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QR1.3.2. A Prima Facie Case

How do physicists know that our physical world isn’t virtual? Stephen Hawking explains:

“But maybe we are all linked in to a giant computer simulation that sends a signal of pain when we send a motor signal to swing an imaginary foot at an imaginary stone. Maybe we are characters in a computer game played by aliens.” in (Vacca, 2005) p131

He seems open to virtualism but the next sentence is “Joking apart…”. Virtualism is a joke among the physics elite but since 95% of the universe is dark matter/energy that we can’t explain, where does this certainty come from? Their tradition that matter is all there is seems evident but in logic it is just an assumption, and in science it is just a theory. Given that our current theories explain less than 5% of the universe, why are scientists so confident that only matter exists?

The discussion of virtualism in academic circles is also intellectually weak. In the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate “Is the Universe a Simulation?“, experts attacked the naïve virtualism of The Matrix movie but ignored that quantum theory says that quantum waves create physical events. They attacked a straw man, a fantasy movie with no academic credentials, but didn’t critically review their own theory.

In an objective world, time doesn’t dilate, space doesn’t bend, objects don’t teleport, empty space is empty, and universes don’t pop up out of nowhere. No-one would doubt that our world was objectively real, if only it would behave so. Instead, it provides the sort of evidence that a court would accept as worth investigating further. There is a prima facie case but what are the implications of assuming that the physical world is a virtual reality?

QR1.3.1. Fifteen features of Virtualism

The following features are expected of a virtual reality but not an objective one (click end link for details):

1. A beginning. Astronomers see the stars and galaxies moving away from us at known rates so they can calculate back that our universe began over fourteen billion years ago. But how can a universe that is all there is begin? There is nothing outside itself to create it, it can’t create itself before it began because it didn’t exist then, and a universe that came from nothing defies logic. Speculating on D-branes, wormholes, alternate universes, teleporting or oscillating universes doesn’t help. In contrast, every virtual reality is expected to boot up, in an event that also begins its space and time. It follows that the “big bang” was just when our universe booted up (1.4.2).

2. A maximum speed. Nothing travels faster than light in our world but this limit makes no sense, as a matter object should always be able to go a bit faster. In contrast, the pixel-to-pixel transfer rate of a screen is expected to be limited by its refresh rate. It follows that the speed of light limit just reflects the refresh rate of space (3.2.4).

3. Space and time are digital. Quantum theory requires time and space to change in tiny Planck steps, but an objective reality should be continuous not digital. In contrast, a virtual reality is always made of undividable pixels and irreducible cycles. It follows that our space and time are digital because our world has a resolution and cycle rate, respectively (2.2.1).

4. Tunneling. Tunneling is when an electron appears outside a field barrier it can’t pass through, like a coin in a perfectly sealed glass bottle suddenly appearing outside it. Matter shouldn’t move to a point that no path allows, but it does. In contrast, a virtual reality can cut from one frame to the next without an intervening path. It follows that tunneling is just matter jumping from one frame to next, as it always does (5.3.1).

5. Entanglement. Two photons moving apart at the speed of light shouldn’t be able to affect each other but entangled photons do, as observing either spin makes the other have the opposite, regardless of distance. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance because it ignored the speed of light. In contrast, a server can alter any points of a screen instantly, regardless of screen “distance”. It follows that when photons entangle, their servers merge to instantly control both for any event (3.8.5).

6. Space curves. According to relativity, the sun keeps the earth in orbit by curving space around it, but how can a three-dimensional space curve? Our space can’t curve into the imaginary dimensions of physics if they aren’t real. In contrast, our space as a screen surface is expected to curve, as some TV screens do. It follows that our space is a three-dimensional surface that can curve into a four-dimensional quantum network (2.4.1).

7. Time dilates. Einstein argued that a man who travelled the universe in a high-speed rocket could return a year later to find his twin brother on earth was an old man of eighty! Relativity requires time to slow down at high speeds and particle research agrees, but how can matter alter time? In contrast, every gamer knows that their screen slows down during a big battle. It follows that time slows down at high speed because it takes longer to run more events in a virtual reality (5.2.4).

