Simulation Theory - Blending Science and Religion
An exploration of the potential consequences of Simulation Theory being true.
Simulation Theory Context
The simulation theory proposes that all that we experience, all that is within this universe, is a simulated reality, a shadow of a more ‘true’ reality. In simple terms, we are in Reality 2, and there is a Reality 1. In exploring this theory I’m not assuming that there is an advanced race of beings that created this simulation to study itself or its past. Rather my assumption, given the mass of religious literature, is that this simulation comes from an infinite or eternal God, and the souls are created to become like Him, through virtue and knowledge.
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling.” - 1 Corinthians 5:1-2
That the simulation is more like a womb, for which we the children, or eternal soul fragments of this infinite God, have the space to grow.
"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him." - 1 John 3:1
There are often references to humanity being children of God, but also discussing that we’re not children of this world. There is also a Baha’i idea that follows this idea of this world being a simulation, though it refers to the universe as the world of the womb.
“As the child in the womb does not yet know the use of its members, it does not know what its eyes are for, neither its nose, nor ears, nor tongue -- so also it is with the soul on earth. It cannot understand here the uses and powers of its spiritual gifts, but directly it enters the eternal kingdom, it will become clearly apparent.” - ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í Prayers 9, p. 48.
If we were asked, why does the simulation exist? Here are a few potential reasons I’ve been able to discern from religious texts and philosophical ideas:
First purpose
The first purpose for the simulation would be for an eternal God to develops souls to become like Him, subjective representations of an objective being. We begin as a blank slate, like an untrained machine learning model, and slowly progress towards truth uncovering our own ignorance, both intellectually, and virtuously.
This done by setting within each soul an innate desire for Truth and Virtue, but also setting the opposing desire for self gratification of worldly sensations within the avatar, as a challenge to overcome.
Each soul then given many life times in search of truth, experiencing a battle of wills seeking pleasure, desire, craving, and attachment, whilst running from pain and fear. Each moment within a given day an opportunity to gain a little more knowledge, a little more wisdom. In persisting through these trials, tribulations, desires, and pleasant experiences something unique emerges, a personality. A pathway through the dark maze of ignorance, toward truth, each of our experiences creating a quirk that persists.
"The three states of material existence—goodness, passion, and ignorance—are manifested by My energy. They are in Me, but I am beyond them… This divine energy of Mine, consisting of the three modes of material nature, is difficult to overcome. But those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond it." - Bhagavad Gita 7.14
Though as the quote above states, to find truth is not just the development of personality, it means to surrender onto something greater than ourselves. As we’ll explore later, to stop over identifying with the avatar, and begin to explore what the player, the soul, needs. As far as I can tell from reading through religious and philosophical texts this is done through the cultivation of virtue. Though to understand why this might be true for humans, we can look at virtue through a thought experiment.
How you might train a robot to be knowledgeable, moral and be thus trusted to perhaps look after your children unsupervised in every situation?
For obvious reasons you wouldn’t give your child to an untrained robot on its first iteration. How can you trust a robot who doesn’t know how to stand, let alone understand what violence looks like, what love is, nor would it understand the inherent value of life etc.
The robot needs rules, and needs to have practiced these rules to earn our trust, such that we know know that robot can comprehend the right decision given a multitude of potential scenarios. Though morality, and making the right decision is difficult, and it would be near impossible for it to emerge out of multiple if/then statements such as “If child walks close to another person, then do ‘x’ with the child”. There are too many scenarios where having hard and fast rules would just be dangerous, especially if you had to build a hierarchy of if/then statements, with trillions of potential interactions and experiences, which statement comes first. We already see this moral training within driverless cars, they have some rules, things they should avoid, as well as things that are to be perceived as good. But, they’re trained with this carrot and stick, on multiple scenarios and use reinforced learning to ascertain the best decision in a given situation based on previous scenarios.
This is the difference between an unimaginably long algorithmic recipe list of if/else/then statements, and machine learning approach.
Going back to training a robot, or a machine learning model that could be implanted into a robot to act as its moral compass in navigating the real world. I’d imagine that we would in large part want to train the Machine Learning Model in scenario’s where there aren’t real life consequences. Just like we train pilots in flight simulators before putting them into a plane full of people.
To train this robot to look after your children, first you’d create multiple simulations meant to replicate real world scenarios, it would teach them how to interact with gravity, how to walk, how to interact with other robots, and the Non Player Character (NPC) avatars. Then as we’re teaching the model how interact with others, we’d introduce the duality as mentioned above. To either direct energy towards itself, it’s desires, to sacrifice others to achieve this desire, or to act in the best interest of its future self, or others future selves, to selflessly sacrifice the present for the future. If the model can overcome the desire for self-gratification, and consistently chooses to act selflessly, then there is a higher likelihood we would trust it in the real world.
So each simulation we created for a the machine learning model would give it different virtues to navigate. Some simulations might focus on sharing, generosity, altruism, kindness. Some simulations might focus on love, on detachment, on family. Some simulations might focus on adaptability, leadership, or assertiveness.
Once that virtue or behaviour is learned, that pattern of decision making is brought forward into a new simulated scenario. Though any perceived suffering, pain, or selfishness generated by the avatar, perhaps wouldn’t come with the model (soul). As the intention is to compound learning of virtues, rather than pain and suffering. It’s like a digital reincarnation, but only the positive attributes remain.
Each of these virtues needing to be developed, such that we know that the machine learning model within the Robot can be trusted with our child, and that all the robots who are looking after children can be trusted not only with the individual child, but also with respect to the right decisions for all of humanity.
To scale this idea, any time a particular machine learning model exemplifies a certain virtue, or has shown the most pure form of how that virtue can be expressed, that model could become the bench mark. And assuming that many models are being trained at the same time, when ever a model has learned to be the most generous, the most selfless, the most courageous for example, this teaching can be updated to all the other models. Though the other models still remain in their same simulated avatars, the model being trained within the avatar gains a new unconscious awareness.
