Theory vs. Observation: Part Two

There’s many a conflict that rages between observation and theory. What is observed cannot be; what cannot be alas is observed. Sceptics, those supporting theory, dump down on those who contradict theory because they witnessed something to the contrary. “It can’t be therefore it isn’t.” The witness dumps down on the sceptic with the statement, “I know what I saw”. Impasse! Perhaps there is a third option, one where both theory and observation can coexist.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

If you observe something that is impossible, and it really is impossible, and if the observation can’t be faulted, and the impossibility of the theory can’t be faulted, what possible resolution can there be? Well one possibility is that some as yet undiscovered genius marries theory and observation and both live happy ever after. That’s certainly happened before and no doubt will happen again. The other is that there needs be a realm where both theory and observation can illogically both exist, same time; same place. That incompatibly of theory and observation, side-by-side, being ultimately compatible is itself a contradiction. Fortunately, there are such realms apart from Alice’s looking glass wonderland.

Now one such realm is your dreams. Though I haven’t experienced it, apparently dreaming of yourself flying (as in Superman, not as in a aircraft) is a common scenario. You’re not Superman; you can’t fly. Your dreams however provide contrary observational evidence that you did fly. And so something both is (observation), and is not (theoretical logic), at the same time. In your dreams you can accomplish six impossible things before breakfast – that is before you wake up.

Even when wide awake it’s relatively easy to imagine images from within your own wetware (that mind within the brain) that can contradict what you know to be impossible with images of doing just that, like for example pitching a perfect game in the seventh game of the World Series and also hitting the winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning with thousands of female fans rushing onto the field to (well it’s your imagination so fill in the blank)!

Cinema provides another medium. Well there are Superman movies after all, one with a tag line, if I recall correctly along the lines of “you really will believe a man can fly”. Theory: in space no one can hear you scream, yet you hear (that’s a form of observation) the sound of spaceships battling it out with their photon torpedoes and phasers on the big screen.

Closely related, video games or something cut from the same cloth, computer or other simulations. You’re an astronaut simulating a lunar landing. Oops, you slipped up and crashed on the Moon and should have died, but you didn’t really crash and you most certainly didn’t die. You live to simulate another day. Just about any action-oriented video game (observation) will contain so many massive physics anomalies (theoretical impossibilities) as to cause any physics professor to take up the bottle in despair.

And so, if we have mediums that can reconcile theory and observation though both are incompatible, then who’s to say the contradictions we note and log in ‘real’ life may not be really real at all (well we know they can’t be) but perhaps the result of someone else’s dreams or video games and thus we’re not really real at all either! If we exist in a simulated universe, then, as the song title goes, “Heaven knows, anything goes”.

Let’s assume for the moment that the concept of a simulated universe or a virtual reality is actually via computer software, say something akin to a video game or a simulated reality as used for training purposes.

It’s unlikely that your virtual reality can be the product of quasi current day technology, although it’s possible that some human(s) in the 25^th Century have concocted up a 25^th Century equivalent of an ancient history video game titled 21^st Century Planet Earth. That aside, perhaps the programmer is not human at all but an extraterrestrial! Perhaps that extraterrestrial(s) has inserted itself into our virtual reality as our ‘ancient astronauts’ concept, otherwise known as those mythological polytheistic deities part and parcel of nearly all cultures, but could incorporate the more ‘modern’ monotheistic concept as well.

Anyway, one subset of all those thousands of polytheistic deities are those trickster gods known throughout all polytheistic mythologies. As the name suggest, these were deities who weren’t quite always on the up-and-up, but loved to play tricks, sometimes nasty and malevolent tricks. The bottom line is that trickster gods couldn’t be trusted.

But I can imagine that our virtual reality computer programmer fashions itself in the guise of a trickster god. Such a being would delight in creating our virtual reality that contains all of the anomalies we note and log in our seemingly real reality. What better trick than to create dozens of anomalies along the lines of conflicts between theory and observation; that something can both be and not be at the same time, and having ‘his’ created subjects try to figure it all out! What delicious fun enjoying their befuddlement!

Common or well known trickster gods of ancient mythology include Satan (Christianity), Loki (Norse), Maui (Polynesia), Raven & Coyote (North America), and Eros, Prometheus and Hermes (Ancient Greece).

Our Simulated Universe: Part Two

Introduction: You don’t exist! I don’t exist either! At least we don’t exist in the way that we think we do. We’re simulated beings, maybe wetware simulated (as in someone else’s dream), more likely as not software simulated, like the characters in a video game.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

OOPS: Tweaking, Miracles, Upgrades and Patches: So say you feel like playing God and creating a universe, not a real one of course but a simulated one, on your supercomputer (which presumably has greater capacity than your wetware brain which could also create one). So, you (the Supreme Simulator) start writing the initial ‘in the beginning’ set(s) of software with a view to creating a Big Bang and dictating the parameters that will control the subsequent evolution of your cosmos. Of course, not being a real God, it’s hard to think of everything and initially Part ‘A’ may not mesh totally well with Part ‘B’, and by the time you get to Part ‘Z’, everything’s an absolute mess. So, you start rewriting and revising and patching things up by tweaking the software here and there so that you end up, down the track, with a cosmos that’s a unified and consistent whole.

Oops #1 – Part ‘A’ created matter; Part ‘B’ you dictated and created an equal amount of antimatter, making Parts ‘C’ through ‘Z’ pretty irrelevant because your cosmos is now pretty boring – just a universe of pure energy!  So, tweak #1 is to create Part ‘B’ but under the surface set the value to an extremely low number. You now have a matter dominated universe.

Oops #2 – In Part ‘C’ you create gravity along with your matter so as to keep your universe orderly and behaving in a nice clockwork way. Oops, your universe now quickly contracts and undergoes a Big Crunch – end of evolution; end of simulation. Tweak #2: create some antigravity in the form of Dark Energy to prevent that Big Crunch while allowing gravity to maintain the desired clockwork predictability.

Oops #3 – Having taken care of the macro (you’ve evolved your matter via gravity into planets and stars and galaxies and associated debris) in Part ‘D’, you now polish off the software, all the bits and pieces needed to control the micro – Part ‘E’. Oops, you find that turns out not to be compatible with your macro software. Well, that apparently has no actual bearing on the other parts of your cosmic creation and since you’re ultra busy dealing with 1001 other problems and issues, you don’t bother to tweak this. You ignore this – no one will be any the wiser! (Oops, you didn’t plan on the eventual evolution of cosmologists and quantum physicists!!)

OOPS: Why Are Miracles A Tweak? A miracle is something unexplained and unexplainable. It’s a direct violation of the known laws of science. To my mind, a miracle is something that corrects a mistake; a mistake that never should have happened in the first place if the Supreme Simulator had been on the ball. For example, say you have to have a limb amputated, only at a later date it grows back! That’s a miracle that corrects what presumably the Supreme Simulator hadn’t counted on or programmed or desired. So, count up the number of alleged miraculous events that have been recorded over the eras of human history – that’s a lot of alleged tweaks!

Why Don’t I Know This? If you and everything around you (out to the farthest boundaries of the Universe) are just a simulation (created either inside the wetware mind or as software in a machine – the Supreme Simulator’s supercomputer) you wouldn’t know. You’d be programmed not to know or otherwise plain ignorant in the same way that the character in your dream in unaware it’s a mental creation – an artefact of your mind. Ditto the characters in a video game – they don’t know they are an artificial creation; an artificial life form. Since you are a simulated entity, you are not in control since you are pre-programmed and have to just go with the predetermined flow – the Supreme Simulator’s puppet. You can no more control your activity than a calculator can help but calculate that the cube root of 27 is 3. Ditto the entity in your dreams does what your mind commands it to do, even if you aren’t aware at the time that your mind is a puppeteer. Your dream character(s) has/have no free will in other words.

Never-the-less there may be ways to come to terms with the correctness or otherwise of the basic scenario that you are simulated and a Supreme Simulator is in control. The hint comes from the above – the need for The Boss to tweak their simulation creation to eliminate discrepancies or paradoxes, which is the same as saying there’s evidence that the Supreme Simulator has failed to tweak. The fact that tweaks are necessary in our natural environment is suggestive that we are indeed in a simulation; otherwise parts of the Universe (assuming it’s really real) make no real sense. Either Mother Nature screwed up, or the Supreme Simulator did. The fact that macro and micro physics don’t mesh is but one illustration. Another is that matter on the micro scale has a wave/particle duality. A third is quantum entanglement, where two objects can influence each other at faster than light speeds.

Mysteries abound when something can not be, yet apparently is. One whole set of issues here revolves around the conflict between what theory says isn’t possible, yet what eyewitness testimony says is. Translated, it’s the sceptics vs. the ‘I know what I saw’ mob. A tweak could resolve their differences.

Example: Take the Loch Ness Monster and related lake monster sightings. Biologists claim that one can not have a viable population of large creatures in such a confined space. You need a relatively large population for reproductive purposes and a large food supply for same, all in a relatively small volume. It should be easy to verify the existence of large animals in a natural cage. On the other hand, you have to account for, and then discredit all eyewitness testimony. A tweak could resolve the differences.

Example: Crop circles exist. No explanation for their existence makes total sense. They are obviously made by intelligence, but Mother Nature isn’t the guilty party in this case (although Mother Nature is responsible for some geometrical shapes like the spirals in some sea shells, flowers, snowflakes, etc.). No known natural force can account for crop circles. Human intelligence is the most likely explanation, but problems abound like the making of complex patterns in the dark of the night and why haven’t those responsible been caught and dealt with? I could list other problems like why England and not Australia? Surely Australia has its share of pranksters. Is an extraterrestrial intelligence responsible perhaps? But what’s their possible motive? I’m damned if anything rational comes to the fore. So, I think a tweak is in order here for this puzzlement has gone on far too long

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.

Mysteries abound where something should or shouldn’t be, yet apparently isn’t or is. There often is a conflict between what sciences theoretically say should or should not be, yet scientific observations end up producing opposite findings. Perhaps the conflict between theory and observation/experiment is evidence that our Universe needs tweaking.

Example: Theoretical physics predict that the vacuum energy should have a certain value. Experimental evidence suggests that the vacuum energy is 120 orders of magnitude less than theory predicts. This by the way is the greatest discrepancy between theory and observation ever recorded in all of science. A tweak could resolve the differences. Another case, noted above, is that theoretical physics says there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the Universe. Observation says that theory is just plain nuts because we don’t detect any antimatter remotely close to that predicted!

So why are these discrepancies allowed to continue? Why hasn’t the Supreme Simulator tweaked these? My best guess is that probably its because having set the simulation program in motion, and since none of the quirks are serious enough to cause the program simulation to crash, it’s easier just to allow everything to run its course and not ‘end program’ for the sake of relatively major, but not Universe-threatening, repairs. Minor fixes, like those ‘miracle’ tweaks can be fixed on the run without interrupting the simulation, just like some upgrades to your computer software can take place while you work, while others don’t take effect unless you shut down and boot up again. If you can soldier on and not shut down your operation and live without the upgrade(s), that’s okay.

So does that mean our Supreme Simulator, The Boss, is at least 13.7 billion years old since the program running our (presumably) simulated Universe is 13.7 billion years old because it’s been 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang? Not really, since there doesn’t have to be any relationship between time as experienced by the Supreme Simulator and our perception of time, just like you can watch a two hour movie, but as far as the characters in the movie are concerned, perhaps two days, two weeks, two months, two years or two decades have elapsed. So, perhaps one second passing to The Boss is the equivalent of a decade going by the boards to us.

And just like watching a movie, you can speed the film up, or slow it down – even freeze frame it if you’re so inclined. Now if our Supreme Simulator decided to speed up, slow down, even freeze frame (stop) the action, we wouldn’t notice because all of our surroundings would be speeded up, or slowed down, or stopped by the exact same amount (which has some obvious parallels with general relativity).

To be continued…

Our Simulated Universe: Part One

Introduction: You don’t exist! I don’t exist either! At least we don’t exist in the way that we think we do. We’re simulated beings, maybe wetware simulated (as in someone else’s dream), more likely as not software simulated, like the characters in a video game.

An Initial Advisory:  I need to say this from the get-go, that there is no connection whatever, in this essay, postulating a simulation scenario that includes us, between a supernatural all-knowing, all-powerful creator God and what I see as a flawed flesh-and-blood creator person (or extraterrestrial) actually responsible. This ‘Supreme Simulator’ is no God (with a capital G), any more than the creator of a video game is a God (with a capital G). This has absolutely nothing to do with a supernaturally based religion; everything to do with the natural order and evolution of technological things. This is science (or technology); not superstition or mythology.

Unlike God, for those who believe in a loving God, the Supreme Simulator may not give a royal stuff about you and your fate any more than the creator of a video game cares whether the characters in that creation live happy ever after or not – probably not. I mean, if you simulated billions and billions of humans; generations and generations of them, and assuming you’re not all knowing and all powerful, could you keep track of them all?

Now one is perfectly entitled to reject the truism of this simulation hypothesis. I’m not sure I really believe it myself. But of course what we believe or disbelieve is ultimately irrelevant – it’s all a function of what is, or is not. While the simulation scenario is straight forward enough, being able to prove, or disprove it, is the real intellectual challenge. That’s the issue I’m attempting to think through. And sadly, while I’d like to claim this as my own, the idea isn’t original with me – far higher intellects than I have pondered this and there’s a massive degree of literature in academic journals and web sites on the possibility. 

Terrestrial Examples of Current or Near Future Simulations:

*The Practical: Simulation scenarios prove useful in dealing with everyday traffic management issues and of course the military use them for war-game purposes. Engineers use them to figure out things like will this aircraft fly if we build it this way? Can we build a bridge this way using these materials of such and such a length? It’s far cheaper to simulate first – build afterwards – secure in the knowledge that what you build will work. Available on the market are all manner of brands of automobile navigation simulations in virtual map form that can guide you from point A to point B without muss or fuss.

*Training: Airline pilots, air traffic controllers, astronauts, medical doctors can practice on simulators first to gain proficiency. Simulations could prove useful in driver training, before actually going out on the road.

*Scientific: Many scientists use simulations to examine ‘what if’. Program these set of initial conditions; add these relationships; run for a period of time and see what happens.

*Education: One can explore the planets of the solar system; the realms of interstellar and intergalactic space; the depths of our terrestrial oceans, and other realms too where it isn’t really practical or realistic to send someone in person. Data acquired by robotic probes can be translated into simulations that we all can enjoy.

*Entertainment: Video games! Quite apart from that, it’s now possible to create entire feature films (note: not cartoon or animation) where all characters and all environments are 100% simulated. No filming on location; no actors need apply for the parts. There’s also the tourist trade without all that messing about with airlines and hotels and taxies and suitcases and bad weather. There’s all manner of virtual tourist guide packages where you can ‘visit’ cities and all their tourist attractions (traps).

*Role Playing: It’s difficult to insert yourself into a video game, but eventually the technology might be available to do just that. The best futuristic example is the holodeck that features in the latter Star Trek incarnations. 

There’s one important facet of your life that’s already virtual or simulated – at least in theory if not in actual practice. That is, your personal finances. I mean, we’ve heard of the so-called paperless office (which never really did come to pass – yet). Now we have the virtual wallet and simulated purse. I mean, your payslip or pension is deposited electronically into your account at your financial institution. You can arrange to have your standard bills paid automatically from that account; or you can go online and pay your bills yourself – electronically. You can shop online or at brick-and-mortar stores without the need to carry cash – just use your credit or debit card. You can pay your credit card bill online, or at your financial institution without any cash actually changing hands. You can even use your credit card now to get a soft drink at the vending machine!

