The Russell Stannard Questions: Life

The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford. I consider these typical of the sorts of modern Big Questions that are part and parcel of the philosophy of modern science, especially physical science.

My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.

Q. Why is the universe life-friendly?

A. The universe is both bio-friendly and not bio-friendly. 99.999% (add a few more 9’s here) of the cosmic environment is decidedly bio-unfriendly and would snuff you out so quick-smart you wouldn’t know what hit you. Of course the cosmos is also bio-friendly otherwise you wouldn’t be here reading this. If you reject a supernatural explanation, that leaves coincidence, a multiverse, or software. Coincidence is stretching things since there are just so many dials that have to be set to a very narrow range. The multiverse appeals to probability statistics – think of those millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters one of whom will type “Hamlet” word-for-word – eventually. That leaves software, or in other words a Supreme Programmer programing our universe in a bio-friendly way. 

Q. Is there extraterrestrial life, and if so, how do we humans stand in comparison as regards intellectual capacity?

A. Given the vastness of the cosmos, and the sheer number of galaxies in the observable cosmos, and the numbers of stars per galaxy with associated solar systems and the number of planets per solar system not to mention possible rogue/orphan planets and how interstellar cosmic organic chemistry associated with life is, well, cosmic, etc., you would have to be pretty brave to bet the family farm arguing Planet Earth being the proverbial cosmic IT when it comes to life. Even going up the chain from the origin of life ‘living’ molecules to unicellular life to multicellular life to intelligent life to technologically advanced life forms and advocating extreme difficulty in getting from one step to the next step on up the line, there must be – if you’re a betting person – millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations throughout the cosmos and a goodly number in our galaxy too. Further, we humans are the new boys on the block, so the odds are that any other extraterrestrial intelligences will have been around way longer that we have, and thus have evolved greater intellectual capacity that we have yet achieved. However, the interesting bit is that once intelligence is achieved, natural selection gives way to artificial selection, and part of that artificial selection might ultimately be the transition from biological intelligence to artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence which will further evolve via artificial selection as machine intelligence designs ever better machine intelligences.



Even More Random Out Of This World Thoughts

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a potpourri of thoughts too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* I have suggested elsewhere that the Cyclopes of mythology made for excellent representations of ancient astronauts. They possessed, according to Greek legends, the ability to create high-tech weapons for the Olympians (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades), in their war against the Titans. They certainly don’t have human appearance or physiology. But another line of evidence for the Cyclopes as ancient aliens is the Tassili (Sahara Desert region of Algeria) rock art image of ‘The Great God Mars’ so named by its discoverer since this massive image appears very unworldly. Google for the image and see how closely it resembles a Cyclops in appearance.   

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* Because the Mayan people who lived in Tikal believed they came from the constellation Pleiades, Tikal's builders placed the seven most important pyramids of the Grand Plaza in the same geometric pattern as the 'seven sisters,' or seven stars comprising the Pleiades constellation. The geometric placement of structures that mirror the Pleiades at Tikal sort of mirrors the trilogy of pyramids at Giza. The pyramids mirror the placement of the stars in Orion’s Belt. Modern societies don’t lay out their buildings in stellar patterns like the ancients tended to do. So, why did Orion’s Belt, the Pleiades, and some other celestial objects like Sirius hold such sway with our ancient ancestors?

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* Might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an ExtraTerrestrial Artificial Intelligence? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. For all of their outward spindly appearance, they seem to be far stronger than their physiology would give them credit for. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot as well as being totally emotionless. When it comes to age, all seem to be the same age; there’s no sign of aging or age differentials. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. Natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to AI, including their appearance.

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* It’s been speculated that a really super advanced extraterrestrial technological civilization could literally manipulate matter and energy and create a universe from scratch (although IMHO that’s a really potentially dangerous experiment that could big bang backfire in a big bang big way). But for such an alien race, it would be far easier (and safer) to create one or more, probably more, lots more, simulated universes for fun and amusement, for study purposes or for research. The upshot is that simulated universes could exceed natural universes by multi-thousands to one. Therefore, the odds, if you’re a betting man, are that your reality is a virtual reality. 

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* In the early days of the modern ‘flying saucer’ era, the powers-that-be maintained a low key public policy of discrediting, debunking and downplaying the phenomena and the release of formally classified documents now prove (the Robertson Panel;  Project Grudge; AFR 200-2, etc.). Now one of the more really ludicrous aspects of that early era was the rise of the Contactees – people to claim to have met the handsome ‘Space Brothers’ (and equally beautiful ‘Space Sisters), been taken for rides in their spacecraft to their homes on Venus, Saturn, etc. and who spouted off realms of New Age cosmic wisdom and philosophy. Naturally, the Contactees tainted the entire ‘flying saucer’ picture. The Contactees ridiculed the entire subject. The powers-that-be couldn’t have wished for a better public distraction from the serious behind-the-scenes national security issues.