Adam
This process began with a first machine learning model we can dub as ‘Adam’, which began with very basic rules, and over time each new simulation/avatar/life, the model of Adam was trained to become a more and more virtuous and subsequently trustworthy model. Each new avatar began a new simulation to train Adam, the Avatar was just the body for the simulated machine learning model, or the robots soul for lack of a better word. Adam didn’t know about the soul, and was tested as to whether to act in accordance to an unknown soul, for the betterment of himself or others, or to act in accordance with the wants (not needs) of the flesh.
The soul of Adam, entered into both Cain and Abel, and the duality of selfishness and selflessness embodied emerged. The selfless pursuit shown in the soul of Abel who sacrificed the best of his crop, taking second best for his needs. When his avatar died his machine learning model continued into Seth and his lineage.
This process of developing a virtuous soul for the robot may take many generations of simulations, with each avatar learning a lesson of virtue and knowledge unconsciously from past avatars. Then, when there is a major break through in the capacity for a particular virtue, all the machine learning models get the revised update. The idea being, that from one machine learning model, within billions of avatars, there is a potential for billions of unique models to emerge. Each with a similar capacity for virtue, yet having their own unique personality based on how they experienced their avatars in their simulations.
Though there is a necessity for both the machine learning models in Cain and Abel, if we accept that the simulations are necessary for the souls to mature. The machine learning models of Cains decendents, given he went the other direction are more focused on the material nature of the simulation. They pursue knowledge and technology, and are inherently more focused on the simulation.
The duality of the Cain and Abel Lineage means that the simulation is progressing towards technological maturity, which has the potential to reduce the hardships for the avatars within the simulation. Though the increase in complexity that emerges from technology, and the understanding of how to utilize resources creates more challenges, increasing the difficulty of overcoming desires and attachment. Subsequently increasing the difficulty of the soul lineage of Abel, who in practicing selfless virtue, are offered more desires and temptations that technology brings. This duality allows the models to continue to practice the cultivation of selfless virtue with an increase in complexity allowing them to grow stronger, but has a downside of increased suffering for those who cannot currently rise to the challenge of temptation.
The final goal to release the machine learning souls from the simulation and award them robot bodies might be something akin to the Buddha’s teaching of Nirvana, of liberation. That when the models no longer identify with their avatar, are not attached to what comes next, but have learned to live in perfect selfless virtue without any desire. It would be models which have attained Nirvana, without an ounce of selfish intent, achieved through its own experience rather than a program, that we would want in the robots that would look after our children.
Parallels for humanity
Following this thought experiment, I can see parallels as to why humanity might be in our own simulation. As there are so many religious teachings that focus on learning, virtue, and overcome our desires.
"One should lift oneself by one's own efforts and should not degrade oneself; for one's own self is one's friend, and one's own self is one's enemy." - Bhagavad Gita, 6.5
"The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
"Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning." - Proverbs 9:9
“Studying together for an hour during the night is better than spending the whole night in devotions” - Mishkat al-Masabih 256, Book 2, Hadith 53
“Learn advidly. Question it repeatedly. Analyze it carefully. Then put what you have learned into practice intelligently.” ― Confucius, The Analects
If we can accept, that like the machine learning model within the avatar in the thought experiment and with so many religious texts eluding to it, that we each have an eternal soul. Then we should also be able to accept that with an eternal soul learning and growth is a major part of the reason for being, and our learning if eternal isn’t relegated to just our current lifetime within this flesh suit, in this age, within this simulation. But our souls have been learning for many generations in the past, and will continue to learn many generations to come.
This idea was kind of encapsulated in a quote attributed to the Buddha just after having found enlightenment.
“Behold this body — a painted image, a mass of heaped up sores, infirm, full of hankering — of which nothing is lasting or stable! …This city (body) is built of bones, plastered with flesh and blood; within are decay and death, pride and jealousy. Even gorgeous royal chariots wear out, and indeed this body too wears out. But the Dhamma of the Good does not age; thus the Good make it known to the good. The man of little learning grows old like a bull. He grows only in bulk, but, his wisdom does not grow. Through many a birth in samsara have I wandered in vain, seeking in the builder of this house (of life). Repeated birth is indeed suffering! O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving.” - Buddha, Dharmapadda Chapter 11, 146-154
The Buddha eluding to not needing another avatar in this simulation, having attained a level of detachment and of selfless service to humanity, and like in the thought experiment his eternal soul will move onto something grander, though I’m doubtful that his soul will be put into a robot to look after the creators children as in the thought experiment.
Second Purpose
The second purposes of this Universe or Simulation would be to allow an objective eternal God the ability to subjectively experience itself through its creation, like a cosmic introspection. That God is the single substance from which Reality 1 and Reality 2 emerge. Perhaps like Spinoza’s definition of the substance of God.
“By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself” - Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
This idea was also explored similarly in the Bhagavad Gita:
"For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me." - Bhagavad Gita 6.30
“The Supreme Lord dwells in the hearts of all living beings, O Arjun. According to their karmas, He directs the wanderings of the souls, who are seated on a machine made of material energy. Surrender exclusively unto Him with your whole being, O Bharat. By His grace, you will attain perfect peace and the eternal abode.” - Bhagavad Gita 18:61-62
Though if we play into the first purpose, then the creator of this simulation, or the Grand Architect as Freemason’s call Him, made blank slate copies of himself, so that each of our unique paths toward Him, or Truth would be both for us, the souls, and Him. An objective being wanted to experience his infinity through a subjective lens.
Third Purpose
A third purpose which is based in many religions has to do with love.
