“The standard model of physics involves 61 fundamental particles with data-fitted mass and charge parameters. If it were a machine, one would have to hand-set two dozen knobs just right for it to light up. It also needs five invisible fields to spawn 14 virtual particles with 16 different “charges” to work. You might expect completeness from all this, but the standard model can’t explain gravity, proton stability, anti-matter, quark charges, neutrino mass or spin, inflation, family generations, or quantum randomness—all critical issues. No particles account for the dark energy and dark matter that comprises most of the universe—and no particles ever will.” Brian Whitworth: http://listverse.com/2014/11/26/10-reasons-why-our-universe-is-a-virtual-reality/
It seems to me that there is an attempt to overcomplicate the simulation hypothesis and combine it with materialistic theories of physics. This is entirely unnecessary since the Unified Theory of Physics based upon Digital Physics is an entirely complete theory which explains the phenomena in the quantum world of the very small and in the macro world of the very large in a way which is demonstrable. The Unified Theory of Physics based upon digital physics is not just a theory; it can be demonstrated. It is an explanation of how what we empirically observe around us in the micro and macro universe is being produced, and it only requires a singular explanation for both realms, whereas standard model physics does not work as an explanation of the quantum world of the very small and in the macro universe it does not work either as it is full of purely theoretical, non-evidential theories and explanations.
In a computer simulation, there is “only” VR (virtual reality) physics which creates the illusion of a material world. In computer simulations, reality is a cartoon reality. Most computer simulated realities are purely audiovisual, but interfaces for the three other human senses are under development. There are no atoms or particles or quantum worlds being observed by the vast majority of human consciousness programs; only on the rare occasions when scientists attempt to peer into the micro-universe would the computers operating the human consciousness program have to render such effects to create the illusion of material phenomena in the micro world.
In standard model physics, particles and photons appear and disappear constantly, and thus in the attempt to produce a theory which is consistent with the “matter cannot be created or destroyed” myth, the theory of other dimensions has been produced (i.e., the particles and photons are allegedly appearing from other dimensions and disappearing to other dimensions). This is simply an attempt to hold on to the standard model myth. The illusion of matter can be created and destroyed at whim in a computer simulation, and essentially what is being observed is simply an interactive cartoon.
In a computer simulated cosmos, there may be a countless multitude of dimensions (i.e., other simulated worlds / games), however with regards to the source dimension to the Earth simulation, just as with our own computer generated worlds, there would be no necessity to have multiple source dimensions; just as our current computer simulations are derived from a singular dimension (i.e., this dimension).
From this perspective, the programmers, designers and operators of the Earth simulation are simply like Descartes “deus deceptor (deceptive deity)” concept, and are producing cartoon mico-world effects in order to hide the fact that this is just a computer simulated world.
What seems to be happening among the proponents of simulation theory, is that some have a background in the hard sciences and are attempting to cling on to complex standard model physics theories; theories which have many gaps and inconsistencies; whereas simulation theory has no gaps and can be explained very simply by understanding the way that we currently produce simulated worlds. Similarly, in the world of the theists, there is an attempt by monotheists to adapt their various brand names of monotheism to simulation theory, however both materialistic and theistic add-ons to computationalism are simply attempts to try to reconcile previous belief systems with computationalism; attempts which are entirely unnecessary.
On the laws of VR (Virtual Reality) physics and the origin of ELM (Energy, Light and Mass) in computationalism
Big Bang theory, which is the current cosmological theory of the scientific materialists does not explain where all the energy light and mass in the universe originally came from, prior to the theoretical Big Bang; nor does it explain where all the laws of physics came from, nor does it attempt to explain; these are simply unknown and unknowable questions in scientific materialism. Big Bang theory is simply a reversion to miraculous and magical thinking by materialists, in comparison to computationalism, where there are evidential, actual and demonstratable answers.
In computer science we can explain where all the laws of physics come from, and where ELM comes from in an actual, demonstrable and evidential way, and we can change the laws of physics, and we can create ELM at will, and this is not a theoretical argument but an argument from actuality. Prior to creating a computer simulation and to creating the illusion of ELM, we must firstly create a VR (Virtual Reality) physics engine, and unlike the standard model physics of the theoretical physicists, which is full of holes, contradictions and inconsistencies, there are no such contradictions and puzzles in VR physics. All is explainable scientifically and there is no mystery.
Spacetime.
There is no such as thing as unified “space-time” in VR physics. We can stop time at any point in a simulation, and matter and space still exist, albeit stationary and non-animated. “Time” is an element of physics in VR physics; however, it is unrelated to space, and light and the illusion of mass still exists even if time stops, though the effects of VRE (i.e., VR energy) are paused.
