Reality - Your reality isn’t really real. That’s because you’re the product of someone else’s imagination. That could be imagination via wetware – their brain, say in a dreaming state; or that could be imagination via creativity in producing computer software, where you’re coded within that software. In other words, you’re a simulated being – and so am I.
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
Let’s assume that there are one or more extraterrestrial civilizations that are thousands, probably tens of thousands of years more advanced (in technology) vis-à-vis ourselves. Tens of thousands of years is a tiny, tiny fraction of the age of our Universe such that extraterrestrial civilizations should vary widely in their technological abilities. Project in your mind what sort of computing prowess human civilization is likely to have in a thousand, or ten thousand years. You’d guess it would be pretty impressive. Well, somewhere out there, there’s an ET civilization that already processes that level of computing power!
Put another way, what’s the smallest ‘device’ (level of technology) that could contain the entire information content of the Universe? Could it be fitted onto some super-CD or super-DVD or a box set of same, or stored in a quantum computer? I don’t know. We can’t do it – yet. Maybe it can’t be done. Maybe the smallest device that can contain the information content of ‘The Universe’ IS ‘The Universe’. But if not, then having ‘The Universe’s’ information as or in a piece of software/hardware combination would enable someone operating such software and hardware to simulate any or all of what’s in ‘The Universe’!
Our simulated Universe theory is potentially testable. While I can think of no way to prove I’m not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication that we too are simulated beings. No computer software is perfect. Computer software – from our experience – is always being upgraded and updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we’re a product of that software. So, if there are any software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that – the fine structure constant for example has apparently changed over astronomical time periods), or say the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate for no real apparent reason (that sounds familiar).
So, do you exist? I mean really, really exist and have a physical reality? That would be a pretty dumb question had I not outlined the reality vs. simulation concept above. The answer is no longer an obvious ’yes’ because what if I were to suggest (again) that the odds are very high that you have no actual physical reality, and that I have no actual physical reality, and that in fact all terrestrial life, Planet Earth, perhaps the entire observable universe has no actual physical reality! Yet again, in other words, what if we are a computer simulation? Put another way, you can visualize X, dream Y, program Z. So, in turn, perhaps you are someone (something) else’s X, Y and/or Z!
Let us however continue to remain with the computer analogy relative to dreams or hallucinations, etc. Of course as Microsoft, etc. demonstrates, there’s not just one copy of a software package around. Of course if there are multiple copies of that computer program containing you (not to mention file sharing), then that equates to a lot of you! You could exist hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times over, all leading perhaps identical, but more likely as not, similar ‘lives’. Now you quite obviously could not meet yourself as each piece of software is akin to a one universe – the collection of all the units of that software is akin to a Multiverse! Or, perhaps each version of ourselves could be viewed loosely is being akin to the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics – which is just another variation on the Multiverse concept.
So, and I keep drumming this point home, is our Universe real or simulated? The odds overwhelmingly favour our reality as being a simulated one as outlined above. If that could be proved, it would also be proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. If all terrestrial life is simulated, who else is left to simulate us but extraterrestrials? I just bet we’re some alien’s Ph D thesis. Of course this is a fairly unpalatable theory, so I’ll just conclude here that the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of my being wrong – maybe – well maybe not.
If we, Planet Earth, and our observable universe are nothing but a simulation, that can explain (or at least rationally account for) any and all anomalies (miracles?) that you care to bring up. Software (be it of the wetware [brains] or of the computer variety) can create any sort of simulated reality – it doesn’t even have to be logical or explainable by science. Here are just a few examples off the top of my head.
When considering things cosmological, it’s become apparent that astronomers only observe about 4% of the matter that should be present. That is, about 96% of the matter that should be present and detectable to account for the observed behaviour of our observable universe is missing! Now 1% might be understandable givens measurement uncertainty (error bars), but hardly 96%! So, cosmologists have postulated concepts termed ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to make up the deficit. However, nobody has the foggiest idea what exactly ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ actually is. Neither has actually been detected – obviously. Of course in an artificial simulated universe, one needs no correlation between cause (amount of matter) and effect (behaviour of the observable universe). In fact, it makes the programming that much simpler. By human analogy, I’m sure a detailed study of our video/computer games would show gross violations of the laws of physics.
No astronomer can explain how galaxies form and stay formed, at least without incorporating ‘dark matter’. Yet we see them in lots of shapes and sizes. Maybe it’s as if our hypothetical simulator thought that these were sort of pretty and thus threw several billions of them into the background as decorative wallpaper.