Which got me thinking about that intelligence trick of misinformation and disinformation – what if, I thought, the entire Contactee subsection of the flying saucer community was a setup in order to ridicule the entire subject matter in the eyes of the public, especially the influential public like members of congress, scientists, etc.  Now the individuals who would become the (relatively few) Contactees were poorly educated, had low incomes, and were in general towards the bottom rungs of human society and achievements. So, you can imagine some intelligence agent(s) from the CIA or NSA going up to one of these people, the great unwashed, with an offer (i.e. – a bribe) they couldn’t refuse – “how would you like to have an extra $1000 appear magically in your bank account every month for life no questions asked. All you need do is claim to have been contacted by tall, dark and handsome aliens and given rides in their flying saucers to Venus and be the recipient of all sorts of wonderful cosmic philosophies of peace, brotherhood, etc. We’ll even help you write up the books detailing your ‘experiences’ for you and you get to keep the royalties and go on radio and TV and go on tour and become famous. How does that sound?” How many people in those circumstances would say no to that? And if any did, well, accidents happen; people disappear. Who’d miss a nobody - one of the great unwashed? This is just a thought which once thought of rings a bit too close to the bone for comfort.



Dark Energy: The Ultimate Free Lunch

Science is full of surprising discoveries. One that recently won the Nobel Prize in Physics was the discovery that the Universe is not just expanding, but that expansion rate is accelerating. The cause is a mysterious and unexplained ‘dark energy’ which is ever increasing right along with the accelerating Universe. But if the Universe contains all that is and ever will be, where is this extra ‘dark energy’ coming from and is this creation out of nothing a gross violation of the basic laws and principles of physics? If yes, perhaps there’s an even more surprising alternative.

  

If you toss a ball into the air, there are two basic forces at work acting on the ball (ignoring atmospheric friction or drag of course but one can pretend there’s no atmosphere). There’s the oomph (kinetic) energy you give the ball in the upwards direction; there’s the gravitational force that pulls on the ball in the opposite direction. There are two outcomes. 

If you toss a ball up into the air, you expect just one thing to happen – the ball will go up; the ball will slow down; the ball will stop; the ball will fall back to the ground. Why? Earth‘s gravity, that’s why.

If your name is Hercules and you really toss that ball up into the air, maybe, just maybe, the ball won’t fall back down to the ground. You have given the ball enough oomph energy to overcome, though not avoid, Earth’s gravitational pull. But, even if it doesn’t fall back to ground level, even if it keeps on going up, up and away for all time, it will still be forever slowing down. Why? Earth’s gravity, that’s why.

In both scenarios the oomph you give the ball can never be enough to enable the ball to escape Earth’s gravity entirely. The ball must slow down. That’s because the gravitational pull of the Earth on the ball (and also the ball on the Earth) extends to infinity. At no point does gravity cut out. You can’t escape gravity though your energy oomph can be enough to prevent its domination – the ball doesn’t have to fall back to Earth.

Now, the absolutely one scenario you would never expect, is that if you toss the ball into the air, even if the ball didn’t fall back down to ground level if it was given really lots and lots of oomph, that the ball would somehow not only fail to slow down but would in fact speed up. If you witnessed that you’d suspect that your mind or vision was faulty. The only way the ball could accelerate away from you is if it had some sort of additional, internal energy supply (like a rocket). Since it doesn’t, it can’t.

Now apply that logic to the Universe as a whole. In the beginning the Big Bang (the explosive event of the creation) gave a certain finite amount of oomph to all the bits and pieces that make up the Universe. And thus the Universe is expanding – a standard scenario when you have an explosion. When a bomb explodes, the result is an expansion of bomb-stuff. Now all those bits and pieces have a certain finite amount of gravity. The Universe as a whole therefore has a certain finite amount of gravity.

And so we have a similar contest as per the ball’s oomph and Earth’s gravity. Now, either the combined universal gravity of all those bits and pieces will be enough to overcome the finite amount of oomph provided by the Big Bang, and the Universe, like the ball, will slow down, stop and reverse direction (becoming a contracting Universe) or the oomph will prove greater than all those combined bits and pieces gravity and the Universe will expand forever, though that expansion rate will slow down over time. The expansion rate may never reach zero, but the gravity of the bits and pieces must drag forever and ever on the overall initial oomph. The Universal expansion will slow down, albeit never to zero. Okay, like the ball and the Earth, it’s pretty much one or the other. You, as per the ball and the Earth, wouldn’t expect the expansion rate of the overall Universe to increase. That defies logic, everyday experience and basic physics.

For the Universe to accelerate, it would have to be supplied with extra energy from outside, but the Universe is everything and contains everything, there is no outside, so where can additional energy come from? It can’t, not without violating one of the most basic of all basic fundamental physical principles – you can change one form of energy into another form, but you can’t create energy from nothing. Wouldn’t it be nice to just snap your fingers; wave a magic wand, and presto, your empty gas tank is now full or your cold house is now snug and warm! You don’t get something from nothing! The common phrase is that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch!”

So the fundamental question cosmologists (astronomers who study the Universe as a whole) were interested in finding out was whether the Universe’s expansion rate was slowing down enough to cause the Universe to grind to a halt and then reverse; or not. There was never any question that the expansion rate was slowing down. It was just a question to what order of magnitude and was it enough to ultimately cause a Big Crunch.