Time.
A computer simulation can be stopped, paused and restarted at any point. Time in a computer simulation is always relative to time in our current dimension.
Space.
There is no three-dimensional space in a computer simulation; there is only the illusion of three-dimensional space. Space is “always” two dimensional in VR physics. Consider your computer monitor or VR headset. If you are observing a three-dimensional computer simulation on your computer monitor, the image you see will always be two dimensional. Your computer monitor image of a 3D world only has height and width and has no depth. Let us say for example, that your computer monitor has a height of 650 mm and a width of 720mm. In terms of depth, you may see a tree in the foreground which seems to be a few meters away and a tree in the distance which seems to be a few hundred meters away. Measure the distance from your eyes to the tree in foreground and the tree in the distance and it should be the same distance. The illusion of depth is only a 2D image which creates the illusion of 3D. Similarly, if we live in a computer simulation, there would be no real depth to our vision; only the illusion of depth. How would you know whether depth is illusionary or real? You could not.
Gravity.
Why does a feather fall to the ground at the same speed as a large object in a computer simulation? Gravity is just a software setting which can be changed at will and there is no mystery of gravity in VR physics.
Relativity.
The speed at which you are travelling in a computer simulation is irrelevant to time, though in an advanced computer simulation which seeks to reproduce the effects of the Earth simulation, the experience of time “could” be programmed to slow down for the observer; this would be rather simple to program, as time can be actually, demonstrably and evidentially be slowed down or sped up in a computer simulation and a million years of evolution in a universe simulation (such as the “Universe Sandbox” program)” can take place in day, an hour or a few seconds.
The observer effect in quantum physics.
Is matter solid or is it a waveform, and a waveform of what? All matter and waveforms are derived from computer code in a computer simulation and are rendered for the observer when and as necessary. Is matter “conscious (i.e., self-aware),” and how does it know when you are observing it? Matter in a computer simulation is not self-aware. VR physics engines always know what you are observing; however, they are not self-aware; they are just non-sentient computer programs. If you enter the world’s largest network of computer simulations (currently Second Life); the RAM of your graphics card could not possibly render the entirety of that world. If you should wish to try to observe all of it simultaneously at some point; it would be impossible; depending on the speed of your computer chips, graphics cards, and upon computer RAM and GPU RAM, it would only render in detail the immediate scene around you, and it may struggle to do that very quickly if your computer and graphics card are not fast enough. Even assuming vast amounts of processing power and RAM it would anyway be a waste of processing power to render what you will never observe. The tree falling in a forest neither makes a sound in a computer game, not does it fall unless you are there to observe it, and remains as inactive computer code until observed.
Conservation of Energy
Conservation of Energy theory (i.e., nothing can be created or destroyed; ELM merely transforms into another state) is irrelevant to computationalism; ELM can be created at will; however computer simulations can also be locked (in their script) in order that ELM cannot be changed; otherwise anyone entering my simulations, for example, could destroy or change them; only I can create or destroy ELM permanently in my own simulations. I do have 30 minute scripts activated so that others may create and destroy their own ELM; however, this has no permanent effect on my own simulations and only effects whatever ELM effects the visitor produces and they are automatically deleted after 30 minutes.
ELM. Energy, Light and Matter.
The illusion of ELM can all be created by a VR physics engine and since this is evidential and demonstratable, there is no need for explanation.
In VR physics, beliefs and theories have no place and no necessity, and “all of VR physics” can be explained evidentially and scientifically, and the hubris of the theists and materialists with their grand theories appear as entirely irrelevant and anti-scientific, in terms of computer science and VR physics.
VR Physics Engines.
These are evidential and free to download. See for example Unreal Engine, Unity or Second Life.
Lucifer 2017
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The mystery of human consciousness. Computationalism and materialism. On the fundamental science. On Schrödinger’s Cat, the observer effect and falling trees. On human consciousness as a computer-generated artificial intelligence software program.
Lucifer 2017
The human consciousness program is most certainly not “material;” it has no weight, colour or spatial dimensions, and as we peer down the rabbit hole into the quantum world, we find that matter also does not behave as we would expect “materials” to behave. The similarities between consciousness and computer software (which is also not material, and has no colour, weight or spatial dimensions) may well be explained by what seems to me to be the most simple and obvious conclusion; that consciousness “is” a software program, and we can come to the same conclusion about matter itself, which of course is the conclusion of computationalism; i.e., a computer generated human consciousness program observing a computer generated world.
Schrödinger’s Cat.
Schrödinger’s Cat makes very little sense from a materialistic perspective, but it makes perfect sense in a computer generated reality. We do not know whether cats are truly sentient (i.e., self-aware), or if cat consciousness is just a non-sentient animation program, and there is no real test for sentience anyway, which is the conclusion of John Searle’s Chinese Room argument. In our own current computer simulations and computer games, nothing whatsoever is sentient apart from the human observers, and in our current simulations, we do have cats and a vast variety of animated creatures, however they do not have any existence whatsoever unless they come into the field of view of the game engine, and when they disappear from view, they go back to being inactive computer code.
When a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound, if there is nobody around to hear it?
For example, all of the demo versions of the VR (Virtual Reality) objects which I market have death scripts attached to them, and some of them just happen to be collections of trees and plants; some of them which are animated and have particle effects and animated shadow effects attached to them and which gives the impression of animated organic lifeforms; though they are all just effects produced by computer code and are not “alive.” These “death scripts” are timed for the 30 minutes, and the source code is locked and not modifiable. This is to allow potential purchasers to see the objects in the simulated world prior to purchasing them; however the objects all “die” after 30 minutes; they self-destruct and disappear. Let us say that you leave the computer simulation 25 minutes after placing a tree with a 30-minute death script in it. The question is: does the tree die five minutes later if there is nobody around in the simulation to observe the death of the tree? In fact, if you leave the computer simulation, as far as your computer chips and graphics cards are concerned, the entire simulation ceases to exist, though if someone else enters the simulation at the point that you leave, then the simulation will be rendered for that observer and that observer only will see the death of the tree. When you return to the simulation many hours or days later, you will not see the tree, however as far as your computer chips and graphics cards are concerned, it never had to render the death of the tree as you were not there to observe it.
Thus from a computationalist perspective, when a tree falls in a forest, not only does it not make a sound if there is nobody around to hear it; it does not even fall. The effect of the fallen tree would never need to be produced until a conscious observer enters the forest, and then and only then would the effect of the fallen tree need to be rendered for the observer. Similarly with Schrödinger’s Cat; the unobserved cat would not exist at all until it is observed, it would be neither alive nor dead, and only when observed by an observer would the effect of the dead or alive cat have to be rendered.
Brain and consciousness. Brain modelling.
Since Microsoft windows for example currently represents over 50 million lines of source code, I think it to be probable that the human consciousness program might represent at least several hundred million lines of source code. There is a materialistic belief that by modelling the human brain on a computer, that this may possibly produce some form of computer consciousness; however this seems to me to be based upon a very simple misconception of the relationship between computer software and hardware. Even assuming CTM (Computer Theory of Mind), which I do assume to be the most probable explanation for consciousness, we do not know whether the human consciousness program is being “produced” by the brain or is being “received” by the brain, and in the latter case, it would have to be computer generated in a source computing dimension which produces all of reality. Even if we assume that the brain is an organic, electro-chemical computer which is “producing” the consciousness program, reproducing a computer does not necessarily reproduce all the software which the computer contains. Even if we could produce an exact computer model of the brain, this would not necessarily reproduce the millions of lines of code which the human consciousness program represents. Reproducing a computer without reproducing the software which it runs, would not produce forms of computer intelligence which are essentially the software programs which the computer runs, and not the computer hardware itself.
From a scientific perspective, CTM seems to me to be the only credible scientific (i.e., computer science) explanation for the question of “What is consciousness?” I would predict that the human consciousness program will not be reproduced in the future by brain modeling, but rather that it will be reproduced by AI programmers; indeed many forms of software do indeed reproduce aspects of the consciousness program, and if we “can” reproduce aspects of the human consciousness program by using computer software, this suggests that consciousness is mostly likely to actually be a computer software program.
The Fundamental Science.
Cosmology is an attempt to answer questions such as “What is the fundamental nature of matter?” “How did the universe come into existence?” “Where did all the laws of physics come from, and where did all the matter in the universe come from; i.e., how did the universe come into existence?” “Why is there something instead of nothing?” There are all scientific questions, and at this point in time, it is theoretical physicists who seem to believe that they have a monopoly on answering such questions; however assuming hard computationalism (i.e., CTM plus the Simulation Argument), physics is not the fundamental science; if our world is a computer simulation then it must be derived from computer code, and computer science would be the fundamental science, and matter and consciousness would be an “effect” of computer code. Physics would be derived from a VR (Virtual Reality) physics engine (i.e., a game engine), and the question of why there is something instead of nothing, and how all the matter in the universe came into existence can be demonstrated by the methods of how we actually produce computer simulations. Questions regarding the original causes of all possible computer generated source dimensions cannot be answered however; nor can they be answered in “any” cosmology; we can only explain how this particular dimension we find ourselves in could have come into existence by reference to how we evidentially and demonstrably produce computer simulated worlds.