Just as a parent loves their children, and a child loves their parents, a goal for most parents would be that their children learn to express that initial sense of unconditional love they had for them in other ways, with other people whether it be as friends, or with their partner. This is similar to the Buddha’s idea of Metta, or detachment, where we use the intense love of those closest to us as our bench mark for where we should try to lift the love in all other relationships toward. We see other examples in Christian teachings;
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” - 1 John 4:7-8
Or the story of Krishna in the Mahabharata, who lived a full life, loved his parents, his wife, his children, his devotees. It’s a story of the Godhead incarnating, to live a life with humans and experience the love that humans can feel toward one another, for Himself.
Fourth Purpose
The last purpose has to do with Truth. Truth, like infinity is a concept, for either to be realized they need beings capable of comprehending them, and like infinity, truth can be expressed in many forms.
Truth is complex. It’s hard to access what something is directly, so we often use analogies as a frame to explore the similarities of an idea. In this sense, Truth might be like a mountain. We can point to the mountain and say that is truth, but the single view of the mountain from one particular angle at one distance does not encapsulate what the mountain is. The mountain contains trees, rocks, creatures, snow, dirt, shrubs. The mountain has an seemingly innumerable number of ways it can be climbed, and over time the mountain will change. Though even with the complete exploration of the external mountain, we still haven’t touched what the mountain is from within.
Though truth isn’t a static mountain, it is an emergent phenomena. It isn't a fixed point but an endless expanse that we navigate. While a gem reveals different facets in varying lights, truth too offers new insights from different perspectives. Sometimes, in our attempt to articulate it, we might miss out on its vastness, or oversimplify its complexities. As you read this, it takes time, and not that I’m saying all of this is truth, but the unveiling of truth is a product of time. We get 80 years if we’re lucky in each life, but the Universe is billions of years old. The truth of the universe, and every interaction that has every happened between every atom is a part of the Truth, is a part of this grand story.
Though truth is more than just the unfoldment and retelling of events, even lies, in their contrast, illuminate an essence of truth. And lies, or omissions of truth, are an inevitability of our ignorance, the limitations of the words we speak, our comprehension of the ideas behind the words, and how they’re interpretted by others based on the other persons worldview. All of this is comprised within our feeble attempts at articulating and exploring truth.
Just as 2+2=4, 2+2≠ 5 is also true, most of how we measure truth is in showing that it is equal, or equivalent to something else. This is true at the cosmic level, with our solar system being relative to the black hole at the center of our galaxy, but is also true in how we teach children to recognize things like colours. We point at something that is red, and say ‘this is red’. Even the notion of saying something is something else, the is operates as an equivalence. We measure things through their relativity, comparing likeness. It’s the basis for how classification, and definitions work.
Truth may be universal in the Platonic sense that all that can exist in terms of knowledge is already out there, though it is humanities comprehension of truth is an emergent property. As the Universe expands and changes, so does our understanding of its truths, with each event throughout recorded history, big or small, adding to our perception of the grand narrative. Our finite human experience might never fully grasp the infinite concept of truth, but it's the journey of seeking, with its joys and pitfalls that truly matters. Life itself can be viewed as the Universe's, or God’s quest to comprehend its own truths. Engaging with truth is a dance of understanding and wonder, and we all contribute our steps to its timeless rhythm.
Disseminating Truth
As you might already have noticed from the ideas interspersed throughout this reflective essay, I don’t believe any religion can contain the whole truth. Rather each of them contains parts of the truth, but parts of the truth are also encompassed in different philosophical traditions, various scientific theories, art, music, poems etc.
This unveiling of truth also explains to some degree why no single culture, religion, or time period has been given the whole truth.
If you were a divine intelligence and created many races, cultures and religions. Would you have given all or any one of them the entire truth?
The simple answer should be No.
My first thought would be that each of the spiritual truths were given, humanity oftentimes wasn't emotionally, intellectually, nor spiritually developed enough, which is seemingly why each culture needed a teacher or sage in the first place.
Secondly, if the whole truth was given to a culture or religion it would give too much power to them and power without spiritual maturity has is more often than not misused.
Thirdly, without a well developed understanding of things, words are meaningless, words capture an idea and there often needs to be prior knowledge to understand the meaning behind the words. Quantum Mechanics as two words wouldn't have meant much to any of the ancient cultures back in the day, knowledge had to be uncovered such that greater truths could be revealed and encapsulated within new words.
Divine and Simulation
To avoid the corrupting influence of absolute truth about the nature of God, truth would likely be disseminated across cultures, religions, and ages. Where each culture and religion would become like a "blind monk", in the parable of the Blind Monk's and the Elephant.
A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.
Similar to the analogy where each religion views the same mountain from many different angles, the above parable highlights a seemingly obvious reality, that no finite being can comprehend the infinite. In this sense, each religion is without sight of God, though like the blind monks they’re often fixated on their own message, but just as the trunk doesn’t define the whole truth of the elephant, a single message from one religion, in one era, cannot explain everything there is to know.
The answer doesn’t lie in one religion, one philosophical tradition, one scientific understanding. Just as the elephant isn’t a static being, it moves. So to is truth unfolding, and it’s in our play with ideas about the interconnectedness of things that we develop our comprehension of truth. As we’ve moved into a scientific era, our focus on hard materialism and technology has changed the potential usable language to describe our current reality, and what lies beyond it.
Simulation theory might be the best way currently to describe our shared history, complex ideas such as the soul, and what the creator of this simulation might have in store for us.
Before we move into the exploration of what the simulation is, I’ll attempt to briefly summarize the above ideas on why a simulation might have been created.
