Physics and Spirituality
It’s not just that the theories of spacetime and quantum mechanics are doomed, but that we haven’t even begun to consider what might replace them. Consider microbiology. The idea of what makes up a cell has changed very little over the last 20 years. There was no theories of ‘oh, we’re missing something fundamental here.’ But Artificial Intelligence appears to have doubled the number of functional artifacts in cells previously unimagined. Does that lead us to an invisible world known as the Shadow Biosphere? No! That’s there, too, but even that is just another layer that impresses upon us that we are blind and grappling with elephants.
I love Lex Fridman! I am kind of a fan of Donald Hoffman. He has brought something to the table that is interesting, taking simulation theory to another level. He has number of Tedtalks and other videos available, discussing how the pursuit of fitness leads to evolutionary blindness, and that no organism sees reality as it is. More on that, when running simulations, the greater access to ‘truth’ the less well a simulated creature or ‘species’ did. Keep it simple, ignore the truth, things flourish!
That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for complexity. Complexity arises from many simple things working together in synchronistic and symbiotic ways. Humans existence is due to co-existence of a multitude of systems comprised of micro-simplistic things. That doesn’t mean ‘simple’ isn’t complex in itself. We do not exist without the flora and fauna that we are host to. Without bacteria, humans would die. It isn’t sufficient to say bacteria are simple, or that our relationship is simple, or are relationship to each other is simple…
But none of this is so simple we can eliminate any one thing from that which we originated from and continue to exist within.
The point in this video that Donald Hoffman, cognitive psychologist and professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, is stating is that we can’t know the truth of reality because we are only tenuously connected, and evolutionarily removed from source to the degree we don’t have a clue, and the more we evolve biologically, sociologically, and psychologically- the further removed we are, because it is the ‘lie’ that keeps us functioning.
We are literally sandcastles on the beach. The ocean could take us out with one wave.
The metaphysical implications seem clear.
Scientists are saying all these things we can measure and put numbers to, from physics to quantum physics, they don’t really exist. Folks mentioned in the video include, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Ed Witten, and David Gross. I would add David Bohm, James Gates, Nick Bostrom, Eric Weinstein, John Preskill… There is really an impressive list that could go on forever. If we add spiritualists friendly folks, like medical doctors, and or psychiatrists to this, such as Michael Newton, Raymond Moody, Brian Wiess, Michael Talbot, and Jeffry Mishlove… I find a correlation between what all of these first sets of folks hint at.
In the article, How Space and Time Could Be a Quantum Error-Correcting Code, scientist looking to stabilize the performance of quantum computers discovered something peculiar.
But in the dogged pursuit of these codes over the past quarter-century, a funny thing happened in 2014, when physicists found evidence of a deep connection between quantum error correction and the nature of space, time and gravity. In Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, gravity is defined as the fabric of space and time — or “space-time” — bending around massive objects. (A ball tossed into the air travels along a straight line through space-time, which itself bends back toward Earth.) But powerful as Einstein’s theory is, physicists believe gravity must have a deeper, quantum origin from which the semblance of a space-time fabric somehow emerges.
The article didn’t mentioned James Gate, but he is definitely connected to the concept that the numbers that come out in smashing atoms resembles browser data error correction code! So, this is not just one maverick scientist saying crazy stuff. Lots of folks are saying this.
Consider for a moment a computer game that is graphic intensive. You activate the game and discover your computer isn’t fast enough to handle it, as evidenced by you observe artifacts moving in slow, jerky motions. You may not have considered, but might allow for this conjecture, that a character in that game is not experiencing any lag in time, but only you are experiencing lag time. This is exactly how scientist says spacetime works! As mass/gravity goes up, time slows down- not from the perspective of someone in that frame, but from the perspective of someone outside that frame.
If you watch someone approaching a black hole, they seem to slow, even stop. They do not experience that slowness. Clocks on the surface of the earth click slower than clocks in orbit. This is fact. Are we talking about the Universe’s clock speed being taxed by number of calculations necessary to run the simulation?
Hoffman uses the analogy that we are in a simulation. He is not saying that we are, precisely, but that is the closest analogy to realizing how disconnected we are from the ‘true’ reality. This is not to say the illusion we live in doesn’t have consequences. Hoffman would say, just because you drag a folder across your computer screen and drop it into the trash doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to that action. Saying the train isn’t real and stepping in front of it thinking there won’t be dire consequences, within the framework we understand, is not a good test to sort deeper reality. He is simply saying, what we perceive is the equivalent of an icon on a screen, and we have no actual clue as to what the operating system actually is, or the mechanisms that allows for the program to operate.
But does that mean we can’t ever know? If we assume singularities, black holes, are functional limits in processing speed, does that give us a clue? Scientist are saying the expansion of the universe is not adding up the way they previously thought, but could we be in a universe that looks like it’s expanding, but it’s actually static?
My grandfather had a lamp on the piano that I would stare at while he played. It gave the illusion of movement. A small fan like device would spin because the light would heat up the air, and as the inner wheel spun, it created a pattern of moving shadows on the shade that illuminated the shades image in a way that the brain interpreted movement.
But can we go even deeper?
