Observations don’t always agree with theory. That’s not usually a problem as theorists can often accommodate the observations as often the error bars around the measurements are wide enough to accommodate the theory. But, when observation and theory really collide, especially when it comes to those fundamental Big Questions, and also especially with the conflicts continue over many, many, years; then it’s time for Mr. Spock to raise those eyebrows! However, there is an easy solution, albeit one which won’t sit well with 99.99% of readers. The solution is that you, the reader, don’t exist! Well you do exist, just not in a real reality sense but as a virtual reality created by others. What’s the evidence?
You do exist, just not in a real reality sense but rather in a virtual reality created by others; you are generated as part and parcel of computer software programming by someone, or something else, as is the entirety of life, the Universe and everything else you perceive with your five senses. Because a simulated or virtual reality can be manipulated or rerun, that leads to a multi-path ‘reality’.
Okay, that’s an interesting idea, but how do you prove it? Presumably the beings that we create in our virtual reality simulations and video games have no comprehension that they are only virtually real. If you could interview them, they would no doubt verify their really real existence, even though we, their creators, know better. In parallel, why would our existence and our perception of that existence, if we are virtual beings created by others, be any different? If we have no comprehension that our reality is a virtual one, what might alter that perception? Well, perhaps by looking at all of the impossibilities and paradoxes that are part and parcel of our reality. If they cannot be understood and resolved, then that might provide an “eureka” moment that we are virtual; we exist in a virtual, not real cosmos.
In baseball terminology, here’s the knuckleball! There’s only one way I know of to generate convincing impossibilities – virtual reality; a simulated universe where there need be no connection at all between what you observe and what theoretically caused the various things that you observe.
If you construct a simulation or virtual reality of any kind, the backdrop against which the real interest or action is played out is just loosely sketched in. You don’t waste time, energy, expenses and resources on what’s aesthetically pleasing but relatively minor and not overly relevant in what transpires. That’s very obvious say in animated or cartoon features. And so we note that most theory versus observation anomalies tend to be background ones. So while you don’t expect gross violations or anomalies in physics in your day-to-day affairs (you get out of bed, you don’t float out of bed) that doesn’t apply to your background environment where attention to detail isn’t as relevant and so that’s where anomalies are probably going to occur. Translated, the required details in the software that generate you and all of what impacts on you directly must be not only highly detailed but consistent. What’s not overly relevant can be generated with much less detail and thus you will get an ‘oops’ now and then.
So I’ll start with my universal “Resolution” to theory versus observation anomalies - Our reality, our Universe starting with the Big Bang (and leading up to ultimately you) is nothing but a computer-generated program, software created by some entity, probably an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Having set up the parameters, it’s just a matter of ETI hitting the ‘start program’ key and seeing what happens. We humans have already done this sort of virtual creation activity; not just video games but for all sorts of practical applications as well – like training exercises and simulating interesting like ecosystems for example - so there’s nothing implausible about this possibility.
Now I’ve often wondered if some great extraterrestrial computer programmer (our ETI) specialising in generating or simulating virtual reality worlds and universes would leave enough clues to his (its) created ‘subjects’ that they in fact were just software generated virtual beings in a simulated universe. One such type of clue, as hinted above, would be their simulations, their software, isn’t sophisticated enough through design or accident to reconcile their creation’s observation with their creation’s theories when it comes to the backdrops. One such case, of many, is the case of the Big Bang event backdrop which I’ll get to momentarily.
So what follows are a number of theory-versus-observation anomalies coupled with four bits that come before the already given virtual reality ETI “Resolution” – “Theory”, versus “Observation”, the resulting “Conflict” and a what-does-it-all-mean “Discussion”. We’ll start with the biggest of all the Big Questions – the origin and evolution of life, the Universe and everything via the Big Bang event.
THE BIG BANG EVENT: This is no doubt a concept that nearly everyone has heard about, and swallowed hook, line and cosmological sinker because scientists present the scenario as fact. It’s not fact; just the most viable theory of many theories and it has serious flaws.
Theory: The creation or event that kick-started our Universe off not only created all of matter and energy, but all of time and space, and this creation event all took place in a volume less than that of a pinhead.
Observation: At best observations that support this are indirect being made some 13.7 billion years after-the-fact. Those indirect observations that provide evidence for the Big Bang event are the fact that the Universe is expanding; the Universe has a temperature – the remnants from the hot Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and the amounts and ratio of hydrogen to helium. In reality there are no direct observations as nobody was present at Ground Zero all those billions of years ago.