And so it came to pass that two competing teams of astronomers embarked on a study to crunch the deceleration rate numbers; answer that question of whether the Universe will eventually cease expanding and undergo a contraction (like that ball falling back down to Earth) or not (like the ball that Hercules tossed). Nobody on either team would have bet a nickel, far less the family farm, that the answer would be none of the above. Somehow or other, the bits and pieces that make up the Universe gave the middle finger to gravity. The unthinkable became thinkable, in fact, it became fact. The Universe’s expansion rate was accelerating; therefore energy must be being created out of nothing to provide that extra gravity-defying oomph; there was such a thing as a free lunch after all! The mysterious and unknown energy source behind this unexpected phenomenon was termed ‘dark energy’.

There’s little to dispute in terms of observational evidence for the existence of ‘dark energy’, or rather the fact that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. Evidence has gone from strength to strength.

This discovery was so great, and so totally unexpected, that the team leaders were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (2011) for it. But, it must be pointed out that the recognition was for the discovery, not for the explanation. There is no explanation. You can’t adequately explain a free lunch! You need extra energy oomph to power up the acceleration rate of the Universe just like you need an extra surge of gasoline to accelerate your car. Where does that extra energy come from and keep on keeping on coming on from? Just calling that addition source ‘dark energy’ provides no explanation for the free lunch it is. There is a fundamental problem here.

How so a free lunch? Well if I have my facts right, the way ‘dark energy’ works is this. Dark energy is an intrinsic property of space that exerts a pressure that causes that space to expand, which in turn creates new space which has ‘dark energy’ as an intrinsic property which results in that space expanding thus creating more space and thus more ‘dark energy’ and so on and so on. More space means more ‘dark energy’ which means more space, etc. It’s creation out of nothing, or, it’s a free lunch. Now this notion of an expanding space alone puts me at odds with the establishment of modern cosmology. We part company here since I remain convinced the Universe is expanding through existing space. But that still leaves the acceleration rate to the expanding Universe, even if through existing space, as an anomaly.

From the Oxford Companion to Cosmology (2008) we have this snippet: “The simplest dark energy model is the cosmological constant*, which maintains a fixed density as the Universe expands. … Thus far the cosmological constant has proven capable of explaining all relevant observational data, and thus is the chosen ingredient of the standard cosmological model.”

What’s wrong with this statement? It postulates a free lunch, that’s what.

Let’s drop down a notch in scale and look at something more familiar.

To illustrate, take a pure ice cube which has a density slightly less than the pure fresh water from which it came (which is why ice cubes float in water). Say the ice cube is one inch by one inch by one inch or one cubic inch in volume. Now double the dimensions to two inches by two inches by two inches. The ice cube is now eight cubic inches in volume. The ice cube has expanded in volume -so far so good. The density of the ice cube hasn’t changed, so you have to account for the creation of the extra seven cubic inches of ice. If you can’t account for the additional seven cubic inches then something is amiss. The alternative is that the original ice cube has expanded, but no additional ice has been added, so the density of the ice cube has decreased – same amount of ice but spread over a greater volume. But that’s equally screwy. You can’t change the density of ice and still have ice. Density is a fixed parameter of the substance we call ice.

Now change the ice to water vapour and you can alter the parameters. One cubic inch of water vapour can expand to eight cubic inches of water vapour. If you don’t add extra water vapour then the density of your original cubic inch of water vapour obviously decreases in the expansion. You have less water molecules per unit of volume than you had originally. Now the Universe is like water vapour. The Universe is not one solid lump like our ice cube; rather it’s zillions of bits and pieces (like water molecules) that occupy and spread throughout an ever expanding volume. The same amount of stuff expanded into a greater volume means of necessity less density. Any high school student knows that.

You cannot have the concept of density without also talking about the density of a something (like the cosmological constant). It’s meaningless to talk about the density of nothing. That something could be matter, energy or more likely a mixture of both since it’s hard to conceive of energy-less matter or matter in an energy-less state. In fact it’s physically impossible.

But note the Oxford phrase above: “the cosmological constant, which maintains a fixed density as the Universe expands” - something’s screwy somewhere.

If we can’t accept creation of this mysterious cosmological constant ‘dark energy’ out of nothing, whatever is driving the accelerating expansion of the Universe (call it ‘dark energy’ if you must) must also be getting thinner and thinner on the ground, but that would be like easing your foot off the accelerator pedal of your car. You car would cease to accelerate and ease back to a constant velocity (in Universe terms a steady expansion rate) or a deceleration (which is what our two teams of cosmologists were trying to measure in the first place). So it’s a Catch-22. We can’t have creation out of nothing (a free lunch) – that is just not acceptable - but without it you can’t have an expanding and ever accelerating Universe which has been experimentally observed.

I used to think that ‘dark energy’ must be a variation on the theme of the vacuum energy, but I couldn’t figure out how to get a free lunch out of the vacuum energy. For the perplexed, the vacuum energy just means that even when you seemingly have nothing, a vacuum, you still have some energy present. Translated, you can’t have an absolute state of nothingness which would be a theoretical temperature of absolute zero. At the micro or quantum scale, since energy and mass are equivalent (Einstein’s famous equation), energy can be converted to mass  – usually a pair of matter-antimatter particles, which annihilate each other quick-smart returning the energy back to the environment that created them in the first place. Mass can be converted to energy. There’s no free lunch. Conservation laws and principles rule the vacuum energy roost.

