A simulation is a representation of something else, as a model of the Empire State building is, and an information simulation is a representation based on information. For example, a computer simulation of the weather lets us predict it, and flight simulators let pilots experience a plane without actually flying it. A simulation then represents what is real, but isn’t itself real.

The simulation hypothesis is that our world is a simulation created by computers in another physical world, as portrayed in the film The Matrix, where Morpheus says:

“What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

The hero Neo then discovers that his reality is actually a simulation of New York in 1999, fed into his brain as electrical signals by future machines in the real world, who are using humans as energy sources. Physical machines are then simulating physical events, but is that possible?

The classical processing needed to simulate a system increases exponentially with the number of particles in it because they interact, so classical computers can only calculate the behavior of a few entities (Eck, 2017), and to simulate even a couple hundred electrons would take more atoms than exist in the universe (Kendra, 2017), let alone simulating New York city or the universe. Other research finds that these calculations aren’t just implausible but logically impossible (Faizal et al., 2025), so physicists conclude that we can’t be living in a computer simulation.

Undeterred, simulation theory supporters suggest that our simulation has holes in it, so that doesn’t matter. For example, why simulate the 14 billion years of history before humans arrived, or galaxies and stars we can’t travel to, or quantum events we can’t observe? Instead of simulating a far-off galaxy, just show a dot of light so it appears real, just as movie do. Simulation theory then expects to find flaws in our reality because it is fake.

The big computer of simulation theory (Campbell, 2003) can’t calculate quantum events, so quantum theory must be flawed (Campbell, Owhadi, Sauvageau, & Watkinson, 2017), but its critics have failed to falsify it for over a century now so this is unlikely to succeed. And even if it did, finding a flaw in quantum theory would probably result in its revision rather than rejection.

If simulation theory is impossible, then machines, aliens, or our future-selves can’t create one physical world from another, but this isn’t the only version of virtualism. Annex 1 summarizes how a virtual reality can be generated by something else, and concludes that our world as a virtual reality can’t have a physical base. This excludes not only physical virtualism (the Matrix option), but also information virtualism based on hardware, and even the mind virtualism suggested by Kastrup (Kastrup, 2019). It follows that our virtual reality isn’t simulating anything physical because nothing physical can generate it.

The remaining option is quantum virtualism, that quantum events generate physical events, as proposed here. Unlike classical processing, quantum processing increases exponentially as it grows, so as space expands, it scales to match the demand, which allows a quantum network the size of our universe to generate it. Processing costs aren’t an issue, as the network of space is always active, so every moment of the past fourteen billion years happened, every far-away galaxy in our telescopes exists, and quantum events actually happen. However hard we look, in the past, far away, or microscopically, physics has found no cracks or rifts in the world we see.

Quantum reality can generate physical events because it isn’t itself physical, so it isn’t simulating itself or anything else. Our universe is on a scale we can’t imagine, so maybe we don’t know what is going on, any more than all the animals that lived and died in biological history knew that they were part of an evolution. But if we live in an evolving virtual reality, what is evolution?

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Why something exists rather than nothing is a fundamental question of metaphysics, because it doesn’t assume anything about matter, God, or the laws of physics. Russell’s answer, in a radio debate in 1948, was that the existence of our universe is just a brute fact:

“I should say that the universe is just there, and that’s all.” (see Copleston vs. Russell).

He argued that our universe just is and that’s it, so scientists at the time assumed it always was, until evidence revealed that it actually began about fourteen billion years ago, in a big bang, which re-raised the question of why it came into existence. 

Science now concludes that at a past point in time, an enormous amount of energy was injected into a small space that then expanded into our universe, and space and time probably began then as well. It was as if a switch clicked and something began, leading to the simulation hypothesis made popular by the Matrix movie.

QR5.7.1. The Simulation Hypothesis

QR5.7.2. What Is Evolution?

QR5.7.3. Why Virtual?

