Exploring the Virtual Reality Conjecture by Brian Whitworth

Dear Brian,

In response to Tom you said: "Why a world should have such unseen and unusable dimensions is unclear", then you claimed a virtual world needs only one extra dimension; presumably on the basis of 'usefulness'. And your remark about complex number theory's "imaginary" dimension is misleading---complex numbers are simply 2D representations, as of course you know.

I don't think I agree with you (or my hero, Feynman) that "a real field is a mathematical function we use to avoid the idea of action at a distance". Real fields appear to distribute energy over space. I don't believe that mathematics (the 'map') can accomplish this, only reality (the 'territory') can do this.

Then you say you like fields, but they cannot be perceived directly. Forgive me for quoting my earlier fqxi essay, but I can't discuss direct perception any better than I did: (http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/561)

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"Upon what must a fundamental theory of physics be based? ...it should be formulated in terms of human reality, not abstract formulations. Either it is based on directly and immediately sensed reality or it is based on some abstraction that is claimed to represent reality. Current theories are based on physics abstractions such as:

Gravity, String theories, Electromagnetics, Quantum field theories, Strong and weak forces, Dark matter and energy, Extra dimensions, Extra universes, Consciousness

Of these, only two, gravity and consciousness, are immediately sensible and directly experienced by humans. I am directly aware of gravity and I am directly aware that I am conscious. I have no direct, immediate, awareness of any other physics on the list (with the exception of a small range of electromagnetic radiation). All other entities, if they exist, are sensed through the medium of some measurement apparatus (as complex as the Large Hadron Collider or as simple as iron filings in a magnetic field)-yet none is directly sensed. Even muscular detection of a magnetic field is possible only through the medium of a held magnet. Gravity and consciousness are directly sensible, requiring no external apparatus, and hence are deemed suitable for the basis of a physical theory that does not depend upon belief in either equipment or logical argument. We *know* these two entities exist. All else should depend on these."

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Brian, you claim the VR model is a testable theory because "what processing creates it can be derived by reverse engineering." I'm older than you and my first logic design class (text: "The Logical Design of Digital Computers" by Montgomery Phister, 1958) argued that economics dictated a certain problem be solved by mechanical relay logic. I've designed with vacuum tubes, transistors, TTL-MSI, PALs, microprocessors, minicomputers and FPGA hardware, and written in Fortran, BASIC, PL-1, VisiCalc, JAVA, 8080, 8051, and 80386 assembly code, and many others, and I've designed multi-tasking incrementally compiling operating systems, ISDN connections to the internet, and much more, and I very sincerely doubt that reverse engineering the "processing output" to a meaningful, that is, architectural, level, is possible. My not so humble, but very knowledgeable, opinion. And if you can't reach the architectual level, then the VR model is more or less indistinguishable from God.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dr. Whitworth,

I do not comment as a physicist or mathematician so you may all ignore my comments freely. My pile was made higher and deeper long ago in Engineering but my life long study has been metaphysics. I feel that you did an admirable job of describing, and the logical reasons to view it as so, the world that we know as "around us" as Illusion. In present day terms arriving at the same result as Siddhartha Gautama and other metaphysicians did so many centuries ago: that this world is Illusion. In present day terminology, a virtual reality. I only find you to fail in not taking that step too far for today's academic world, in not stating the source to be Mind/Consciousness. I believe your essay to be truly Foundational! Hopefully my opinion won't count against you in this environment.

Hello Dr. Whitman,

It is a pleasure to read your paper. However, I think it is premature to pursue the VR conjecture at this point in time.

Most, if not all, physicists would agree that "The quantum world is in every way physically impossible, so physicality cannot be the nature of its reality." But what if Einstein was correct?

In support of your VR conjecture, you give "Ten reasons to suspect that the physical world is a simulation." However, in my essay is a generalisation of the energy of a photon, which (even at this early stage) unambiguously refutes some of those reasons.

Hence, it is premature to assert that "If science finds that it cannot be objectively real, it must explore if it is virtual."

Kind regards,

Robert

Dear Brian,

I'm happy that you take time to think about comments before replying.

You say "The VR conjecture is not a theory about God or one that requires a God to exist etc."

