What the Ancients Have to Say About the Simulation Hypothesis
Or how you don’t need to know computers to see you’re living in one
By MARTIN REZNY
I’m personally not familiar with the Advaita Vedanta, as I’m more of a fan of Zen Buddhism rather than Hinduism, but I definitely agree that the ancient eastern mysticism is very compatible with this universe being a simulation. Some of the key concepts in Buddhism (especially its Zen variant) and Hinduism even served as direct inspiration for the Matrix movies. I think the most directly relevant one is māyā, or the world being an illusion.
Etymologically speaking, the term seems to have evolved from meaning “magical power” to “illusion” and “deceit”, either in the form of gods making people believe in what isn’t actually real, or of people pretending to have qualities that they don’t have. A simulated world would be exactly that — some “gods” using their creative “magical powers” to immerse us in a secondary reality that’s only a dim reflection of the true underlying reality.
Coupled with Zen observations, this view of the world implies the primacy of consciousness over matter, which is an idea that bridges the eastern philosophy with the most eastern of the western philosophers — Plato. In his view, looking at the material world is like looking at a shadow cast on a wall of a cave, while the real world is the one out there, where all the ideal forms of objects come from. Any virtual reality is exactly like that.
In line of phenomena like fractals, quantum fields, or quantum entanglement, the eastern mysticism conceptualizes reality also as the Indra’s net of jewels. In this view, every atom is interconnected not only with every other atom, but within each smallest particle, you’ll find whole worlds, an entire reality reflected. In a simulated world, distance would be an illusion, just like any separation of objects, any edges or divisions. Not to mention that the fractal nature of the universe implies it is mathematical.
This is another connection to the western tradition, since in astrology, the main maxim is “as above, so below”, drawing analogies between phenomena happening at vastly different scales. This assumes that the world behaves as a piece of software that uses something like the same random function across all processes, which of course wouldn’t be truly random at all, meaning that you could see the same pattern everywhere.
I’m not sure that any of this would have to mean that all humans are only aspects of a single entity, but it would definitely mean that they’re more connected than it appears, even across vast distances. But who knows, consciousness in particular resists material explanation, keeping the issue open even after one takes into account all findings of modern science.
Many physicists, geneticists, or engineers certainly do have strong opinions about the nature of consciousness, ranging from it not really existing and us being philosophical zombies, to consciousness being a material quantum phenomenon, emerging from a sufficient complexity of interactions. At their most spiritual, many scientists tend to believe that one day, it will be possible to upload consciousness into a computer - into a simulated reality.
If they’re right about that, then why expect that it hasn’t happened already? And it is on these grounds, following Nick Bostrom’s ancestral simulation scenario, that an increasing number of scientists is taking the simulation hypothesis seriously. At any rate, given the recent crazy developments like Trump’s presidency or the official disclosure of the existence of UFOs by the American military, it certainly isn’t looking less likely over time.
In times like these, I think it does make sense to turn to the eastern philosophies to find ways of centering oneself and enhancing one’s ability to cut through illusions, as well as the ability to deal with the increasingly simulated nature of our civilization, regardless of the extent to which it says anything about the true nature of the underlying physical reality. If we’re not living in a simulation yet, we’re already quite far along the way there.
Like what you read? Subscribe to my publication, clap, follow, or…