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Armageddon, the end of days, is the bible description of how our world ends, but in physics, the end depends on how space is curved overall. Relativity lets space curve, but doesn’t specify how it does so. A positively curved space will eventually stop expanding and contract in a big crunch, but a negatively curved space will expand faster and faster because there isn’t enough mass to stop it, ending in a big freeze. The latter was expected until cosmology discovered that space is expanding faster not slower (Cowen, 2013), so space is negatively curved.

If our space is the inner surface of an expanding hyper-bubble (2.4.1), it will have the slight negative curvature that cosmology predicts, but that doesn’t mean it will expand forever. If our universe is an expanding bubble in a quantum bulk, there are probably others, so they will eventually meet. What happens when one pocket universe, as Guth calls them, meets another?

The answer depends on whether they are made of matter or antimatter. If one matter universe meets another, they will just merge into a bigger bubble, so if our universe has already done this, it will be bigger than its own expansion allows. The alternative, that our universe meets an antimatter universe, is the Armageddon option.

What then happens when matter meets antimatter? Essentially, they destroy each other, so if a matter universe collided with an anti-matter universe, both would be destroyed to some degree. Antimatter is rare in our universe but is produced tiny amounts by cosmic rays in thunderstorms. It soon vanishes however when it meets matter, some of which probably also vanishes with it. It seems then that if our bubble universe met its antimatter equal, both could annihilate back into the quantum bulk from whence they came.

This Armageddon would spread at light speed but it could take a while, as our galaxy is an estimated 100,000 light years across, and the observable universe is 90 billion light years across. Even so, could our telescopes see it coming? Unfortunately no, as we see galaxies as they were millions of years ago. Our earth would just be there one moment and gone the next. When our world is packed away, it will be at the speed of light, with no possible warning.

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In this model, disorder increases because quantum events explore every possibility, but that also finds ordered combinations that survive. For example, when an electron discovered a stable orbit around a proton, to form a hydrogen atom, they move together so order increases. Electrons as many photons entangled illustrate the same principle, that order increases when many become one. The evolution of matter then increases order by reducing the degrees of freedom.

The evolution of atoms by nucleosynthesis in stars creates an order that exists as long as they do, not just temporarily. For example, a lead atom is 82 protons, 125 neutrons, and 82 electrons in a high order state with a half-life of millions of years, which is permanent in our terms. 

A cool fridge on a hot day needs a power supply to stay cold but lead atoms don’t need any energy to maintain their order, just an unlikely sequence of events, and eggs are the same. Matter then evolves by finding unlikely combinations that survive, not by maintaining a heat imbalance. For example, that the first matter arose when extreme light collided head-on (4.3.1) is by any standard a very unlikely event, but it produced electrons that are stable. When light that was free became bound in an electron, order increased but no energy is needed to maintain it. The evolution of matter increases order in a way that doesn’t need any more energy input. 

This conclusion doesn’t contradict the second law, which requires energy to create order, because the search for stable combinations needs energy. Atoms then lawfully formed ordered molecules, as hydrogen and oxygen gases make water, until eventually super-molecules like RNA that copy themselves led to cells, so the evolution of life followed on from the evolution of matter.

The same flux that creates disorder then allows the evolution of order. Evolution increases order by finding stable possible states while devolution increases disorder by finding stable probable states. Both have the same underlying cause, so there is no evolution without devolution.

If evolution was limited to biology, the second law would reign supreme, but it isn’t. Matter also evolves so evolution is also a universal principle. An unstoppable reality constantly shakes our universe to possibly evolve, even as it probably decays. The second law applies to machines that don’t evolve, but that mindset doesn’t explain an evolving universe. Instead of being all-powerful, devolution may be just a byproduct of evolution, as neutrinos are necessary byproducts of electrons.

The evolution of matter is an anti-entropy process that the second law doesn’t recognize, but it occurs. Evolution was built into our universe from its inception, so the grand evolution going on all around us defines it as much as physics based on heat flows. Evolution then explains what the second law can’t, that life exists because order evolved.

