Throughout history, humanity has searched for metaphors to communicate its current understanding of the way the universe works. In the European medieval period, when we assumed that the earth was the center of the cosmos, the universe was depicted as a series of concentric spheres which were thought to surround the earth. During the Enlightenment, the clockwork universe described the carefully calibrated, machinated universe governed by precise and immutable Newtonian mechanics. In each case, the metaphor had two things in common: (1) it tracked are then-current technological sophistication, and (2) humanity took the allusion somewhat literally.
Currently, several conceptions of the ultimate cosmological construct float about. In one – the simulated universe – ultra-sophisticated beings, perhaps extraterrestrials or perhaps the human species of the future, are conceived of as having fashioned us from complex computer simulations. We know not, according to this hypothesis, whether we are real, flesh-and-blood organisms responsible for our own destinies, or whether we are programmed simulants in someone else’s programmed narrative.
Some statistics support the simulated universe hypothesis. Given the ability of an advanced civilization to simulate an entire universe, what would be the odds it would do so? Probabilistically, the odds are high that this civilization might design many such simulated realities, and therefore, that you and I may be two such beings in an impeccably designed, impossible-to-tell-the-difference, simulated reality. Think of our current technology. If we can do something technologically, we tend to do it. We’ve made nuclear bombs, developed stem cell technology, cloned sheep, made an internet, and crafted lifelike computer-generated imagery. An assumption crucial to the simulated reality hypothesis? That programmable intelligent beings such as ourselves develops sentience. In other words, if we’re bots, we’re self-aware bots.
There may be a simpler explanation to the riddle of our existence. The simulated reality cosmogeny may simply be another metaphor, another myth which we use to define ourselves and our world. If it is myth, note that the simulant myth shares in common with earlier universe metaphors the traits of (1) running parallel to our current technological development, and (2) being taken literally. Note also how much the current metaphor has in common with the ancient notions of deterministic deism, determinism, Calvinism, and the very idea that nothing happens in the world except through the intricate plans of a Higher Power. In this case, the role of the Higher Power is taken by the programmers of our simulated world. Old ideas often recur, dressed up in new guises. On its face, the simulant metaphor is materialistic. Yet its latent content describes a theistic worldview in which extraterrestrial intelligence usurps the role of a creator God.
One may ask why, if we are simulated entities, we have developed the capacity to ask whether we are, in fact, programmable quanta? That inquiry assumes the literal nature of the myth. Underneath that query are perhaps existential questions into meaning: Why are we here? Does life have any ultimate purpose? Is there an Ultimate Power controlling it all, an author whose hand unseen guides our destinies? Whether or not there is, will we unravel the mystery of our origins? Is it even possible to do so? Do we exercise free will? Or are our fates determined? If they are determined, are they determined completely? Or does free will exist within the parameters of a determined system?
Coincidentally, the simulant metaphor may be a social commentary about our current technological world. The myth may be an allusion to our tendency to create increasingly realistic worlds complete with bots and semi-intelligent beings. Perhaps we simply project our own technological tendencies, our own collective behaviors, onto the cosmos. And maybe in some distant way the simulated worlds hypothesis is a prophesy of our own future use of the technology.
Ultimately, the existential question addressed by the simulated universe hypothesis winnows down to one inquiry: Do we determine our destinies, or does a creator, invisible and ultimately incomprehensible to us, control our outcomes?
Is our fate determined utterly by some outside agency? Are we masters and mistresses of our own fate, completely free of deterministic forces? The question has been wrestled with and answered again and again in various forms, and the question has never been answered by any philosophy in a way that completely satisfies our need for an answer to it. Even quantum mechanics and other reductionist theories are often metaphors. Our scientific hypotheses are commonly philosophical ventures into this dual question, though the theorists will steadfastly deny that their physical laws, theories and hypotheses apply to anything but a physical universe. Lacking the answers to the ultimate questions – what are we? where have we come from? why are we hear? where are going? – the materialists confine themselves to answering a very narrow range of very physical questions. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s honest. Limited, but honest.
A compromise position is available: that we may exercise free will within deterministic parameters. Indeed, quantum mechanics and the laws of probability posit just such an outcome. Particles have probability waves and spikes. According to the laws of thermodynamics, certain outcomes, certain arrangements of matter in space, are more likely, and eventually, those outcomes are inevitable. But until then, we can play, since we have choice.
Yet I believe the conundrum – free will versus determinism – is best left unanswered. If it has an answer, the answer, like so many quantum outcomes, is most probably a paradox. It is perhaps most important that we have the ability to ask the question. As the poet, Rilke wisely observed, we may not yet be ready for the answer. Not in this phase of life anyway. Yet if we learn to live the question, then in some distant way we begin to arrive at the answer.
The fact that we have the capacity to ask the question provides an immense and yet invisible hope. It means that we can learn to live within and to embrace and love the paradox. Myths tend to represent paradoxes which reconcile truths greater than either contradiction which seems to stand in opposition to the other. The simulant myth is no different, for in the stories which translate the myth, such as in The Matrix trilogy, some simulants awake from the program and realize their true natures, ultimately escaping from the simulation. As myth, the simulant metaphor is therefore a promise of escape through the attainment of greater awareness. If a bot can ask whether she is a bot – such as in Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Ship? then there is hope of escaping the simulation, which is equivalent to the attainment of nirvana, and release from the cycle of birth and death. The state of mind tantamount to such a realization is paradise.
Freud believed that dreams had both a manifest, or patent content, as well as a latent, or hidden content. The dual meaning is significant. The deeper, hidden meaning of dreams, both individual and collective, provides the fodder for progress. Metaphors and myths provide the same double layer.
Our choice is to accept the patent content of the simulant hypothesis, or to dig deeper and discover the hidden meanings of our collective nature.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within