A Trilogy of Universes: Part Two

There is a trilogy of possible universes we inhabit – Supernatural, Natural and Simulated. There are also several universal beliefs that nearly all humans, all cultures, over all of history share. Belief in these universals usually extends to the present day. Can the later assist in determining which of the three possible universes we might live in, is the one we do live in?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Deities

One such universal are deities (or aliens misinterpreted as deities).

*Natural Universe: Deities are almost by definition supernatural since they all have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men (and women). However, it’s perfectly logical to have a natural universe containing extraterrestrials with advanced technology. Advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, the supernatural, if your level of sophistication is below that level of that advanced technology (what would a Neanderthal make of a jet aircraft flying overhead). To ancient human societies, ‘ancient astronauts’ would be deities, even more so if these extraterrestrials pawned themselves off as deities for various reasons. Because extraterrestrials violate nothing in the Natural Universe, yet the existence of extraterrestrials hasn’t been verified to date, just ½ point can be awarded.

*Simulated Universe: The deity in question here is the software programmer. Though not an actual deity, the end products created by the programmer, if given enough sophistication, might worship as a deity this unknown creator they envision as having to exist in order to account for them. One point awarded.

*Supernatural Universe: Here deities are really real deities, real deities strutting their real deity stuff for all and sundry to see and appreciate. So, it’s only natural that their existence should be acknowledged. One full point awarded.

Free Will

Probably the most universal of the universals is the concept of free will. Very few humans would deny that they are in control of their own fate, destiny, etc. They might be subjected to the laws of the land; to the laws, principles and relationships of physics, chemistry and biology; to the whims of others; but ultimately you yourself pick and choose – or do you. Let’s just say that philosophers and metaphysics professors have been arguing that point for thousands of years.

*Natural Universe: There are two possibilities here. Firstly, at the time of the creation of the universe, all the laws, relationships and principles of, ultimately physics, were set in motion. Everything from that point onwards was fixed. Determination ruled. Causality ruled – absolutely. From first principles, the future, to as many decimal places as you’d care to measure, was fixed – absolutely. As such, you were predetermined as long ago as the Big Bang – 13.7 billion years ago. Therefore, you have no free will. Classical Physics rules, OK? However, part of physics is known as quantum physics, the physics that rules the roost of the microscopic. Apparently, causality doesn’t rule the roost in all things quantum, only probability. Therefore, there’s wriggle room, not certainty, and you can exhibit free will. Score ½ point for an each way bet. .

*Simulated Universe: Unless software is way more sophisticated than I dreamed possible, you dance to someone else’s tune. There’s no free will if you’re a virtual being. There are actually two scenarios here, but one outcome. Either simulation parameters were set at the Alpha Point and the enter “run program” button pushed, or else there’s an active ‘player’ who manipulates events as they unfold, like someone would in a video game or in a pilot training simulator. Either way, it’s zero points being the order of the day if you’re into free will.

*Supernatural Universe: In the monotheistic religions, and for that matter in the polytheistic religions, free will tends to be the order of the day. You are free to believe or not believe; free to sin or not to sin; free to rule your own roost and pay whatever piper needs to be paid accordingly. Score one full point here. 

Afterlife

Another universal concept is an afterlife. Part of your existence in the here and now will survive your clinical death and decay.

*Natural Universe: There’s no evidence that any part of you that was part of you, when you were alive, remains a part of you after you die. You are 100% composed of matter and energy, and all of that matter and energy can be accounted for post death, because of the various laws of conservation (matter/energy can neither be created no destroyed but only changed in form). Unfortunately for you, those changes in form go from the highly complex to the less complex (that’s what decay is), the exact opposite of what is required to form life, even an afterlife. No one has ever witnessed a newly deceased body or the transition from a dying body to a dead body, with any associated phenomena that would suggest that part of that body’s life essence survived. If the living you is 120 pounds of matter and energy; and the dead you is 120 pounds of matter and energy, then there’s nothing left over that survives and goes to La-La-Land. No points can be awarded here.

