What is reality, and who is God? Can computers give us those answers?
I think we are very close to understanding what reality probably is, and what “God” is, with a math game as scientific proof.
Science will probably, at some point, formalize this informal answer, as simulation theory, has been talked about for some time and is becoming more popular and accepted in science.
Simulation theory essentially answers the previously unanswerable question of what reality is, this question has only become answerable thanks to computers. Let me explain:
If Conway’s game of life, having so few rules, can become a Turing complete computer that can simulate itself, then that is a clear indication that our own reality could be a computer simulation, because we can too, simulate our own reality and create new (unpredictable) realities using very few rules, like we did with Conway’s game of Life.
These new realities even if simple at first can become extremely complex and able to host basically anything in them, it is probably fair to say that John Conway never thought that his simple math game could host a Turing complete computer, moving “beings” that live in it, or that it would be impossible to predict the end-state of certain Conway games due to the halting problem, which is like the concept of irrational numbers, simple operations that seem to go on forever without ever stopping, such as the square root of 2, or Pi.
Now, knowing this story of origin is a possibility, we still don’t know how likely it is to be true, so let’s try to count the other side, what is the likelihood of our existence, NOT being a computer simulation?
The likelihood of not existing in a simulation is slim, because that would assume that we happen to exist in the only 1 base reality, out of trillions (or more) realities that can exist on top of it, these realities might run on computers, or on biological beings, since brains and some assortments of cells can probably become Turing complete and capable of running its own simulations by pure chance, given enough time.
This is true if we assume that multiple universes or dimensions exist, and even true if we only consider the observable universe to exist.
Because, due to chance –only in the observable universe–, intelligent species of living things would arise, many of which will build or somehow develop Turing devices, which in turn will be able to run the most simple and complex simulations, inside some of these simulations, intelligent beings will pop up by chance given enough time, then these simulated beings will end up making computers capable or running simulations, and so on.
While our own reality might seem too complex to be run by a computer, that is only because of our perspective, as we see in our own simulations, there can be much simpler virtual worlds that we can create and run, but not predict, and there are probably much more complex and computationally intensive simulations above us.
The “base reality” or platform reality (the reality on top of which all realities exist), given its (probably basic) rules of: Time, and some forces that dictate how things change through time, would eventually, even if only by chance (randomness), create a computer/being that can simulate itself and other realities, this process could repeat infinitely until the base reality stops or breaks, causing an end to all the realities it simulates, or, it might “never” stop (be an infinite loop)…
Wether the base reality can end, or not, might not be something knowable, as it would require perfect prediction of its interactions using an even bigger computer that can simulate that base reality at a faster speed in order to “see what’s coming” in advance, however, by definition, there isn’t anything “bigger” than base reality.
Example from Lenia
Here we can see an example of animated beings arising from arbitrary math rules in Lenia, a simulator of artificial life inspired on Conway’s game of life:
As seen in the first part of the picture above, we can observe a world filled with a random initial state of things (matter) laying on a plane, this matter follows mathematical rules of interaction (physical forces).
During the second part of the picture, time passes, bringing an end to the initial random state, the state of our simulation starts to change according to these physical forces we arbitrarily determined during the first step.
This second part is the most interesting step, because what happens as time goes on is often unpredictable, and in some cases we even observe what looks like infinite loops that never end changing.
During this period we can sometimes observe stable organisms made out of matter, that move infinitely in one direction, the same way gliders do in Conway’s game of life. An example of a virtual specimen born in a virtual world, by chance, is shown in the last part of the image.
Going back to Conway, a really big Conway’s game of life seen from afar even looks like a starry sky at night, or microbes moving under a microscope, so his arbitrary rules that tried to simulate “Life” might not be that far off.
RIP John Conway, without knowing it, he might have created one of the closest things to having a math proof for a theory of everything that resolves the question: What is reality?
The good (or bad) news: The amount of “reality” that is out there, is probably infinitely more vast than what we can experience on Earth with our senses and sensors, both going up or down in the dimension scale.
Who is God?
If base reality, NEVER had an origin, meaning it always existed, then the “God” of gods, or the effective creator/cause of all realities running on top of it (including us), and probably many other beings that can create their own realities, would probably be… :
The initial state, and a simple set of rules that govern base reality (and by consequence all realities).
The absolute God, or cause of all things, might have no face or shape as we tell ourselves, since any human concept, such as the idea of a human, would be too limited to describe the reality that runs all realities.
“God” would probably be an –unconscious– force that is constantly working behind the scenes, resolving all the physical interactions we observe and all the interactions that exist, observable or not, even quantum interactions might be entirely predictable from the perspective of a bigger observer running this simulation.
The original source of all “randomness” might be the initial state (or matter assortment) of base reality.
It’s possible that there was no initial state either, just the constantly ever changing state that might have never had a beginning and might not have an end.
“No beginning” might be hard to understand for us, humans, and hard to understand to any n-th dimension being, the name I’m giving all beings that exist in a reality that exists as a byproduct of the base reality.
An “n-th” reality being a successor of the “1st” base reality.
The concept of “no beginning” is hard to understand because we measure our existence in base-reality time, we have a reference of time, while base reality has no bigger reference. In our case, our reference is mostly the Earth and the Sun. In the case of base reality, there is no, and there can’t be, a bigger reference.
Our view is also skewed by our surroundings where we see see origins and ends all the time (births and deaths of many things).
Trying to understand reality by asking questions of origin and end, might be a human bias, and even a bias of n-th dimension beings as the simulations we experience and see all the time do have a birth and expiration date in base reality time.
However, a bigger observer, like someone looking at Conway’s game of Life developing over time, could be more objective, an observer of Conway’s game of Life could observe both the birth and death of individual phenomena within that simulation (like looking at a glider being formed, and then crashing into nothingness), that observer could also see the seeming infinity of the game as whole, or at least, see the impossibility of determining wether it’s a infinite or finite simulation (the halting problem).
In other words, the life of microbes under a microscope seems short, but life on Earth might have existed for billions of years, while life in the universe might never end. The perspective of the observer changes its definition of death, birth and finiteness.
Something interesting is that all realities would have the same “God” since all realities and interactions follow the rules of base reality at all levels of existence, because, even different realities that have its own rules (even conflicting rules) are simulated by –something– that complies with the original reality. That –something– can be a computer as we know them, or some biological thing capable of running simulations, such as our brains, or something way more abstract like Conway’s game of Life.
For example, you can defy physics in a video game, but that action is happening in a computer that complies with the laws of physics, to give the illusion of physics being broken in the simulated world of a video game, but at the end of the day:
These absolute original forces would effectively be unescapable, wether you are simulated, not simulated, alive, dead, nothingness or something.
Videos for more context on the ideas discussed here:
