Pick a Verse, Any Uni-Verse: Part Two

VERSES: Well, there’s Adverse; Averse; Diverse; Inverse; Perverse; Reverse; and Universe. That’s the one we want – Universe.

PICK A UNIVERSE, ANY UNIVERSE: Well, they seem to come in a number of possible flavours.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

SUPERNATURAL UNIVERSES: These also come is a number of flavours – assuming they exist at all – like the spirit world universe where ghosts go bump in the night, the eternal afterlife in Heaven where you spend eternity plucking a harp, or the Hell universe where you don’t have to worry about the heating bills. Then there is Asgard and Valhalla too where true Norse heroes go and drink mead and prepare for Ragnarok. Then there’s the New Age and related concept of ‘higher planes of existence/reality’ theme, whatever that actually means – it’s pretty nebulous. There’s probably plenty of potential others depending on whom you ask and what mythologies you research, but you get the general gist of possibilities. I personally consign these potential supernatural universes to the rubbish bin. However, many intellects equal to and greater than mine don’t. One possible can of worms here is that a simulated universe (be it a software/computer or wetware/brain/mind variety) might use might use a supernatural universe as a role model. You might dream of Valhalla; a video game might simulate Armageddon with you caught in the middle perhaps. Therefore, a simulated universe and a supernatural universe are not mutually exclusive, since you can have a simulated supernatural universe. 

DIMENSIONALITY: Unless we actually work and play; live, breathe and eventually snuff-it in the ever so obvious 3-D Universe that we all think we do, then all bets are off. If reality is the holographic universe, then you’re 2-D and the third dimension is illusionary, no more solid than wisps of smoke, dust and gas (which actually are ‘solid’ but you know what I mean). Likewise, that third dimension is an illusion if you’re a mental construct or if you star in your very own computer game. If all there is is your mind, then I guess ‘reality’ outside of that is dimensionless! And if you reside in a supernatural universe, then it’s a case of God, or gods, only knows – you may have no reality or geometry as we know it at all.

FREE WILL: Presumably if you live in any sort of 3-D universe, even the 2-D holographic universe, including any and all manner of parallel universes, then you apparently have free will. I say apparently as you can’t actually distinguish real free will from illusionary free will. You just might be following that 100% deterministic clockwork Universe that was set into motion at the time and point of origin; you wouldn’t know. In any sort of simulated reality, if you’re an entity in same, then someone (something) else is dictating the terms, so no free will there. Presumably in a supernatural universe you’d have forfeited your free will. I mean, could you of your own free will commit a sin in heaven?

BIRTH: In any standard universe, you (the ‘I think, therefore I am’ you) were born or hatched or some such. In any simulated universe, if you exist in that simulated universe, then you must have been born into it, although that birth does not have to of necessity reflect a standard biological baby birth. In a simulation, the creator could just snap fingers, and, well there you are, fully grown, developed and functional. Of course you could be born again and again and again – and yet again. In a supernatural universe, well, assuming causality that birth must precede death, and that a supernatural universe contains only dead entities, then it’s unlikely in the extreme that you could be born into a supernatural universe!

DEATH: In any standard universe, you are born; you will die. In any simulated universe, if you are in it, then you may or may not die. There’s nothing preventing you having simulated immortality! But, assuming you die, in your dreams, in someone else’s dreams, in a computer game, then of course you can be resurrected! Or not, depending on who is doing the simulation and what their motives are. In a supernatural universe, assuming you are in one and it’s accepted that so being is akin to an afterlife, then it’s taken as given that you have passed on or passed away. However, it’s possible to be in a supernatural universe but not the afterlife part, as in that Armageddon video game referenced above.

INTERACTIONS: Interactions are the name of your game in your reality – whatever that might turn out to be. You interact with your partner, your family, your relatives, your neighbours, your pets; all manner of other people from all manner of walks of life. You in fact interact with yourself, not to mention your environment. Life, the Universe and everything interacts with you; you interact with life, the Universe and everything. Well, nearly everything. Truth be told, there are lots of things that are passive in your reality, or translated, things you don’t normally interact with. There are things that don’t affect you; things you don’t affect. In terms of this essay, you don’t interact with a painting or sculpture or a play on stage or theme park ride or film or TV episode or for that matter 99.999999% of the cosmos. Your interaction with the Andromeda Galaxy is negligible and vice versa. If you don’t interact with something, then it’s pretty irrelevant to your reality. It may as well not exist – perhaps it doesn’t. Apart from those bits and pieces I’ve noted that you do interact with, and vice versa, everything else is of no concern. For all the impact they have on your existence, they may as well not exist.

