In my previous few posts I insisted that our existence, this Universe and the things we feel, observe and relate to are not real. When we talk about this Universe as a work of fiction then it’s not a simple philosophy, its application of some of the well established theories from Quantum Mechanics.
These theories once started a great war about the very idea of reality. A war that lasted for decades between Einstein and a group of young and brilliant physicists, namely: Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli.
Quantum mechanics tells us that everything is a work of probability and within a day our well defined universe turned into something far more chaotic and unpredictable. Einstein was definitely against this concept of uncertainties, and since then our perception about this Universe has changed far beyond a normal person’s comprehension.
We don’t know for sure how big this Universe is and if out there exists some intelligent life other than us. There may be a creator after all!
But it certainly won’t be the one that everyone thinks as “GOD”!
For long we thought this universe is created for us, as if we are the center of the universe and we lived with this idea for so long that it evolved into something far more dangerous- RELIGION. But with the advancement in the field of science and when cosmologists finally discovered the process of creation it was then possible to discard the long established idea of human centric universe.
Now we know first there was gas and with some simple and yet elegant laws of physics it evolved into something quite baffling as this universe. And again thanks to physics that no matter whether we like it or not, we and everything else in this universe has to follow these laws. Once we have almost solved the mystery of evolution of universe the next big thing to decode was ‘Evolution of Life’.
People were quite sure that ‘God dropped a seed from heavens’ and that’s how life came into existence. For long evolution of life seemed complicated and people have argued that it can’t be mathematically defined. 
But in late 1970 a mathematician named Conway developed a game called ‘Game of Life’ with just three simple rules i.e., birth, death and survival and it showed how life can evolve by itself without a need of some special ingredients or divine interference. When simulations were run, creatures in game of life were far more than mere glimpse of data, they were living and reproducing. If just 3 simple rules can result into that, then imagine what would the set of rules that governs our universe can do?
Evidently from some simplest of equations we can derive something as complicated as life itself. Well, I will not argue about the evolution of life and god in this post. Let’s keep it for later and come back to REALITY.
When we talk about human centric universe then there are some physicists who strongly believe in it with their Anthropic reasoning. Anthropic Principle asks what’s the use of universe without life? Wouldn’t it be useless to have such a beauty out there with no one to comprehend it? What’s the point of having such a vast and complex creation with no intelligent life around to explore it? And thus universe exists because we exist; that universe is controlled by our existence, Really? That’s funny, even I don’t buy that. So let’s observe this universe more carefully and look for the clues that make this Universe special and not US!
In my previous post I discussed in length how our universe seems to be defined by some magical numbers (constants) and if those turned out to be slightly different then it could have resulted into a catastrophe. For example, there is a constant called Cosmological Constant which keeps this universe from falling apart, cosmological constant is tuned to 120 decimal places and is the most extreme example of fine tuning. But fortunately fine tuning problem was solved with Multiverse, all with different big bangs and different physical laws and constants. (Refer my previous post about tuning the universe to understand how critical it is to have the values which we have and thus for the very existence of the universe as we know it or for that matter the evolution of any possible intelligent life forms).
Though we have uncovered a lot about mysteries surrounding this universe but the farther we go back in time we find it hard to explain the evolution as we currently lack that ability to create the exact extreme conditions in our laboratories which existed right at the moment of Big Bang. So if you have gone through my previous post you may realize how lucky we are to be here and to experience this grand design. But obviously and unfortunately Theologists never accepted that we may exist by luck, but they argued about a universe designed by a godly creator and specially for us. A notion that even Anthropic Physicists feared to entertain. But then all the discoveries in cosmology were pointing scientists in a direction of a creator. So, is there really a creator?
Now we have some understanding about how life on earth evolved and reached to a point from where we can ask questions about our own evolution. We have seen how intelligence gradually increases, but looking at the recent discoveries in neural sciences and about brain in particular we have found that we have almost reached our maximum potential intelligence for this particular brain size, at least we as human beings. But, now we are about to enter a new phase of development, the Trans-human phase where we can self monitor and modify our intelligence and nature with the advancement of medicines and technologies.
Within a century probably we will be able to create backup copies of our memories and consciousness, can avoid aging, possibly will replace body parts with processors, living virtual life over a materialistic life, all connected to one grand consciousness.
Technological aid can take our intelligence to a next level – Super Intelligence. What is super Intelligence? Not even a single super computer today is super intelligent, super intelligence would be something like when you give it an amoeba and it contemplates Quantum Mechanics. But the computer of this century gives us an idea about super intelligence, the simulations and parallel calculations they are capable of performing.
Currently computers are simulating virtual worlds in games like World of War craft, Counter Strike, Call of Duty and many more online games. But we can expect them to simulate far more realistic and vivid environments in next fifty years or so. And probably one of those super intelligent processors will be able to simulate the whole big bang, the very start of a universe to understand the working and underlying principles that govern our universe. And if a computer is intelligent enough to simulate a whole universe then it’s quite possible that it ends up simulating far more than just a big bang and a universe, may be a world within universe, a world teeming with life.
Our whole universe could be one of those simulations that we are not aware of, but where does that leaves us? We as a part of a simulation? We being a simulation within a simulation, or probably a byproduct (not intentional) of a such simulation?
For long this idea of simulation haunted me and it may haunt some of you too, or may be it ignites a whole new curiosity. For those who are curious about this reality being an illusion, in next post we will look for the clues and use Quantum Mechanics to prove that WE AIN’T REAL, so stay tuned.
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