Has the Universe always been expanding at an ever accelerating rate? No. There are two competing forces at work. Gravity, a pull force, and this ‘dark energy’, a kind of antigravity or push force. Over time, so the story goes, the amount of ‘dark energy’ increases as space expands. But gravity doesn’t increase. The amount of gravity the Universe has now is the amount the Universe had way back when. At the start gravity was king of the hill because there wasn’t that much space, therefore that much ‘dark energy’. However, with every passing second the amount of ‘dark energy’ increased until it finally overran gravity which was standing still or constant. At that point of intersection the acceleration began in earnest. Apparently that was some five or so billion years ago. Prior to that, the Universe was expanding but at a decelerating rate.

There are two related offshoots to this ‘dark energy’ puzzlement. One is the Big Bang itself. Now the standard cosmological model has it that the Big Bang took place in a small space; a very, very, very small space. In fact the space available was something atomic sized. You couldn’t even see our Universe with the unaided eye a micro-second prior to the Big Bang Ka-Boom it was that tiny, yet anything and everything that exists today, existed then in that tiny volume. Now the problem is that when you try to figure out the state of play with the mass of the Universe (gravity) crushed down to the size of an atom, (the realm of the quantum), the equations break down. You have no idea what the state of play was. In a broader context, the physics of gravity (general relativity) cannot be reconciled with the physics of the quantum. Thousand have tried over many decades. They were just banging their heads against a brick wall. To this day, nobody can fit the hand of gravity into the glove of quantum physics. The way I like to put it is that you apparently have two different and incompatible sets of physics software running the cosmos. That’s nuts! That too needs an explanation.

The other – well there’s an awful lot of Universe for just little old us, and an awful lot more was created (that accelerating Universe) in the time it took you to read that. It’s like having a flea housed in Buckingham Palace that’s adding additional rooms on at a rapid rate of knots. For the flea, it’s a lot of wasted space. There’s an awful lot of just about empty space between the planets; between the stars; between the galaxies; between clusters of galaxies, etc. Why do we, and any other extraterrestrial life forms that may exist, need with so much empty space and pretty much worthless real estate, nearly all of which we can’t even reach? That’s nuts. That needs an explanation, like maybe most of the Universe is just visual holographic wallpaper and has no more reality than the images on your bedroom wallpaper. Is the Universe in fact just a simulation; a virtual reality?   

The way to befuddle an artificially (simulated) intelligent ‘life’ form is to give it an unsolvable problem like dividing a number by zero; calculating the square root of a negative number; coming up with the definitive final value of Pi; or solving an unsolvable paradox like something that both is and is not at the same time; how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; or create a spherical cube. The possibilities are numerous and it’s been used many a time in sci-fi plots to demonstrate the superiority of wetware (brains) over software (silicon chips).

But what if we weren’t wetware (any more than the characters in your dreams are), but in reality software – say a simulated being – an artificial intelligence being given unsolvable puzzles to solve like quantum gravity; why is there so much Universe; why are all electrons identical; why ghosts; and how come crop circles; how can dragons and griffins be real creatures without any fossil remains; and how can a viable breeding herd of lake ‘monsters’ exist in Loch Ness for so long without absolute verification, along with other anomalies that make no apparent sense, like why the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating.

Conclusion: There’s no disputing the observations that the expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating. While that appears to be wildly improbable, a violation of natural law, that is creation from nothing – a free lunch in other words – it’s not difficult to do as a simulation. So, do we live in a simulated Universe as virtual beings?

*The cosmological constant was a concept invented by Einstein. He knew that the Universe should be contracting under its mutual gravity yet he and nearly everyone else knew (or assumed) that the Universe was static. So he needed a constant outward pressure (the cosmological constant) to balance gravity just-so to enable the Universe to be static – unchanging. So, when Einstein learned, along with the rest of the world later on down the track that the Universe wasn’t static but expanding, he called his ad hoc cosmological constant mechanism the greatest blunder of his career in science. However, the concept, though dormant post-Einstein, has never been too far from the minds of those who could resurrect it in a flash if it served their purpose, like explaining the accelerating expansion rate.

The Big Bang’s Metaphysical Baggage: Part Four

The Big Bang event is the leading scientific cosmological theory when it comes to explaining the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and simply everything. While the Big Bang event is the leading candidate and the standard model, it’s not the only one. That’s fortunate, because while a fair bit of once theoretical now verified observational evidence supports that standard cosmological model, it also comes as well with a fair bit of metaphysical baggage. It’s mainly that metaphysical baggage that concerns me.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL

So what if there is more than one expanding pre-Big Bang ‘universe’, say a pre-Big Bang Multiverse that contains lots of expanding ‘universes’. Some of these ‘universes’ are, like our own Universe, matter dominated. Some however are antimatter rich. Now say one of each start to intersect at their expanding boundaries. There will be very little direct meeting of the two minds since the matter (and antimatter) is spread thinly. It’s like you can have two galaxies collide without there being any actual collisions between the stars contained in each, because the distance between those stars is vast relative to the sizes of the stars. What does rule the roost however is the gravitational force. Slowly, but surely, the intersection starts the slow but sure collapse of all the stuff. Eventually, the bits get close enough where a few matter-antimatter annihilations take place, but that oomph drives more bits into each other’s arms and so you quickly get a chain reaction yet one that transpires in a medium still tenuous enough and a region without sufficient density to form a super-sized lump and a harmless Black Hole. Might that matter-antimatter chain reaction manifest itself as a non-quantum, macro Big Bang - our Big Bang?  