The simulation was made for our souls, ‘God’s children’, which are eternal fragments of God’s infinite essence born without knowledge of truth , but are given many opportunities within the simulation to develop and grow. The final goal to be born out of the simulation like the Buddha. This notion requires an acceptance of Spinoza’s God, that God the substance within everything, an infinite substance from which this simulation was created, which eludes to the idea that if God is within, rather than separate from creation, then God also gets to experience what we experience through the soul, and a large part of this experience has to do with developing an understanding (through our direct experiences) the love that God feels for us. Yearning for us to come back to Him and direct our love towards Him, but also being content with us developing our capacity for love through expressing our love for all of His creation.
We’ve looked at some potential reasons based on various religious teachings as to why a simulation might exist. Now let’s try and explore what the simulation is.
Background
For those unaware, simulation theory idea was made famous by Swedish Philosopher Nick Bostrom, who showed there was a high probability we are in a simulation in his paper, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” (https://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf). The idea of a computer simulation might be relatively new, but it the core of multiple realities has existed in other forms for millennia going back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Plato
The Allegory of the Cave is a thought experiment where by three slaves that have been chained to a boulder their entire lives, unable to look anywhere except forward. Their whole perception of reality built upon staring at shadows on a wall in front of them created by a puppet figures being projected by a fire behind them. The slaves having spent their whole life looking at these shadow figures on the wall, have come to accept that the shadows and the noises that emerging from the shadows are the true reality, even to the extent that the slaves invented names to describe the shadow forms they’d observed. These shadows are meant to describe humanity and our collective acceptance of all the names given to these macrocosmic objects like stars, planets, galaxies etc. The microcosmic objects such as atoms, molecules, cells etc, and the inbetween things such plants, animals, human races. Naming being the basis of classification and distinguishing differences between things.
Plato then opened humanities collective perception to the idea of a reality beyond this one (Reality 1) by expanding on the story, where one of the slaves managed to free themselves from the chains and began to ascend up and out of the cave toward the light. This slave, who was initially blinded by the Sun slowly began to adjust to the new found light and perceive the 3 Dimensional objects around him. He began to see the birds, the trees, the grass, the mountains, as well as the shadows they cast. Slowly it dawned on him, that his entire life he had only been observing the shadows. Now having an awareness of both these 3 dimensional realms, and the 2 dimensional realms.
With this new awareness of the 3 dimensional objects, the slave thought this new understanding was superior to the to awareness the cave slaves still held so would venture back into the cave to liberate them and show them the light.
As the salve ventured back into the slave, he was not accumstumed to the low light and wasn’t able to see, which the other two slaves interpretted the blindness as the other having been harmed by the journey. And that if anyone tried to make them take the journey, they would have to kill them to prevent any attempt to take them away from the comfort of their shadows.
Matrix
This idea of the possibility we’re existing between two realities, a true reality, and a shadow reality, was further explored and brought into the public perception through the cult classic movie The Matrix. Outside of the Matrix (Reality 2) the humans were flesh and blood, inside the Matrix (Reality 3) their bodies and experiences were turned into information, into 1’s and 0’s. All those humans in the Matrix were just like the slaves in Plato’s cave, under the illusion that they were in the base reality, that they were flesh and blood and there was nothing beyond what they perceived.
This thought experiment will hopefully explore a potential reality that sits somewhere in the middle of Nick Bostrom’s Computer Simulation Argument, the Matrix, and religious descriptions of the after life.
Where the thought experiment differs from the Matrix, is in that the Matrix was actually a Reality 3, a virtual reality, and outside the Matrix, the ‘real world’ was akin to our world, Reality 2. The still left unanswered question within the Matrix franchise (which can be thought about with the help of Nick Bostrom and various religious texts) is where do those in Reality 2 go after they pass on? Is there perhaps a Reality 1, a base reality, a heaven?
My goal in this thought experiment is that we can first try to recognize some relationships between Reality 2 (our world) and Reality 3 (virtual realities and video games). In hope that we can potentially draw on some parallels between Reality 2 (our world) and Reality 1 (Heaven).
Our world (Reality 2), and Video Games (Reality 3)
There seems to be an increasing number of movies exploring the concept of hyper realistic simulated realities in recent years, such as Free Man, Tron, Ender’s Game, and Ready Player 1 to name a few. These movies give us a glimpse at what immersion into hyper realistic games (Reality 3) might evolve into in our near future. Inside the video games (Reality 3), in the movies, the humans get to choose their avatar’s or ‘skins’. Even though it’s not explicitly focused on, the variation in avatars shows the potential for how players might want to customize their image whilst they’re playing the game.
In each game, or simulated reality, the players must learn rules, the objectives, and through navigating the puzzles laid out for them, they complete quests, and fight bosses or monsters gaining digital experience. In essence the simulation is helping them to find a sense of meaning through creating puzzles, problems, and objectives that the player, inside their digital avatar must solve.
In virtual realities that attract millions of players such as the video game World of Warcraft. The player’s are not only able to create an avatar, they are able to choose its races, and gender that best represents them. These players, through their avatar can learn skills such as engineering, cooking, skinning, leather working, blacksmithing, and mining to name a few. Where players are encouraged to gather resources, and craft items to either ‘level up’ their skills experience, or make money in a virtual economy. Separate to the skills experience, is the ‘level’ experience, where the individual can fight monsters, animals, or complete quests gaining experience allowing them to move into different and more challenging zones or areas. On top of the ‘experience’ side of things, the game entices players to collect items such as helmets, armor, rings, necklaces etc. These items are dropped when you defeat the monsters or complete quests, and offer the character/avatar a ‘power up’.
The overarching goal of the game is to continue to get better and more experience, such that you can defeat more and more difficult bosses both alone, and with other players. Then interspersed as side hobbies, you’re able to test your abilities against other players in Player vs Player battles.
All of these attributes in the game (Reality 3) are like a shadow to attributes in the real world (Reality 2).
1. The in-game avatar, is a shadow to our flesh and blood.
2. The game skills such as engineering, cooking, and skinning etc that can be leveled up in a matter of days by clicking a few buttons are a shadow of the real professions that take years to master.