At regular intervals your financial institution will send you a piece of paper, or you can see it online, telling you what your accounts are worth. In short, it’s now possible to go through your entire financial day-to-day existence, within the entirety of your financial world, without actually having to see or handle actual cash. Money is all virtual money; financial transactions are all simulations of what used to be cash transactions.

So we see that there is nothing unusual with the simulation idea. As an aside, one should note that as little as 100 years ago, such imaginations as would postulate such activities as simulations would have either been writers of fiction or individuals consigned pretty much to the ‘nice young men in their clean white coats; coming to take me away, ha-ha, he-he, to the funny farm’ set! Given the exponential grown in computing crunch power, what might 100 years from now be like with respect to simulations of reality? Writers of fiction are still pretty safe in speculating; others might still be expecting visits from those ‘nice young men in their clean white coats’! All too often however, futurology guesstimates ended up erring too much on the side of caution. What’s sort-of expected 100 years hence often proves to be reality in a far shorter time frame. That holodeck might be closer than we think! Now, what kind of simulation might be possible of an extraterrestrial civilization a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand years in technological advance of ours? A simulation of our Universe (or at least Planet Earth) to them might be as sophisticated as Pac-Man is to us.

The Supreme Simulator: Given the above examples of purpose behind simulations, what’s the purpose behind a Supreme Simulator simulating us? Let’s assume we’re not somebody’s toy – created for amusement, rather let’s says our Supreme Simulator is a scientist and we’re part of their ‘what if’ experiment. What might be simulated and in what detail?

*The Universe and all it contains to an equal degree of detail.

*The Milky Way Galaxy and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Our Solar System and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Planet Earth and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Your immediate environment and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail.

*Your mind and all it contains to an equal degree of detail, and all that is beyond that to a far lesser extent of detail except any such time as you interact with something outside of your mind’s sphere.

The more detail the simulation has to include, the greater the complexity, the more crunch power is needed to run it. It stands to reason to minimise unnecessary detail, while having the flexibility to add in layers of detail as required. Some examples:

Prior to the invention of the telescope, all you needed to simulate Mars was a moving red dot in the sky. Post telescope, but pre space probes, a bit more detail in the image department was required. Once the Mariner flybys and orbiting probes and landing craft like Viking, Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Phoenix, and a host of others to boot did their thing, a great more detail was required to be simulated, but of course only in those areas where the probes travelled and associated cameras pointed to.

You know there are billions of other simulated people on the simulated Planet Earth and millions of miles of simulated real estate (and tourist traps) and zillions of other simulated animated and unanimated life forms/objects inhabiting that real estate. However, you don’t have anything but the vaguest comprehension of the nitty-gritty – the fine print you know not – the details are broad-brush in the extreme. Yet if the simulated you actually goes and visits some of those square miles of real estate and interacts with the natives – animal, mineral or vegetable – then the Supreme Simulator must be able to ramp up the details, and then the fine print leaps into your focus.

Maybe however the Supreme Simulator has for the simulation an unlimited capacity and everything in existence is at the maximum level of detail required, and just because you are ignorant of the landscape detail of Mars or haven’t seen every brick in the Great Wall of China doesn’t mean that that landscape, and those bricks, exist (in the absence of your presence) in any less detail than the landscape of your backyard and the bricks that make up your home.

In any event, assuming the Supreme Simulator isn’t omnipotent and all-knowing and all-powerful then mistakes will be made. Software will need tweaking to minimise if not eliminate inconsistencies, paradoxes, contradictions, and all those nasty square pegs in round holes.

To be continued…

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

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…

I can hear the objections already. While I can’t obviously argue against objections based on personal belief that “it can’t be therefore it isn’t” or “I just refuse to accept it”, I’m open to any logical proof, even argument that “it can’t be”. If there’s anyone who can give a definitive proof (or serious argument) that we’re not the creation of someone’s (something’s) virtual reality (computer simulation, perhaps even their dream) then I’d like to hear it so I can cross this scenario off my list of things to have to worry about!

Anyway, the first obvious objection is that the entire history of the human race, maybe all life on Earth, perhaps that of our entire Universe is a very long time – far longer than any (extraterrestrial’s) dream or computer program could run for. That’s of course assuming a one-for-one correlation between our perceptions of real time vis-à-vis our dreamer’s or programmer’s perception. However, as Einstein showed, time is not absolute but different for observers relative to other observers. Regardless of that, our apparent reality could be speeded up relative to that of our (extraterrestrial) creator, such that the apparent passage of one year (our time) could be but a second or so in the lifetime of our (extraterrestrial) creator.

The second obvious objection is that explaining all that’s anomalous or unexplained (to date) in this manner could be described as a massive (in the extreme) cop out. It’s like saying ‘that’s the way it is because that’s the way God wanted it’. I acknowledge that, but that in itself doesn’t of necessity negate the theory (and I wish I could think of a way to do it).

Be that as it may…

What would the simulator’s universe be like? Who knows! When we simulate things in our computers, PCs, video games and the like, we either strive for accuracy or something pretty close to something that’s believable (as in a game) which, to be entertaining, deliberately contains fantasy elements. Thus, I would guess that if we have a simulator, then their reality isn’t going to be drastically different from what they are simulating.

