Simulation Theory proves God. Here’s how.
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Right now I am sitting under a coconut tree on the Galapagos. The story goes that it was on these islands that Charles Darwin discovered his grand theory of evolution.
People often think of evolution as being the organism adapting to its environment. However that’s not strictly true. It is the environment that adapts the organism. Or rather, organisms that can’t survive in an environment die off leaving only those suited to it alive. Survival of the fittest. Occasionally due to random genetic mutations, new species with different characteristics or features appear. This whole process is determined by nature. In the nature vs nurture debate, evolution says that nature wins.
In nature, everything has a purpose. Perhaps you don’t like that word. Then use reason. The mangroves between the ocean and the land purify the water allowing other animals to live on land. The cactus has spikes that prevented it from being eaten allowing it to survive. Other cactuses lose their spikes because those spikes revented them from being pollinated. The bees need the plants which need the bees. They are each others reason for existence. It is not just those that are fittest who survive but also those that cooperate. Survival by cooperation.
Enter us. We humans. Descended from primates. Many of us seem to talk about us as if we are a mistake of nature. They talk about us as if we are some sort of virus. Many of us have, sadly, a collective self loathing of sorts. The phrase losing faith in humanity is used often. In fact, nearly everyone talks about humanities creations (such as plastic) and say they are unnatural. How can it be unnatural when it has come from nature itself? How can anything be unnatural when everything has come from nature. Computers are built from the elements on the periodical table and plastic and glass derive from the remains of dead sea creatures. People will say things like plastic doesnt degrade. It does. But it does so in nature’s time. Everything’s natural. Including us.
However, although we are subject to the laws of nature like everything else, there seems to be something about we humans that is different. Special even. That’s not to say that we are stronger than nature. Nor better or above her. A strong flare from the sun or an asteroid would wipe us out in a flash. In fact, if we add time to the equation, it’s almost certain that out there in the vast expanse of space, there is in this very moment an asteroid on a collision course with the earth which will smash this planet into a trillion fragments wiling out all life as we know it. No, we are not above nature. But there can be no denying that there is something that we possess that animals clearly do not.
What is it and how did we get it?
Some say it is our capacity for language which allows us to share and pass down knowledge across generations, across space and time. But this is true of all animals. Others say it was our thumbs. But the iguana has a thumb. The truth is, no one knows for certain but whatever it was, this power allows us to harness and control nature in a way that animals cannot. Or rather parts of her. We are always limited in the extent with which we can manipulate nature by the limitations of our technological knowledge. We can split the atom but we don’t know how to put it back together again. At least not yet.
And perhaps it is this ability to manipulate nature that distinguishes us from animals. Biological evolution is a process by which the environment adapts the species. But we seem to have surpassed that through our ability to manipulate nature. And it is this thought that I would like to venture down.
Was it destined that once humanity managed to harness fire then the harnessing of electricity, computers, space travel and all other technologies would also come about?
It seems reasonable to assume this to be true. A computer cannot come before the harnessing of fire. Nor can a computer come without the understanding of mathematics. Space travel cannot come before understanding physics. And this also requires advanced mathematical knowledge. Everything it seems is connected in some beautiful ordered way. Of course, one might argue and say that perhaps another intelligent lifeform never created the computer.
But would that be true?
Perhaps it looks different and doesn’t use Microsoft Windows, and perhaps even it isn’t made with plastic, but it seems highly likely that they have a computer.
How can I be so sure?
Because they understand mathematics and without mathematics, one cannot understand the secrets of the universe. And computers comes as a result of understanding math (it is after all 1s and 0s.) All computers are, are a way to compute mathematical equations. And so here I posit the argument that all technological evolution must follow a a predetermined pathway and that this pathway opens up as mathematical knowledge expands. Advanced calculus cannot exist prior to simple algebra. And the computer cannot exist prior to understanding mathematics. But that once sufficient math is understood, the computer will always follow (when you add time to the equation).
So then, if what I posit above is true, then where exactly is humanity going?
Well, in recent years a new theory of reality has sprung up. Simulation theory proposes that at some point in the future humanity will have developed technology advanced enough whereby we have the capacity to create life-like simulations indistinguishable from reality. We could live inside of these simulations that feel like reality but are not actually reality. And because there can be an infinite number of these simulated world’s, yet only one ‘real’ world, then the chance of us actually living in the ‘real world’ must be 1/infinite. That makes logical sense. It’s also scary to think about.