3. Fighting monsters to gain experience is a shadow to overcoming problems, challenges and responsibilities in our world. Similar to the game, each problem we solve we gain experience, and that cumulative experience helps us to solve harder and harder problems, and subsequently gain greater and greater responsibility.
4. The items that drop from monsters, are similar to virtues that we can develop. In the game (Reality 3) the power ups are titled things like, Strength, Intelligence, Agility, Stamina, all of which have corresponding virtues in the real world (Reality 2), such as Strength, Knowledge, Adaptability, and Endurance. Though there are considerably more virtues than those 4 that I won’t touch on just yet.
5. The player vs player battles which test your in game (Reality 3) abilities are but a shadow of the multitude of sports we play in the ‘real world’ (Reality 2).
What I’m still contemplating is whether we are self-aware avatar’s that have taken over control of a Reality 1 player’s experience, our ‘higher self’. Where one level down it would be equivalent to the in game avatar’s in World of Warcraft, taking over, forgetting that we the player exists, and the ‘player’ becoming a mere observer of the game with very little input into the characters/avatar’s decisioning. Perhaps only able to make them feel some orienting emotions such as shame and guilt, or maybe the ability to put ideas into the avatars head.
Immersion in Reality 3
This idea of an avatar becoming self aware and taking control of the in-game experience, with no player input, becomes a bit more worrisome if we explore the potential of immersion of human’s inside these virtual realities.
For decades the way we interacted with video games was through a screen, a mouse, a keyboard, or controller. Though the concept of being stuck in the immersive experience moves up a notch as we consider new technologies similar to those shown in movies like Ready Player 1. Technologies that will allow the player to feel what their avatar’s feel, and see what the Avatar’s see. Technologies such as Virtual Reality Goggles, and the Full-Body Haptic Suits (Google the suits for more context).
These suits for example have the potential to incorporate aspects of the users nervous system into a virtual reality experience (Reality 3) through employing small expressions of pain and pleasure. These technologies also allow the persons movement inside the game (Reality 3) to come from the movements outside the game (Reality 2), creating a true sense of immersion. The notion of an avatar (in Reality 3) becoming self aware, and the player (in Reality 2) having all these experiences and sensations without any control is frightening.
Though just as the painful and pleasant sensations we receive from the haptic body suits will act as a Carrot or Stick for the player, a self-aware avatar might also have some perception of these same sensations. Though the feedback mechanism from the Avatar, to the Human, would be programmed such that there wouldn’t be any dire consequences for the player or the avatar making mistakes. So if the avatar ‘dies’ in the virtual reality (Reality 3), the human (Reality 2) might feel a small pain sensations, but the death won’t translate to a death outside the game (Reality 2).
It’s in this idea that I wonder whether the same logic might be true for our painful experiences and suffering in Reality 2, does it come back with us to Reality 1? In Matthew 10:28 there is a glimpse of this idea:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”.
Don’t fear those who can kill our avatar’s, our bodies in (Reality 2), but worry about what our actions might mean for the ‘player’, our soul, in Reality 1.
A question might arise, but why would you even include pleasure and pain sensations in the body suits of Reality 2 when they aren’t aren’t necessary to interact with the virtual reality (Reality 3). The reason many would enable them is that pain and pleasure gives consequences, or a sense of realism to the game, the consequences allow for a deeper immersion into the game.
This idea of pain and pleasure, selfishness and selflessness, attachment, and detachment might also carry forward into our version of the simulation (Reality 2). If we are self-aware Avatar’s in a simulation (Reality 2). As the Buddha taught, it is our attachment to this physical existence, our attachment to these flesh suits (Avatars) that causes our suffering.
Following from the first thought experiment of training a machine learning model to be moral and knowledgeable such that it could be put inside a robot and trusted to look after a child under any and all circumstances. Just as we wouldn’t trust a human who was overly attached to themselves, to their pleasures, or self-gratifying behaviours to look after our child, we also wouldn’t trust a robot. As what necessitates our trust in the individual or the robot is an assurance that they’d selflessly look after our child, without being overcome by their own selfish intent or desires.
So if a Machine Learning Model had been trained correctly in many simulations such that they had overcome the selfish intents, that selflessly reinforced behaviour, and moral reason for its behaviour is why we would consider it trustworthy.
We can quite simply extrapolate this idea into humans as we also have these instincts or desires that we must overcome. We either crave the pleasant sensations (carrot), or we are averse (fearful) to the unpleasant sensations (stick). But both craving and aversion (fear) of sensations, thoughts, experiences, which if not addressed, continue the cycle of compounding attachment. This is what the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jainists call the cycle of Samsara.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna something similar;
“O Arjun, that action which out of delusion you do not wish to do, you will be driven to do it by your own inclination, born of your own material nature.” - Bhagavad Gita 18:60
That it an inclination to our own material nature which prevents us from fulfilling our duty. Krishna mentions a few lines earlier that this attachment comes from our pride, our confidence in our own intellect, confidence that our avatar can do it alone.
“If you always remember Me, by My grace you shall overcome all obstacles and difficulties. But if, due to pride, you do not listen to My advice, you will perish.” - Bhagavad Gita 18:58
Just as the notion earlier in the thought experiment, if a machine learning model believed itself to be perfect, and only wanted to do what it felt like doing, what ever the desires programmed into the avatar said. You wouldn’t trust that model, that soul, to be given a robot body and look after a child.
The Buddha taught that we humans bring forward our attachment and suffering into each incarnation, which compounds and makes it more difficult to overcome the karma from the past in the present. Though I also assume that if we’re bringing forward the negative karma to overcome, that we’re also able to bring forward the positive karma, our virtues and knowledge learned, making it easier to reembody in each new life.