Since the Big Bang was first documented by the redshift (Doppler effect) data, there’s been reoccurring problems with the discovery of parts of the Universe that appeared to be older than the Universe itself (as implied by the Big Bang) – which is a nonsense. Recalibrations have always rectified this situation, but there are still current unresolved issues here.
Then we have the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics – both are right to a high degree of experimental precision, but they aren’t compatible with each other. Apparently, one (or both) of these theories must be wrong, or at best incomplete. That’s why the unification of the two (a theory of quantum gravity) is physic’s Holy Grail. However, that Holy Grail is proving as difficult to find as the Grail itself! But for the moment, it’s like the universe has two independent sets of laws – one governing the very large; one the very small. This makes no natural or scientific sense. It’s beyond me how that can be if our reality is really reality, but easily explained if our reality is just someone’s simulation.
Within quantum physics there’s something called the wave-particle duality. That is, something can exhibit the properties of both a wave and a particle at the same time. There really is no entirely rational explanation for this, it just is.
Within General Relativity Theory, if there is anything unintuitive it is the fact that in the entire Universe, it is the speed of light that is absolute or fixed, not something like space or time. It’s unintuitive in that all other bits and pieces in motion can be added or subtracted. So, if you are in a train that is moving at say 100 km/hour and you throw a ball at 10 km/hour in the direction at which the train is moving, so an observer outside the train, your ball is travelling at 110 km/hour. If you throw the ball towards the rear of the train, an outside observer will measure the ball as moving at 90 km/hour. If on the other hand, you shine a flashlight in the train, an outside observer will see the velocity of the resulting light beam moving at the speed of light – not the speed of plight PLUS the velocity of the train, or the speed of light MINUS the velocity of the train, but at the speed of light! That’s nuts, but it’s scientifically nuts and been proven again and again in any experiment you care to devise. I suggest here that a really natural universe wouldn’t have that property, and that this weird absolute in physics has been imposed on us by someone (something) else.
In our Universe, there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter, but there’s not. Our antimatter has gone walkabout. While there is one viable physics explanation for this, when considering a simulated universe, it would be easy to program out the antimatter quota which makes for a less complex universe one needs to simulate. Or, perhaps our simulator hadn’t realized the simulation of physical laws would have predicted antimatter hence never bothered to program it in from the get-go.
Explain the parting of the Red Sea in the Bible! It’s easy to do in the movies, on a computer, or in your head.
Then there’s this Biblical bit about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (at least that’s the way I recall it). That’s either a tall tale or myth or the result of a simulation. Whatever, it can’t be a physical reality.
In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing. Again, you can imagine it, but that’s about it. Likewise with any sort of miracle it’s easy to visualize the event, but infinitely harder to explain it. But, as in the case of loaves and fishes, it’s easy to write a software package that can do this multiplication feat as a simulation exercise.
Heaven and Hell can be created as easily as any other sort of place, complete with either harps and haloes, or devils and pitchforks!
If someone (or something) is calling the simulation shots, you could obviously and easily be resurrected or reincarnated or just allowed to cease to be (that is, deleted from the program).
How can reports of a Bigfoot or a Loch Ness Monster continue for decades without physical verification as if these creatures were but phantoms? Again, it’s easy to visualize such creatures, but far harder to explain how a rather largish sea (lake) monster can elude detection in a confined lake seemingly indefinitely. All these observers can’t be totally mistaken. But what if the ‘monsters’ AND their observers are both simulations, where the ‘monsters’ are simulated to be phantom-ish – a sort of game to play with your simulated observers?
What about ghosts and fairies and all of their various relations? You can create them on film, in your mind, or on a computer screen, so, if you can, so could another – and create you as well in the process.
How can aliens abduct humans or mutilate cattle, decade after decade, without ever being seen? It’s easy to do in a computer simulation; difficult in reality.
The crop circle phenomena is totally unexplainable, but it doesn’t have to be explainable in a physical sense if it’s all created by an ET intelligence including the observers who see the circles and wonder how on earth it was done.
From the examples above, I conclude that it almost seems as if someone (something) is ultimately responsible for our Universe, but he / she / it / they didn’t quite think things through sufficiently. Methinks an all knowing, all powerful supernatural God type being wouldn’t have stuffed things up. So either the Universe is naturally stuffed up, or it was created stuffed up!
To be continued…
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