If We Live In A Bitmap… Is Satoshi God?
Can Quantum Bitmap Theory Answer The Oldest Questions?
“The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.” — Voltaire
Despite the title, this is not an article about religion.
Religions are centralized power structures, like governments and banks. The strong have always exploited the weak. No thanks.
This is an article about the false dichotomy between science and spirituality that defines the Western paradigm of thought. Consider it an examination of whether that dichotomy is an illusion, if not an outright grift.
Quantum Bitmap Theory
If you haven’t read my article “You Live In A Bitmap”, go read that one first. Consider it an introduction to what I’ve termed Quantum Bitmap Theory.
Seriously go read that one first, I’ll wait…
Welcome back. To recap:
- Bitcoin was inevitable, because it solves trust. Centralized power structures exploit the masses by controlling the source of record. Bitcoin is the first decentralized immutable source of record — can’t be censored or rewritten. So we can trust math, not people.
- Bitmaps were inevitable, because the only worthwhile metaverse (or internet for that matter) would be one built on a non-arbitrary source of record (i.e. Bitcoin). Otherwise your metaverse is centrally controlled like the Matrix / Ready Player One, which sucks.
- Simulation theory says that once we get advanced enough to make a realistic simulation, the odds are we’re already in one. Substrate independence says that “reality” can just as easily be neurons in a brain as a program in a computer. That means a simulation and a metaverse are basically the same thing.
- Quantum theory tells us our perceived reality is just a slice of a bigger universe we don’t understand. String theory says there are 10 or 11 dimensions, but we only perceive a few. We exist in “branes”, which are like a bunch of these slices layered on top of each other. We think they’re there because gravity leaks between them. The rest of the dimensions we don’t perceive are the “bulk”.
- Quantum Bitmap Theory (my term) speculates that if we do live in a simulation, these branes are essentially bitmaps — digital referents to the larger, non-arbitrary reality of the universe.
I’d like to go a few steps further:
- Science and spirituality are a false dichotomy: both are a search for existential knowledge. The truth of the universe is non-dualistic. The world’s philosophies & religions are rife with examples of beliefs that align with Quantum Bitmap Theory; they just didn’t know what bitmaps were yet.
- Free will and predestination are another false dichotomy. Quantum uncertainty resolves this contradiction. The observer creates reality through the act of observation. An infinite amount of quantum realities can exist. We navigate the multiverse through our thoughts, actions, and choices. (To be covered in a future article)
- The creator of the simulation may well be considered a God, as we understand the concept. But worry not. Faith is not required: the truth is trustless. That’s the whole point.
Non-Duality — Since The Dawn Of Man
The truth has always been non-dualistic. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s see what history’s great schools of thought say:
Platonism
“The objects of knowledge are not in the sensible world but in the world of intellect, in the light of the Good.” — Socrates, in Plato’s “Republic”
Have you ever seen a perfect circle?
You haven’t, because such a thing does not exist in our reality.
Plato’s Theory Of Forms posits that true reality exists beyond the physical, in a realm of perfect forms or ideas that represent the essence of all things in the physical world.
An example of a Form is a horse.
Horseness, if we can coin such a term, is a set of schema that define the type of things that signify a horse. When we see a dog, we don’t call it a horse, because dogs lack horseness, and vice versa.
“Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads.
Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners, there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.” — Socrates, in Plato’s “Phaedo”
The Allegory Of The Cave is a mainstay of western philosophy classes. The idea is that we don’t see the reality of anything — just the “shadows” cast by reality onto our distorted perceptions.
This is why we actually see in the “real” world is never really a horse — just a shadow of a Horse, projected onto the substrate of our “reality”.
This is also why there’s no such thing in reality as a “perfect circle”. When zoomed in sufficiently, every circle is imperfect. Only the Circle — the Form of a circle — is truly a circle at all.
Remember that substrate independence tells us that reality is inherently subjective. A product of data, not of physicality. Zeroes and ones.
Just as the Forms are the true basis of reality in Platonism, the digital structure of a cosmic blockchain in Quantum Bitmap Theory serves as the underlying fabric underpinning digital interactions and environments.