*Simulated Universe: If your name is Joe Blow, and you’re just software, then there’s a command within that software that you come to that says something like “end subroutine program Joe Blow” – Joe Blow kicks the bucket. But, then there’s another command which says “start subroutine program Joe Blow afterlife” – Joe Blow gets resurrected into another simulated realm. Easy! One full point has to be awarded here for the logical possibility that the Supreme Programmer or Supreme Player likes to subject their simulated characters to perform in various scenarios, sort of like on earth scenario as it is in heaven scenario.

*Supernatural Universe: Any and all texts that have any relationship to verifying a Supernatural Universe, like the Bible, are full of references to everlasting life, life everlasting, eternal life, life eternal, immortality, in fact an afterlife. Somehow after you die a biological death you get resurrected into a supernatural realm, ‘alive’ and kicking and maybe screaming (just depending on location). One full point has to be awarded here.

One general question, what happens to all those artificial body bits in the afterlife – tooth fillings, artificial heart valves or pacemakers, metal hip or knee joints, etc. For that matter, if you’re a ghost, do you retain those artificial bits and pieces?

Afterlife Location

If the afterlife is universal, then an afterlife location is also universal, from Hades to Hel to Hell; the Spirit World, Valhalla, Heaven, etc.

*Natural Universe: If there can be no afterlife in a natural universe, then it makes no sense that a natural universe would contain geographies that house those blessed with a nonexistent afterlife. In any event, no such afterlife location has ever been discovered and pinpointed either up there or down here. No points awarded here either.

*Simulated Universe: If you have a simulated afterlife, then you need to have a simulated location(s) in which to put down your simulated afterlife roots. One full point given.

*Supernatural Universe: The Supernatural literature is full of locations where you get to spend your immortal life everlasting existence. There are no promises on whether or not you’ll be a happy afterlife camper however. Anyway, another full point has to follow-on.

Ghosts

There’s the paranormal phenomena of ghosts, spirits, phantoms, wraiths, spectres, call them what you will, but a rose by any other name… Whatever they’re called, they appear to verify the existence of life after death. Ghosts have been observed and in general an accepted phenomenon by all peoples, all societies, and all cultures since recorded history began and probably even before that that requires an explanation. However, there’s one fly in the ointment. There are observations of non-living ‘ghosts’, things like phantom trains (the Abe Lincoln funeral train), trucks (‘Phantom 309’) and cars, planes and of course ships (like the Flying Dutchman); also structures, even islands that no longer exist (though the latter two are probably best explained as in all probability mirages). They’ve got to be accommodated too.

*Natural Universe: There is no physical, chemical or biological mechanism that can transform a clinically dead flesh-and-blood body, the kind that made you, you, into a physical, chemical and biological ghost. Ghosts have to be made of matter and energy since they are seen, heard and interact with the environment. They have to be biological since they are animated and behave like a living thing. If ghosts are really real, then we do not exist in a natural universe. If ghosts, including phantom trains, do exist in the natural world then they are the sole product of the human mind and all associated evidence (photographs, etc.) are either fraudulent or have prosaic explanations. Because an all-in-the-mind explanation is possible, albeit unlikely IMHO, ½ point is awarded.

*Simulated Universe: In a Simulated Universe, everything has a ghost of a chance! Software can create ghosts, fully clothed ghosts, as well as phantom trains. Or, on the other hand, ghostly images could be just the result of previously deleted software, which was only 99.9% deleted. Residues remain. The ‘delete’ button isn’t 100% efficient. Whatever scenario you choose, its one full point awarded.

*Supernatural Universe: The problems here are several. What’s the rationale for creating phantom trains for example? - None that I can see. Now assuming something supernatural happens and a dead person becomes an animated person that’s not quite all there, a ghost, then you’d expect that ghost to be starkers – absolutely naked as a newborn baby. It’s the biological entity that dies, not their attire. For that matter, if you’re a ghost, do you retain those artificial bits and pieces, those artificial body bits like tooth fillings, artificial heart valves or pacemakers, metal hip or knee joints, etc. That’s part of your attire too. If you see a ghost with a peg leg, something’s fishy. Because of these issues, no points can be awarded. 

To be continued….

The Simulation Hypothesis in Outline Form: Part Two

INTRODUCTION: The odds are fairly high that we reside in a computer software generated simulation (video game) universe. The chain of logic leading to this conclusion and what a simulated Universe might help explain, are outlined.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

In cosmology, there’s a fundamental imbalance between the relative amounts of matter and antimatter that just shouldn’t be. Physics predict that there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the Universe because equal amounts should have been created ‘in the beginning’. There apparently isn’t, so there apparently wasn’t. Why that is so is of fundamental importance. You wouldn’t expect God or Mother Nature to goof this up.

In cosmology, ‘dark energy’ is apparently causing our expanding Universe to accelerate that expansion rate ever faster and faster. Trouble is, the greater the expanded space, the more ‘dark energy’ exists which further creates more space creating more ‘dark energy’ in a never ending vicious circle. So ‘dark energy’ is apparently being continually created out of absolutely nothing in total violation of the conservation laws of physics, a concept drummed into every high school student’s grey matter. Again, God or Mother Nature is unlikely to create exceptions to an otherwise apparently universal rule.

In astronomy, there are distant objects (quasars) with wildly differing red-shifts (velocities) which are apparently connected or in close association. If true, it makes a mockery of physics as we know it. I’m sure God or Mother Nature doesn’t make a mockery of physics.

Why are there two separate and apart sets of software running the Universe? There’s the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear and the weak nuclear) and then there’s gravity. These two arenas, the micro scale quantum and the macro scale where gravity holds sway, just can not be unified, despite attempts by the greatest intellects over many, many decades. Is this the result of an all knowing, all powerful creator God? Would Mother Nature design more than one unified software package when creating Her Universe? 

There’s a concept in physics called the vacuum energy which has been experimentally verified. The trouble is, there are 120 orders of magnitude difference between those experimental results and what theory predicted. It’s the worst discrepancy ever known in science between theoretical expectations and experimental results. To put that in perspective, the difference between one and one hundred is only two orders of magnitude; between one and one thousand is three orders of magnitude; between one and ten thousand is four orders of magnitude, etc.  120 orders of magnitude difference boggles the mind. Something sure is screwy somewhere, and I’m reluctant to blame God or Mother Nature for the stuff up.

Physical constants, like the fine structured constant – aren’t. How can you have a constant in physics that refuses to stick to a constant value? That’s hardly a rational action of a God or Mother Nature.

Then there’s the whole category of quantum weirdness. First up, we have the phenomena of wave-particle duality where sometimes an electron (for example) behaves like a wave; other times like it’s a tiny billiard ball.  Secondly, quantum entanglement where two elementary particles light years apart can seemingly ‘communicate’ with each other instantaneously (something Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”). All things quantum are nightmares created by an irrational mind – hardly the stuff worthy of a God or Mother Nature.

Why are all members of any one of the types of fundamental particles identical? Well, the simulation software code for each type of particle is the exact same, so the particles are the same.

Who ordered that? Speaking of the elementary particles, there’s not only a 2^nd generation or family of these fundamental particles, but a 3^rd generation as well. Why is there a second and third generation or family of the elementary particles that play no role whatsoever in the physics of the Universe? Generation one is the electron, neutrino, up quark and down quark which make up the proton and neutron (and the antiparticle equivalents), but there’s a second generation that’s more massive (the muon instead of the electron but with the same charge) and ditto the third, in this case the electron equivalent being the tauon with the same charge. The interesting bit is that they play absolutely no role in our everyday observable universe. Again, why these 2^nd and 3^rd generation family of particles? Again, why don’t they play any role in life, the Universe and everything? What’s the point of their being? Why create a second and third story on your house if you never use them? Strange doings! In the simulation scenario, well the Supreme Simulator says ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time, but they weren’t ultimately needed’

That feeling of deja vu we all seemingly get once in a while. Well, our Supreme Simulator might stop, reverse, and restart bits and pieces of his overall simulation run – if we’re in that part, well we get the feeling of ‘been there, done that’.

