Hey Siri! Is This My Real Life, or is This Just Fantasy?

My fiftieth post is here, and I wanted to do something special. Instead of drudging the news or seeking a topic from a friend, I’m just gonna go whole hog. Since the best way to describe my niche thus far is “biting off more than I can chew” the topic today is “What is the nature of reality?”

It has become fashionable in some corners of the internet (and yeah, I mean the sites I lurk in) to talk about how we are all “in the Matrix.”

For those who have either not seen the movie, or forgotten it, Keanu Reaves plays a computer hacker who has a boring, grinding nine to five job during the day, but spends his nights seeking thrills and hacking the internet for fun, profit, and frankly, to try to learn the truth. There is something about reality that just doesn’t jive with him. For one thing, he does not seem to fit in. For another, there are things that make no logical sense. He seeks the truth and comes across a legendary hacker named Morpheus, played by Wace M….I mean Lawrence Fishburne.

Cliff’s Notes version, the reality we perceive is nothing like the reality. There are dark forces controlling us, using us for their own malevolent purposes. And if we want the truth, we have to face the fact that The Powers That Be are not protecting us. We are sheep for the slaughter to them.

But I’m not here to rant about the government, or big corporations, or big tech. I’m talking the nature of reality. I’ll discuss three quick theories, and then end with a video that hopefully drives the point home.

Three interesting theories that reality is not as we perceive:

1. We are in fact in a Matrix designed by superhigh level tech.
2. We are actually dreaming this reality, and it is designed by collective unconscious.
3. There are alternate realities, and some people are able to see into other universes.

One of the big conspiracy theories current is that we actually are in the Matrix. How would we possibly know? Like Neo in the movie, those of us who feel like we don’t fit, or who see things that don’t make sense, can just be passed off as crazy, or malcontents. The so-called “simulation theory” was first proposed in 2003 by philosopher Nick Bostrom, who proposes a trilemma he dubbed the “simulation argument.” I can concur with one thing….the Wikipedia article trying to explain this argument is giving me a headache. And my only comment is…if this is a simulation, the programmer better never let me get my hands on their throat…..Right now I lean toward Nobel Prize winning physicist’s Frank Wilczek’s argument that this all begs the question, even if we are in a simulation, there is a Reality beyond it, from which the rules must derive. Oversimplifying his argument: Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation that explains the universe we see is the one without the extra layer of simulation. But then again, what do I know?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/physicists-confirm-that-were-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

The second theory is that this is a simulation, but not in a computer. Instead reality is being dreamed, either in a Megamind, or in the Collective Mind of all of us.

Some Hindu texts have made this claim for centuries. The Mundaka Upanishad teaches that the nature of reality is only a dream, and this premise has come to influence the West. While I’ve heard some very intelligent people espouse this, I don’t find much in the way of scientific basis for this idea.

According to Scientific American quantum physics is the most empirically verified theory in history, but physicists frankly have no idea of why it works. The theory of QBism dispels the confusion, but only by accepting the assumption that “all knowledge begins with ‘individual personal experience.'” Likely I’m totally misinterpreting the idea, and absolutely oversimplifying, but it makes a laymen wonder if it is possible that the world is just a dream.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-quantum-mechanics-reveal-that-life-is-but-a-dream/

http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/The-Illusion-of-Reality—The-Scientific-Proof-That-Everything-is-Energy-and-Reality-Isnt-Real.pdf

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/

Last of all there is the belief that there are alternate universes, and it might be possible to perceive them or interact with them. This one is my personal favorite, as it has so many fantasy and science fiction stories about it that you have to turn in your nerd card if you don’t like them (especially Mirror Mirror).

In this theory, whether we dream this reality or it is a simulation, there are multiple universes, possibly infinite universes. So if that is true….somewhere out there is a universe where Tiberius reigns with an iron fist over an interstellar empire, and there is another one where I am successful. Millions of versions of people could be reading similar blog posts across thousands of realities.

https://cyprus-mail.com/2020/12/27/neil-degrasse-tyson-explains-the-multiverse-hypothesis/

https://www.space.com/32728-parallel-universes.html

https://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/132932268/a-physicist-explains-why-parallel-universes-may-exist