Conflict: The conflict is three-fold. You have a violation of causality. You have a violation of several conservation laws or relationships. You have a violation of pure common sense that tells you that you can not stuff the contents of the Universe into the realm of the quantum.
Discussion: What if the Big Bang is a theoretical impossibility of physics pure and simple, despite the observational evidence? My scenario: the expansion; the CMBR; the ratio of hydrogen to helium, are all simulated evidence, probably by ETI.
QUANTUM GRAVITY: We have observations of four physical forces yet no theory which unites the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force) with the one classical force – gravity. Theory needs to be satisfied.
Theory: All of the four fundamental forces should be interconnected, some sort of unification principle that relates all four.
Observation: There are four fundamental forces that govern the Universe and no observation of any obvious unification.
Conflict: If the Big Bang theory is to be proven correct as stated, scientists must of necessity come up with a viable theory of quantum gravity that is an acceptable unification. There is no viable theory of quantum gravity despite thousands of physicists searching for one over many generations now.
Discussion: It’s like there are two sets of different software running the Universe. Well, how many sets of software collectively operate all of your PC operations?
MONOPOLES: We all know about magnetic fields having two sides, whether it’s a bar magnet or the Earth’s magnetic field (or those part and parcel of many other astronomical bodies) – there’s a south pole and a north pole; a positive and a negative. It will probably come as a surprise that there should also be a monopole – a magnet with just one pole, north OR south; positive OR negative.
Theory: One of the many Big Bang ‘in the beginning’ predictions of theoretical things is magnetic monopoles – magnets with either a south pole or a north pole, but not both.
Observation: Alas, we’ve never ever found and confirmed the reality of even one monopole.
Conflict: Theoretical prediction and observation are not in harmony.
Discussion: So strange is this anomaly that a new concept states that the very early Universe underwent an additional oomph of very rapid inflation which so diluted the Big Bang created monopoles that there are no longer any monopoles in our neck of the woods. That does appear a bit like clutching at straws. Of course resorting to ETI and virtual reality is also a clutch, but equally as viable, maybe more so.
QUASARS: Quasars are ‘quasi-stellar objects’. They are ‘stellar’ because they aren’t all that large (like a galaxy). They are ‘quasi’ because they give off energy way, way, way more times greater than any star known in any astronomical catalogue. They seem to be primordial objects – they formed long ago and are now far away.
Theory: Quasars, like stars or galaxies are their own entities and if two or more show very close special causality relationships then they should show identical recessional velocities. Recessional velocities are measured by any objects’ red-shifts. Theory identifies red-shift with velocity.
Observation: You have observations of quasars with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities) yet pairs of quasars which appear to be causality connected.
Conflict: You can not have a runner running at 15 miles per hour holding hands with another runner running at 3 miles per hour!
Discussion: If the observations are correct, then something really is screwy somewhere! If red-shifts have no actual relationship with velocity, then the entirety of accepted cosmology is right down the gurgler. Of course ETI is probably most interested in the virtual creation of us, not so much the wider environment we observe like the relations between two quasars, and so that’s one of those backdrop ‘oops’.
VACUUM ENERGY: Since a temperature of absolute zero, that is a state in which there is no available energy that exists, is impossible because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle – a rock solid foundation of quantum physics. So there is always a minimum amount of energy available that pervades the Universe. It’s called the ‘vacuum energy’.
Theory: The vacuum energy should exist with such-and-such a value.
Observation: The vacuum energy exists (is has been observed and it has been experimentally confirmed) with such-and-such a value.
Conflict: You have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy.
Discussion: This discrepancy is the most embarrassing ‘oops’ in all of modern physics and nobody can figure out how to resolve the discrepancy. Oops indeed! Of course all manner of ‘oops’ can exist when creating or simulating a cosmic backdrop.
WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY: You have particles that behave both as a wave and as little billiard balls – observed but theoretically impossible in classical physics.
Theory: You have waves – obviously. You have particles – obviously. You theoretically don’t have waves that behave as little billiard balls – obviously. You theoretically don’t have particles that wave all over the place and interfere with each other – obviously.
Observation: You have waves that behave as little billiard balls. You have particles that wave all over the place and interfere with each other. That’s just nuts!
Conflict: There’s no way you can turn a little billiard ball into a wave; you can’t turn a wave into a little billiard ball.