As a general rule of thumb, just about anything science says is near impossible, yet for which there’s some degree of credible eyewitness testimony to the contrary, might be a candidate as a quirk courteous of our Supreme Simulator! Collectively, these topics fall under a general umbrella called ‘anomalies’ and whole books can be read that are full of case histories. For example, your attention is directed to the many volumes compiled by William R. Corliss of anomalies culled from the scientific literature in his Sourcebook Project series. Then there are those wonderful collections of anomaly tomes penned by Charles Fort.

Crop circles have no adequate explanation. Theories revolving around the natural, or human, or alien ultimately make little if any sense. Perhaps crop circles are one of the Supreme Simulator’s ways of making our hum-drum lives ‘interesting’.

Ghosts are explainable as a previously deleted simulated software program that still has some residue left.

The afterlife is just another piece of simulation software.

A final resolution to the ‘is there / isn’t there’ ‘free will’ debate. There isn’t – only the illusion of one – if we live in a simulated Universe. We dance to the tune of the programmer or ‘computer game’ player, if player they be. 

So, in conclusion, to paraphrase a rather famous observation, the Universe is a rather anomalous place, and we probably haven’t seen the end of the weirdness yet. I maintain it’s plausible that some geek (maybe a highly technologically sophisticated extraterrestrial), somewhere out there, created a computer software generated simulation video game called “Planet Earth” or “The Universe” or some such, and, well, the rest is history and here we are.

More Anomalies: Another Top Baker’s Dozen: Part Two

From the cosmic to the quantum; from the macro to the micro; from the natural world to the human world, enigmas are everywhere. Here’s another baker’s dozen worth.

You may not be happy with the world as it is, but at least it’s orderly and makes logical sense. Walk, don’t walk, green yellow red; money trickles in, money flows out; friends and politicians come and go, enemies and stuff accumulate; the sun rises and sets, the moon waxes and wanes; people are born, people die; the days, weeks, months, seasons. and years come and go with regularity. But dig a bit deeper beneath the surface and the world and the cosmos it inhabits, is one anomalous place.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

CATTLE MUTILATIONS: There’s no disputing the bona-fides of this gruesome reality. It has been observed – after-the-fact – photographed, documented, and investigated by all manner of officialdom, as well as unofficial private investigators. And though oft referred to as ‘cattle’ mutilations, all manner of wildlife and other domestic livestock have been targeted too, the first reported case being a horse. Like the crop circle phenomena, there are three possible explanations: natural, human or alien.

If natural, why has this phenomenon only become an issue since the 1960’s? Predator-prey relationships, scavengers, etc. have existed and been observed ever since humans have inhabited the continents. There should be no anomaly here if animal mutilations are just the normal continuation of Mother Nature in tooth and claw. But there is an anomaly. If predators or scavengers, why are there no footprints, and especially if predators, why no signs of a struggle? How can predators account for precision removal of just certain body parts with razor sharp incisions? Since there’s no blood associated with the mutilated carcasses, did predators drink up their entire victim’s blood like an animal version of Dracula?

If humans or cultists are responsible, why hasn’t anyone claimed responsibility? Why hasn’t anyone been caught, tried, convicted, fined and/or imprisoned for trespass, animal cruelty, destruction of private property, etc.? Why no signs of human activity like tire tracks and footprints and litter (say a cigarette butt or beer can or two). Again, why no signs of a struggle?

Some have suggested this is the work of government, or government departments, taking samples to monitor for various bovine nasties, like diseases, or other types of contamination that could endanger human health if these livestock were consumed.  Really! There are vastly easier ways of legally gathering up tissue samples than sneaking around in the dead of night and killing/mutilating animals for a few body parts.

So of course it has to be extraterrestrials! How can aliens mutilate cattle (and other livestock and wildlife), decade after decade, without ever being seen? Why would aliens be interested in wildlife and livestock in the first damned place, or at least some of their highly selected body parts?  