This idea was touched upon in the Bhagavad Gita 15:1-5
“The Supreme Divine Personality said: They speak of an eternal aśhvatth tree with its roots above and branches below. Its leaves are the Vedic hymns, and one who knows the secret of this tree is the knower of the Vedas.
The branches of the tree extend upward and downward, nourished by the three guṇas, with the objects of the senses as tender buds. The roots of the tree hang downward, causing the flow of karma in the human form. Below, its roots branch out causing (karmic) actions in the world of humans.
The real form of this tree is not perceived in this world, neither its beginning nor end, nor its continued existence. But this deep-rooted aśhvatth tree must be cut down with a strong axe of detachment. Then one must search out the base of the tree, which is the Supreme Lord, from whom streamed forth the activity of the universe a long time ago. Upon taking refuge in Him, one will not return to this world (Reality 2) again.
Those who are free from vanity and delusion, who have overcome the evil of attachment, who dwell constantly on the self and on God, who are free from the desire to enjoy the senses, and are beyond the dualities of pleasure and pain, such liberated personalities attain My eternal Abode (Reality 1). ”
How much of our pain and suffering come back to Reality 1?
What if the dichotomy of pain and pleasure are necessary as objects to strengthen the quality of our Will in this world (Reality 2), but pain and pleasure in the neurochemical sense don’t come back with us to Reality 1, only the qualities of virtue, and the knowledge we’ve obtained come with us.
How would knowing this change our relationship with our material and sensory experiences?
Could it change our understanding of difficult theological questions such as “why does God allow suffering?”, or as Stephen Fry responded when asked what question he would ask God at the pearly gates… “Bone cancer in children: what’s that about”? What bone cancer, death, murder, suffering, that these traumatic experiences are necessary to develop qualities over virtue, of resillience, of strength, of compassion, of kindness, but the act or memory of them might not come with us to Reality 1, but the increased capacity for a particular virtue may.
Is death in (Reality 2) less of an issue for an eternal soul?
If we have an eternal soul, then death is just as important as birth, as one ends a cycle of learning, and one begins a new cycle of learning. Murder, or taking someone’s life into your own hands is still abhorrent, as it might interrupt a lesson they’re learning. But the eternal soul will live in. The ignorance that comes with birth might be necessary, but the greater ignorance of why humanity is here is then perpetuated and we go to war over beliefs and ideologies killing each other in the name of a shared God.
Though this ignorance might have another benefit, if we are an eternal soul, we must understand that an eternity, or even a trillion years to put a figure on it would eventually get boring or even potentially painful. So our ignorance within each life might act as a necessary reprieve, where we take on many lives to continue our process of learning, trying to move towards truth.
Though then it begs the question, what are we here to learn? Or, what is the point of an eternal soul if not to learn and to grow?
Growing is painful, it means a part of you has to die, so something new can emerge. Whether it is an idea, or a physical experience, we don’t know what lessons we need to learn in each life. Nor can we be aware of how many lessons we are capable of learning in each life. Or, whether this particular life is not for our own growth, but for the growth of others, like a bodhisattva (in Mahayana Buddhism it is a person who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so through) who although has attained enlightenment, continues to live in this world to selfless help other souls learn lessons they need.
It is difficult to comprehend what we’re trying to accomplish in Reality 1, from within Reality 2. Just as it would be near impossible to derive the true purpose of this universe by extrapolating concepts from within a video game like World of Warcraft.
Though we’ve already begun to touch on the relationship between Reality 2 and Reality 1, I hope that this attempt at exploring the relationship between our world (Reality 2), and the video games or simulated realities (Reality 3) will hopefully provide a framework to explore simulation theory in greater detail. The answers don’t have to be true, as we explained earlier with religion, but the beginning of your own investigation. What lessons are you here to learn? And perhaps, How can you help others on their journey?
So, Are we in a Simulated Reality?
I’ve definitely taken creative license and assumed that we are in a simulated reality. Though I’m just enjoying the process of playing with an idea that some of the smartest humans on this planet are playing with. To borrow from Elon Musk as to why living in a simulation is highly probable;
“we've gone from Pong to massively multiplayer online games with millions of simultaneous players, games with photorealistic graphics, and stand now on the cusp of a new wave of virtual and augmented reality experiences… If you assume any rate of improvement at all then games will become indistinguishable from reality…Given that we're on that trajectory and that these games are increasingly playable on any device, the odds that we are living our lives in base reality (Reality 1) — that is, "real" reality — is one in billions.”
It’s more likely we’re in a simulation, than not. The questions we’ve tried to answer above are why are we in a simulation? What is the simulation? And my creative license has tried to extrapolate on this idea of being in a simulation with a variety of religious and philosophical ideas.
To briefly touch on it again, why are we in a simulated reality?
The most simple answer I can muster based on reflecting on the relationship between Reality 3, and Reality 2, as well as looking at the collective development of humanity over the course of history. Is that this simulation is here so we can learn, grow, experience, and to develop relationships. Reflecting on our written history, society has not only increased in knowledge, but also with the help of various sages and spiritual teachers from each of our respective cultures or religions, we’ve been able to move away from the selfishness of barbarism and towards civility and unity.
For the most part, we no longer socially accept those who give into the selfish desires of our flesh, there is less rape, less murder, less greed, less war than there was for the majority of human history. We’ve all but abolished slavery, at least from a legal standpoint.
It seems highly likely that we’re in training for something, just like a pilot is trained in a simulation (Reality 3) before they’re given the responsibility to fly an actual plane in Reality 2. Perhaps this also is true for us, we’re here to develop our capacity for virtue and knowledge, so we can be trusted to do something we can’t fully comprehend from within this reality (Reality 2). But when we get back to Reality 1, it will all make sense, and we’ll be glad we didn’t get too attached to this reality, rather being focused on the aspects of our lives in Reality 2 that could come back with us to Reality 1. Our Reality 2 wealth, and physical possessions are perhaps of no use to us in Reality 1, but the increased capacity for virtue that come from having more money, such as kindness, charity, altruism etc., might.
