A recent physics journal paper proposes self-simulation as the origin of the universe, using a quantum gravity model:
A new hypothesis says the universe self-simulates itself in a “strange loop”. A paper from the Quantum Gravity Research institute proposes there is an underlying panconsciousness. The work looks to unify insight from quantum mechanics with a non-materialistic perspective.
How real are you? What if everything you are, everything you know, all the people in your life as well as all the events were not physically there but just a very elaborate simulation? Philosopher Nick Bostrom famously considered this in his seminal paper “Are you living in a computer simulation?,” where he proposed that all of our existence may be just a product of very sophisticated computer simulations ran by advanced beings whose real nature we may never be able to know. Now a new theory has come along that takes it a step further – what if there are no advanced beings either and everything in “reality” is a self-simulation that generates itself from pure thought?
Paul Ratner, “New hypothesis argues the universe simulates itself into existence” at Big Think (April 26, 2020) (A podcast is available.)
The paper, which appeared in Entropy in 2020, is open access.
The most significant element of this new theory is surely that it is explicitly a theory of “panconsciousness” and non-materialism.
For that reason, it bears comparison with newer theories of consciousness, which are explicitly panpsychist. Remarkably, the science world is growing comfortable with non-materialist theories of consciousness. Whether that it because materialist theories of consciousness are not providing much insight and end in absurdities or due to other causes would be hard to say at present.
(Continues at Mind Matters News.)
Takehome: It will be significant if physics journals continue to accept panpsychist and non-materialist models of the universe that recognize the reality of the mind.
You may also wish to read: When a simulated world begins to fall apart. In “Untitled Earth Sim 64,” Marie has reason to expect trouble when the simulator who explains reality to her cannot get her name right… If Marie has found God amid strange events, as her friend thinks, the God she has found is highly disorganized one.
New theory of mind offers more information, less materialism
First, let’s begin by noting a remarkable fact: Panpsychism seems to have triumphed in the area of theories of consciousness. Are there materialist theories of consciousness out there any more? Yes. But it is unclear how many of them are taken seriously. Except in pop science mags.
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The final materialist quest: A war on the reality of the mind Going to war with the very concept is an approach even George Orwell did not think up. When George Orwell wrote 1984, he addressed destroying minds, not denying their possibility and changing the language associated with them.