I agree. I was addressing your statement that "The theory is that this world is created entirely by information processing, as an output" combined with your hope to "reverse engineer" this output to decode the information processing architecture. Based upon my considerable hardware and software design experience I think the probability of success in such a venture is vanishingly likely. And if one proposes a theory of something outside of our local reality (in an 'extra' dimension not perceivable by us) that accounts in some unknown way for all that we see, then I find this indistinguishable from (not identical to) speculation about God. What is the difference between

God creates everything that we see

and

Information processing creates everything that we see

if there is no hope (as I contend) of discovering the architecture (of either) through reverse engineering.

As for the "properties of an information simulation", I have not begun to comment on these [yet] because I am addressing the key points, which I see as Bell's inequality and the hope of reverse engineering a processor that is sufficiently complex to create the universe we perceive [including, I suppose, our very awareness] considered as process output from another dimension.

I believe you are straying into the other arguments about this world ["The Evidence"] and I prefer to postpone these points. Your theory [conjecture] is of such magnitude and consequence [it essentially overthrows all physics] that I prefer to take it step by step. Otherwise we may lose all coherency in these comments, as is very often the case on other threads. Of course if I state things poorly you may simply be responding to what you think I said.

Again, you say this extra dimension ["something outside the physical universe"] is not defined except to say that "it can create processing, and need not be of the nature of what it outputs." I'm sure that you must have some image of what you're saying, but to one not vested in this idea, it sounds no different from conjecturing: "God creates it."

You say that Many Worlds postulates something beyond what we can ever perceive, but does not postulate God. I agree, but my point is that one might as well postulate God, since this is not physics. As a physicist, I am opposed to the claim that either God or the Multi-verse is part of physics.

But, unlike the Multiverse, you have a back door, an escape route, in your claim that we can 'reverse engineer' the processor architecture from its output. I believe that I can design a counter example [I'm not offering to do so] that would use entirely different architectures [including analog, digital, and mechanical parts] that would provide identical output, thereby preventing even the possibility of such reverse engineering. Instead, for the moment, I'll just state that my professional opinion is that reverse engineering is not feasible, and almost certainly not possible. But that's just my opinion.

So, working down the list, I see Bell's inequality and reverse engineering as the two most critical arguments.

Finally, because you several times state that certain theories "go outside the universe" but do not postulate God, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not saying that you are postulating God. I am saying that, if reverse engineering is not possible, then you might as well be postulating God, because there would be no physical or logical testable difference between your theory and one that postulates God.

I'm enjoying this because you really have identified the limits to some approaches and beliefs that are showing up in physics, to what I believe will be our detriment.

By the way, I've posted on my thread [on Jan. 30, 2011 @ 00:46 GMT] a comparison of Verlinde's information-based approach to Newtonian gravity with my approach. You might find it interesting.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Brian, I asked you a question a couple of weeks ago, and am embarrassed that for some reason I didn't check back. You wrote a lengthy reply that is very helpful (and it sparked additional discussion). Just wanted to say thank you very much.

You can make dice that obey these simple rules 1 ODD 1 EVEN= 2 ODD.

And 2 ODD 2 EVEN= 4 EVEN.

You can then create a virtual reality on the computer with the standard equation determined by EInsteins dice so that everything in this virtual universe is determined...............

You can then use this model to make predictions about the real world governed by random dice.

Steve

Brian,

I would be very interested in your book when finished. I too have a theory that "derives light and matter including electron and neutrinos as the first matter, and also quarks, including their one-third charges" The Chromodynamics War. Not many people have done this, and it would be very interesting to compare our approaches.

In case you haven't heard yet, a major new treatment of entanglement is here. Joy Christian has, in my opinion, demolished entanglement and non-locality. I think you will find her papers enlightening. I surely do.

My first cut at this post was to try to link her treatment to the points I made above, but then I realized that they are irrelevant. What she does is derive the QM inequality from local reality. The violations go away!

I highly recommend these papers. I suspect they are historic.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Steve (or Joe Blogs),

Is this a serious argument?

ih

There's quite a difference between citing reasons for the nonexistence of something (God) for which there is no objective definition, and citing reasons for the existence of something (virtual reality) which has a strictly objective definition and which the laws of physics do not rule out.

Tom

Correction: Joy Christian is a man.