Discussion: There are two theories to explain wave-particle duality. The first is that at point of origin or emission the bit in question is a little billiard ball – a particle. At point of impact or termination the bit is a little billiard ball – a particle. In-between, the pathway, the flight of the bit, well the bit has transformed into a wave. The second idea owes its genesis to the late quantum physicist Richard Feynman who stated that everything is particles – no waves. But, to account for the wave behaviour, he invented his ‘sum over histories’ approach to explain wave-particle duality. Any one particle that travels from Point A to Point B traverses each and every possible pathway between A and B simultaneously. It’s like you can go from home to work in dozens of different ways; alternate routes. Only you take each and every route possible at the same time! As far as I’m concerned, neither idea solves the Big Question. Why wave-particle duality at all? Perhaps our hypothetical ETI can explain.
MASS: Speaking of particles, there are three fundamental properties of particles (like the electron, neutrinos, the numerous quarks, etc.) and their anti-particles (like the positron). They are charge, spin and mass. As the song goes, two out of three ain’t bad, but that still leaves one out of three out of joint. In this case, it’s mass.
Theory: Nobody can predict from first principles what the masses of the fundamental particles should be. That’s fairly disturbing for something as fundamental as mass.
Observation: Despite the relatively large number of particles (including the equal and opposite anti-particles), there are only a few allowed values for charge and spin, values pretty much confined to the infield. But, for some reason, the mass (usually expressed in equivalent energy units – Einstein’s famous equation) of the various particles are not only scattered throughout the ballpark but are all over the city map and beyond. They take on values (albeit one value per type of particle) over many orders of magnitude without any apparent pattern or regularity or relationship between them – and nobody has the foggiest idea why, not a validly theoretical idea, or even a ‘far out’ idea.
Conflict: Why should mass differ so greatly from the other fundamental properties part and parcel of particles? It’s like someone just drew a few dozens of numbers out of a hat containing multi hundreds of thousands of values and assigned them to the few dozens of particles willy-nilly.
Discussion: Something is screwy somewhere because something so fundamental shouldn’t be so anomalous. But looking at our own virtual reality video games, there tends to be more than just a few bits and pieces that are anomalous between our virtual characters and their abilities and the operational physics that should constrain those abilities - Superman anyone?
PARITY: In physics, parity deals with left-right, mirror image, symmetry. Parity is one of a trio of symmetries, the other two being charge (positive and negative) and time. At the most basic of levels, physical forces and their operations aren’t changed just because you could reverse the flow of time; change all relevant charges to their opposite; or you alter left with right.
Theory: In theory, each of the four fundamental forces, gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force should reflect and obey the three symmetries of time, charge and parity.
Observation: The weak nuclear force is asymmetrical with respect to parity (which potentially accounts for why the discrepancy between the amounts of matter versus antimatter in the cosmos).
Conflict: Why is this parity violation by the weak nuclear force the lone exception to the otherwise ironclad rule?
Discussion: Who knows? It’s just one of those cosmic quirks. Perhaps it was just an unintended oversight ‘oops’ on the part of our proposed ETI or a glitch in their software program.
UNIQUENESS: In the real world, the macro world, the classical world, no two things are identical down to the last microscopic detail – you are unique; every bacterium is unique; every house, den, nest, and ant hill is unique; so is every baseball and grain of sand. In the unreal world, the micro world, the quantum world, all fundamental particles of their own kind (i.e. electrons or positrons or up-quarks or photons) are identical to the last measurable detail. Why? Who knows!
Theory: In the macro world, no two things are identical, so in theory, the micro world should follow suit.
Observation: In the micro (quantum) world, all the individuals of any species of fundamental particle are identical to any degree of precision that you care to descend to.
Conflict: The macro world and the micro world appear to be fundamentally different, yet the macro world is built up from micro foundations which should imply that all baseballs for example should be 100% identical.
Discussion: A possibility from the ETI simulated universe hypothesis is that there is one software code or sequence of bits and bytes for each type of fundamental particle. So every time that sequence is used, you get that type of entity and only that type. All baseballs aren’t unique because as backdrop items, the software don’t construct them using the exact same number of that sequence of bits and bytes.
PHYSICAL CONSTANTS: There are constant reports of physical constants that aren’t – constant that is.
Theory: Physical constants are just that – a constant. They have just one value, everywhere, everywhen, and no exceptions.
