What is Reality

The danger of excuses

The question of what is real is older than any of us. The philosopher Descartes used the evil demon argument as a launch pad into questioning everything he assumed he knew to be true. In it he postulated that he was controlled by an evil entity that put all its energies into deceiving him so he could trust none of his senses. In of itself not a bad thing, questioning one’s own beliefs, but when taken simply at face value a destructive force. When the evil demon is taken out of the context of which it was designed, we fall down the rabbit hole of questioning just reality, not our own perceptions of said reality.
More modern versions of the evil demon are presented as the brain in a vat. The idea here is that you’re nothing but a brain and your reality is controlled by an evil doctor who inputs whatever reality his heart desires. It leads you to question if you can trust anything you perceive. Again, used as a device to lead to deeper philosophical questioning, it works, but do we take it too far? A modern example of this played out on the silver screen in the film The Matrix, where mankind was literally fed reality by a computer menace who used humans as batteries. The computer obviously never studied thermodynamics but that’s for another time.

Another version, the one studied in the halls of higher learning, is the idea that we live in a simulation. Somewhat like the Matrix but taken to the next level, we do not even have bodies. We exist only as a computer model, our conciseness a stream of ones and zeroes in a computer somewhere. The whole idea has traction in theoretical science and a cult following on the internet with people dedicated to the idea that the Mandela Effect proves the simulation is reset from time to time. If you’re not familiar with the Mandela Effect it can be interesting to browse when cat videos become a bore.

A close cousin to the simulation theory is the idea of a multiverse, where there are an infinite number of universes playing out every possibility that could have ever occurred. When asked what you’d like to drink with your meal in one universe you choose Coke, another tea, another water, and on and on. In one you even decide to have too many beers and die on the drive home from hitting a telephone poll, deer, truck, other car, rouge mongoose, or aliens doing unimaginable things to a cow. You can quickly see that the other you(s) have a much more tragic, albeit in some cases interesting, life than you do.

So can we disprove any of these and if we can’t what does it mean? We must first get to the heart of the matter. Toss away all the theoretical science (fiction) associated with the brain, simulation, multiverse theories and get to the root, responsibility. The real question, and I use the word “real” quite intentionally, is; am I in control? The twisting of Descartes evil demon puts responsibility not on us, but the demon. Everything is his fault. The brain puts it on the doctor, the simulation our programmer, and the multiverse absolves us of any responsibility at all. Choose whatever path you will because in some universe somewhere you’re doing exactly what you should be doing. Never mind there being an infinite number of you doing the wrong things, we’ll hang our hat on that one where we got it right. Also never mind the fact that the other you isn’t really you, it’s them, a universe away.

If we deconstruct the environments presented we can come to some quick conclusions. One, the thought experiments are supposed to be rock solid. You can’t disprove them. This is done through a slight of hand. The brain in a vat puts you in a state where you can’t know anything beyond what the good doctor wants you to know. If I begin to believe I am a brain in a vat the doctor can input stimuli that convinces me I’m not. Since outside stimuli is unavailable to me I have nothing to compare to. I’m stuck believing anything the doctor wants me to believe. A simulation does the same. I can’t know anything I’m not programmed to know. If I was never programmed to realize I’m in a simulation I’ll never know I’m in a simulation, regardless of all the signs that exist to prove exactly that. Even if I’m programmed to learn through experience, making me an artificial intelligence, I’m still bound by the rule set created by the original programmer. If that program tells me to ignore any thoughts that lead me towards the reality of my existence, I’ll never know. The multiverse is a little different. In it I still have all my capacities with the only limiting factor being my mental capacities to derive the realities of things. From here we could get into IQ, experiences, technology, and a whole slew of other things, but fundamentally I’m able to learn the reality of reality. The limitations are internal, not external. There’s no evil demon pulling strings keeping me from the truth.

Descartes quickly surmised that he was still he, regardless of the demon. Because he was even able to think of the demon meant that he existed even if his observations were out of his control. If my brain is in a vat, the same is true. It doesn’t matter if the doctor is letting me know or not, because I can think of the doctor means I exist. I may only be a brain but I am real. The simulation is different. I may be programmed to believe I’m real, that coffee is a real beverage, that I’m thinking all of these thoughts and writing them down, but in the end all of it is just a stream of electrons flowing through gates and switches on a computer chip. None of it is real in the sense that we think of real. But somewhere a real being created a real computer and programmed this real mess we’re in. How do we disprove that?
You’re probably thinking by now I must think myself some kind of genius if I’m going to say I can disprove ideas mulled over by some of the brightest minds in the world. I don’t. I’m not going to disprove any of them, because you can’t. That’s their point, to be unprovable. What I am going to do is give you a reason to ignore them, because of their broader implications. I will poke some holes in the ideas, just for fun, but to also help you see why they’re insignificant to you and the reality of which we live.

The multiverse is the silliest of each of these ideas and yet the only one given actual serious consideration. Our universe is seemingly infinite. We believe there are edges to its existence and mathematically there should be an edge to it out there somewhere but every time we get better at looking to the stars we find it to be a bit bigger than we thought. When you start reaching for the edges of the universe time gets all funky and with its size and considering the speed of light, we really can’t ever hope to see the edge anyway. For all intents and purposes our universe is in fact infinite. Within this vastness that goes on forever you exist, a speck residing on a speck of dirt circling a speck of fire that circles a speck of only mildly understood ball of blackness that spins through a vastness of nothing with countless other specks. Do you feel insignificant yet? Yeah, well, if we’re to believe the scientific origins of our universe I’ve got some bad news for you, you are. Not only are you this speck of nothing but you exist in a speck of time that spans some fourteen and a half billion years. So tell me again about how there’s an infinite number of these universes playing my story with every possible outcome? I won’t get into the details but the multiverse serves the scientific purpose of explaining how we could be here at all. It gives nature the trillions of tries it needs to put everything together just so the porridge we call home isn’t too hot or too cold, but just right. Then theorists step in and start playing with the idea that all of the things we could ever do happen to us, the other us, in all those universes. Not only is the collision with a rouge mongoose a bit silly, but it’s also preposterous. Play the same game over and over. Every detail of your life played out with every possible outcome. Yeah. So right now in this universe I’m writing this. In another universe I’m writing this and in this very instant – insert name of whatever incredibly popular and super attractive personality you wish – bursts in from the freezing cold, stark naked, and kisses me right on the lips. Don’t laugh, not only could it happen but to one of me it did just happen. Now that me not only isn’t writing this anymore but is also going to be in a whole lot of trouble with his wife, girlfriend, room-mate, he lives alone so no problems, oh who knows it could be anything! And that’s the point. It could be anything, happening to you. There’s that “you” again. You exist an infinite number of times doing infinite things. If you are doing everything possible you really aren’t responsible or accountable for anything. Everything had to play out somewhere. You had to do it at some point or, at least, one of you did. If it was inevitable you’re not accountable. That’s the crux. That’s the heart of the multiverse. It doesn’t explain how we happened; it explains how we’re not responsible for anything that did happen because everything happened. The multiverse does a double fake on your reality. First it makes you the center of the universe and then it takes away all responsibility for being the center of the universe. Neat trick. One problem, those other you aren’t you. You don’t all come together in the end as some kind of Borg Collective of you. They’re their own speck, accountable for all the things they did, including cleaning mongoose out of the grill of their car. Now the multiverse isn’t as much fun anymore, is it? And as such, even if it is real, it doesn’t matter, it has zero impact on you, singular, and the reality you live in.

You made it this far! We’ll tackle simulation theory in the next post. Thanks for reading and take care out there, in which ever universe you find yourself in.