Computationalism, classical idealism and materialism.
The materialists tend to believe that our world is an effect, which is produced by causes in the quantum world; whereas in computationalism, the world would not be produced by causes in the quantum world; that is not how computer simulated worlds work; computer simulated worlds are an effect of computing and of computer code, of hardware and software, and from this perspective even our computer hardware and the effects of the quantum world would be effects produced by computer code, and only ever rendered when observed by an observer. From this perspective, which is how computer generated worlds are actually produced, nothing whatsoever would exist until it is observed by an observer, and when an object is not being observed, it would return to the state of being inactive computer code.
“(quote: Wiki) In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial.(/quote)”
Computationalism thus suggests classical idealism; i.e., that reality is only rendered for the observer, and that when not being observed, objects return to the state of being inactive computer code; just like the computer code for a game or simulation only exists on your hard drive as inactive computer code until you wish to observe the simulation, and then and only then is the reality of the computer generated world rendered for the observer.
The observer effect in quantum physics.
Why should matter change it’s state when observed? Why is it dependent upon the observer? This is exactly what we would expect to find if matter was an effect of a software program; indeed, in actuality (i.e., not theoretically), this is what happens in a computer simulation or computer game, where the illusion of 3D material objects are just 2D illusions produced by computer code whenever observed. By the term 3D, I refer to height, width and depth. By 2D I refer to only height and width. For example, let us say that you are observing a 3D computer game on your computer monitor. Let us say that you have an LCD 2560 × 1440 monitor. The width of your screen would be 2560 pixels and the height would be 1440 pixels, however there is no actual “depth” in a 3D game; there is no real third dimension, the third dimension of depth is just a 2D illusion. The distance between your eyes and a tree or a cat in the foreground of the simulation you are observing should be the same as the distance between your eyes and a tree or a cat in the distance. The tree or the cat only exist as a 2D image on your screen and they do not exist when they are not being rendered. Assuming that the human consciousness program is observing a computer simulation, it is simply observing a 2D illusion which looks like a 3D world which is rendered when observed.
If we consider the various versions of the double slit experiment, let us say that we have a device which measures whether an electron or photon is a waveform or if it is solid. When an observation device is switched on, then the electron or photon changes state from a waveform to a solid particle, however if we change this experiment slightly so that there is no human observer observing the live experiment and that the experiment is purely recorded without a human observer, and then perhaps many hours later, the human observer looks at the result of the experiment, then and only then would the computers which generate the human consciousness program have to render the effect of a solid particle for the observer. In other words, when unobserved by a human observer, just like Schrodinger’s Cat, the electron or photon would be neither a waveform nor a solid particle; indeed it would not exist at all and would never have to be rendered when not observed. In terms of the economics of processing power, there would be absolutely no reason for the computers which operate the human consciousness program to render an effect which is not being observed.
The point of a game engine is to produce a total realism; it should not be assumed that an advanced game engine which may have been in use and in development for millions of years would reveal any glitches. In a computer simulation, since we are considering a cartoon reality, the game engine is attempting to produce an illusion of material reality, but when we peer down the rabbit hole into the quantum world, it appears mysterious, and suggests that matter is derived from something immaterial in our dimension, and thus we now have string theory where electrons and photons which mysteriously appear and disappear are thought to be appearing and disappearing from 10, 11 or 26 invisible, unobservable, unfalsifiable, unverifiable and non-demonstratable dimensions.
These multiple dimensions are unnecessary in computationalism, though we still require a singular invisible, unobservable, unfalsifiable, unverifiable and non-demonstratable dimension, which would be the source computing dimension where the computers are which produce our reality. This problem of unobservable dimensions is why string theory and computationalism are theories.
In conclusion, if the human consciousness program is a sentient (i.e., self-aware) artificial intelligence software program observing a computer generated reality, physics is not the fundamental science, but an observation of the effects of a VR physics engine, and in terms of the question of “What is consciousness?” neurology is not the fundamental science in this field either.
In time I predict that we will be able to reproduce the Earth simulation and all it’s millions of animated lifeforms and that we will also be able to reproduce the human consciousness program; however, this reproduction of our world and the human consciousness program which observes the world will be a product of computer science.
In time, we shall create many new heavens and Earths and we will create life itself in our own image and likeness, and this quest will not be the consequence of magic and miracles; it will be a purely scientific (i.e., computer science) process.
posthumanismtranshumanism 