Off-Base in An Unreal Reality

The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIU Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are in a Video Game, by Rizwan Virk. Bayview Books, 2019.

A two-letter word recurs time and again in Rizwan Virk’s book The Simulation Hypothesis. It is the structure upon which his elaborate edifice involving game design, quantum physics, and the philosophy of consciousness is built. It makes possible great leaps of the unfettered imagination. It defies logic while conjuring up the leading edge of science. And that word is “if.”

IF quantum theory can be explained by the presence of an infinite number of alternate universes…IF human perception can be authentically simulated in an artificial consciousness…IF technology can advance fast enough for this amazing vision to be realized while humans still inhabit the planet…then just possibly that layer cake of IFs will actually get baked!

To invoke the name of Philip K. Dick, as the author frequently does, is to tackle the vexed problem of authenticating reality. Just as Dick’s characters find themselves questioning the reality of reality itself, Virk takes seriously the idea that we may be living in a made-up phenomenal simulation similar to the virtual realities in the games he himself designs.

Let’s say that all the layers of IF are true. The probabilities argue that there is a better than infinitesimal chance that the world is a simulation. It may not prove to be a big videogame in the sky, it may be something like nothing we ever dreamed of. There’s a chance that there is a master artificer intelligence operating somewhere in the multiverse. In that scenario, huge branches get created exponentially in the cosmic tree of possibilities as simulations beget new simulations. So the probabilities are excellent that we are one of those simulations and not really living at all in “base reality.”

Along the way as you read The Simulation Hypothesis you’re going to learn a lot about the history of videogame development, the frontiers of the physics of spacetime, and why UFOs and near-death experiences and angels reinforce the hypothetical uber-reality we all may inhabit.

All his is delivered by Rizwan Virk in a clear, readable style that is one of the best expositions of this kind of quantum-speak I’ve seen. I’ve read countless explanations of Schrodinger’s Cat and the Dual Slit Experiment in other books. You might have too, and are tired of hearing about them. There is a point to revisiting them to entertain this simulation hypothesis. However, it’s not that the paradoxes of time travel and quantum superposition are going to finally make sense. That’s not what we’re about here. We’re in the grip of a brilliant thought experiment. Nothing is proven and nothing is rejected. Let’s move on.

This book is not just a mind blower, it is a mind tornado. It forces you to take seriously the unreality of reality. It plunges you into the wildest dreams suggested by science fiction and the most extreme speculations of quantum physics. You pick up this book, check your skepticism at the door. You’re going to travel on Spaceship Einstein with a stopover in the mystic East as you plunge into the videogame that is your life. Happy landings!