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The opposite of entropy is order, an unlikely state like an unbroken egg, but if order declines by universal law, why is it all around us? Day follows night, seasons cycle, and plants produce not only food but also the air we breathe, in a synergistic, self-regulating system that some call Gaiea. 

Is life on earth then just a local anomaly that bucks the universal trend? For example, a fridge that keeps beer cold on a hot day is an anomaly, but it doesn’t deny the second law because it is powered by electrical energy, so is the earth the same? It has the sun to power it but earth isn’t the only planet that orbits a star, they all do, so it may be lucky but it isn’t an anomaly. It also needs order above it as the earth could only evolve life if the sun kept its planets in order, and that required the galaxy to keep its stars in order, so if life depends on a cosmic order, it isn’t an anomaly.

Another possibility that physics allows is that the big bang was highly ordered, so life still occurs because the universe is still only half-way through its devolution:

“The ultimate source of order, of low entropy, must be the big bang itself. … The egg splatters rather than unsplatters because it is … the drive toward higher entropy … initiated by the extraordinarily low entropy state with which the universe began.” (Greene, 2004), p173-174.

In this reverse logic, our universe began very ordered because the second law is true, but that the initial chaos was highly ordered makes no sense at all. How is the white-hot plasma that came before atoms and molecules formed, let alone stars, very ordered? If there was a prize for backward thinking (Note 1), this would surely be a top contender.

Life is highly ordered, so how did it begin? Our earth is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old but for most of that time, it hosted single cell organisms like bacteria. Over two billion years ago, as continents formed and volcanoes erupted, bacteria produced oxygen in a great oxidation event, to give an atmosphere suitable for animals later. Another billion years passed, then somehow, somewhere, the seemingly impossible happened. Two cells that worked differently, archaea and bacteria, merged into the complex cell that allowed plants, animals, and us (Lane, 2015). Modern life began about half a billion years ago, not long in the earth’s timeline but a crucial event for us. The chances of life arising on earth are far beyond a trillion to one, so it took a long time, but it happened. To call the evolution of life a devolution based on a heat engine law is then ridiculous.

We arrived about three million years ago but bacteria have survived on our planet for billions of years. For example, bacteria in boxes placed outside the International Space Station for a year came back to life when they returned to earth. Under harsh conditions, some bacteria form spores that are dead metabolically but revive when conditions are right, even after many years, so they could hitch a ride on a meteor to travel between planets. The panspermia hypothesis, that life can evolve on one planet and spread to another, would then let bacteria from mars colonize the earth.

Whether this occurred or not we don’t know but bacteria exist on earth, so of the mind-boggling 160 billion planets in our galaxy, chances are that others host them too. If so, a galaxy that hosts life in many places isn’t what the second law predicts after 14 billion years of decay!

That modern life arose despite seemingly impossible odds suggests another universal principle is in operation, which is now proposed to be evolution.

Note 1. Backward thinking explains an already known answer by tweaking it to fit the facts, or the facts to fit it, so it produces no new knowledge. In contrast, forward thinking begins with a question and lets the evidence provide an answer, so it does produce new knowledge. Science is based on forward thinking not backward thinking (see Research Roadmap).

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The second law of thermodynamics explains what the first law can’t, that what is in theory reversible, in practice isn’t. For example, running a video of the earth orbiting the sun looks much the same but playing a video of an egg breaking in reverse evokes laughter. By the first law, the events of egg breaking are just as reversible as the earth’s orbit, so why doesn’t it happen? The second law provides the answer that disorder always increases or stays constant, so eggs can break but not unbreak.

Entropy is the concept that in physics describes disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. Boltzmann defined it as the number of possible microscopic states of atoms or molecules that produce a macroscopic state, so that definition is used here. For example, when a colored gas injected into an empty bottle spreads, entropy is said to increase. Initially, the gas molecules are concentrated at a point so entropy is low because only a few molecular combinations allow it. Later, after the gas spreads, a lot more the molecular combinations allow that state, so entropy is higher. The gas then spreads because more micro-state combinations allow it, so entropy increases (Figure 5.18).

In general, entropy increases as disorder increases, but while a gas injected into a bottle will probably spread over time, its molecules could by chance all move back to a point, although that is unlikely. The second law is then based probability, so it’s a statistical law not a causal law. It isn’t that objects must become more disordered, but that in a constantly changing world, they probably will. Disorder therefore prevails because it is more probable.

The second law applies because our world is like a bottle constantly shaken to disperse its contents. As Heraclitus observed thousands of years ago, reality is a flux, like a flowing river that is never the same from one moment to the next. The principle behind this flux is the first law of quantum reality (3.6.3), that it always tries every option. The second law of thermodynamics then is universal, because it is based on the quantum law of all action.

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Scientists say that energy isn’t created or destroyed because it takes other forms. For example, when a car slows down by road friction, its tires become hot and radiate heat, so kinetic energy is converted into heat energy, just as steam engine essentially convert heat energy into kinetic energy. Energy then is seen to take different forms, but there is one notable exception.

Lifting an object takes energy that dropping it releases, but where does it go to or come from? There is no heat flow so it is said to have potential energy based on its position in a gravitational field. This balances the energy books to conserve energy, but where is potential energy stored?

For example, if a rocket blasts off into an earth orbit, where did the liftoff energy go? If it then floats off into space, where is that energy stored when it leaves our solar system? Or if it crashes into a planet like Jupiter to release more energy than it took to leave earth, where did the extra energy come from? The current answer, that gravity gives and takes potential energy, assumes an unknown mechanism that lets energy be conserved when apparently, it isn’t.

In this model, energy is defined as the processing rate of transfer on the quantum network. Light then has radiant energy because it is a process spreading, and high frequencies spread it faster so they have more energy, while lower frequency are heat energy. Radiant energy is then conserved because photons are never destroyed but just restart, as processing can. Physical events restart photons in various forms, whether as light or matter, so photons are always conserved. 

Kinetic energy can also be explained by photons. When light shines on a solar sail to make it move, radiant energy is converted into kinetic energy. If the sail moves because it acquires photons that bias its distribution, this energy is also based on photons. When objects collide in empty space, kinetic energy is conserved because the photons exchanged are constant. Nuclear energy from matter is also based on photons if matter arose from light.

What then is potential energy? Potential energy is based on gravity which as Einstein deduced isn’t a force at all, so no energy is involved. Potential energy is then just a convention that maintains the machine model of thermodynamics. In contrast when a rocket leaves earth, no photons are lost, and when it crashes on Jupiter, no photons are created, so the number of photons doesn’t change.

Current physics has many conservation laws, of matter, charge, momentum, isospin, quark flavor and color but each is partial, as nuclear reactions don’t conserve matter, nor do weak interactions conserve quark flavor. Energy is also a partial law because the expansion of space doesn’t conserve it and it needs an invented potential energy to work. The only universal law of conservation is then that of photons. 

How then does the expansion of space affect this law? The answer is not at all. If our universe began with the creation of light by cosmic inflation, which was stopped by the expansion of space, the finite number of photons it created has remained constant ever since. Expanding space changed the energy of the universe but not the total number of photons in it.

Our universe then conserves light because it arose from it, but not energy because it is expanding, so the first law of thermodynamics isn’t universal. Is the second law then the same?

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Thermodynamics began as the study of heat machines like steam engines to increase their efficiency. The observation that the total energy of the machine remained constant gave the first law of thermodynamics, that energy is always conserved, and that energy always flows from hot to cold gave the second law, that energy always disperses. It followed that if our universe is a big machine, it will have a constant energy that constantly disperses.

Thermodynamics predicts that our universe has a constant energy that always disperses, to in the end give maybe one atom per cubic light year, in a big freeze that will last forever, so:

“… eventually all these over densities will be ironed out and the Universe will be left featureless and lifeless forever, it seems” (Barrow, 2007), p191.