Whether this scenario is plausible or even possible I know not, but it has a nice feel to it; it just might be. Even if not, it might suggest a seed for the next generation of cosmologists, or those currently more cosmologically savvy, to pursue.

YET ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE

Lastly, here’s a wicked curve ball. What if the Big Bang is a theoretical impossibility of physics pure and simple, despite the observational evidence? There’s only one way I know of to generate convincing impossibilities – virtual reality; a simulated universe where there need be no connection at all between what you observe and what theoretically caused the various things that you observe. My scenario: the expansion; the CMBR; the ratio of hydrogen to helium, are all simulated.

Our reality, our Universe including the Big Bang (and ultimately you) is nothing but a computer-generated program, software created by some entity, probably extraterrestrial. Having set up the parameters, it’s just a matter of hitting the ‘start program’ key and seeing what happens. We humans have already done this sort of activity so there’s nothing implausible about this possibility.

Now I’ve often wondered if some great extraterrestrial computer programmer specializing in generating virtual reality worlds and universes would leave enough clues to his (its) ‘subjects’ that they in fact were just software generated virtual beings in a simulated universe. One such type of clue would be no way those virtual creations could reconcile observation with theory, as in the case of the Big Bang.

For another example we have observations of four physical forces yet no theory which unites the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force) with the one classical force – gravity. There is no viable theory of quantum gravity despite thousands of physicists searching for one over many generations now. It’s like there are two sets of different software running the Universe.

One of the many Big Bang ‘in the beginning’ predictions of theoretical things is magnetic monopoles – magnets with either a south pole or a north pole, but not both. Alas, we’ve never ever found and confirmed the reality of even one monopole. So strange is that that a new concept states that the very early Universe underwent an additional oomph of very rapid inflation which so diluted the created monopoles that there are no longer any monopoles in our neck of the woods. That does appear a bit like clutching at straws.

You have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy.

You have particles that behave both as a wave and as little billiard balls – observed but theoretically impossible in classical physics.

Speaking of particles, there are three fundamental properties of particles (like the electron, neutrinos, the numerous quarks, etc.) and their anti-particles (like the positron). They are charge, spin and mass. Despite the relatively large number of particles (including the equal and opposite anti-particles), there are only a few allowed values for charge and spin, values pretty much confined to the infield. But, for some reason, the mass (usually expressed in equivalent energy units – Einstein’s equation again) of the various particles are not only scattered throughout the ballpark but are all over the map. They take on values (albeit one value per type of particle) over many orders of magnitude without any apparent pattern or regularity or relationship between them – and nobody has the foggiest idea why, not even a validly theoretical idea. Nobody can predict from first principles what the masses should be. It’s like someone just drew a few dozens of numbers out of a hat containing multi hundreds of thousands of values and assigned them to the few dozens of particles willy-nilly. Something is screwy somewhere because something so fundamental shouldn’t be so anomalous.   

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! But a possibility from the simulated universe 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.

There are constant reports of physical constants that aren’t – constant that is. That’s totally nuts!

Then you have observations of quasars with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities) yet quasars which appear to be causality connected.

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. 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? Curiouser and curiouser.

Any and all miracles, Biblical or otherwise, are explainable as easily as saying “run program”.

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, pro or con, that can account for their observed existence or creation.

All up, perhaps some cosmic computer programmer/software writer whiz with a wicked sense of humour (a trickster ‘god’?) is laughing its tentacles 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 Big Crunch, nor with a Heat Death, but with a “are you sure you want to delete this?” message! “Yes”.

If God Isn’t God, Then Who or What is God? Part Two

In my opinion, all this Biblical nonsense boils down to a collection of myths and fairy tales for grownups. For those who really have the faith, I’m easy. But I think the concept of the Biblical God (and associated baggage) is the greatest con job ever fostered on the great unwashed. Unless, assuming that God or the gods (i.e. – Zeus, etc.) weren’t totally fabricated out of whole cloth, then maybe, just maybe, the gods, including God, are extraterrestrials.

I have argued that the concept of a supernatural, creator, all-knowing, all-powerful, God is philosophically flawed. But, there remains the question, if God isn’t really God, who is God? Well, IMHO, God isn’t God, since God is a flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial (ET)!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Some more explanations provided by a simulated universe, created by God, the extraterrestrial.

Biblical One: Explain the parting of the Red Sea in the Bible! It’s easy to do in the movies, on a computer, or in your head.

Biblical Two: Then there’s this Biblical bit about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (at least that’s the way I recall it). That’s either a tall tale or a myth or the result of a simulation. Whatever, it can’t be a physical reality. 

Biblical Three: In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing. Again, you can imagine it, but that’s about it. Likewise with any sort of miracle it’s easy to visualize the event, but infinitely harder to explain it. But, as in the case of loaves and fishes, it’s easy to write a software package that can do this multiplication feat as a simulation exercise.

Biblical Four: Heaven and Hell can be created as easily as any other sort of place, complete with either fluffy white clouds and pearly white gates; harps and haloes, or devils and pitchforks; fire and brimstone!

Biblical Five: If someone (or something) is calling the simulation shots, you could obviously and easily be resurrected or reincarnated or just allowed to cease to be (that is, deleted from the program).

Paranormal One: How can reports of a Bigfoot or a Loch Ness Monster continue for decades without physical verification as if these creatures were but phantoms? Again, it’s easy to visualize such creatures, but far harder to explain how a rather largish lake monster can elude detection in a confined lake seemingly indefinitely. All these observers can’t be totally mistaken. But what if the ‘monsters’ AND their observers are both simulations, where the ‘monsters’ are simulated to be a quasi-phantom – a sort of game to play with your simulated observers?

Paranormal Two: What about ghosts and fairies and all of their various relations? You can create them on film, in your mind, or on a computer screen, so, if you can, so could another – and create you as well in the process.

Paranormal Three: How can aliens abduct humans or mutilate cattle, decade after decade, without ever being seen? It’s easy to do in a computer simulation; difficult in reality.

Paranormal Four: That goes ditto for the English crop circles. The crop circle phenomena is totally unexplainable, but it doesn’t have to be explainable in a physical sense if it’s all a virtual reality created by an extraterrestrial intelligence including the observers who see the circles and wonder how on earth it was done.

From the examples above, I conclude that it almost seems as if someone (something) is ultimately responsible for aspects of the 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. The Universe is certainly stuffed up and if the Bible isn’t a stuffed up piece of literary work, I don’t know what is! So both the Bible and our Universe are either naturally stuffed up (The Bible because it was authored by flawed human beings and thus has nothing to do with the infallible word of God), or it was created stuffed up! If it was created stuffed up, well again, it’s because the creator was flawed flesh-and-blood, and hardly an all-knowing and all-powerful God. Our flawed creator created a simulated Universe, including all the Biblical baggage we have to try to reconcile with a perfect creator God (who, in my version, doesn’t exist).

Could there be an afterlife without a God? I suggest that if there is an afterlife, there has to be a natural as opposed to a supernatural mechanism, and that we’d be hard pressed to come up with one. While I can’t think of a completely natural explanation to account for any plausible transition from life to afterlife, I can think of a non-supernatural one, albeit it’s not totally natural. Just as it’s within the realm of possibility that we exist as software in a computer program called “Planet Earth”, so too might there be another computer program with associated software called “The Spirit World” or “The Abode of the Afterlife”. When you reach your termination as a simulated living being in “Planet Earth”, you get resurrected in “The Spirit World”. Of course in that sense there’s still a god, but a ‘god’ who just happens to be an extraterrestrial computer programmer, who could be flesh and blood, or maybe an artificial intelligence in its own right. Either way, it’s not 100% natural, but it’s certainly not supernatural. Of course for all I know there maybe other software programs with names such as “Hell” and “Heaven” or “Valhalla” or maybe dozens, hundreds even thousands of others we’ve never even conceived or heard of. I mean the virtual beings in one of our terrestrial computer or video games wouldn’t be aware that there was thousands of other computer or video games in existence with dozens more being produced and brought out each and every month.

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”.  If there’s anyone who can give a definitive proof that we’re not a creation of someone’s (something’s) virtual reality (computer simulation) then I’d like to hear it so I can cross the scenario off my list of things to have to worry about!

That specific aside, if there is any historical evidence for a god, gods or The God, then that evidence could just as easily be equally interpreted as evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence(s), whose purpose(s) or objective(s) may not be all that benign.

So my second and more likely possible answers to ‘if God isn’t God, then who is God?’ are summed up by the well known phrase ‘ancient astronauts’. God is, or was, an extraterrestrial, but not in this case the creator of a simulated universe. Rather, a being within a really real universe. Recall (the late) Arthur C. Clarke’s third law, “any sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic”, or in this context, an advanced extraterrestrial technology and alien being welding same is indistinguishable from the supernatural or a supernatural God.

If the above argument is valid, then I conclude that it’s easy to explore the nooks and crannies of our galaxy, and seeing that we have no place to run and hide, that then we indeed have been discovered by extraterrestrials. Since one or more extraterrestrial technological civilizations have already done their boldly going exploring thing, it stands to reason that at various times in our geological and historical past we would have received visitors from the stars. If one or more such occurrences happened in our historical past, there might be some suggestive evidence of same; and thus the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ has come to pass.

Erich Von Daniken, including those of a similar point of view who came before and after him, collectively had the germ of a good idea, but he, and they, IMHO got rather carried away with the concept and started seeing ancient extraterrestrial astronauts behind every pyramid and megalith in existence. Now I don’t believe for a moment that aliens, or humans assisted by aliens, built the pyramids or the statues at Easter Island or any other type of archaeological monument. Evidence suggestive of ancient astronauts will probably best be found in myths and legends, including the myths and legends central to our major religions, perhaps in advanced human knowledge of scientific concepts out of sync with that particular culture so hosting that knowledge, or in art works, or other archaeological works that are suggestive of an awareness of sky beings.

Firstly, nearly all cultures have stories and pictograms about or of sky beings, including the Australian aboriginals and American Indians. Myths and legends surrounding, say, the Greek / Roman / Norse gods can be interpreted in an ancient astronaut context (ditto for other religious beings or gods), or perhaps the Biblical ‘Wheel of Ezekiel’ is suggestive. While the etchings on the Plain of Nazca were certainly not runways, for flying saucers, they can easily be interpreted as mammoth human constructions designed to be viewed by sky beings. Why go to the trouble if sky beings weren’t really around to appreciate your efforts?

Then there’s a whole pot-full of mythological creatures – the Centaur, unicorns, the Sphinx, the Griffin, Pegasus, the Minotaur, mermaids, dragons, etc. which might be non-humanoid extraterrestrial life forms. Or, more realistically, perhaps in light of the UFO abduction and Roswell greys, are the myths and legends shared by many cultures dealing with elves, dwarfs, gnomes, the fairy-folk, the wee-people, and other smallish beings that aren’t quite human. It strikes me as more logical that these ‘wee folk’ actually exist, and that’s why all the references to, and belief in, them, exist. That is, they are really real vis-à-vis references to, and belief in them, because there is some psychological, sociological or cultural necessity to invent imaginary beings, calling it mythology (as opposed to literary fiction), or perhaps calling it religion.

In conclusion, the ‘ancient astronaut’ field is a subject ripe for detailed academic study, and the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ shouldn’t be dismissed by scholars are readily as it has been. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely any academic would put his or her career on the line by pursuing such a controversial, ‘pseudo-scientific, topic because of the ‘giggle’ factor – Pity that.

Further recommended ‘ancient astronaut’ readings:

Blumrich, Josef F.; The Spaceships of Ezekiel; Bantam Books, New York; 1974: 

Castle, Edgar W. & Thiering, Barry B. (Joint Editors); Some Trust in Chariots!!; Westbooks, Perth, W.A.; 1972:

Daniken, Erich von; Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1969:

Daniken, Erich von; Gods from Outer Space: Return to the Stars or Evidence for the Impossible; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1971:

Downing, Barry H.; The Bible & Flying Saucers; Avon Books, New York; 1968:

Drake, W. Raymond; Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East; Sphere Books, London; 1974:

Drake, W. Raymond; Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient West; Sphere Books, London; 1974:

Norman, Eric; Gods Demons and UFOs; Lancer Books, New York; 1970:

Story, Ronald; Guardians of the Universe?; New English Library, London; 1980: 

Story, Ronald; The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Daniken; Harper & Row, New York; 1976: 

Temple, Robert K.G.; The Sirius Mystery; Sidgwick & Jackson, London; 1976:

Wilson, Clifford; Crash Go the Chariots; Lancer Books, New York; 1972:

Wilson, Clifford; The Chariots Still Crash; Signet, New York; 1975:

Wilson, Clifford; The War of the Chariots; S. John Bacon, Melbourne, Victoria; 1978:

If God Isn’t God, Then Who or What is God? Part One

In my opinion, all this Biblical nonsense boils down to a collection of myths and fairy tales for grownups. For those who really have the faith, I’m easy. But I think the concept of the Biblical God (and associated baggage) is the greatest con job ever fostered on the great unwashed. Unless, assuming that God or the gods (i.e. – Zeus, etc.) weren’t totally fabricated out of whole cloth, then maybe, just maybe, the gods, including God, are extraterrestrials.

I have argued that the concept of a supernatural, creator, all-knowing, all-powerful, God is philosophically flawed. But, there remains the question, if God isn’t really God, who is God? Well, IMHO, God isn’t God, since God is a flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial (ET)!

There are two variations to that possibility.

Here’s one of those variations. What if God were in reality a very ‘flesh-and-blood’ extraterrestrial computer programmer, a 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 extraterrestrial student.

Anyway, computer software easily explains all the Biblical miracles (virgin births; the resurrection, etc.); or anomalies (like where did all the rain come from vis-à-vis the Biblical Flood, and where did all that water eventually 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, 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.

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. By parallel with our civilization, we can assume that other intelligent technological beings would have invented something akin to our 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 have one such civilization, yet we have tens of thousands of interactive computer software programs, much of it entertainment or educationally driven.  That’s a lot of virtual reality, with a lot more technological 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 and in favour 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 who art our simulator’. 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!

Again, to drive the point home, 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 (even 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/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/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 astronauts, 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.  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.

If we, Planet Earth, and our observable universe are nothing but a simulation, that can explain (or at least rationally account for) any and all anomalies (miracles?) that you care to bring up. Software (be it of the wet-ware [brains] or of the computer variety) can create any sort of simulated reality – it doesn’t even have to be logical or explainable. Here are just a few examples off the top of my head.

Astronomy One: When considering things cosmological, it’s become apparent that astronomers only observe about 4% of the matter that should be present. That is, about 96% of the matter that should be present and detectable to account for the observed behaviour of our observable universe is missing! Now 1% might be understandable givens measurement uncertainty (error bars), but hardly 96%! So, cosmologists have postulated concepts which they have termed ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to make up the deficit. However, nobody has the foggiest idea what exactly ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ actually is. Neither has actually been detected – obviously. Of course in an artificial simulated universe, one needs no correlation between cause (amount of matter) and effect (behaviour of the observable universe). In fact, it makes the programming that much simpler. By human analogy, I’m sure a detailed study of our video/computer games would show gross violations of the laws of physics. 

