A Self-Organized Universe

Whether you have watched The Matrix or not, you are probably familiar with the thought experiment that we are all living in a simulation. Here are some general points of the theory:

• Our reality is a manufactured one that was created by either AI or aliens or humans from the future

• We think we’re humans but we’re robots running on code

• We are kept “alive” for one of three reasons: energy harnessing, entertainment (like a video game), or running experiments with different variables to figure out a solution to a problem

• We occasionally find glitches in the matrix because programmers are lazy (e.g. the Mandela effect and doppelgängers)

• To save on rendering, some objects don’t materialize until they are observed

• The beings who are able to execute an operation of this level have found a way to unlock the powers of quantum and parallel computing

• Consciousness still exists as something that gave rise to the simulation

Let’s assume for a second that they were created by a God-like entity. If there was a God, it would make sense for them to create a universe that can sustain itself without the need for much interference. We know the universe is growing because we’ve measured it, but the more intriguing question is how and why.

Most of us have an intuitive understanding of when something is alive. Now that we’re in the age of AI, the line between “living” and “non-living” seems to get fuzzier. We have build intelligent machine learning models, but how far away is our AI from matching the intelligence of an amoeba? The answer to that depends on how well we understand these naturally occurring biological systems, and unfortunately, the difficulty with studying these biological systems is that they exhibit non-linear, non-deterministic, dynamic behaviors due to the presence of complex feedback loops that all seem to be interconnected, which our mathematical models don’t capture very well.

What is strange, however, is that the non-deterministic behavior that is exhibited at the individual parts level disappears when the parts are grouped together. When these natural groupings occur, there is coordination and organization in the collective.

This is one of the biggest mysteries of chaos theory:

How can organization arise from what appears to be pure randomness?

In other words, how can entities that exhibit high entropy organize themselves into structures with lower entropy? This phenomenon is observed at every level of scale, from the unpredictability of electron motion versus the stable nature of atoms to the random movements of one ant compared to the highly organized ant colony.

In a interview, Stephen Colbert (a Christian) asked Ricky Gervais (an atheist) this question:

How did something get created from nothing?

It cannot be pure randomness because randomness creates greater entropy, and we need something to lower the entropy in order for the building blocks of life to be formed, which brings us to the next critical point:

Life is an energy that is capable of lowering entropy. 

Life has the ability to self-organize into a liver, a pancreas, or whatever structure it needs to sustain itself. Life is the only energy that can create order from chaos. Neil Theise describes self-organization as this:

“We are not creatures living in the universe. We are the universe which has organized itself into things that think of themselves as creatures.”

In other words, we’re ants.

Thich Nhat Hanh has this great quote on interdependency:

“Nothing exists by itself alone. We all belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. My happiness is your happiness; my suffering is your suffering. We heal and transform together.”

The universe is constantly replicating itself through the microcosm, from DNA replication to cell division.

Under this framework, the simulation hypothesis actually makes sense. The entire universe runs on self-replicating code. It’s a recursive fractal-like program that runs itself. Once a critical point of expansion is reached, more universes are created. We are just one simulation amongst many, and parallel universes are just other simulations being run using parallel computing. While it’s true that the reality we are experiencing can never be the full reality as we are just one branch of a fractal, it doesn’t mean that our experiences are not valid as they offer important clues for what the full reality is. Self-similarity is one of the wonderful defining qualities of our universe that makes it fun. To understand the universe, we just have to understand ourselves as we are the universe.

When I first started exploring the inner workings of the universe, I was deeply uncomfortable with the theories I was exposed to. I never even enjoyed working for someone else, yet here I am reading about evidence suggesting that I’m being commandeered to fulfill someone else’s purpose (i.e. to facilitate the expansion of the universe). Also, the story of George Price is almost like a warning against knowing too much since he committed suicide due to the painful realization that there is no such thing as true altruism. Something I firmly believe in is that science is not about finding truth, it’s about understanding, and the best thing we can do is seek to understand without judgement, even if it makes us uncomfortable sometimes. Albert Einstein said this:

“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”

I mentioned earlier that there is an energy that’s responsible all of this, but we don’t know what it is. Well, I am 99.99% sure that The Beatles knew it when they wrote “All You Need Is Love”. To me, it doesn’t matter whether this all a simulation or not. When I see a sunset, all I see is magic.