Well, I do see Many Worlds as *equivalent to* a God theory. But I wish that you would stop implying that I'm saying something *is* a God theory. I absolutely am NOT saying that your speculation or Many Worlds or Multiverse *is* a God theory. I'm saying that once you propose something 'outside of this universe', then it is no different, in principle, from proposing a God theory. If you can't test it, then it's just a speculation.

You Brian, at least have the hope that you can 'reverse-engineer' the phenomenon. Although I believe this is impossible, I haven't proved it. Many Worlds is just an interpretation, with no hope of proof or falsification. It's just a 'choice of religion'; I don't see it as physics.

And as for "... physicalism has had 100 years to explain why quantum theory works and it just has the Copenhagen view that meaning doesn't matter. There has also been plenty of time to find Einsteins hidden variables. So how long should the traditional approach be given, another 100yrs?"

That seems reasonable on the face of it, but there are two points to consider. If [and it's a big if] my theory of particle plus local pilot wave is correct, then it's understandable that the 'hidden variable' has not yet been found. And if Joy Christian is correct [see my other comment and link] then for almost fifty years John Bell's incorrect value of 2 versus the correct value of 2*sqrt(2) has led to the so-called 'violation of Bell's inequality', which is the basis of all the 'spooky' and 'weird' arguments that have come to dominate physics.

I cannot too strongly recommend that everyone check out Joy Christian's article here. I believe it is seminal and will end up with EPR as historic.

Joy demolishes non-locality and non-realism, the basis of your VR speculation, and I don't think it wise to ignore him. The fact that physics has for fifty years been misled by Bell's incorrect answer and consequent 'violation' of locality and reality does not mean things must continue in this way, although there is a strong 'industry' in place based on Bell's mistakes.

This insight is the purpose that fqxi exists. As for those who simply think "there's no way Bell's inequality can simply be overthrown at this stage of the game" all I can say is 'things change'. Fifty years is a long time, but things change. After fifty years of the US govt grabbing ever more power, the recent judgment that Obamacare is unconstitutional may turn things around. Of course, both Joy's work and that ruling are yet to be cast in stone, but my point is, major mistakes can be corrected, no matter how unlikely it seems.

And your conjecture, unless you can reverse-engineer VR, is *equivalent* to a conjecture about God, or any other mystical explanation 'out there' for things in our universe.

Rita's remarks about your 'Evidence' is on-target. I think that Tom overstates the case when he claims that you have "a strictly objective definition".

And, although I think several of your 10 points of Evidence are mistaken, without non-locality, VR falls to pieces.

It's rather astonishing that fifty years of Bell's mistake has led us to the consideration of VR as if it were a theory of physics.

Still, you've done an excellent job on your essay. Congratulations.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

To all,

My comments above have been overtaken by reality. I was arguing for a loophole in the current logic of Bell's inequality. As I remark elsewhere, I have just found out about Joy Christian's work that shows how Bell's analysis was incorrect. The value of 2 that Bell calculated, versus the 2*sqrt(2) from quantum mechanical calculations is the basis of all 'violations' of Bell's inequality, and consequently the basis of all non-local' and 'non-real' arguments that have ensued. Christian shows that Bell's calculation, done right, leads to the same result [2*sqrt(2)] that quantum mechanics predicts, and therefore NO VIOLATIONS OCCUR. And all non-local, non-real implications go away. This is major.

It also means that I don't have to waste time looking for logical holes in an inequality that was instead based on an incorrect calculation. So ignore my above comments about 'en route'.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

I might also mention that "Intelligent Design" is an attempt to 'reverse engineer' the universe in much the same way that you propose. It's interesting to see how well that's been received.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Narsep,

Still dont follow the two-eye thing, but never mind.

Yes, a state is exactly as you say, a "condition of being". It arises when a substantial "thing" exists continuously and takes on different values over time, which are its states. In contrast, an event is an action that begins and ends, with no substantive nature. So my fingers, as things, are red if it is hot or blue if it is cold, which are states. But to snap my fingers is an event that comes and goes. There is no "finger-snapness" substantiality that exists in itself, but rather we say it just occurred.

A common sense view of the physical world sees substantial self-existing things in various states changed by events. So physicists see a series of quantum states with assumed transformation energy events between them. The focus is on the states, that are properties of presumed real things, not the transitory events between them.