There are however some other things I’ve noted that you do interact with, or perhaps interact with you. There are those pesky wetware dreams – you interact with the characters in your dreams (and in your ‘I’m awake’ imaginations). You can interact with the characters in software generated scenarios. The question then arises, is someone (something) interacting with you in turn, you being a character in their wetware dream simulation? Is someone (something) interacting with you, you being a character in their software simulation? What ultimately is the reality of your Universe, or the Universe of your reality? Perhaps it is something not yet envisioned, thought of, or dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy or cosmology.

STAKE YOUR REALITY ODDS:  Your reality might well be existence in one universe – our Universe. Even if there is a Multiverse, or parallel universes, there still only one of you, more likely as not, in any single one of them. So, one Universe contains one you. Now that one Universe contains one Planet Earth – your home reality. Unfortunately, one Earth has generated one technological intelligence which has created thousands, even tens of thousands (or more) software simulations. So, is your reality one Universe, one Earth, or one of the thousands-plus video (software simulation) games?  Unfortunately, one Earth has also spawned all those intelligent beings, each of which dream multi-dreams per sleep interval, all of which amounts to trillions upon trillions of dream scenarios, each one of which is a simulated ‘reality’ in its own right. Even if you are one of the billions of intelligent beings, the odds are pretty good that you have also featured as a character in not only your own dreams, but in those of other people as well. Someone doesn’t of necessity have to dream of someone they know of. They can invent in their dream(s) a total stranger – that stranger could just be you! Given trillions upon trillions of dreaming ‘realities’ you can’t really be sure whether or not you are the dreamer or the dreamed (or maybe both). Similarly, are you the video game creator/player or the character within (again, maybe both)?

Now there are probably lots of terrestrial-like planets, some of which are abodes to other technologically advanced (alien) intelligences, which presumably also have given rise to their versions of wetware and software simulations.

The bottom line is that while there is one Universe, lots of civilizations, and uncountable numbers of individuals, the sum total of software simulations are probably uncountable squared; the wetware simulations uncountable cubed! Therefore, the odds favour your reality being contained within one Universe, on one abode, but ultimately therein being but a simulated entity in wetware or software.   

THE ANSWER TO YOUR REALITY & YOUR UNIVERSE: The answer is, does it ultimately really matter? Does it matter in your day-to-day existence whether you are just a simulated character in someone else’s dream fantasy universe or a simulated character in someone’s video game universe or a physical character in a really real 3-D Big Bang-Expanding-Heat Death Universe? Firstly, there’s nothing you can do about it regardless of the ultimate answer. Even if you knew for an absolute fact that you were just a character in someone’s dream, how would that change you and what you are? Secondly, regardless of the answer, it doesn’t reduce your cost of living and tax burden or having to struggle out of bed in the morning! Perhaps all possible universes are equally real and co-exist in some sort of harmony. Perhaps you should just be thankful that you have any kind of existence at all – that existence was never some absolute before-the-fact inevitability (parallel universes aside where your existence probably is inevitable in at least on of them). And as long as you firmly believe you have free will, what does it ultimately matter if, in the bigger picture of things, you don’t? It’s a case of what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Unfortunately, its human nature to want to know THE ANSWER even if it doesn’t matter or you can’t alter your fate. So, you’ve got to think the matter through for and on behalf of yourself and come up with your own ANSWER.

If I’m in near total control of my own destiny, as one having an existence in a 3-D Universe that contains a liberal dose of free will, then to be honest, tomorrow is boring! Tomorrow is pretty predictable. So as far as I’m concerned, there’s a far greater element of the unexpected if I’m being controlled by the mind set of others, since I have no idea what their game plan is – which of course they might not know themselves. That’s exciting. Who knows then what tomorrow might bring! To be, or not to be, a puppet - that is the question! The answer – well actually belief - to whether or not that’s true is up to you.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Regardless of what universe you believe to be the correct one, the one that represents actual reality, do you really have the smarts to actually analyse what Mother Nature is telling you and wrap your mind around that analysis to come to that belief? I mean, intellectually we’re good; we’re very, very, very good. But are we good enough? I further mean, we are but one species of currently multi-millions of species on Planet earth. Further, some 99% of all species that have ever existed have gone kaput! So, ultimately we (human beings; Homo sapiens) are but one of a massive number of living and extinct species. The question is, since none of the other non-human species can, or has, come to terms with ultimate questions about life, the universe and everything, what makes us think we are any the more able? I mean, could a virus or bacteria figure out what type of universe they live in and what sorts of physics dictates their existence? What about an earthworm, ant, starfish, goldfish, frog, snake, or owl? My companion feline animals haven’t a clue; ditto I’m sure their canine counterparts. Whales and dolphins ditto. Ditto likewise our closest biological relatives – apes and monkeys. What universe, and the operating forces and principles behind it, is ultimately THE universe, just might yet be beyond our comprehension. Perhaps we’ve some evolution yet to achieve before we really figure things out.

Further reading:

Woolley, Benjamin; Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality; Penguin Books, London; 1993: