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Simulation theory: a basic definition

There is no unified theory for simulation as each interpretation has its own quirks. I am going to put forward some of my own understanding of simulation theory, through the material I’ve read over the years, in a fairly simplified discussion.

Let’s focus on the key aspects of simulation theory. A lot of my thoughts have been inspired by Rizwan Virk’s Simulation Hypothesis and The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, both incredible books.

Virk likens what he calls the ‘Great Simulation’ (reality or the world to us) to a giant multiplayer video game. Sounds ridiculous? On the surface maybe, but almost everything within our reality fits into this model.

The evolution of computer science is beginning to radically challenge ideas from traditional science and advances in technology are helping us to better understand the world around us.

Neil de Grasse famously talked with Physicist James Gates about super-symmetry and Gates shocked everyone by saying that computer code was found (having been discovered by Claude Shannon in the 1950s) in the description of super-string equations. This implies that something external to our world programmed (with known computer code) our reality. That programmer goes by the name God, the source, or whatever term you might use to describe the concept.

This theory has obviously become a lot more prominent in recent years with the advances in technology, a luxury people in centuries gone by did not have. Philip K Dick (author of Blade Runner) is considered by many to be patient zero. He had a clearly defined idea that we were living in a computer simulation (or the matrix), long before computers were even a thing. Check out his famous 1977 talk in Metz, France. One of his most important statements from the speech, “We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present – deja vu.”

The main premise of simulation theory, from a physics point of view, is that we are actually made up of computer bits (on a subatomic level). This translates to information. Information is the basis of everything. Quantum physics is helping that theory gain traction because the behavior of the building blocks that make up our reality are more consistent with a simulated reality than a material ‘base-reality’.

Another important aspect of this is quantum indeterminacy (QI). Without going into too much detail, QI represents uncertainty, the wave function, which shows that (like Schrodinger’s Cat) a particle can be in multiple states until it is observed. The wave collapses at the point of observation (making it ‘physical’).  In simple terms, the idea is that the world around is being rendered in real time, which would be an optimization technique, performed just like a computer. Without consciousness or an observer, there wouldn’t be anything there. Observation (through consciousness) makes something appear solid and certain (a particle). Just like a video game rendering what is necessary, everything else in that world is theoretical until it is observed.

The limits of the world (for instance the speed of light) are easily explained if our reality is computer-generated. A processor, through the processing of electromagnetic signals (clock speed), has limitations that would need to be imposed. This could explain why the world around us is bound by rules and parameters, predictability and precision.

We will talk about more in future posts as the topics discussed today are just the tip of the iceberg.

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