Every morning, a world beams into view — a world of objects, family, friends, ideas. But also a world of suffering. “What is this place?”, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and “Who built it?” are natural questions. Perhaps, these are unanswerable questions. The stories we give ourselves as answers to these questions provide meaning and motivation to be our best selves. This blog covers some stories we give ourselves and their implications for how life ought to be led.
The Simulation Hypothesis
The last 50 years brought us realistic computer games. Gamers find themselves lost in these virtual worlds. Physical objects in games can behave quite indistinguishably from the real world. Computer games have social interactions, quests, and opportunities to make money. They make us wonder: “Is this universe we inhabit itself like a computer game?” The Simulation Hypothesis posits that we’re players in a computer game of some sort. For the next 5 minutes, accept that we live in a game. What types of games could this Universe be, and what does it imply for how you should live? That’s what we delve into!
The most culturally familiar simulation is that this world is a prison — an idea so brilliantly explored in the Matrix movie series. Humanity has lost out to the machines. The machines have fashioned a mind prison — the Matrix — for their human captives. The game feels exactly like the world we find ourselves in — a world of objects, tasty food, hope, boredom, despair, careers, and corporations. Prisoners are born, live out their lives and die in the Matrix without perceiving it to be a prison. Some humans outside the prison even choose to give up their freedom and submit themselves fully to the Matrix. Life inside a prison can be better than the outside. Pablo Escobar, the brilliant Drug Lord, would have resonated; — he fashioned himself a prison, La Catedral, on similar grounds. A prison will have eternal detailed surveillance and guards to enforce order when prisoners break out of control. The clash between Matrix guards and humanity outside the prison forms the storyline of the Matrix.
What if this Universe we inhabit is a prison? We’ve been put here for incomprehensible reasons and probably, can never be free of it. Death in one form might be followed by rebirth in another since the prisoners must be kept entertained. There is eternal surveillance of what we do and thresholds we can’t cross. A critical threshold is to understand exactly how the prison is built and how to break free. Physics and science will stagnate before it approaches the point.
The prison can be not even entirely generated. Humanity has never sent a probe to the deep atmosphere of Jupiter. Well then, the prison builders haven’t worked out the details of its deep atmosphere either. They will do so when forced by us. There’s some part of Earth where paleontologists haven’t dug for dinosaur bones? The universe might generate new prehistoric animals when we do dig. Science won’t end up being consistent — theories will conflict with each other. Eerily, that’s what’s happening in physics — quantum mechanics and general relativity often produce wrong predictions when combined together. We’ve collectively spent 100 years trying to get them to synergize.
The prison, of all places, provides moral guidance. If this Universe is a prison, either eat, drink and be merry or escape prison. Things in between don’t make a lot of sense. To escape the prison, consider becoming a prisoner yourself — you need to understand the psychology, tactics and problems of a jailor!
The Libertarian Universe
Let’s journey to the opposite end of the spectrum. A universe as far away from prison as can be: The Libertarian Universe. A conceptual universe loved by scientists, rationalists, and many political philosophers. A set of rules (laws of physics) were set in motion or always have been in action, and this Universe moves forward by applying those rules mechanically. The unfulfilled quest to find those basic rules is physics. Most isolated systems we have studied — light, heat, computer science, spacetime etc. — have broken down into a basic set of self-consistent rules. So, there is hope that the overarching system — the Universe — will also yield it’s base rules to science.
The Libertarian Universe is probably entirely generated and self-consistent. A storm happened on a Pacific island with no resident humans? The patterns of falling trees, the effect on the animals, etc., are all worked out. We can go there and piece together much of what happened, like detectives. Is it hard to make quantum mechanics and general relativity work together? That’s because there is a deeper set of rules, as yet undiscovered, that will solve the inconsistency. Discovering those more profound rules will be a matter of time and effort. When we find out the final rules, we will wonder: “Why are these the rules, not others?” In the libertarian Universe, we might have an explanation for even that.
There is no external surveillance in the libertarian Universe — no more immense power interested in your life. It implies that no regime, beyond other people and me, can solve my blood cancer. The lack of a more significant being also means you’re utterly free beyond being subject to the laws of physics. You can be a saint, a nuclear warmonger, break the ten commandments every day, etc., without any judgment. Any morality is a self-imposition — you did it to make your life easier. Did you decide never to cheat on your spouse? It is your own volition — not a commandment by a God.
The Libertarian Universe is brutal to accept as a belief system for most people. Grasping it requires an appreciation of physics and of scientific falsification. The lack of external moral compass and purpose gnaws at people. Acceptance of old age and death is also challenging since the end is final. Events (incl. my cancer) have to be accepted as a probability always there in the background, being played out. No wonder the libertarian Universe is the refuge of rational, scientific minds.
The Middle Paths
Between the prison and the libertarian Universe lie an enormous class of directed universes. The Universe is created by some entity (God), and that entity retains some interests and capabilities. It is a humongous class since all religions fall under it. Think of the Christian Universe as an illustration.
God has struck a good balance between free will and moral guidance in the Christian Universe. We are mostly free to pursue our lives. God encourages us to help other people and achieve things. God imposes some acceptable limitations — like the commandments. God watches over everyone, i.e., complete surveillance, and uses that knowledge to judge our actions. Judgment determines our course beyond this world. This shared belief system has, at times, assisted societies to push the boundaries of construction, exploration, and knowledge. Other directed universes — that of Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism — have found their own unique combinations to architect functioning societies. Let’s now move on to a second example of a directed universe, which also breaks the association that they are only religious in nature.
In the space of possible directed universes, this is a gem. I call it The Catalog Universe. Imagine that this world is a great game, and the purpose of the game is to find capable bits of intelligence. We are the agent(s)/intelligence(s)/AI(s) playing the game. The Universe is surveilled, and an external entity is building an immense catalog of intelligence with different capabilities. Albert Einstein figured out the nature of spacetime? The entity notes that and stores the code (neural patterns) running Einstein’s mind. Elon Musk built an empire in the industry? The entity noted and stored the code. Your father held together with your family exceptionally and brought up great children? The entity noted and stored the code. Mahatma Gandhi provided actionable moral guidance to millions of people? Noted and stored. Osama bin Laden terrorized a generation? Noted and stored. Your friend’s mother not only brought up her children but supported hundreds of orphans through their childhood? Noted and stored. We’re all assisting the entity in building this giant catalog. All you need to do to make the catalog is distinguish yourself. Be original since the catalog has little need for unimaginative clones. Distinguishing yourself does not need to be about public achievement. Unremarked monks who found inner peace are in the catalog.
But, what is the purpose of this catalog? To what use will the entity put the code of these different people/bits of intelligence? We can only guess. Perhaps, the entity is a corporation that will sell these bits of intelligence to other corporations to solve their problems. Maybe, the entity is building a museum of intelligences that children in another universe can play with. Perhaps, the entity is facing some issue of its own. It needs some of our intelligence to breakthrough.
So, how would you live life if you believed in the Catalog Universe?
My answer: I will wake up, seize each day, and attempt to distinguish myself creatively. Carpe Diem!!