Yet according to the big bang theory, our universe was once about the size of a tennis ball that then expanded into what it is today. But expanding a system uses up energy, just as blowing up a balloon cools the gas inside it, so the total energy of our universe isn’t constant but decreasing.

This cooling effect is illustrated by cosmic microwave background, which was once white hot but is now freezing cold. Space expands everywhere, so every photon in the universe has a slightly longer wavelength today than it did yesterday, and so less energy. Expanding space takes energy from light and doesn’t give it back, so the total energy of our universe is reducing.

Does this then deny the principle of conservation of energy? Not necessarily, as if the universe isn’t a closed system, the laws of heat machines don’t apply to it. But if our universe doesn’t conserve energy because it is expanding, does it conserve anything else? 

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This section examines the prediction that order always decreases. Thermodynamics requires every closed system to become more disordered over time, so disorder should constantly increase in our universe, but according to Strogatz, what we see today denies this:

“Scientists have often been baffled by the existence of spontaneous order in the universe. The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite, that nature should inexorably degenerate toward a state of greater disorder, greater entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures—galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings—that have all somehow managed to assemble themselves.” (Strogatz, 2003).

If our universe is always increasing disorder, how did fourteen billion years of more chaos produce the order we see today? That is like waking up in a warm bed with an electric blanket and being told that humans have been constantly devolving since they lived in caves. It doesn’t make sense, so either thermodynamics is wrong or something else is opposing it.

QR5.6.1. Is Energy Conserved?

QR5.6.2. What Is Conserved?

QR5.6.3. Disorder is Probable

QR5.6.4. Order is Possible

QR5.6.5. Evolution Creates Order

QR5.6.6. Armageddon

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The unification of the fields of gravity, electricity, and magnetism has long been a dream of physics. The electro-magnetic field united the latter but gravity resisted, and the many fields of the standard model made it unlikely that one field could generate all its particles.

However if the strong, weak, and Higgs fields are unnecessary inventions (4.5.3), the dream re-emerges, as the fields to be unified reduce to three again. Their unification could be called the gravito-electro-magnetic field, but the quantum field is simpler.

What is the quantum field of this model? In simple terms, it is the wave values that quantum theory uses to explain light and matter. Schrödinger’s equation describes how these waves spread, but not why they collapse at a point in a physical event. This model does, as processing waves that overload the network will restart at a point. This then allowed matter to be exteme light constantly restarting in a standing wave (4.5.8), with three distinct properties:

1. Mass. The net process result from +1 to -1 in one or more dimensions.

2. Charge. The net process remainder from +1 to -1 in one or more dimensions.

3. Spin. The process spin direction, which can be up or down for an axis.

Processing on the quantum network always spreads, so matter spreads a distribution around itself, like ripples in a bucket (Figure 5.15), to alter the above values in the quantum field that defines the physical world we see. If the above values are all null, we see empty space, but if they are mass +1 and charge -1, we see an electron, and so on.  

In Figure 5.16, the mass, charge, and magnetism of matter spread to affect the quantum field around it. A large mass strengthens the field closer to it to cause gravity. Charges speed up or slow down the field between them, as remainders cancel or add, to cause an electrical field. Magnets also speed up or slow down the field between them, as spins make space deeper or shallower, to cause a magnetic field. 

The effect in all cases is that matter moves when the strength or speed of the field around it changes, as even a small bias can give movement in our time. 

Gravity and electro-magnetism move matter by altering the quantum field to bias its natural tremble. Gravitational fields bias the field strength around matter, electrical fields bias the field speed between charges, and magnetic fields do the same between magnets. These fields then derive from one field, the quantum field, based on waves not particles.

This unification is based on the assumption that quantum theory describes what is real, while the opposite assumption leads to many fields and particles, as the standard model shows. We can have field unification or particles but not both, and the next section explores the implications.

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