HUMAN CULTURE & CIVILIZATION: There are two relatively unexplained turning points in the evolution of modern man when contrasted with our more primate-like ancestors. One is the acquisition of what we call culture. Culture (like art appreciation and abstract ideas like an afterlife) happened within a fairly narrow timeframe, roughly 50,000 years ago, wherever nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers gathered. Why the sudden transition? The second great leap forward, again, within a narrow timeframe, some 9000 years ago, was the transition from nomadic lifestyles to settlements – farming crops and herding now domesticated wildlife. Settlements rapidly became villages became towns became cities. While some nomadic hunter-gatherers still roamed the plains, like the Australian aboriginal, what was once that nomadic rule now became that exception to that rule. In both cases, culture and civilization, the observational evidence is rock-solid; theory can’t really explain the transition, or at least the relatively rapid transition, around the world, from the tried-and-true before-the-fact pre-cultural nomadic lifestyle to the unknown leap of an untested experiment with culture and settlements. 

ANCIENT EGYPT: LIGHTING THE PYRAMIDS, etc. We all are aware that many of the ancient Egyptian structures, like pyramids and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, contain vast numbers of deep and twisting passageways inside. Many of those interiors have been elaborately decorated with all manner of paintings and carvings of hieroglyphs, etc. Whether or not the interiors were decorated, there must have been a requirement for lighting. There were no glass windows. There were no battery-operated torches or flashlights. There was no electric lighting back then, though of course that’s how these structures are illuminated today for tourists and/or archaeologists. Neither source of available luminescent technology back then really holds a candle as it were to how they could have been actually employed. The obvious sources were burning torches, oil lamps, candles, etc. Now you don’t really want to undertake construction, detailed painting or carving stone by candlelight. In any event there are no traces of soot residue on the walls and ceilings. The alternative method was to position bronze or copper mirrors that reflect sunlight onto another mirror which in turn reflected that light onto another mirror further inside the structure which in turn reflected the light it received onto the next mirror down the line, etc. The physics problem is that the original sunlight gets so diluted so quickly after just a couple of mirrors in, that it becomes an impractical ways and means. If you have to penetrate very far inside the structure, and some passageways are indeed, very, very far inside, lighting with mirrors fail. The anomaly is you need adequate lighting yet there’s no really adequate source.  

EXODUS, BOOK OF: There are multi-dozens of anomalies, things that just can’t be, reported in the Bible. Of all of these, the most anomalous is the Book of Exodus, because some of the events recorded there can be checked against another independent historical source. If the history in the Book of Exodus is found wanting, and it is, then if one holy book goes down the gurgler, then all the rest of the books are suspect too.

The anomaly here is that the Book of Exodus features the land and peoples of ancient Egypt fairly prominently. A couple of key Biblical characters play leading roles there – Moses and Joseph – not to mention thousands of alleged Hebrew slaves. Nasty things happen to that land and those peoples like the ten plagues and the drowning of pharaoh’s army. The anomaly here is that you’d expect ancient Egyptian records to verify and collaborate and substantiate the Book of Exodus, but you don’t find anything of the sort. It’s as if the Biblical version took place in a parallel universe – or in the imagination of the all too human author.

BIBLICAL MIRACLES: 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 a tall tale or myth but whatever, it can’t be a physical reality. But wait, there’s more! There’s Jonah and the whale; Eve’s creation from a rib; walking on the waters; the walls of Jericho tumbling down at the sound of no doubt out of tune trumpets or rams horns. In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing.

Miracles are part and parcel of any and all supernaturally based religions. 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. However, there have been numerous reports of supernatural miracles.

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. The conflict is an anomaly.  

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. Every culture, past and present, has an afterlife concept, a life after death concept, or some sort of an eternity or immortality worldview. Not all of the versions of the theoretical afterlife can be correct however. 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, therefore anomalous. However, nobody has ever come back from the dead to prove the reality of an afterlife to the satisfaction of any unbiased referee.

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!