8. Randomness. Radioactive atoms emit photons randomly, in a way that physical history can’t predict. Physical reality doesn’t allow non-physical causes so the mechanical multiverse was invented, that every quantum event spawns a new universe, which is ludicrous. In contrast, in a virtual reality, the server is expected to choose screen events, not the screen. It follows what is random to us is just the quantum server choosing where physical events occur (3.5.3).

9. Space isn’t empty. If only matter is real, the space between it should be nothing at all, but in the Casimir effect, flat plates held close in a vacuum experience a force pushing them together. Current physics attributes it to virtual particles from the void, but how can nothing cause something? In contrast, a blank screen switched on isn’t doing nothing, as it can show static. It follows that at close to the pixel resolution, the asynchronous null processing of space can produce a pressure (2.4.5).

10. Wave-particle duality. In Young’s two-slit experiment, one photon can go through two slits at once, interfere with itself like a wave, then arrive at a screen point like a particle. Matter can’t do this, so wave-particle duality was invented, that particles can be waves, but logically they can’t. In contrast, a processing wave can go through two slits to interfere but still restart at a point. It follows that wave-particle duality is quantum waves restarting to look like particles in a physical event (3.5.2).

11. Black holes. A big mass in a small space can collapse into what is called a black hole. Most galaxies, including ours, have a black hole at their center. Matter is said to collapse to an infinitely dense point singularity, but why then do black holes increase in size when they absorb matter? In contrast, a virtual space is expected to have a maximum bandwidth that it can handle. It follows that a black hole is matter filling the bandwidth of space, so it has a size and isn’t a singularity (5.4.6).

12. Superposition. Quantum theory lets superposed currents simultaneously flow both ways around a superconducting ring (Cho, 2000), which can’t happen physically. In contrast, processing spreading on a network is expected to overlap, as each point can run many processes, up to its bandwidth. It follows that superposition is just processing overlapping as it spreads (3.8.1).

13. Non-physical detection. A bomb so sensitive that just one photon will set it off should be impossible to detect but a Mach-Zehnder interferometer can do just that (Kwiat, Weinfurter, Herzog, Zeilinger, & Kasevich, 1995). Non-physical detection shouldn’t happen, but in our world it does. In contrast, in a virtual world we don’t know what lies behind a door but the system does. It follows that non-physical detection is when we trick the system to reveal what it knows (3.8.4).

14. Retrospective action. In delayed choice experiments, observing a photon as it travels defines its path before the observation, suggesting that the future can affect the past, which undermines all physics. In contrast, a virtual reality is expected to calculate every path but not choose one until the last moment. It follows that retrospective action is a photon wave taking every path until a physical event chooses its pysical path, so there is no time travel (3.8.3).

15. Anti-matter exists. Quantum equations predicted anti-matter but objective matter has no need for an inverse of the same mass but opposite charge. In contrast, if processing generates matter, it must also be able to run in reverse. It follows that anti-matter is just the processing behind matter running in reverse, so every matter entity must have an inverse, as it does (4.3.5).

The fifteen facts above suggest that the physical world is virtual not objective. A scientific experiment to test both theories is proposed in 4.5.9, but for now one can argue that:

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Given these facts, the dictum of Sherlock Holmes applies:

When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The evidence so far establishes a prima facie case that the physical world is a virtual reality.

QR1.3. The Physical Evidence

How can we know if our world is virtual or not? Just looking isn’t enough. A game world seems real because when I look left, a left view is shown, and when I look right, a right view is shown. Wherever I look, it presents but the catch is, only when I look. In contrast, an objective reality exists whether I look or not, so physical events shouldn’t change when observed differently. Yet quantum theory predicts an observer effect, that how we observe events changes their properties, and the evidence agrees. In delayed choice experiments, photons observed differently take different paths to a detector. The physicist Wheeler concluded that we live in a participatory universe, where what we see depends on where we look, just as expected for a virtual reality. So, does our world exhibit any other tell-tale signs of virtualism?

QR1.3.1. Fifteen features of Virtualism

QR1.3.2. A Prima Facie Case

QR1.2.6. The End of Science?

1.2.6. The end of science?

If we are in a virtual reality, is that the end of science? Suppose some characters in The Sims started to wonder if their world was virtual? They could test that theory against data from their world, just as we can. If they found that they lived in a world of pixels, where time can dilate and space can contract, where everything began at a past moment, they might conclude that it was true. They couldn’t perceive what was generating their world but they could conceive it, as we do now. Yet science would still work, just as quantum theory still works even if we can’t see what it describes. Science only needs observable evidence to work and a virtual reality provides that. It follows that a virtual reality can support science, even if it isn’t objectively real.

A virtual reality that seems real to its inhabitants can be called a local reality. It is local because it is real from within but not from without, just as Monopoly money can buy things in the game but not outside it. It must also be contained by another reality, while an objective reality that exists by itself doesn’t need anything to contain it. Pixels are real to pixels, being of the same nature, so the earth is solid to us who are made of it, while to a neutrino from the sun the earth is just a shadow through which it flies. It follows that a local reality is real from within itself but not real from outside itself.

QR1.2.5. Quantum Realism

Quantum realism is that quantum events cause physical events as quantum theory describes, so quantum waves exist but not physically, just as what creates a video game doesn’t exist in the game it creates. The quantum world follows its own rules, not those of physical reality.

In the Matrix movie, another physical world simulates ours, but matter doesn’t have the power to do that. Even to compute one electron wave function that spreads over a galaxy then collapses to a point in it is beyond current computing [1]. Only quantum processing has that power.

According to quantum realism, there is a real world out there but it isn’t the one you see. What you see is an interface to reality, or a reflection of it, as Socrates suggested. But to describe it as a thought, as Plato did, is misleading. Quantum theory tells us that quantum waves spread until they interact in a physical event that involves mutual observation. It follows that when we observe a photon, it also “observes” us, as suggested by the observer effect in physics. Thus, a tree can’t fall in a forest unseen because the ground it hits “sees” it [2]. This idea is explored in more detail in Chapter 6.

One can compare the reality options in computer game terms as follows:

Physical realism. A game that booted itself up, with no-one in charge.
Dualism. A game that was booted up, but now the programmer has lost control.
Quantum realism. A massively multi-player game, where even a photon is a “player”.
Solipsism. A single player game, that exists only for one person.

Figure 1.2 compares the first three options using Wheeler’s self-observing eye universe. In physical realism, matter observes itself, though how it does that is unclear. In dualism, a higher reality observes matter, but again how it does so is unclear. In quantum realism, quantum reality observes itself using a virtual reality interface, just as quantum theory describes.

**Figure 1.2. Comparing the reality options**.

The options are that only matter exists so it must observe, that matter and mind exist at the same time so the latter observes the former, or that only quantum reality exists so everything observes.

[Note 1] A Milky Way volume of 1.6 x10⁶⁰ cubic meters divided by a Planck volume of 4.2 x10⁻¹⁰⁵ cubic meters is about 551 bits, which for a 10^-43seconds Planck time is over 5×10⁴⁵Hertz of processing power for one quantum event. Even our best supercomputers are only just breaking the PetaHertz barrier (10¹⁵Hertz), so to calculate even one quantum event is beyond all our best computers.

[Note 2] Knox’s limerick on solipsism was: There was a young man who said, “God, must think it exceedingly odd, if he finds that this tree continues to be, when there’s no one about in the Quad.” The anonymous reply was: “Dear Sir: Your astonishment’s odd: I am always about in the Quad. And that’s why the tree, will continue to be, since observed by yours faithfully, God.”

QR1.2.4. The Reality Options

The main reality options reduce to three:

1. Physical realism. That only physical reality exists, and it does so by itself alone.

2. Dualism. That physical reality exists, but there is also a higher reality beyond it.

3. Virtualism. That physical reality doesn’t exist by itself alone, but is generated by something outside itself.

Physical realism requires matter to observe itself, but how can dead matter do that? And matter shouldn’t be able to make choices that prior physical events can’t predict, as radioactive atoms do.

Dualism allows a mind to observe and choose physical events, but the result is a “God of the Gaps” that only explains what is left after science advances, which every day gets smaller.

Virtualism lets another reality generate and observe the physical world, but opinion is divided on what this other reality is, as follows:

1. Physical. In The Matrix movie, a virtual New York seemed real to its inhabitants because they only knew it by information, just as we know ours. When the hero disconnects from the matrix, he falls back into another world to find that post-nuclear machines are farming people for energy in vats, while feeding them a virtual reality. The movie suggested he had been living in a construct, created by programs in a real physical world. In theory, this is possible because the Church-Turing thesis lets a finite program simulate any specifiable output (Tegmark, 2007) but in practice, to simulate even a few hundred atoms with a conventional computer:

“… would need more memory space that there are atoms in the universe as a whole, and would take more time to complete the task than the current age of the universe.” (Lloyd, 2006) p53.

Even a computer as big as our universe couldn’t remotely do the job, so this option is unlikely.

2. Mental. Solipsism is that the physical world is a dream of the mind, as it dreams what isn’t there at all. Optical illusions show that our brains construct our reality, but that doesn’t mean that no reality is out there. As Einstein said to Bohr, do you think that the moon doesn’t exist when no one is looking? Solipsism solves the quantum observer effect [Note 1] but if I’m dreaming you, you don’t exist at all. And if no tree falls in a forest that no-one observes, how did history arise? Did we fabricate the millions of years when dinosaurs roamed the earth before we came along? And if I am dreaming, why can’t I dream the body I want? For these reasons, this option is unlikely.

3. Quantum. In this option, quantum events create physical events that otherwise wouldn’t occur. Physics currently rejects this option because it gives:

“…no means of understanding the hardware upon which that software is running. So we have no way of understanding the real physics of reality.” (Deutsch, 1997)

To assume that we can only study matter then conclude that we can’t study quantum events because they aren’t material is circular logic. It proves a premise by assuming it. That quantum waves need physical hardware is to assume that matter is fundamental, which is the question asked. Quantum waves collapse in impossible ways, tunnel past impassable barriers, and ignore speed of light limits on interactions, so they can’t be physical. But this doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, or that we can’t study them, as we study gravity that we can’t see physically. To expect what creates matter to follow the rules of matter is illogical, hence the qubit of quantum processing is not the bit of physical processing.

That what isn’t physical doesn’t exist is an assumption not a fact. And that science can’t study what it can’t see isn’t true, as quantum theory testifies. That quantum events create physical events is neither illogical nor unscientific, so this option is now explored based on physical evidence.

[1] In quantum theory, observing a spreading quantum wave causes a physical event, so observation is necessary to create a physical event.

Next

QR1.2.3. Virtualism

**Figure 1.1. The Ancient of Days calculates the universe**

Yet as science and religion fight their age-old ideological war, another monism sits on the sidelines ignored by all, namely virtualism (Raspanti, 2000), that the physical world is generated by some other. The idea seems new but actually traces back to Plato’s idealism, that the world reflects another reality. Pythagoras called numbers the non-material essence of the world, Plato felt that God geometrizes, and Gauss believed that God does arithmetic (Svozil, 2005), just as Blake’s Ancient of Days measures the world with his compass (Figure 1.1).

Our computers create virtual worlds but that our world is virtual is usually a topic of fiction, not physics. It leads to ideas like that space calculates (Zuse, 1969) and that reality computes (Fredkin, 1990), (Schmidhuber, 1997), (Rhodes, 2001), (Wolfram, 2002), (Lloyd, 2006), and (Tegmark, 2007). Plato’s idealism is just as radical today as it was over two thousand years ago.

The issue is whether the physical world exists in and of itself alone, or whether something else causes it. The physical world as an objective reality needs nothing but itself to exist, so the prime axiom of current physics is that:

There is nothing outside the physical universe (Smolin, 2001).

In contrast, virtualism proposes its antithesis, that:

Nothing in the physical universe exists objectively, i.e. of or by itself.

These are mutually exclusive theses, as an objective world can’t be virtual and a virtual world can’t be objective. The virtual reality conjecture is essentially that:

The physical world is a set of events output by some other, without which it would not exist at all.

Physical realism in contrast proposes that the physical world is an objective reality that exists in and of itself, that needs nothing other than itself to exist.

Reality theories can’t be logically proven (Esfeld, 2004), so that the world is virtual isn’t certain, but physical realism isn’t certain for the same reason, and to demand of one theory what another can’t provide is bias. The unbiased way is to compare the evidence for both views impartially.

QR 1.2.2. Dualism

The ideological war between western science and religion grew, until Descartes proposed the truce of dualism, arguing that “I think, therefore I am”. Why not have mind and body, the spirit of religion and the objects of science? This divided scientists into atheists who believed only in the physical world, theists who believed in a world beyond it as well, and agnostics who couldn’t decide. This marriage of convenience worked for a while, but today science and religion barely speak to each other.

The problem with dualism is how can different realities interact? If mind and body don’t interact, each is irrelevant to the other, as the mind can’t affect the body. Or if they do interact, which was first? A mind that emerges from a physical brain is like the whistle of a locomotive, superfluous to the main action. Conversely if an ideal mind made our world, why did it make evil? Either way, if one is real, the other isn’t, or at best irrelevant. And if the two realities are in conflict, why hasn’t heaven purged earth already, or earth corrupted heaven? Or if mind and body are sides of the same coin, what is the coin?

Facing such challenges, dualism is less popular now than it was. One reality is simpler than two, so why not just have physical reality? Science calls the physical world it describes real, and theology calls the spiritual future it describes real, so given a choice between a theory of now and one of later, many prefer the former.

QR 1.2.1. Idealism vs. Physicalism

Western science traces back to Aristotle, a student of Plato who studied under Socrates, a Greek philosopher who lived when the word meant lover (philo) of wisdom (sophia). Plato argued that physical forms are generated by pre-existing ideal forms, a view later called idealism. Aristotle didn’t deny this, but noted that if ideal forms are abstractions, their causes could be found in physical things. Western science then focused on Aristotle’s physical causes, while western religion focused on Plato’s non-physical causes, but both saw the physical world as real.

Yet Plato’s premise was that the world reflects reality, like shadows on a wall [1]. In the West, the Gnostics concluded that the world was a lie created by a demiurge, ignorant of the original reality [2]. In the East, Chan Buddhism held that a universal essence of mind generates the observed world like bubbles on a sea, and Hinduism saw the physical world as Maya, an illusion created by God’s play (Lila). Yet at any time, only a few ever truly believed that the physical world wasn’t real in itself.
[1] In his analogy, people tied up in a dark cave with their backs to its exit see their shadows on the cave wall, created by sunlight from the outside, and take them to be reality.

2] In this story, the original “fullness” (Pistis Sophia) tries to make something new from herself but accidently creates a monstrous demiurge (lesser god). Ashamed she quarantines him. He being alone and thinking only he existed, creates our world in his own image, entrapping Sophia’s essence in a false physical world.

QR 1.2. What is Reality?

For thousands of years people have wondered about reality. Eastern philosophers concluded that the world is an illusion but the west split between materialism, that matter is real, and idealism, that it reflects something else. Logically, one of these world views must be wrong, and orthodox science and religion took opposite sides on the issue.

QR1.2.1. Idealism vs. Physicalism

QR1.2.2. Dualism

QR1.2.3. Virtualism

QR1.2.4. The Reality Options

QR1.2.5. Quantum Realism

QR1.2.6. The End of Science?