From the realm of pure thought?
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?
The physical universe is a “strange loop” says the new paper titled “The Self-Simulation Hypothesis Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” from the team at the Quantum Gravity Research, a Los Angeles-based theoretical physics institute founded by the scientist and entrepreneur Klee Irwin. They take Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, which maintains that all of reality is an extremely detailed computer program, and ask, rather than relying on advanced lifeforms to create the amazing technology necessary to compose everything within our world, isn’t it more efficient to propose that the universe itself is a “mental self-simulation”? They tie this idea to quantum mechanics, seeing the universe as one of many possible quantum gravity models.
Paul Ratner, “New hypothesis argues the universe simulates itself into existence” at BigThink
According to classical reasoning, self-simulation wouldn’t make sense but maybe one must abandon classical reasoning to be in theoretical physics these days. Handy to know.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
Theories (or shall we say, speculations as I suspect they are not proposing any experimental tests for this idea?) are dime a dozen.
Their ‘hypothesis’ that “the universe simulates itself into existence”, if it is even worthy to be called a ‘hypothesis’, is self refuting nonsense. Self refuting nonsense that is on par with Krauss’s (and Dawkin’s) claim that the universe came from nothing,
And the title of the article, i.e. “the universe simulates itself into existence”, is not just hyperbole. Here are some more self-refuting quotes from the article:
Apparently the laws of logic are of little use for these guys
Moreover, the claim that “the universe simulates itself into existence” suffers from the same philosophically self-refuting logical flaw as Krauss’s claim does. Namely, it assumes the universe, rather than God, as ‘the terminus of explanation.’
They are apparently trying to make a model that is somehow compatible with panpsychism, As the article states,,
And the basic idea of panpsychism is analogous to pantheism
For them to try to build a model that is compatible with panpsychism, (and/or with pantheism), explains a lot of their confusion.
In regards to explaining the origin of the universe, Panpsychism and/or pantheism, to repeat, suffer from much the same fatal flaw as Krauss’s atheistic materialism does. As Stephen Meyer explains in this following video at the 14:25 minute mark,
Thus, (since they are committed to panpsychism), that explains why they are making such blatantly self refuting statements as “the universe “self-actualizes” itself into existence,”
It does not get any better in the article. The subtitle and first sentence of the article reads as such,,,
It is almost embarrassing to have to point this out but “simulations” are, by definition, not real but are models of what is real. So simulations, by definition, cannot be the ultimate definition for what we consider to be real.
Of related interest to differentiating what is truly real from what is merely imaginary, I touched upon that topic in a post that I had written yesterday,
Verse:
I think they are winding up at these conclusions as they realize that their was a power that brought everything into existence through pure desire or thought – they just can’t anchor it with GOD. After all, most of us think of creation as God “speaking” it into existence. Christ’s miracles: Jesus himself hinted that it was the power of sheer belief and trust (or faith) could move mountains. Since he was God, with just a thought he could reorganize matter, time, and space. But these knuckleheads keep pointing to an origin that is best explained by an all powerful and intelligent creator, but sense they don’t want to go there…. insert any ridiculous idea here – “self emergence” or a computer simulation, or a Holographic projection…etc. BTW, I believe in matter, time and space, I do not believe its an illusion or simulation. BUT, I do believe it is made by a MIND, and without that MIND, it all goes away – God holds every Atom in its vibrational state, etc.
Not sure how you simulate something that doesn’t compute.
News writes, “According to classical reasoning, self-simulation wouldn’t make sense but maybe one must abandon classical reasoning to be in theoretical physics these days. Handy to know.”
Don’t back off just as you are on the verge of hitting a home run. The whole point is that reason’s rules *take logical precedence* over scientific evidence because the former establishes the criteria for interpreting the latter in a rational way.
Quantum physics is not exempt from the law of logic or the law of causality for one simple reason: evidence does not inform reason’s rules; reason’s rules inform evidence. If it were not so, the phenomenon of quantum mechanics could never have been discovered in the first place.
A rational person already knows that a universe (even one that is eternal) could not move (or stimulate) itself for the same reason that it could not (if it were not eternal) bring itself into existence. In other words, a rational person knows that something that is not logically possible cannot suddenly become a physical reality. No amount of evidence can change that fact.
The issue is not whether theoretical physicists can abandon logic in order to do legitimate science because, clearly, they cannot. The issue is whether the theoretical physicist is a rational or an irrational person.
For some interesting possibilities that could occur in a simulated universe, see:
https://thopid.blogspot.com/2019/01/our-simulated-world.html