But in the VR conjecture it is the other way around. Now it is the (processing) events that are real, while the "things" and their states are just fiction, e.g. as you view the screen the letters look like things, with states like bold or italics, but actually each letter is an event that the screen repeats at a certain rate, which is faster than the rate at which your eyes see. If the processing creating the letters stop, as when the power goes off, the letters immediately disappear, and nothing at all remains of them. So in this sense, they have the properties of an event.

So what the VR conjecture is saying, rightly or wrongly, is that our entire physical world is like this, that every "thing" is an event. So every observation, every measurement, every physical interaction is an information transfer. This is why we create the world, because we initiate the transfer. Nothing we see then has any objective reality.

That the physical world arises from processing events is one implication of the VR conjecture. Another is that it must be discrete, just as a screen must be composed of little dots. This derives directly from the definition of information as the choice between a finite set of options.

Bear in mind these ideas are very much still under development.

Regards

Brian Whitworth

Edwin,

If nonlocality does not exist, it's a lot more than the virtual reality hypothesis at risk. Quantum mechanics itself is simply incoherent without noncality. One is going to need much, much more than simple denial and theoretical speculation to overturn the basis of a phenomenon that has been experimentally demonstrated time and again. Not just by Bell, but by Aspect and others.

Yes, it's quite possible that an extra dimensional theory might replace hidden variables and restore classical determinism; however, such a theory has the task of explaining why hidden variables does not apparently apply in the 4-dimension limit.

I have just introduced myself to Joy Christian's work, and I agree with his conclusions to the extent that the S^2 S^2 hypersphere is sufficient to instantiate infinite measure on the S^3 manifold. I concluded the same in my ICCS 2006 paper ("Self organization in real and complex analysis"). I haven't gotten far with Christian's paper, though it appears to me so far that he has misinterpreted properties of the zero-sphere, S^1, which invalidates the rest of his conclusions.

So far as Brian's hypothesis, his definition of virtual reality is indeed strictly objective, and the hypothesis itself may be Popper-falsifiable (I haven't looked at the experimental protocol yet). I have no idea how "God" entered the mix; certainly there's no logical warrant for it. I also agree with Brian that good science does not necessitate positivism.

Tom

Tom,

It's beyond me that anyone could say "Quantum mechanics itself is simply incoherent without non-locality." *Everything* is incoherent with non-locality. Quantum mechanics is merely the probabilistic treatment of a realm in which measurements affect the measured entity. My essay mentions an experiment that exhibits a localized electron in a 'classical' Bohr orbit. How this can be interpreted as non-local is beyond me.

And the idea behind 'entanglement non-locality' is that particles don't possess properties until one of them is measured, and then both immediately acquire properties, no matter how far apart. If you find this coherent, you have really bought the store. No wonder you are seriously considering VR.

You seem to think that this has been 'demonstrated' (time and again) by Bell, Aspect, and others. Bell didn't demonstrate anything. He calculated a value and used it to formulate an inequality. What has been demonstrated is simply that measurements 'violate' Bell's inequality. In other words, all they've done is detect particles that statistically violate an inequality relation claimed to be based on local realism.

We have a choice in how to interpret this result. One choice is to assume that Christian is correct when he says that Bell made an error in his calculation; when done correctly, no measurements ever violate the inequality.

The other choice is to assume that Bell did not make an error, and be willing to give up at least one of locality, reality, or logic.

The choice is easy for me, since Christian's arguments make sense to me, and non-locality makes no sense at all.

My theory describes the local pilot wave that accompanies every particle with momentum, whether electron or photon. Since there is no known way of detecting this field at the particle level, then it probably classifies as 'hidden', although it is not identical to the 'hidden' parameters of Bohm's treatment, since it is local to the particle. It provides the 'wave' behavior when wave behavior is exhibited. No extra dimensions needed. The field provides 'local entanglement' when the particles are near each other. There is no non-local interaction (as is the case if Bell's calculation is wrong.)

I'm glad that you have begun to look at Joy Christian's work. I kinda doubt that he's misinterpreted the zero-sphere, thereby invalidating the rest of his argument, but you're free to correct him if you can.

I'll review Brian's work yet again before arguing about strict objectivity. As for God, I think the standard for "other worldly" arguments should be the same as that applied to arguments for God-- and that is that anything that exists outside of our universe, incapable of being observed, is not physics, it is religion (meta-physics at best).

I would be interested in your opinion after you've had more time to study Christian's work.

Edwin Eugene Klingman