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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 can predict it, and pilots in flight simulators can experience a plane before they fly it. A simulation then represents what is real, but isn’t itself what it represents.

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 machines that are in the future earth using him as a battery. It then proposes that physical machines are simulating physical events, but is that possible?

The amount of 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 photons (Eck, 2017), and to simulate even a couple of hundred electrons would take more atoms than exist in our 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 movies 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 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 just result in its revision, rather than rejection.

If simulation theory is impossible, then machines, aliens, or our future-selves can’t simulate our physical world from another, but this isn’t the only version of virtualism. Annex 1 reviews the various ways that a virtual reality can be generated, and concludes that a virtual world like ours can’t have a physical base. This excludes not only physical virtualism (the Matrix option), but also information virtualism, and even mind virtualism (Kastrup, 2019), so nothing based on physical events can generate a world like ours.

However quantum virtualism, that quantum events cause physical events, is possible. Unlike classical processing, quantum processing increases exponentially as it grows so it scales to match the demand as space expands. A quantum network the size of our universe can then generate it. Processing costs aren’t an issue, as 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, there are no cracks or rifts in the world we see.

The quantum world can generate our physical world because it isn’t itself physical. This lets our world be virtual, but it isn’t a copy of anything else, so it isn’t a simulation. Why then does it exist? 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. We are the product of billions of years of evolution, but why does evolution occur?

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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 exists. 

Science now concludes that at some point in our past, an enormous amount of energy was injected into a small space that then expanded into our universe, and our space and time began then as well. It was as if a switch clicked and something began, leading to the simulation hypothesis popularized by the Matrix movie, but science fiction isn’t always science fact.

QR5.7.1. The Simulation Hypothesis

QR5.7.2. Why 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, how our universe ends depends on how space is curved. 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, so it is negatively curved (Cowen, 2013).

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

That depends on whether they are made of matter or antimatter. If one matter universe meets another, they 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 happens when matter meets antimatter? Essentially, they destroy each other, so if a matter universe met an anti-matter universe, both would be destroyed to some degree. Antimatter is rare in our universe but is produced in tiny amounts by cosmic rays in thunderstorms. It soon vanishes when it meets matter, taking some of it with it, so 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, so when it is packed away, it will be at the speed of light, with no possible warning.

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The thermodynamic law that devolution rules was based on steam engines that don’t evolve, but our universe is evolving, and quantum theory explains why. The same quantum law that drives the second law also allows evolution because exploring every option leads to ordered combinations that survive. For example, when electrons find stable orbits around protons to create atoms, order increases. Atoms that evolve by nucleosynthesis in stars increase order permanently, as a lead atom is 82 protons, 125 neutrons, and 82 electrons in a high order state with a half-life of millions of years, so for us it is permanent.

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 evolves by finding unlikely combinations that survive, not by maintaining a heat imbalance. For example, that extreme light collided head-on (4.3.1) is by any standard a very unlikely event, but the electron produced is stable. When light entangled into an electron, order increased, but no energy maintains it, so the evolution of matter increases order with no ongoing energy cost.

This doesn’t contradict the second law, that energy is needed to create order, because the search for stable combinations needs energy. Evolution let atoms lawfully form ordered molecules like water, until eventually super-molecules like RNA that copy themselves led to the cells that made us, so the evolution of life followed on from the evolution of matter.

The same flux that creates disorder allows order to evolve, as order is possible for the same reason that disorder is probable. Evolution creates order by finding possible states and devolution creates disorder by finding probable states, but the same quantum law causes both, so there is no evolution without devolution. If evolution was limited to biology, the second law might reign supreme, but matter also evolves, so it is just as universal as devolution. For our universe to possibly evolve, it had to also probably decay, so devolution is a necessary byproduct of evolution, just as neutrinos are of electrons.

The evolution of matter is an anti-entropy process that physics doesn’t recognize, but it occurs. Evolution was built into our universe by its quantum inception, so the grand evolution of our universe is as fundamental as heat flows. It explains what the second law can’t, that life exists because order evolved.

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Entropy always increases, and its opposite is an unlikely state like an egg, so why then is life based on order all around us? Day follows night, seasons cycle, and plants produce food and air for us to breathe, in a synergistic, self-regulating, living system that some call Gaiea. 

Is life 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 uses 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.

How did the order of life begin? Our earth is over four billion years old, but for most of that time there were just single cell organisms like bacteria. Then about two billion years ago, as continents formed and volcanoes erupted, bacteria caused the great oxidation that made an atmosphere suitable for animals later. Another billion years passed then somehow, somewhere, an unlikely event occurred. Two cells that worked differently, archaea and bacteria, merged into the complex cell that led to 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 trillions to one, so it took a long time, but it happened. To call this a devolution, based on a heat engine law, is then ridiculous.

We arrived about three million years ago, but bacteria have survived for billions of years, so bacteria in boxes placed outside the International Space Station for a year revived when they returned to earth. Under harsh conditions, some bacteria form spores that are dead metabolically but recover 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 with life in many places isn’t what the second law predicts after 14 billion years of decay! Life on earth arose from a highly improbable sequence of events, that occurred against seemingly impossible odds, so what caused it?

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. But 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 (Figure 5.17).

Entropy is the concept that physics uses to describe disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. Boltzmann defined it as the number of possible microscopic states of molecules that can 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 its entropy is the number of molecule combinations that allow that. However a lot more molecule combinations allow the spread-out state, so entropy increases as the gas spreads. The gas then spreads because more micro-state combinations support the spread-out state.

In general, entropy increases because it is more probable, but while gas injected into a bottle will probably spread over time, its molecules could by chance all move back to a point. This is unlikely but possible, so the second law is a statistical law, based on probability, not a causal law based on a force. Objects don’t have to become more disordered, but in a constantly changing world they probably will. Disorder prevails because it is probable, and it is probable because our world is constantly changing, just as constantly shaking a bottle makes its contents disperse.

Heraclitus compared life to a river that constantly changes from one moment to the next. This constant flux arises from the  quantum law of all action (3.6.3), that quantum events explore every option so everything is always changing. The second law of thermodynamics then derives from the first law of quantum of quantum theory, so it is a universal law. How then does order arise?

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Science concludes that energy isn’t created or destroyed because it can be seen to take other forms. For example, when road friction slows down a car, its tires become hot and radiate heat, so kinetic energy is seen to become heat energy, just as steam engines are seen to convert heat energy into kinetic energy. Energy is then observed to take different forms, but with 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 forever, where is that energy stored? Or if it crashes into 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 invisibly stores and releases energy as needed. 

In this model, energy is defined as the rate at which the quantum network transfers processing. Light then has radiant energy because it is a process spreading, and high frequencies spread it faster, so they have more energy, while low frequencies are heat energy. Radiant energy is then conserved because photons are never destroyed but just restart, as processing can.  

Photons can also explain kinetic energy. When light shining on a solar sail makes it move, radiant energy is converted into kinetic energy. If the sail moves by acquiring photons that bias its distribution, kinetic energy is also based on photons. When objects collide, kinetic energy is conserved because the photons exchanged are constant, and nuclear energy from matter is also based on photons if matter arose from light. Physical events then restart photons in various forms, as light or matter, but photons are always conserved because they are immortal.

What then is potential energy? Potential energy is based on gravity, which Einstein concluded isn’t a force at all, so no energy is involved. It follows that potential energy isn’t a form of energy either, but just a device that allows energy to be conserved when actually, it isn’t. 

Current physics has many conservation laws, of matter, charge, momentum, isospin, and quark flavor, but each is partial, as nuclear reactions don’t conserve matter, and weak interactions don’t conserve quark flavor. The conservation of energy is then also a partial law, because the expansion of space doesn’t conserve it, and it needs an invented potential energy to work. However the conservation of photons still works, as when a rocket leaves earth, no photons are lost, and when it crashes on Jupiter, no photons are created.  

How then does the expansion of space affect this law? The answer is not at all. If all light was created by cosmic inflation, the number of photons there are hasn’t changed since the expansion of space stopped it. Expanding space changes the energy of our universe, but not the number of photons in it. Our universe conserves light because it came from it, but not energy because it is expanding. The first law of thermodynamics then isn’t universal, so is the second law 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 the energy of our universe will always disperse, to end up as maybe one atom per cubic light year, in a big freeze that will last forever, because:

“… 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 this uses up energy, just as blowing up a balloon cools the gas inside it. It follows that our universe is also cooling down.

This cooling effect is illustrated by cosmic microwave background, which is the eartly light that was once white hot but is now freezing cold. Space is still expanding today, so every photon in the universe has a slightly longer wavelength now than it did yesterday, and so less energy. Expanding space is taking energy from light and not giving it back, so the total energy of our universe is reducing.

Does this 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. But if our universe doesn’t conserve energy because it is expanding, what is conserved? 

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This section examines the prediction of current science that order always decreases. Thermodynamics requires every closed system to become more disordered over time, so order should constantly decrease in our universe, but as Strogatz points out:

“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 disorder always increases, how did 14 billion years of more disorder produce the present order? If you woke up in a warm bed with an electric blanket, would you accept the theory that mankind has been devolving since they lived in caves? It doesn’t make sense, so either the prediction is wrong or something else is operating.

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. An electro-magnetic field based on virtual photons unified electricity and magnetism, but gravity resisted as gravitons couldn’t explain it. Then as the standard created more fields, the dream was lost, because how could one field generate all its particles? 

But if the strong, weak, and Higgs fields are unnecessary inventions (4.5.3), the dream of a unified field theory re-emerges because the fields to unify reduce to only two, namely gravity and electro-magnetism. We could call their unification the gravito-electro-magnetic field but the quantum field is simpler.

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

1. Mass. The net process value 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 processing around itself like ripples in a bucket (Figure 5.15), which alters the values of the quantum field that generates the physical world we see. For example, if the above values are all null, we see empty space, but if they are mass +1, charge -1, and spin ±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. 

The effect in all cases is that matter moves when the strength or speed of the field around it becomes asymmetric, 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. Gravity biases the field strength around matter, charges bias the field speed between charges, and magnets do the same between magnets. All these effects then derive from the quantum field, which is based on quantum waves not particles.

This model assumes that quantum theory is real, while assuming that it is imaginary gives the many fields and particles of the standard model, so physics can have field unification or particles but not both. The next section explores how the quantum field creates order as well as disorder.

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