Over the past century, physicists have better understood physical reality by examining the relativity of space and time, the curvature of space-time as a manifestation of gravity, quantum mechanics, and the standard model of particles and their four known interactions.
It is clear that this is a work in progress. The lessons learned from gloomy matter, gloomy energy, and space-time singularities indicate that we still have much to learn about the physical world. Nevertheless, the narrow scientific knowledge we have gained so far has been used to advance computer and information technologies to levels that allow us to simulate reality in virtual worlds with unprecedented detail.
These incredible advances have given rise to simulation hypothesiswhich assumes that the world we perceive is actually a simulated reality, similar to a computer simulation.
While this notion can be applied to speculative mathematical theories that have not been experimentally verified, such as string theory, it stands in stark contrast to the tradition of empirical science, which relies on testing theoretical ideas using experimental data collected from an external reality using well-calibrated instruments.
The operate of experimental data to gain scientific knowledge about reality independent of our minds has become the basis of newfangled science and technology.
Of course, one can argue that these experiments are also part of the simulation, but this concept has no added value if it cannot be distinguished from a world in which it does not exist.
We must remember that simulation always takes place against the backdrop of an underlying physical reality. If our world is a simulation, what is the reality in which this simulation is embedded? Without specifying this reality, the simulation hypothesis is devoid of testable content.
The known laws of physics were derived by observing physical reality with instruments, not by our brains’ philosophical insistence that they must be so. The history of science is full of examples in which evidence provided a different answer than the one predicted by the human brain.
Examples include the wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics, time dilation and mass-energy equivalence in special relativity, the fact that gravity is not a force in general relativity, and the fact that the observable universe contains trillions of billions of planets and is not centered around us.
If the observable universe turned out to be a simulation, there is certainly a lot of wasted memory devoted to the parts we can't see. Whoever created that simulation was either very wasteful or didn't consider us crucial in the overall scheme of things.
The human brain is not a reliable detector, and our senses have narrow sensitivity. That's why physicists operate instruments. When terrestrial astronomers study the universe with telescopes, the data collected has little to do with the human brain.
Instrumental data are not hallucinations of the brain. Of course, physicists can ignore or misinterpret data through wishful thinking and be misled by hubris or other evolutionary traits. All of these shortcomings tardy down the progress of physics.
Two decades ago Nick Bostrom suggested that if “posthuman” civilizations became capable of creating simulations, there would be so many simulated beings that a randomly selected conscious entity would most likely end up in the simulation.
However, we must remember that even if aliens were to create a simulated fresh world on their computer, neighboring civilizations could still live in their physical reality. Just like in Vegas: what happens on an exoplanet could stay on that exoplanet. Even if advanced scientific civilizations discover how to create a childlike universe in their laboratory, that childlike universe is expected detach yourself from our space-time and do not interact with us.
A conjecture must be falsifiable to be scientifically credible. If we ever discover experimental evidence for pixelation of reality or for a computer bug in the code that simulates the world, I will reconsider my position against the simulation hypothesis.
For now, believing in the simulation hypothesis seems to me like choosing to be high. This choice does not lead to a productive life, but there will always be people who choose this lifestyle as a way to escape our shared physical reality.
Likewise, there will always be people who believe we live in a simulation as a way to escape the frustrating limitations of life as we know it. My personal choice is not to belong to any of these communities.
Instead, I devote my remaining time on planet Earth to scientific searches for alien technological relics. If extraterrestrial sentient beings have chosen to live in a virtual world simulated on their computers without interacting with the physical universe as a whole, then the only way to know they exist is to find them in the junk they scatter into interstellar space.
But if the aliens are really clever, they would want to send functional gadgets that could show up in our backyard. By discovering technological probes among the interstellar rocks that reach Earth’s vicinity, we can expand our current scientific knowledge, because these probes could represent the technologies of our future.
To learn from extraterrestrials, we must be humble and admit that there is a world beyond our minds. It would be self-limiting if we locked ourselves in a philosophical bubble, forgetting the curiosity and humility that have developed our scientific knowledge so far.
Only those who believe there is a real, awe-inspiring world beyond our imagination will be fortunate enough to learn something fresh.
While simulated worlds are narrow by the imagination of their creators, scientific curiosity is the driving force that helps creators go beyond the limits of imagination.
All simulation creators are embedded in a physical reality that is larger than their imagination. The goal of physicists is to discover this underlying reality, whether it includes the simulation creators or not. Who cares? The creators are part of this physical reality.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