Reality: Really Real, Pseudo-Real, or Unreal? Part Seven

Reality – It’s all relative; it’s reversible; it’s symmetric; it’s personal; it kicks back when you kick it; it’s conceptual; it’s theoretical; it’s actual; it’s abstract; it’s bio-friendly; it’s unforgiving; it’s emotional; and ultimately the reality of life, the Universe and everything resides in your mind.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Other Realities: I’ve mentioned parallel (or alternative or mirror) universes above, which are related to the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics. But there could easily be other less nebulous universes – a really real physical Multiverse. If Nature can create one Universe, She can create more than one. Other universes could have different physics relative to the physics we know. If that’s the case, that opens up whole cans of different reality worms! However, such universes are probably forever out of our reach.

One set of realities I haven’t mentioned yet, yet lots of people believe exist, centre around the afterlife concept – heaven, hell, a spirit world, etc. We’ll all find out for sure in or at the end. 

Appendix: Here are some of the many faces of reality. Say you see across the room the most beautiful of beautiful naked bodies you’ve ever seen of the opposite sex (or the same sex if that’s you bag). Lets call that vision “X” (but not because it’s of necessity X-rated)! Now, what is the reality of your vision?

Well, perhaps you’re involuntary dreaming of X.

Perhaps you’re voluntarily imagining X.

Perhaps you’re hallucinating X through disease, injury, a genetic defect, a biochemical imbalance (via drugs, lack of sleep, etc.).

Or, perhaps you are actually observing X and independent observers would verify the existence of X.

But, perhaps someone else is dreaming, or imagining or hallucinating both you and X.

Perhaps X isn’t a real flesh-and-blood naked body but a hologram or maybe say a perfect representation such as a wax dummy.

You’ve also got to ask yourself, does X still exist if I close my eyes or turn my head away?

Since X resides in a Universe ultimately grounded in all things quantum, X only has a probability of existing and being where you think X actually is.

Ultimately, your perception of X is filtered via your senses into your mind where it resides in a vastly reduced in size; a two dimensional representation. You only get to experience the reality of X indirectly.

To be continued…

Energy: A Passport to Your Afterlife?

When you die, your energy has to go somewhere. Some say that’s your passport to the afterlife. Your energy is you after you die. I say that’s a load of codswallop!

I read a while back that because your body contains energy and because energy can’t be destroyed, when you die it’s your body’s residual (‘life force’ or ‘psychic’) energy supply that becomes the ‘you’ in the realm of the afterlife. Sorry, ‘fraid not. It’s an interesting idea but with no ultimate merit.

It is crystal clear that when you die your physical body goes nowhere; not to La-La-Land Hell; not to Never-Never-Land Heaven. More likely as not you’re buried, cremated or given to the medical students to gawk at and dissect. What about that other ‘half’ of you, your energy? Where does it go, if it in fact it goes at all?

An Energetic Afterlife: The living body is full of energy. What happens to all that energy when the living body turns into the unliving body? Energy, after all, can neither be created nor destroyed; only changed in form. Can you take your energy with you to an afterlife; in fact is it your body’s energy that becomes ‘you’ in an afterlife? Alas, no. Let’s examine the various forms of energy, see which forms apply to the living body, and what happens to those relevant forms of energy when you start to push up those daisies. I’ll start with the non-starters, for starters.

Kinetic/Potential Energy: Kinetic energy is energy of motion, but after you die, you don’t move, so your kinetic energy is zero. Your potential energy is also zero unless an outside force propels you into motion and you (well your body) gain kinetic energy, but you have no control over that motion. If you just lie forever on the slab (or in the grave), your potential energy is for all practical purposes, zero.

Gravitational Energy: Your living body has mass therefore it has gravity. Your dead body has mass, therefore gravity. Gravity stays put when you die; you don’t take gravity with you into the great unknown, or rather gravity doesn’t take you into the great unknown.

Nuclear Energy: Nuclear energy comes in two forms. Firstly, there’s nuclear fusion which does not happen inside you unless you’re a Sun God (or the Sun) or an H-bomb. Secondly, there’s nuclear fission which comes in two forms, fast and slow. Fast nuclear fission is akin to an A-bomb going boom. Slow nuclear fission is radioactivity. You are slightly radioactive since some of the carbon you ingest is radioactive not to mention radioactive stuff from nuclear fallout and the natural environment that gets into your system. But once you die your intake ceases and that radioactive energy just ticks away and decays in the fullness of time down to nothing, or at least down to non-radioactive substances. All those alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays just go back into the environment.