What would it mean if we live inside of a simulation?
And what does that mean about us as conscious beings?
Does that mean we do not have free will?
All sorts of unsettling thoughts come about. However, there is a problem with this theory. But before I go into it, let us entertain the notion that we do in fact live inside of a simulation. If it is nearly certain that we are living inside of a simulation, these simulations are still always created inside of base reality. Meaning that your body must still live inside of base reality even if your mind is in a simulation. If that’s true, then why does it matter if your mind is in the simulation but your body is not if your mind cannot tell that to be true? It’s like being unsettled by the fact you cannot see radio waves with your own eyes. They are there, but you don’t know they are there.
Furthermore, each simulation that is created will always be limited by the knowledge of the simulations creator. That is to say that the simulation participants cannot discover new information unless that information was introduced by it’s creator.
But it gets even deeper.
If we add time to simulation theory, then the chance of any simulations creator being in base reality is also infinitesimally small. So we must surely then have simulations inside of simulations. However, that fundamental problem always remains, that is that, any simulation will always be limited in what it can do by it’s creators knowledge.
‘So what?’ you might say, ‘a simulation that creates a simulation has still been designed by the species living in base reality which must mean that all simulations below the first one is still ultimately limited in its knowledge. A lower simulation can never discover new information from a simulation above it.
But is that true? Quantum physics and the delayed choice experiment have shown that information about the past might disagree there. The delayed choice experiment has shown that future events can impact past ones. And entanglement theory shows that information can exist in multiple places at once.
But that is not the main problem that exists with this theory. Its biggest problem is that the theory rests upon the same logic that is used by atheists to explain the origins of life. That of simply adding time to the equation. Time is what conventional science uses to prove everything. “Gases floating in space given enough time will gravitate together, which given enough time will form planets and stars, which then given enough time form simple molecules which over time become single celled lifeforms which over time evolve into us” Ta-da! Magic. It’s similar to the analogy of monkeys on a typewriter. Given enough time, a monkey in front of a typewriter will write the entire works of Shakespeare word for word. But that it was an entire fluke. An accident of nature. And just as that accident created something beautiful, we also are a beautiful accident. In the same way we can ‘prove’ simulation theory.
But adding time to the equation hardly seems like a great way of proving theorem. Because then anything is possible. Like for example the theory that our universe is just a game given to the child of a more intelligent life form for its birthday. Perhaps that was a bad theory. What about something more ‘realistic’. Let us take humanity and project us into the future….
We have managed to escape our solar system and are at a level of technological development whereby we can traverse our galaxy with ease. Let us imagine what would happen if we came across another intelligent life form on a distant planet but that this life form was at the level of caveman.
What would we do? What are the implications when you do a certain thing?
Perhaps we would leave it alone and try and preserve this species in its natural habitat. Perhaps we would try and do that but end up interfering with them. Perhaps we would go down and enslave them. Its almost certain that in the future, something like that scenario will play out. And unless we are the most advanced species in the universe then it‘s almost certain that a species more advanced than us is watching us right now.
Surely, if we just add time to the evolutionary path of any intelligent life form that life-form will keep evolving technologically to the point where it has Godly power compared with another life form. The humanity 100,000 years ago vs humanity today. To them, would we not be seen as gods? To a species 100,000 years ahead of us, would they not be seen as GODS by us? Well, yes you might say but that doesn’t make them GODS. What about 1 million years ahead? What about a billion? Is it even possible to imagine the discoveries of species a billion years advanced than us? Well you might say that any species will just die with the end of the universe preventing them from ever reaching GODLY power. But then that would also assume that the universe ends and Einstein proved energy can never disappear, it only changes form. Thus the universe always existed and must always exist (just like religious believers say GOD does).
It seems to me that there are too many assumptions in science and they are all based around the magic of time. Time X ‘any equation’ = any possibility.
Space x time = life.
Evolution X time = humanity.
If this is true at is true then evolution multiplied by time must also equal the appearance of something indistinguishable from God. A species that has enough knowledge where it can create manipulate genetic code and create life.
Thus, if simulation theory is true, & in fact the theory of evolution, then does that mean GOD must also exist?