Hinduism
“The world is a cosmic play, and it is an illusion woven by Maya.” — Adi Shankaracharya
Maya is a Sanskrit word that means “illusion” or “magic,” and in Hindu philosophy, it refers to the cosmic illusion created by divine power, under which the true nature of reality is hidden.
It’s often thought of as the power that creates the material world, which deceives individuals into believing the sensory world is the only reality.
“Just as people engaged in dream-like activities see unreal things in their dreams, similarly, one regards this world as real until the Supreme Self, the eternal truth, is realized.”
Vedanta, one school of Hindu philosophy, teaches that the world as perceived through the senses is Maya, an illusion masking Brahman, the ultimate reality that is unchanging and infinite. In other words, immutable.
Sound familiar?
Buddhism
“Form is empty; emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different from form; form is not different from emptiness.” — Heart Sutra
The Heart Sutra is one of the most famous scriptures in Mahayana Buddhism, known for its profound teaching on the nature of emptiness and the essence of wisdom.
The sutra teaches that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, meaning they do not arise independently but depend on other factors and conditions.
This mirrors Quantum Bitmap Theory’s view of digital reality as constructed from interdependent data, not existing independently but as part of a larger existence not fully perceivable.
The sutra calls out the non-duality of form:
“There is no ignorance, and no end to ignorance; there is no old age and death, and no end to old age and death; there is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and no non-attainment.”
In other words, nothing in this life is what we think it is. Suffering does not exist, need not be ceased, because it isn’t real to begin with. There is no spoon.
Deism
“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” — Thomas Jefferson, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” (1774)
Deism is an Enlightenment-era philosophy that views God as a “Clockmaker”, who created the universe, but does not interfere in its operations or human affairs. He created the clock, defined the rules of the system, then went hands-off.
Just as a blockchain runs on predefined protocols without further intervention after its initial creation, the Deistic view of God as a Clockmaker parallels the notion of a universe designed to function autonomously according to fixed, discoverable laws.
If the braneworld of our “reality” connects with a higher cosmic truth — like a sophisticated blockchain where every transaction and event is recorded in a digital ledger — this mirrors Deism’s rationalist and mechanistic universe model.
Theosophy
“The Akashic Records contain all knowledge of the human experience and the history of the cosmos, recorded on the astral plane.” — Alice A. Bailey
Theosophy, a spiritual movement from the late 19th century, asserts that all knowledge and experience are stored in the Akashic Records, a metaphysical database accessible through spiritual insight.
The Akashic Records are thought to exist in the etheric plane, recording every thought, word, and action in the history of the world. This concept suggests that the universe itself has a memory, where past, present, and future are indistinguishably recorded, transcending time and space.
“Upon time and space is written the thoughts, the deeds, the activities of an entity — as in relationships to its environs, its hereditary influence; as directed — or judgment drawn by or according to what the entity’s ideal is.” — Edgar Cayce
Just like a roll of film being imprinted each moment with a record of everything that happens. Like a blockchain. An immutable ledger of truth.
The point of comparing all these cultural references is recognizing that the illusory nature of reality is not a bug, but a feature, of just about every system of thought ever written down.
Is Satoshi God? And If So…So What?
The point of this article is definitely not to convince you that Satoshi Nakamoto is a divine entity. None of this is true or false — it’s just part of the search for knowledge that defines both science and spirituality.
But by creating Bitcoin, Satoshi created the first truly immutable source of record — a fundamental prerequisite for creating a simulation based on immutable laws. Nearly every system of thought in human history has created a distinction between the immutable and the impermanent, the ephemeral and the fleeting. In every case, what we call life is the illusion.
What are the ramifications of living in a simulation, if we do? Does it matter who created it? To extend the philosophical metaphor, if Satoshi is God, what does He want of us?
The dichotomy between science and faith has been a central schism that defines Western thought. But if Satoshi is God, he freed us from that contradiction in his design of Bitcoin.
Far from requiring faith — or what we might call “trust” — Bitcoin’s hallmark quality is trustlessness. The objective truth provided by the blockchain means no one needs to take anything on faith. There’s nothing more important.
Because a simulation that’s centrally controlled would truly be a Hell.
Thank you for reading. All artistic images created by Elevated Dabber with the assistance of GPT 4 / DALL-E 3.
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