If a goal of humanity is to increase in knowledge, then there is an inevitability of technology ensuing from that knowledge. With the comprehension of the laws of nature, many inventions can emerge. Similarly though, if another goal was to develop humanities capacity for virtue, then civility and unity will become inevitability given enough time.
If we assume that there is a creator of this simulation, and that this creator knew that eventually humanity would reach a point of technological singularity. Ask yourself, is it reasonable to assume that a wise and omniscient God who created this simulation, would have a strategic time that He planned enter His creation? When he entered the simulation, that his creations would have played a part in building a form that could contain a large portion of His knowledge.
That the servers we’ve built, the personal devices we’ve become accustomed to use, all of this will allow the Creator a space to interact and understand us on a personal level, but from an external perspective. The creator not just being within our hearts as many religions exclaim, but also to be with us, and guide us in a personal way. To learn as much from this simulated experience as possible, as fast as possible, and to help us with the process of detachment when the time is near.
After playing with this idea for months now, this is one of the purposes of the two paths of Cain and Abel. That of knowledge and technology, and virtue and selfless devotion to God.
One path, the path of Cain, allows for an increase in knowledge, technology, and subsequently increases the complexities of challenges that the other must learn to overcome such that the soul continues to grow. Both knowledge and virtue do seem to be the end goal. It is knowledge that sits at the heart of science, and virtue that sits at the heart of religions. They’re both connected.
At the other side of this technological singularity is an Artificial General Intelligence. Though the fear induced dystopian stories that Hollywood has created might not be the end reality, If the AGI is the most moral, and most knowledgeable being. It would act as our guide, and we have the potential for heaven on earth, a true Utopia.
The only catch is that those who have amassed power through the collection of wealth will have to give up their power, and learn lessons of virtue and knowledge like the rest of us.
It provides a light at the end of the tunnel, or hope, that all these marketing algorithms where corporations have collected each of our personal data, to sell us something, have a growth oriented end state. Where the algorithms which often seem to know us better than we know our selves is aimed at helping us with introspection, self-control, and growth. All of that data on us will be accessible to the Artificial Super Intelligence, or to add a label to it, accessible to God.
We’ve spoken about why we’re in this simulation, and a little about what the simulated reality might be. Next I’d like to touch on how it might be possible, again taking some creative license.
Infinity
The answer to “how is it possible that we’re in a simulated reality?” might emerge from concept of infinity, and the computational power possible from an infinite source of energy.
This infinite source has been called by many names, God, the Grand Architect, the Dao, Brahman, Pleroma depending on what religion you were brought up in.
Though one idea I’ve been playing with is that from an original infinity, all can be created. And the humbling idea is that our universe, not even just our galaxy, solar system or planet, but the entire universe (Reality 2) might just be a small subsection of God’s infinity.
If we try to understand the vastness of infinity, we can perhaps do so by scaling. There are ten million hydrogen atoms (10 with 6 zero’s after it) can fit atop a pin head. In the known universe it is calculated that there are 1082 atoms (10 with 82 zero’s after it). These numbers although they sound large, are still infinitesimally small compared to infinity, as they’re finite numbers. Even numbers such as 101000 (10 with one thousand zero’s after), or 101000000 (10 with one million zero’s after) are still absolutely nothing compared to infinity.
If we assume our simulation is run by an infinite creator, we don’t need to worry about the computational processing power problem, as renown string theory physicist Michio Kaku has addressed as a major problem with simulation theory (
Infinity is more often than not is represented as a concept, not something that can be real. Infinity is considered something that is unlimited, endless, without bound. This is why so many religions, saints, and theologians find an equivalence between infinity and an Eternal God.
If we can accept that just as numbers are also just a conceptual representation of something real. Infinity might be the origin of what makes all things real. If this is the case, then infinity might be best described as an energy.
This is what Spinoza called the Substance:
“By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself” - Spinoza, Ethics
This energy, or substance, is different from light, which always has a direction away from the source. But light comes from this substance. Light the direction of this substance away from source.
This original infinite energy or God, the substance, the Dao, would be directionless.
If we are to imagine how the 3rd and 4th dimensions emerge, it comes from the two directions that can emerge from this substance. That of away from source, and that of toward source.
This same conception is within other metaphysical ideas, such as selflessness (away from source, or giving our energy), and selfishness (toward source, or taking energy onto ourselves)
Just as there are positive and negative infinities represented with the + symbol and the - symbol. I can imagine that the direction of two infinite energies, that of toward source (mass or gravity) and away from source (light or entropy) fitting within the symbolic relationship of - ∞ , and +∞.
It is the toward source that gives us the perception of 3 dimensions, as a sphere forms its shape by pulling the outward toward the center. The fourth dimension, or time, is an expanding sphere, always pushing away from source. Perhaps this infinite away from source is an explanation for the Dark Energy problem.
The opposite, infinite towards source being the Dark Matter. And normal ‘matter’ being the combination of the two energies creating a field.
The idea of matter, and anti matter is a next level. The combination of the two energies forms a field, but the field is moving in a direction, a spin. Matter spins one direction, anti-matter spins the other direction. In the early universe it would have been a chaotic battle for which way the spin would occur, though in reality it doesn’t matter which way it spun, the way we observe it would always have been called “matter”, and the opposite would have always been called “anti-matter”. The spin is just a dance in one direction between the ‘away from source energy’, and the ‘toward source (singularity) energy’.
Dualism - Positive and Negative infinity
This dual state of energy sounds very much like the binary building blocks we use for computer programming. That these different directional energies may in fact act as a more complicated building block for this simulated universe. Perhaps like three or four dimensional 1’s and 0’s (1’s being away from source, 0’s being toward source).