Sound Energy: The energy of sound is apparent when sonic booms rattle windows and opera singers shatter wine glasses. Alas, while you may have been the biggest loudmouth on the block while alive, when you’re dead, you can hear a pin drop!

Solar Energy: Ultimately the product of nuclear fusion, you can lie in the Sun and get a nice tan and your quota of Vitamin D, but sitting in the sunshine won’t increase your athletic abilities or contribute in anyway to increasing your body’s supply of energy. If that’s what you want, eat sugar.

Thermal/Geothermal/Heat Energy: Sitting in a hot tub; soaking in a thermal hot spring may make you feel good, but such pursuits do nothing to increase your energy levels. Again, if you want more energy reserves (body fat), eat lots of sugar.

Wind & Wave Energy: You may pass wind and make waves but these forms of ultimately what is solar energy transformed contributes nothing whatever to your energy quota and is irrelevant from the point of view of any afterlife you aspire to.

And now let’s turn to forms of more energetic relevance. 

Body Heat: On average, your body is warmer than the surrounding environment, so when you die, this infrared (IR) heat energy in keeping with the second law of thermodynamics cools off and obtains equilibrium with the temperature of the surrounding environment. Your IR energy just goes into warming up the surroundings until your body and your surroundings are the same temperature. Your dead body, while you still have a body, will contain heat energy since your dead body has a temperature. But since that temperature is the same temperature as the surrounding temperature, that energy is useless for performing any actual useful function. Besides, that heat energy stays with the dead body. Now what would be impressive is that when you die your body temperature immediately drops way, way, way below room temperature as if your entire packet of body energy just packed up and moved somewhere else. Alas, that doesn’t seem to happen. In fact, to be honest, it doesn’t happen full-stop. 

Chemical/Electrical Energy: You do have lots of chemical energy within you, all manner of chemistry is going on inside you and some of that chemical energy is converted to electrical energy. What happens to that electrical energy when you die? Well, what happens to the electrical energy in a wire leading to the light bulb when you turn off the switch? Same difference. That’s in fact one definition of death – no electrical energy present.

Body Chemistry: What about all that chemistry inside you? Well, when you die, your bodily chemistry goes into reverse. Entropy resumes its natural order and increases. Your disorder increases. Your body’s chemistry breaks down and decays to less complex chemistry (giving off odours in the process), but that decay is caused by other organisms, usually microbes. Microbes decrease their disorder by causing yours to increase. You no longer eat; you are now the eaten. Your chemical/electrical energy becomes their chemical/electrical energy. You don’t take it with you; you don’t share it; you give it all away. Your loss is the gain of others. When the very last bits of you are consumed, fossilized, weathered and eroded away to dust and below down to individual atoms scattered to the four corners of the globe, then there’s no ways and means of talking about your energy – it’s gone; not destroyed, just gone.

Body Chemistry Frozen: So what if your body is put in dry ice or liquid nitrogen, etc. where no microbes can get at you? Well, you’re entropy (disorder) might not increase, but it doesn’t decrease either (you’re entire life is one long battle keeping disorder at bay). In short, once you’re dead, there’s no way to decrease disorder; the best you can hope for is a stalemate. But again, your dead body’s temperature is the same as its surroundings, so nothing useful can be accomplished; there’s no net energy flow from A to B or from B to A. What about just being put in a sterile environment at body or at least room temperature? Alas, that won’t work since your dead body will be consumed from the inside by the billions of hungry microbes already living inside of you. If you’re frozen stiff, then the microbes inside you are also frozen and can’t munch on you.

In conclusion, all the energy that’s part and parcel of, and in you right now as a living being will get disbursed into the wider environment once you kick-the-bucket. You can’t have an energetic afterlife based on your energy reserves at time of death. There just is no association between your energy and an energetic afterlife. Sorry ‘bout that!

Evidence for Our Multi-Path Virtual Reality: Part Three

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”.