the past is theoretically possible – though damned difficult in practice. However, that means that those time travel paradoxes are possible, even likely.
Observation: No time travellers have been observed from our future; nobody from our present or past has time travelled back in time and left a proof-positive calling card that we’ve ever found in the history books or the fossil record.
Conflict: If something is possible, especially something as interesting as time travel, we would expect to see either people from our future in the here and now, or evidence that we’ve travelled to the past, like finding a human skeleton buried inside a T-Rex skeleton, as in inside the area where the T-Rex’s abdominal cavity would be! We don’t.
Discussion: Paradoxes like going back in time, say ten years, and killing yourself (which is a novel way of committing suicide), means you couldn’t have existed to go back in time in the first place in order to kill yourself, which means you’re not dead so you can go back in time and murder yourself, etc. What kind of physics is that? Maybe virtual physics, the kind generated by ETI.
MIRACLES: Miracles are part and parcel of any and all supernaturally based religions.
Theory: Miracles of the supernatural kind (and that’s the only kind of miracle that counts here) violate one or more laws, principles or relationships established by science. There can be no such thing as a supernatural miracle in theory.
Observation: There have been numerous reports of supernatural miracles.
Conflict: Reported events cannot violate the natural state of things. If they do violate that natural state of things, then they must be supernatural. There’s no known theory that can accommodate supernatural events. That’s part of the conflict between science and religion.
Discussion: Any and all miracles, Biblical or otherwise, are explainable as easily as saying “run program”.
THE PARANORMAL: More down to earth, you have multi-observations of things like the Loch Ness Monster, those highly geometrically complex crop circles, and ghosts, yet there’s no real adequate theory that can account for their observed existence or creation.
Theory: You can theoretically debunk, or explain away, the idea that ‘sea’ serpents exist in Loch Ness; that crop circles cannot be related to any sort of natural or human activity; that ghosts can exist.
Observation: There are thousands of observations that the Loch Ness Monster exists; there’s no disputing that crop circles exist and are hard to explain as mundane events; and belief in ghosts via actual sighting accounts goes back as far in time as human records go back.
Conflict: Those who believe via the evidence suggested by actual observation are in conflict with those who state that those observations are faulty and do not represent what they would appear to because the reality that they propose is theoretically impossible.
Discussion: The truth or otherwise of a number of other paranormal or pseudoscientific phenomena, as well as the above examples, cannot be decided either by theory or by observation. Experimental evidence is all too often impossible to come by. If something cannot be, and yet apparently is, then yet again, something’s screwy somewhere. Perhaps this is all a case of ETI having a bit of personal fun at the expense of ‘his’ virtual creations.
THE AFTERLIFE: A concept that closest to the hearts and minds of nearly all humans and human cultures past and present is what happens to us after we kick the bucket? The answer is we transcend into another life – an afterlife.
Theory: Every culture, past and present, has an afterlife concept, a life after death concept, or some sort of an eternity or immortality worldview.
Observation: None. Nobody has ever come back from the dead to prove the reality of an afterlife to the satisfaction of any unbiased referee.
Conflict: Not all of the versions of the theoretical afterlife can be correct, unless there is a multi-path virtual reality. Apart from that, idealistic theoretical expectations that when you die you won’t stay dead versus practical reality that observations show that dead things stay dead, are indeed conflicting.
Discussion: If ETI has a ‘living’ software program with you in it, then ETI may have various ‘afterlife’ programs that kicks in after you die virtually..
CONCLUSIONS: All up, perhaps some cosmic ETI computer programmer/software writer whiz with a wicked sense of humour (a trickster ‘god’?) is laughing its pointed ears off since we haven’t been able to figure it (our virtual reality) out. Of course maybe the minute we do, the fun’s over and ‘Dr. It’ hits the delete key and that’s the way the Universe ends – not with a pressure-cooker Big Crunch, nor with a Heat Death (the Big Freeze), not even a Big Rip, but with that “are you sure you want to delete this?” message! “Yes”.
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