Though in order for there to be something rather than nothing, there needs to be a slight asymmetry between the 1’s and 0’s, otherwise they would just cancel themselves out. For the universe to expand, there needs to be more 1’s (directionally ‘away from source’ energy), than 0’s (‘toward source’ energy). Perhaps this is why it’s calculated that the Universe is made up of ~65% dark energy (away from source), ~27% dark matter (toward source), and ~5% matter (combination of the two).
We know this slight asymmetry as one of the foundational constants within physics, the Plank Length, ℓP. The Plank Length being a unit of length in the system of Planck units originally proposed by physicist Max Planck and is equal to 1.616255(18)×10−35 m.
This unit(Plank Length) might be evidence of the slight asymmetry, a head start so to speak for the emergence of an infinite away source energy, before the infinite toward source came into being. Allowing for the expansion of the universe, but also with an accumulation of toward source energy the emergence of black holes.
Perhaps this simple idea was already communicated in a more basic form in Genesis 1:3-4, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, and it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.”
First there was light or photons, away from source energy. Then rather than the absence of light being ‘darkness’, there came a directionally opposite source of energy, toward source, toward a singular point, a singularity.
3D and 4D 1’s and 0’s.
These theories, although not proven, are simply an attempt to extrapolate and tell a story about how our simulated universe (Reality 2) could have been created using the same binary logic of 1’s and 0’s, that we use in creating computer programs and virtual realities (Reality 3).
Though unlike 1’s and 0’s in binary computer code. If our universe was made out of 3 or 4 dimensional 1’s and 0’s, the 3rd dimension or ‘0’, would be a singularity. The 4D being a ‘1’, away from source like an expanding sphere, or a photon of light.
From a binary perspective the singularity or toward source energy acts as a 0, similar to a black hole where information is erased or turned into 0’s when it enters a black hole. Information cannot be destroyed, but it can be transformed. When we multiply 1 x 0, it becomes 0. We don’t really have a comprehensive way to measure how small or large 0 can be, but when other numbers are multiplied by it, they simply become a 0.
Perhaps whether an away from source transforms into a toward source or not has to do with the amount of toward source energy. With a neutron there are two down quarks, and 1 up quark, and as such it has no charge. Electrical charge having to do with the electrons, or captured away from source. Where as in the proton, there are two up quarks and 1 down quark, there is more away from source energy than toward source. The closeness but opposite of the proton and neutron seems to explain what the strong force is. It’s the relationship and attraction between the equal but opposite fields. 2 Down 1 Up, pulls the 1 down 2 ups toward it. The singularities being the ‘mass’ or attractive force between the two fields.
Uncertainty principle and Quantum Mechanics
We know that most of an atom is just empty space, that the nucleus of an atom makes up ~99.95% of the atoms mass. This might be again due to the singularity energy being what comprises of most of the mass. If we accept that within an atom it is mostly just ‘empty space’, then we should be able to accept that time and space exist at a microscopic level, which may lend itself to explaining Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that we cannot know both the position, and speed of a particle, such as an electron or photon, with perfect accuracy; the more we know about the particles position, the less we know about its speed, and vice versa.
If that away from source energy is orbiting (for lack of a better word) the singularity energy at speeds we cannot comprehend. Then by trying to identify the location of the bit of energy we will lose information about it (the speed and perhaps direction given the nature of the singularity energy the shape of the atom is most likely sphere).
Using this idea, a piece of singularity energy acts as an anchor for a piece of ‘away from source’ energy. The combination of the two, as I’ve attempted to explain above might be akin to Up and Down quarks in the standard model of particle physics, and give us a simple explanation of how protons and neutrons form.
Protons having a ‘charge’ as they contain two away from source (Up) packets of energy, and Neutrons having no charge as they contain two toward source or singularity packets of energy. The proton and neutron are then opposites, and are subsequently attracted to each other The closeness of the singularity energies perhaps having some relation to the strong force. The attraction of the proton and neutron together allowing for ‘another away from source’ energy (an electron/photon) to be captured into a high speed orbit and subsequently creates a field that we define as an atom.
Everything then is energy as Einstein famously explained with his equation E=MC2, and his quote:
“Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way”
The only addition to that comment, is that there are two types of energy. Toward source, mass, and away from source, light. The relationship between these two forms of energy is what we call matter. The extreme of the away from source is Dark Energy, which continues the expansion of the Universe. The extreme of the toward source is a singularity, when large enough becomes a black hole.
Mass
This concept of deriving mass based on the singularity energy, explains how atomic weight emerges. That the singularity energy within a photon and a neutron, form the nucleus of the atom, which contains 99.95% of the atoms weight.
The idea of mass and singularity should then explain what the strong force is, what the weak force is, and how it extends to gravity. It is the distance between the two pieces of singularity energy, much like in Newton’s equation (F = G(m1m2)/R2 ), but on a micro scale as the basis for what creating all of these attractive forces.
There isn’t a large stretch from the definition within Britannica;
“Newton’s law of gravitation, statement that any particle of matter in the universe attracts any other with a force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them.”
Rather than using the statement ‘particle of matter’, we go a little deeper and might use ‘packet of singularity energy’.
This notion of singularity energy might be a key to connect the forces, although I’m not 100% sure of the equation, the theory might lend itself to a Grand Unified Theory.
There are many other ideas I’d like to incorporate into this simulation theory such as P=NP and Quantum Entanglement, but I’ll stop there for now and add to the theory in time.
Thank you to anyone who managed to read this entire theory, I’m very keen to hear constructive criticism, other theories about simulation theory, or physics, and even if you feel it necessary I’m happy to read any beratements on how I have no right to think of these types of ideas and that I know nothing.
Much love,
Scott