The Simulation: A Short Thread
Your life is a simulation. That’s not to say that it is fake or that you don’t actually exist. Clearly you do. Rather, it’s to point out that you are made up of billions of bits of stuff that was once part of something else:
Your life is a simulation. That’s not to say that it is fake or that you don’t actually exist. Clearly you do. Rather, it’s to point out that you are made up of billions of bits of stuff that was once part of something else:
stars and meteors, mountains and oceans, animals and past humans who long ago walked the Earth that have now been reorganized out of the chaos of the universe to simulate this entity we call “you” and you call “I”.
This is no different than a computer simulation in which a computer program—an algorithm—is run to organize digital bits (0s and 1s) to simulate entire virtual worlds. Those bits and bytes are then destroyed and reorganized into something else.
The word “destroyed” may be somewhat misleading though. It’s not that they cease to exist but are reorganized into different patterns using the laws that govern the system. A computer system is governed by the same laws of physics that govern your reality.
In particular the three laws of thermodynamics: 1) energy is neither created or destroyed, 2) entropy always increases, and 3) entropy approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.
If all bits already exist in the universe then all possible computational combinations and outcomes already exists too. All bits must already exist because of the laws of thermodynamics. Bits are energy and energy can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system.
The universe is a giant quantum computer. What is it computing? It’s computing itself. How is it doing that? Through vast and complex simulations. You are a simulation in the universe. You are part of something bigger than yourself attempting to understand totality and eternity.