Sometimes keeping it simple just works well. There are two sexes, male and female. Not complex. I can allow for the psychology of a person to be more complex, as evidence by a multitude of archetypes existing in any one mind which are male, female and androgynous, and a person favoring or identifying with artifacts, sets of artifacts, and domains that don’t align with reality. I would argue, just the fact that this discussion allows for there being a greater reality that we can’t know necessarily validates all deviations from norm because the norm, by this definition is predicated on a lie.
Normies would experience irritation by anyone suggesting ‘normal’ is an illusion. Normal, even it’s a complete fabrication, can be functional. It would be a falsehood to assume something functional has any implications on truth or reality, outside of the framework within which the fact holds functionality. Taking a fish from the water and putting them in a dog house and thinking they will be okay with that is not realizing functional is limited to compatible environments.
Functional would be the measure of operating in a fitness-economical structure that allows survival for those who monopolize on opportunistic, environmental advantages. Straying from that norm would appear ‘crazy’ because it will appear to be a dead-end path, from the perspective of the functional norm. Any endeavor for those who have perspective bias based on being fringe, or deviations on the bell curve, will fail because most successful people will go with what works and they won’t change that until there is a catastrophe, or system failure requiring to redefine the norm.
Straying from norms is also functional, and ‘straying’ likely increases because as the wealth generated by functional systems leads to new levels of diversity, agents will seek to exploit energies or fitness points created by the excess of extreme functional norms. All marginalized agents, or outliers on a curve, will naturally seek to exploit economies where competition is minimalized to avoid norms.
It might be useful to explore if as a system of normality approaches its functional limits, and or begins to deplete its resources, or technologies change- do outlying agents become necessarily louder or more numerous?
Allowing for deviation is extremely important to allow. When norms deplete the resources that they exploited, systems collapse and the outliers allow for species continuance! Evolution, my friends, can be scientifically applied to psychological and sociological processes. Normies destroy deviates at the peril of its own species. The true health of a species is measured in its acceptance of diversity. Proliferating diversity and freedom paradoxically increases complexity of social structures, while creating clusters of isolated cultures existing in regional domains.
We live in the wealthiest time in history, in terms of material comforts and knowledge. Just as biological diversity lead to many adaptations, so does an abundance of philosophy and wealth. Still, all of us, because we’re all inside of a system of structures and overlays distantly removed from reality- we ultimately find ourselves quarreling over nothing.
Can we finally marry science and spirituality?
Does soul exist? Is this the thing that remains after we boil away the matter and philosophies that we think comprise us? Science and philosophy is saying nothing exists! We’re not dust in the wind, we’re data in a stream.
If soul exists, is it nonbinary? Souls, if you allow for reincarnation, can be male or female. There is evidence in that construct that we switch it up! There are also souls that identify with gender within that construct.
There is evidence for an invisible biosphere. The fact that AI found invisible artifacts that no one even philosophically suspect is direct evidence for an invisible world around us and in us! It’s still physical, right? But can we extend that invisibility to the concept of spirit? Are there spirit worlds and further overlays, existing simultaneously with this one?
Will it take AI to tease out spiritual domains?
In UFO lore, another well established construct that is only now being taken seriously, is that there seems to be simultaneous existence with parallel worlds and other dimensions, more and more frequently discussed as being a very real thing. Those with spiritual overlays may fall back on fear of demons and hell and we’re tapping into something we should not be looking at. It’s reasonable to be fearful when approaching a cliff at speed, but we can approach this scientifically in order to map out a terrain previously unexplored but my mystics and experiencers.
From a simulation point of view, we might more easily relate to the idea that many domains and websites exist, and one only need change a few characters in an address and suddenly you’re elsewhere. Is this what the spiritualist mean by frequency?
Hoffman states, “Just in the last 20 years it has been very clearly said that spacetime has had a good run, reductionism has been a fantastic methodology, we’ve had a great ontology of spacetime and a methodology of reductionism. Now it’s time for a new trick… It doesn’t mean throw out the past.”
Don’t throw out the biology books! The images and drawing of cells are accurate! Those terrains have been mapped out and artifacts correctly placed. The fact that there is another overlay doesn’t negate the original map. There are things unseen and un-seeable by human eye and mind. That doesn’t mean that another reality doesn’t exist.
Hoffman makes good conclusion in this video, that the thing we are looking for to explain reality must also account for spacetime, illusion or not. If it doesn’t make sense, it will be discarded. The thing is, we have a theoretical framework for the invisible, and it was discarded because it didn’t make sense considering the success of spacetime and reductionism.
Now that spacetime and reductionism theories have played themselves out- maybe it’s time to reconsider the overlay of spiritualism. Not religion. The methodology of reductionism can still be employed to sort this more ephemeral reality. Deep hypnosis, as employed by a psychiatrist, found consistent artifacts between unrelated subjected that hinted at another level to reality that coexists with this one.
UFO research is hinting at a paranormal world that defies physics as we know, which simply reinforces the concept spacetime is doomed because there is more to this than we know.
Near Death Experiences, when we boil away the concepts that the material world is the end all be all of existence, when it is clearly not- suggests we have access to other worlds and realities.
The Universe is 96 percent dark matter/energy, and 4 percent visible stuff. That number is not contested. So, why is it so difficult for us to make the leap, not of faith but of science, that we have no clue what reality really is? It’s staring us in our face and the universe appears to be moving, but maybe that is just the artifact orbiting the light source, casting shadows and light on the surface of this plane, the veil over reality. The wheel of time is itself an illusion, just a fragmented way of interpreting eternity.