Observation: Apparently some ‘constants’ have more than one value depending of where and/or when.
Conflict: Theory and observations (if correct) are yet again not in harmony.
Discussion: That’s totally nuts! Of course computer software is often in need of tweaking or upgrading, which is what physical constants that aren’t constant might represent – ETI tweaking their virtual reality software.
TIME TRAVEL: Time travel to the past is a staple of science fiction, but surprisingly has actual viability in modern relativity physics.
Theory: In physics, time travel to the past is theoretically possible – though damned difficult in practice. However, that means that those time travel paradoxes are possible, even likely.
Observation: No time travellers have been observed from our future; nobody from our present or past has time travelled back in time and left a proof-positive calling card that we’ve ever found in the history books or the fossil record.
Conflict: If something is possible, especially something as interesting as time travel, we would expect to see either people from our future in the here and now, or evidence that we’ve travelled to the past, like finding a human skeleton buried inside a T-Rex skeleton, as in inside the area where the T-Rex’s abdominal cavity would be! We don’t.
Discussion: Paradoxes like going back in time, say ten years, and killing yourself (which is a novel way of committing suicide), means you couldn’t have existed to go back in time in the first place in order to kill yourself, which means you’re not dead so you can go back in time and murder yourself, etc. What kind of physics is that? Maybe virtual physics, the kind generated by ETI.
MIRACLES: Miracles are part and parcel of any and all supernaturally based religions.
Theory: Miracles of the supernatural kind (and that’s the only kind of miracle that counts here) violate one or more laws, principles or relationships established by science. There can be no such thing as a supernatural miracle in theory.
Observation: There have been numerous reports of supernatural miracles.
Conflict: Reported events cannot violate the natural state of things. If they do violate that natural state of things, then they must be supernatural. There’s no known theory that can accommodate supernatural events. That’s part of the conflict between science and religion.
Discussion: Any and all miracles, Biblical or otherwise, are explainable as easily as saying “run program”.
THE PARANORMAL: More down to earth, you have multi-observations of things like the Loch Ness Monster, those highly geometrically complex crop circles, and ghosts, yet there’s no real adequate theory that can account for their observed existence or creation.
Theory: You can theoretically debunk, or explain away, the idea that ‘sea’ serpents exist in Loch Ness; that crop circles cannot be related to any sort of natural or human activity; that ghosts can exist.
Observation: There are thousands of observations that the Loch Ness Monster exists; there’s no disputing that crop circles exist and are hard to explain as mundane events; and belief in ghosts via actual sighting accounts goes back as far in time as human records go back.
Conflict: Those who believe via the evidence suggested by actual observation are in conflict with those who state that those observations are faulty and do not represent what they would appear to because the reality that they propose is theoretically impossible.
Discussion: The truth or otherwise of a number of other paranormal or pseudo-scientific phenomena, as well as the above examples, cannot be decided either by theory or by observation. Experimental evidence is all too often impossible to come by. If something cannot be, and yet apparently is, then yet again, something’s screwy somewhere. Perhaps this is all a case of ETI having a bit of personal fun at the expense of ‘his’ virtual creations.
THE AFTERLIFE: A concept that closest to the hearts and minds of nearly all humans and human cultures past and present is what happens to us after we kick the bucket? The answer is we transcend into another life – an afterlife.
Theory: Every culture, past and present, has an afterlife concept, a life after death concept, or some sort of an eternity or immortality worldview.
Observation: None. Nobody has ever come back from the dead to prove the reality of an afterlife to the satisfaction of any unbiased referee.
Conflict: Not all of the versions of the theoretical afterlife can be correct, unless there is a multi-path virtual reality. Apart from that, idealistic theoretical expectations that when you die you won’t stay dead versus practical reality that observations show that dead things stay dead, are indeed conflicting.
Discussion: If ETI has a ‘living’ software program with you in it, then ETI may have various ‘afterlife’ programs that kicks in after you die virtually..
CONCLUSIONS: All up, perhaps some cosmic ETI computer programmer/software writer whiz with a wicked sense of humour (a trickster ‘god’?) is laughing its pointed ears off since we haven’t been able to figure it (our virtual reality) out. Of course maybe the minute we do, the fun’s over and ‘Dr. It’ hits the delete key and that’s the way the Universe ends – not with a pressure-cooker Big Crunch, nor with a Heat Death (the Big Freeze), not even a Big Rip, but with that “are you sure you want to delete this?” message! “Yes”.