Astronomy Two: No astronomer can explain how galaxies form and stay formed, at least without incorporating ‘dark matter’. Yet we see them in lots of shapes and sizes. Maybe it’s as if our hypothetical simulator thought that these were sort of pretty and thus threw several billions of them into the background as decorative wallpaper.

Astronomy Three: Since the Big Bang was first documented by measuring the velocity of far away galaxies, there’s been reoccurring problems with the discovery that parts of the Universe have appeared to be older than the Universe itself (as implied by the Big Bang as documented by the velocities of galaxies) – which is a nonsense. Recalibrations have always rectified this situation, but there are still current unresolved issues here. Further, some distant objects appear to have a physical connection, yet separately each is moving at drastically different velocities. 

Physics One: Then we have the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics – both are accurate to a high degree of experimental precision, but they aren’t compatible with each other. Apparently, one (or both) of these theories must be wrong, or at best incomplete. That’s why the unification of the two (a theory of quantum gravity) is physics’ Holy Grail. However, that Holy Grail is proving as difficult to find as the Grail itself! But for the moment, it’s like the universe has two independent sets of laws, or software – one governing the very large; one the very small. This makes no natural or scientific sense. It’s beyond me how that can be if our reality is really reality, but easily explained if our reality is just someone’s simulation.

Physics Two: Within quantum physics there’s something called the wave-particle duality. That is, something can exhibit the properties of both a wave and a particle at the same time. There really is no entirely rational explanation for this, it just is.

Physics Three: Within General Relativity Theory, if there is anything unintuitive it is the fact that in the entire Universe, it is the speed of light that is absolute or fixed, not something like space or time. It’s unintuitive that all other bits and pieces in motion can be added or subtracted. So, if you are in a train that is moving at say 100 km/hour and you throw a ball at 10 km/hour in the direction at which the train is moving, to an observer outside the train, your ball is travelling at 110 km/hour. If you throw the ball towards the rear of the train, an outside observer will measure the ball as moving at 90 km/hour. If on the other hand, you shine a flashlight in the train, an outside observer will see the velocity of the resulting light beam moving at the speed of light – not the speed of plight PLUS the velocity of the train, or the speed of light MINUS the velocity of the train if you shine the flashlight towards the rear, but at the speed of light! That’s nuts, but it’s scientifically nuts and been proven again and again in any experiment you care to devise. I suggest here that a really natural universe wouldn’t have that property, and that this weird absolute in physics has been imposed on us by someone (something) else. 

Physics Four: In our Universe, there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter, but there’s not. Our antimatter has gone walkabout. While there is one viable physics explanation for this, when considering a simulated universe, it would be easy to program out the antimatter quota which makes for a less complex universe; less complex software that one needs for the simulation. Or, perhaps our simulator hadn’t realized the simulation of physical laws would have predicted antimatter hence never bothered to program it in from the get-go. 

To be continued...

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:

Cosmic Fun: Random Ramblings in Modern Cosmology: The Infinite You: Part Two

The following ideas are primarily mine alone, the good, the bad and the ugly, albeit based on and influenced by reading multi volumes of tomes in modern cosmology. However, I’m also quite sure that numerous others have quite independently thought somewhat similar, if not exact, thoughts as well. Therefore, I’ll take no credit for being right, if I don’t get blamed for being wrong!

THE INFINITE YOU (Continued from yesterday)

5) The Infinite You As A Simulation: Do you exist? I mean really, really exist and have a physical reality? That’s a pretty dumb question you’ll probably ask! The answer is an obvious ’yes’. But, what if I were to suggest that the odds are very high that you have no actual physical reality, and that I have no actual physical reality, and that in fact all terrestrial life, Planet Earth, perhaps the entire observable universe has no actual physical reality! In other words, what if we are a computer simulation!

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 (even 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/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 (hardware), or imaginary (software)? I maintain there’s no way of you knowing.

There’s only a relative few actual civilizations, but untold number of created false realities – what odds we are one of the real ones and not one of the imaginary/simulated many?

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 nobody hits the delete key!

But of course if there are multiple copies of that computer program containing you (not to mention file sharing), then that equates to a lot of you! You could exist hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times over, all leading perhaps identical, but more likely as not, similar ‘lives’. Now you quite obviously could not meet yourself as each piece of software is akin to a one universe – the collection of all the units of that software is akin to a multiverse!

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 to bring back in a sense dead actors to star again in new productions. We’ve all be 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. 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? Farfetched? 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.

That theory is testable. While I can think of no way to prove I’m not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication, we too are simulated beings. The theory is testable. No software (computer or human wetware - brains) is perfect. If there are any glitches, or software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that – the fine structure constant for example or the proton-electron mass ratio has apparently changed over astronomical time periods), or say the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate for no real apparent reason (that sounds familiar).  Computer software – from our experience – is always being upgraded / updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we’re a product of that software.

One bright note is evident. Even as you approach your own demise, take heart and rejoice, for there is another you(s) to carry on, and on, and on, and on, and on! As the sun (once upon a time) never set on the British Empire, so to will the sun never set on you.