If all this simulation speculation is true, what are the implications for you, or me? By analogy, do the characters in your dreams or (say) hallucinations have free will? Do they have any inkling of their fate when you wake (or sober) up?  Whether asleep or awake, when you either wake up or die, the images of people and worlds that you have created all vanish. That’s kind of akin to hitting the delete key as an analogy with a computer image. You can create worlds; you can destroy them just as easily. But presumably, if you dream about somebody you know, and you wake up, that person still exists. But, if you dream of an (assumed) imaginary person, then presumably that person goes ‘poof’ when you awaken, albeit they could still exist in your mind in your awakened state. Regardless, all such imaginary persons go ‘poof’ when you die, while real persons in your mind and dreams still exist. One rule for one situation (imaginary beings go ‘poof’) and one rule for another (real persons stick around) are suggestive that this is all a pig-in-a-poke – there’s nothing to this at all.

Then there’s the free will vs. determinism bit. I suggest that if the universe is simulated, then it’s impossible to decide that can-of-worms either way. Any decision you make could be latitude in the software allowing you to make ‘free will’ decisions, or that software could be imposed on you and your decisions are predetermined for you. You’d never know on way or the other. You might think it was your idea, your decision, your free will, but then you’d have been programmed to think that. Translated, for the most part in the global/universal scheme of things, you’re so-called ‘free will’ is at best marginal, and at worst illusionary. Have a nice day!

It all makes a sort of sense albeit in a weird or strange sort of sci-fi way. I mean, to paraphrase a rather famous observation, “the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine”.  That we (collectively) exist in a simulated Universe is probably the strangest Universe we can imagine!

For the skeptic, and that’s probably 99.9% of you, don’t be too quick to knock back the simulation idea – it might just prove to be your only ticket to an afterlife, albeit a simulated one!

There’s one other variation on this theme by the way. If some event can produce a Universe which can ultimately produce you, why not skip the middleman or middle step and just assume that you were produced directly and avoid all those time consuming in-between messy bits! Of course you would be produced directly with false memories about a family or a sunny day or this sentence you’re currently reading. Perhaps the sum total of what you call our Universe is just your brain – even your big toe is an illusion.

Conclusion:

I think it is fair to state that there are still many mysteries about the nature of reality left to explore, or continue to explore. The final word(s) has/have yet to be written, and maybe never will be.

Further reading:

Baggott, Jim; A Beginner’s Guide to Reality; Penguin Books, London; 2005:

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

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…

Using our modern civilization as our (one and only) guide, here on Planet Earth, the ratio of the real Universe, worlds and our being, relative to simulated (computer software, holograms, whatever) universes, worlds and beings is highly skewed in favor of simulations. Our Universe, our Earth, ourselves get one throw of the dice. Simulations, be they DVD games or serious scientific modeling scenarios on computers, get to throw many dice, and/or the same dice many times. Our simulations (virtual reality) are of course artificial creations and playthings. The simulations of course aren’t really real. Now ratchet up one level and maybe in turn, our Universe, worlds and selves are the creations or playthings of extraterrestrial intelligence(s) (ETI). The odds are highly skewed in favor of that. If ETI exists, you may not exist! The upshot is that this idea is apparently testable by looking for cosmological anomalies such as varying physical ‘constants’, and therefore good science.

My basic premise – not original to me I may add – is that you are a figment of someone (something) else’s imagination (who have also imagined me). You do not exist – at least not in the way that you think you do. Let’s call that someone (something) an extraterrestrial. You maybe part of an extraterrestrial’s dream. You maybe part of an extraterrestrial’s waking ‘fantasy’. You maybe part of an extraterrestrial’s computer program. But you are not real! As I noted, I’m equally unreal, but we share the same virtual / imagined / simulated time and space – early 21^st Century / Planet Earth.

You would be aware that not everything you experience has a solid foundation – reality.  Obvious examples are watching a film or TV program or playing a computer or video game. These are just images designed to briefly lull you into their virtual simulated world – which doesn’t exist. “Star Trek” doesn’t exist in reality; Captain Kirk doesn’t exist in reality. But “Star Trek” and Captain Kirk do exist in your mind, maybe in your dreams, certainly in computer software. [I’ll omit books and the printed word as a pseudo-reality because reading is akin to visualizing in your mind which you could in theory do without benefit of the book in the first place.]

A planetarium might not be a video ‘game’, but it can project you into the past or the future to experience what the night sky did, or will, look like, or perhaps show you the night sky from the ‘Planet’ Pluto or even the starry sky from a planet around another stellar system altogether – even from a set of coordinates somewhere out there in interstellar space. It’s a simulated reality we’re quite familiar with. Equally familiar is our own minds which is a medium that can equally do simulations and project you anywhere your imagination can take you.

While awake, you could visualize yourself flying through the air under your own power or any one of possibly thousands of obviously impossible (fantasy) happenings.  You don’t have to be dreaming to do this. Children often have imaginary friends. In fact, like “Alice in Wonderland” you can create and believe any number of impossible things before (far less during and after) breakfast.

Of course your dreams (nightmares sometimes) can be terribly real to you. In your dreams you can create imaginary people and places as well as visualize real people and places, albeit doing imaginary things, and as a participant, interact with this temporary micro-cosmos.

But that’s not the end of illusions designed to fake you into believing in a world that doesn’t have actual existence. You can (and probably have) created if not an entire universe, at least a micro cosmos inside your head that may, or may not have been a logical one. That applies equally whether you’re awake or asleep. And, as with a computer or video game, you can interact with that micro-cosmos that you have created.

You can interact in real time with a computer or video game, though not readily with cinema images. So if simulating a form of reality, it’s obviously better to have your simulated beings be able to interact with your simulated environments, and better still if you can interact with your ‘creations’.

So, the question is, if humans (that is, the human mind) can create imaginary worlds, whether in the form of mental images, dreams, films or computer/video games, might we in turn be the simulated creation of another mind? Let’s explore the concept of a non-supernaturally virtually created  or simulated Universe, and let us further put the emphasis on and go-with-the-computer-software idea relative to wetware (dreams and fantasies, etc.), albeit not totally ignoring that possibility. I should note that this is not an uncommon plot element in sci-fi. A recent example of extraterrestrial (ET - albeit I believe ET artificial intelligence) simulating us is the “Matrix” trilogy of films (which I personally found to be a totally confusing mess).

Anyway, the logic goes something like this. Within the observable universe, the probability is high that other extraterrestrial civilizations, with a technology equal to or greater than our own exist. Parallel with our civilization, we can assume that other intelligent technological beings would have discovered something akin to our industrial or research computers, laptops, PCs, etc. The number of possible computer software programs is no doubt vastly greater than the number of actual technological civilizations in the observational universe. I mean Earthlings are one such civilization, yet we have tens of thousands of interactive computer software, much of it entertainment or educationally driven.  That’s a lot of virtual reality, and a lot more advances probably to come – think of those holodeck programs featured in “Star Trek”.  In any event, the ratio of actual realities to virtual realities is lopsided in the extreme in favor of the virtual. So, the odds are equally as great that you, me, the entirety of our so-called reality, Planet Earth (and neighbourhood), is of the virtual kind. Thus, we have a creator (our extraterrestrial computer programmer), and I guess the word ‘God’ is as good as any for ‘our extraterrestrial father’.  Perhaps our concept of ‘God’ is nothing more than a mythological version of some advanced, but hardly supernatural, extraterrestrial computer programmer! Now as long as ET doesn’t hit the delete key!

So, what if God, She, He or whatever, were in reality a very ‘flesh and blood’ extraterrestrial computer programmer, who has written a software package called, say “Planet Earth”. Maybe it’s a computer or interactive video game – maybe a homework assignment for a smart ET student. Anyway, computer software easily explains all the Biblical miracles (virgin births; the resurrection, etc.) or anomalies (like where did all the Biblical flood rain come from; where did all the water go; how did Jonah survive inside a large fish, etc.) or inconsistencies (like Cain’s wife, the discrepancies between Biblical time and geological time). Regarding the Biblical flood by the way, no humans actually died; no animals suffered and drowned, and so on, because the humans and animals were never real to start with, just as you and I aren’t real, just part of – for want of a better analogy – a computer game simulation.

Again, let’s suppose, for argument’s sake that in the real physical Universe, there exists some tens of thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations which have evolved technology our equal or better (like way more advanced).  The odds are high that most would have invented computers – hardware and software.  Any one civilization, such as our own, have (to date) produced multi-thousands of computer programs, many of which simulate life forms – think of the hundreds, indeed thousands of computer or video games. No doubt these programs will grow, over time, ever more complex and lifelike.

If one advanced civilization produces multi-thousands of individual computer programs that simulate an actual, or imagined, reality, what are the odds that we aren’t one of those thousands vis-à-vis being that advanced civilization that actually exists? How could you know if you were real, or imaginary? I maintain there’s probably no obvious way of you knowing.

Even if there’s only a relatively few actual extraterrestrial civilizations, but untold number of created false realities – what odds we are one of the real ones and not one of the imaginary or simulated many?

Is the idea really so way out in left field that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that it could be right? We have to look to advances in our own terrestrial computing power to determine that. Computer generated simulations are already realistic enough that they are used to train pilots and MDs and other humans in professional activities where mistakes in training, if done in real situations, could be disastrous.  Our cinema industry has already produced computer generated virtual reality films, bypassing real actors and real scenery. It’s entirely possible (legal issues aside) to bring back in a sense dead actors to star again in new productions. We’ve all been awed by computer generated special effects in films that are so realistic that if you didn’t actually know better, you’d swear were real.

Walk into any DVD store and you’ll find thousands of video (computer) games and/or simulations that you can run on your PC or computer games system. Most have ‘humans’ in various role-playing guises that are software generated and which you interact with. The reality factor is increasing by leaps and bounds. At what point will the software become complex enough that these simulated ‘beings’ are advanced enough to have self awareness? What happens when the software programming these virtual ‘humans’ becomes equal to the software (brains) that program us? What happens when the computer software complexity exceeds that of the human brain? Is this far-fetched? Methinks not. Now just replace our virtual ‘humans’ with ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, we’re the virtual reality in somebody (something) else’s actual reality.

To be continued…

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…

Parallel Universes: Part Two

Parallel universes, or alternative universes or mirror universes have had a long run of popularity in science fiction and science fantasy, in both print and visual formats. One need only look at an “Alice in Wonderland” or look no further than the “Star Trek” universe (our Universe in less than obvious disguise) to view the near endless plot variations that such parallel / alternative / mirror universes provide our heroes and heroines. Do they actually exist and do they explain anything?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

As the collection of all universes is the Multiverse, and since the wave-particle duality is at the heart and soul of quantum mechanics, then it follows that perhaps quantum physics is just the physics of the Multiverse!

The double slit experiment can be (and has been) repeated with electrons, and neutrons and protons, etc. Same results! So, therefore, there must be virtual or shadow or ghost electrons and neutrons (or quark trios) and protons (or again quark trios). Now things get interesting! But before I get to that, David Deutsch never speculated above the level of shadow or ghost protons (or other elementary particles) as proof of parallel universes. The following extrapolations are my doing!

If there are virtual / shadow / ghost protons and neutrons, then there are (let’s just call them) ghost nuclei. Add your ghost electrons and you have ghost atoms, hence ghost molecules and on up the chain to… well, ghosts!

Now these parallel universe ghosts aren’t dead people, but people quite alive in said parallel universe. They could appear to us as dead acquaintances or even dead loved ones, but parallel universes aren’t of necessity identical copies of ours (recall the heads, tails and coin-on-edge example). Just because Mum is deceased in our Universe doesn’t mean she’s yet snuffed it in a parallel one.

These virtual or shadow or ghostly images don’t even have to be living things of course. There’s a long history of apparently sane and sober people seeing, quite unexpectedly, spectral images of non-living ‘things’, like a building appearing in a otherwise verified field-of-grass only.

There’s equally a long list of documented transient phenomena, unfortunately unpredictable and unverifiable - UFOs anyone?

Speaking of UFOs (as intelligently piloted vehicles from elsewhere and/or elsewhen), sceptics often will claim ‘it can’t be, therefore it isn’t’, where the ‘can’t be’ usually refers to the impossibility of interstellar spaceflight which would require faster-than-light velocities to make things practical and viable, blah, blah, blah…. Quite apart from the fact that that assessment is total nonsense as I’ve already elaborated on elsewhere, subluminal interstellar travel doesn’t, of necessity, violate any laws of physics, period. End of discussion. However, nobody, including me, says it will be easy, but that’s a different horse of another colour.

Anyway, if there can be some sort of now and again natural interaction between parallel universes, then it follows that an advanced technological race of beings (call them aliens if you will), might be able to artificially manipulate such ‘gateways’ and go exploring – not so much in time and space but as in crossing over from X-universe to a parallel Y-universe, which in distance terms might be as close to zero kilometres as makes no odds.

Cryptozoology is another ripe area potentially explainable in part at least by parallel dimensions. Take Loch Ness and its alleged monster, one of the most baffling of cases in all of cryptozoology. On the one hand, you’ve lots of seemingly credible witnesses with no axe to grind going back over many decades. Are they all lying, exaggerating, and being fooled or just hallucinating?  The odds of that are poor for the collective of all sightings. On the other hand, you have a relatively small and confined area offering little hiding room to a relatively large animal. It’s an area that has been combed many times with all the sophisticated technology we can muster – no animal. However, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to breaking point and beyond to suggest that in some parallel universe(s), plesiosaurs (or equivalent) still exist and that for some reason there is, albeit just a rarely now and again, some sort of harmonic resonance between that world and our world, and presto, a sighting of the elusive Loch Ness Monster.

Perhaps a most likely interaction between parallel universes is evident in our dreams. We often seemingly invent out of thin air quite unfamiliar people, places, and situations when dreaming, as well as finding ourselves in more familiar surroundings, albeit rarely something exactly parallel down to the Nth detail – at least that’s my experience. It’s maybe 90% familiar territory; never 100%.

If there is some sort of parallel universe interactions, your dreams could be, in a nebulous sort of way, a link with the lifestyle of your counterpart(s), and presumably said counterpart(s) now and again dream slightly unfamiliar scenarios that reflect your actual situations; your world and your lifestyle and relations.

It’s a sort of telepathy perhaps only achievable at the subconscious level when you’re asleep and all those day-to-day routines and constant mental activities can’t overwhelm that incredibly faint signal from a parallel universe(s).  

Now that’s not to say all dreams are parallel universe related, but some might be.

Since the double slit experiment with one photon at a time, produces interference patters 100% of the time, yet things like ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, even dreams, aren’t reproducible on demand, I can only conclude that it’s much easier for micro bits like photons and atoms to crossover from X-universe to Y-universe (our Universe) than it is for macro objects. But, that’s not an uncommon experience within our own world. Bacteria are vastly more common than humans – bacteria are everywhere; humans aren’t. Small things or objects can wriggle through small spaces where larger objects can not fit. It takes exceptional circumstances, an exceptional large gateway or hole between universes for a UFO or a Loch Ness Monster to make its ever so brief and unexpected appearance. So, lots of small holes or ‘gateways’ allowing lots of ghost photons (and presumably other particle types – very, very, few large holes or ‘gateways’, so actual sightings of living ghosts, etc. are very, vary rare.

Now more likely as not, it’s only a relatively few parallel universes that have a real resonance with ours. There could be other universes with physics so different that they are totally out of sight, even if not out of mind.     

Summary: The concept of parallel universes is a sound, yet novel way of explaining one of the (many) deep mysteries contained in the double slit experiment that illustrates the wave-particle duality of matter.  From that, the concept can be extrapolated or expanded to explain possible other, but more macro, anomalous phenomena.

Free Will: Reality or Illusion? Part Two

“You have to believe in free will. You have no choice”. Seriously, if our Universe is a clockwork Universe, where causality rules absolutely (as both Newton and Einstein believed), then you do not have free will, only the illusion of having free will.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now let’s take the case of human conception, through to blastula, embryo and foetus. I think one can agree that a human doesn’t need to make any decisions for the first nine months, while still in the womb. Ditto the nine months following birth, and probably another nine months after that. But sooner or later, that baby or infant will make its first decision that’s not based on fundamental body needs like ‘deciding’ to go to sleep or wet it’s diapers.

The question is what is fundamentally different about the nature of the infant before it can make its first free will choice or decision and just after? The brain, the brain chemistry, the neural nets and pathways, would be seemingly identical. The only thing I can think of is that the infant and infant’s brain/mind is receiving an ever steady input of sensory data, ultimately enough to allow the infant to make decisions – the baby wants scrambled eggs, not soft-boiled eggs. 

The ever increasing absorption of external stimuli may provide the ultimate need or desire to make choices, but it doesn’t provide the mechanism. Ultimately I don’t think there is a free will mechanism as everything is predetermined, like the computer simulation of “Life”. But does it really matter whether or not you have actual free will or the illusion of free will? It doesn’t alter how you live your life and the expectations of those unknown choices you’ll make between now and when Mother Nature makes that final choice on your behalf!

So far I’ve been muttering on as if you came to a metaphorical fork in the road and had some sort of free will to pick one path, or the other path; maybe neither path - or maybe not, if causality rules the universal roost.

There’s no free will solace in the Many Worlds Interpretation of reality; in coming to that fork in the road, because all paths, all possible choices, are enacted as the universe splits to cater for each and every one. You may think you picked one path – the high road, the low road, or the path least travelled, it makes no difference – and thus could pat yourself on the back for having free will and acted upon it, but in actual fact it was, ditto, an illusion. All paths were taken, in one world you took the high road, in another the low road, in a third world the road in-between, so no cigar, you do not pass ‘go’, you do not collect $200 free will dollars as there was no free will exhibited. 

I do have some unanswered questions. Say you have to decide between wearing that green dress or that red dress to – whatever. You set those thought chemical/physical wheels in motion. I’m not quite sure how the chemical/physical processes stay focused on the issue at hand. I mean, what if you hence decide to make scrambled eggs – nothing to do with the original green dress/red dress decision! Perhaps that’s a part of the ‘disease’ we collectively call mental illness.  

Then there’s the old hairy chestnut of if there is no free will, can people, should people, be held accountable for their behaviour? The fact that people are, obviously suggests that society as a whole has voted for the concept of free will. Whether that has ultimately a religious base (God gave us free will) I know not, but I’d bet - probably. 

Quite apart from that deterministic clockwork Universe scenario – what was set in motion at the Big Bang event 13.7 billion years ago, those initial fixed conditions, the set of particles and the laws and relationships that governed their interactions and evolution past to present to future – there are other slightly less plausible scenarios that also limit your free will if they reflect true reality.

For example, if you appear in your dreams as a character, or as a character in someone else’s dreams, your (or someone else’s) dream world representation of you, if questioned (not that that’s possible of course) about your free will, well you would reply that within the dream you were a part of (not that you would know you were a participant in a dream) that you were exhibiting free will. But of course it’s actually the dreamer’s mind that’s pulling the strings, and thus the characters (such as you) in a dream just dance to whatever tune is played out for them. No free will.

Dreams (wetware) aren’t the only form of virtual reality. There’s software, and computer generated simulations, like, say video games. The characters within, as per the dreams scenario, would tell you if they could that their actions exhibit their own free will. But of course that’s not true; the programmer and ultimately the player dictate the action and tell the character what to do. Again, there’s no free will actually exhibited by the characters.

Now, ask yourself what if our reality is actually the product of a higher reality wetware or software? That is, we’re dreamed or simulated but ultimately generated beings akin to the beings we dream about or we create via our software. We’re actually characters in someone else’s dream (let’s hope they don’t have an alarm clock set) or the product of someone (something) else’s software (let’s hope they don’t hit the delete key). If that’s so, then, we got no free will. We waltz to their wetware or software tune.

Lastly, although according to legend God gave us free will, let’s say for argument’s sake that there’s an afterlife and that we go to Heaven. Do you have free will in Heaven? That is, could you, of your own free will, commit a sin in Heaven?  

Conclusion – Regardless of what society believes, I believe free will is an illusion. Everything is preordained, much like that next scene in the movie you’ve already seen a half-dozen times before. You know what’s coming next and the characters you’re observing have no choice in the matter – no free will. Well, maybe that’s what life, the Universe, and everything is – something already recorded and set in stone. Or, like that example I gave above, “Life”, perhaps we’re a computer program or simulation with relationships and rules all set in motion, perhaps for the edification or amusement of that extraterrestrial computer programmer in the sky!