QR1.3. The Physical Evidence

How can one know if a world is a construct 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, the game world presents but the catch is only when I look. In contrast, an objective reality exists whether I look or not, so physical history shouldn’t change depending on how I observe it. Yet quantum theory predicts an observer effect and the evidence agrees, e.g., in delayed choice experiments, photons choose different physical paths to a detector if we observe them differently. As Wheeler observed, we live in a participating universe where how you look affects what you see, just as in a virtual reality. So does our physical world manifest other tell-tale signs of being a virtual reality?

Next