Last weekend, I visited the Paragon Cineplex at the Siam mall in Bangkok with my boyfriend. Strolling around, we stumbled upon the IMAX Virtual Reality center.
It’s the first of its kind in Southeast Asia and it picked my curiosity! We wandered inside, drawn by the exhilarated voices of people enjoying various virtual reality experiences.
A smiling attendant saw me glued in front of the poster of a space flight, day-dreaming already about floating in the black vastness.
He guided us to 2 high-tech chairs, helped us put on the sci-fi glasses and with his pressing of a button, I found myself in an astronaut suit in a spaceship, strapped on my vibrating chair, getting ready to launch in space!
After the first moment I was already hooked on this state-of-the-art virtual environment. I looked at my co-pilot on my left and cried out in thrilled happiness upon viewing the stunning blue dot on my cabin’s window.
(Yes, I can be such a kid, getting so excited with the simplest things! But my sense of childish wonder throughout life is a subject for another post.)
The experience was so realistic that I felt nauseous when I took my glasses off and came back to “reality”, after going through some stress-inducing incidents and eventually returning to Earth in a spectacular way.
I guess I fit into the perfect audience for this immersive VR technology; I’m so easily influenced and impressionable (we also make the best candidates for successful hypnosis).
The Simulation Hypothesis — Is it as crazy as it sounds?
For the past 2 weeks, after reading some related articles here on Medium (like this one), the subjects of Virtual Reality and the origins of Consciousness have again occupied my mind, annoyingly keeping me awake some nights.
Having a Masters in Astrophysics and as I’ve always been fascinated with the Universe and Consciousness, I’m already familiar with “out-there” theories about reality, quantum mechanics and parallel universes.
Even though nothing is yet proved, intuitively the theory of a Multi-verse where different outcomes of simulations play out strikes an intellectual chord.
And then, you have some respectable scientists and innovators not rejecting the idea immediately, but actually admitting that the proposition of humanity living in a matrix is more than plausible.
Sleep and consciousness
The nature of reality… How we determine what’s real and what’s not?
My experience in the VR environment felt so real! Or did I intentionally shut down the part of my brain that said “don’t be fooled Nicky, this isn’t real” and that allowed me to actually believe I was in Space?
If I was actually in a rocket getting ready to be launched in Space, would I feel the same emotions? If yes, can I already say “I’ve been to Space?”
The same questioning goes for the realm of Dreams. The ones we remember, usually upon waking up, feel so real and vivid!
And sometimes our body itself has reacted to what our brain experienced as a real situation. Like being chased by a murderer in a dream and waking up out of breath and all sweaty with your heart pumping hard.
Can we call that “reality”? Or is reality only what we can experience and verify through our physical senses?
Is virtual reality any less real than “Reality”, if we physically experience the same sensations?
I bet you’ve also wondered at some point: where does our consciousness and sense of self go when we sleep? Is there another realm where everything we dream at night plays out, in a different “parallel” universe?
Objective Reality and Consciousness
Quantum Physics gives us a description of the Universe (or multiple universes) that doesn’t make sense from the perspective of an “objective reality” but requires observation by some kind of consciousness.
These sometimes incredible reports defy common sense, unless we accept the hypothesis that we are living inside a video game (a Great Simulation, if you will) rather than a physical realm governed by the known laws of Physics.
In this case, consciousness is the equivalent to us “logging into” the system.
In the case of sleeping… do we “log into” the system of our Great Simulation again, upon waking up?
The British intellectual, Havelock Ellis, said:
“Dreams are real while they last. Can we say any more of life?”
Like all simulations, our world may only be real while the “simulation” is running.
Taking that thought further, if human consciousness has been around only during the last thousands of years, and the Simulation renders itself non-existent if there is no consciousness to interact with it, how can we accept that the age of the universe is 14 billion years? Was there a consciousness that observed all of its creation and evolution happening?
I’ve come to a conclusion currently that if there’s any absolute Truth, it’s beyond the mind.
Everything is predetermined. So I’ll just live in the eternal moment of now, and let life flow without attachment to the illusion.
What if humans are Artificial Intelligence?
What if some higher Consciousness created us, using the same methods that scientists use nowadays to create and evolve AI technology?
And then you have other phenomena, related to consciousness and the brain’s functions, like deja-vu.
I started watching the excellent series “Dark” the other day, and this line comes up on the very first episode:
“If the world is a simulation, then a deja-vu is a glitch in the matrix.”
A great way to explain deja-vu! And it’s true that with the Simulation Hypothesis some other existential questions that have plagued humankind’s philosophers since the dawn of time find adequate answers.
Conclusion
I know I’ve just scratched the surface of multiple subjects here, but these are some of my jumbled thoughts regarding these matters.
And if this hypothesis is true, it’s like a fountain-source spewing out many more deep questions about free will and fate, life after death, the origins of the human species, the nature of emotions like love etc.
Just asking ourselves things like — who am I? Who is this person in whose brain my thoughts are coming to?
What is making my lungs breathe and my heart beat, if I don’t consciously make the effort? Where do my troubles and stressful problems go when I’m asleep?
Maybe then we can get closer to the Truth; when we are the “observers”, as the Eastern philosophies teach. When we get to witness “reality”, without any intellectual judgement, maybe then we’ll realize that whatever our mind thinks is not the answer to the questions.
Paraphrasing Arthur Clarke’s quote,
‘Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying’ ,
I would say that two possibilities exist: either we are living in a Simulation or we are not. Both are equally intriguing.
And thus concludes my very first post on Medium, after being a lurking voracious reader for months! Thanks for reading :)
Clap if you enjoyed this, and comment if you find the Simulation Hypothesis as fascinating as I do (or even if you think it’s totally bonkers!)