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Can the Universe be Virtual without a designer?

Beyondo

Active Member
This topic is a strange one as it is regarding a hypothetical computational device. There have been a few scientist that hypothesized that our reality is a virtual reality of some kind generated by a computing device but not one of them ever conceived of such a device where no intelligent designer is required. What I'm about to describe is a computational system that is a contectionist kind of computational system that does not require a designer to create it or program it.


What I propose are elements of reality that are a base without cause, in other words they have no beginning or end in any context by which our universe exists. These elements of reality are standing waves. They are fixed in position and have overlapping foot prints where they end up interfering with one another. The standing waves either re-enforce or cancel each other out. While that seems trivial the end result of that kind of interference results in a vector state machine that is either representing a 1 or 0 for any one standing wave. So far a very simple idea. Now when emulating this kind of environment in a matrix of 3 x 3 x 3 the "bits" converge on a oscillating pattern with some degree of randomness out towards its edges. Now remember each standing wave can affect any standing wave adjacent to it, so each bit has influenced other bits within a 3 dimensional volume, what that ends up doing is allowing information to propagate in all directions within the matrix to the degree of connectivity limited by the number of sides of the standing waves, in this case, a 3 dimensional matrix has six sides. The edges of the matrix obviously have less connections since there are no other waves to connect to outside the matrix.


The architecture and rule of this matrix is similar to a neural network. Since the vector states of each wave is a product of the net effects of other waves adjacent to it they are in a sense weighted but only to a first degree of connectivity. The reason for that is the interpretation of the sum influences of all waves on each wave is still just a binary output. That means if the total net influence of all waves on a single wave is 2 the input to other waves is still one. By the same token if three waves are re-enforcing and one is canceling out the net or vector sum is 2 but the output is still one. Obviously if the net sum of all waves is zero the output is zero. So what ends up happening is a logic operator forms that can be either AND or Not. From these two basic functions all other logical operations to develop more sophisticated programs can be derived!


The 3 x 3 x 3 emulation is using a regular cyclical wave that oscillates between 1 and -1 which I thought could be the reason for the convergence on the oscillating patterns. But when I change the waves to oscillate randomly they at first start off as random patterns but it then begins to converge on similar patterns as the cyclical waves.


OK so how does a complex program like a universe come about with this kind of machine. With just 3 dimensional waves the ability to form complex programs is limited by the degree of connectivity of adjacent sides of the standing waves. Propagation of information has to filter through layers upon layers with greater and greater probability of the information being corrupted(changed) as it moves out to influence other logic cubes. So with just a 3 dimensional wave its not likely you can get a universe, but if there are more dimensions increasing the connections of logical units the computational horse power increases because the degree of information coherence is improved as it propagates to other logical units.


To emulate a universe, my gut instinct tells me, you need a hyper-cube like matrix with thousands of dimensions, perhaps 5000 or more. With 5000 dimensions there would be 10,000 connections per wave. That kind of connectivity is approaching what biological neurons have in the human brain.


So you may ask how do you get the data and programming for the universe in the first place? The more connections the more patterns can manifest in the system ultimately over eons of time this standing wave computer or brain evolves a program that ends up as our reality.


My earnest belief is that proving our reality to be a virtual reality is almost impossible, however certain assumptions about our reality are passed away as issues that need not be explained, e.g. Force causing momentum, the behavior of the electron fathoming the type of photon it has adsorbed, matter morphing into photons and photons morphing into mass. These kinds of things can not be explained with descriptions of force, mass and energy as particles or strings, but describing the phenomena as information processing allows for everything in our universe to be explained with very few assumptions..
 

footprints

Well-Known Member
This topic is a strange one as it is regarding a hypothetical computational device. There have been a few scientist that hypothesized that our reality is a virtual reality of some kind generated by a computing device but not one of them ever conceived of such a device where no intelligent designer is required. What I'm about to describe is a computational system that is a contectionist kind of computational system that does not require a designer to create it or program it.


What I propose are elements of reality that are a base without cause, in other words they have no beginning or end in any context by which our universe exists. These elements of reality are standing waves. They are fixed in position and have overlapping foot prints where they end up interfering with one another. The standing waves either re-enforce or cancel each other out. While that seems trivial the end result of that kind of interference results in a vector state machine that is either representing a 1 or 0 for any one standing wave. So far a very simple idea. Now when emulating this kind of environment in a matrix of 3 x 3 x 3 the "bits" converge on a oscillating pattern with some degree of randomness out towards its edges. Now remember each standing wave can affect any standing wave adjacent to it, so each bit has influenced other bits within a 3 dimensional volume, what that ends up doing is allowing information to propagate in all directions within the matrix to the degree of connectivity limited by the number of sides of the standing waves, in this case, a 3 dimensional matrix has six sides. The edges of the matrix obviously have less connections since there are no other waves to connect to outside the matrix.


The architecture and rule of this matrix is similar to a neural network. Since the vector states of each wave is a product of the net effects of other waves adjacent to it they are in a sense weighted but only to a first degree of connectivity. The reason for that is the interpretation of the sum influences of all waves on each wave is still just a binary output. That means if the total net influence of all waves on a single wave is 2 the input to other waves is still one. By the same token if three waves are re-enforcing and one is canceling out the net or vector sum is 2 but the output is still one. Obviously if the net sum of all waves is zero the output is zero. So what ends up happening is a logic operator forms that can be either AND or Not. From these two basic functions all other logical operations to develop more sophisticated programs can be derived!


The 3 x 3 x 3 emulation is using a regular cyclical wave that oscillates between 1 and -1 which I thought could be the reason for the convergence on the oscillating patterns. But when I change the waves to oscillate randomly they at first start off as random patterns but it then begins to converge on similar patterns as the cyclical waves.


OK so how does a complex program like a universe come about with this kind of machine. With just 3 dimensional waves the ability to form complex programs is limited by the degree of connectivity of adjacent sides of the standing waves. Propagation of information has to filter through layers upon layers with greater and greater probability of the information being corrupted(changed) as it moves out to influence other logic cubes. So with just a 3 dimensional wave its not likely you can get a universe, but if there are more dimensions increasing the connections of logical units the computational horse power increases because the degree of information coherence is improved as it propagates to other logical units.


To emulate a universe, my gut instinct tells me, you need a hyper-cube like matrix with thousands of dimensions, perhaps 5000 or more. With 5000 dimensions there would be 10,000 connections per wave. That kind of connectivity is approaching what biological neurons have in the human brain.


So you may ask how do you get the data and programming for the universe in the first place? The more connections the more patterns can manifest in the system ultimately over eons of time this standing wave computer or brain evolves a program that ends up as our reality.


My earnest belief is that proving our reality to be a virtual reality is almost impossible, however certain assumptions about our reality are passed away as issues that need not be explained, e.g. Force causing momentum, the behavior of the electron fathoming the type of photon it has adsorbed, matter morphing into photons and photons morphing into mass. These kinds of things can not be explained with descriptions of force, mass and energy as particles or strings, but describing the phenomena as information processing allows for everything in our universe to be explained with very few assumptions..

A strange philosophy, but one I cannot say I haven't heard of before.

It falls apart with the assumption that it is virtual. Without somebody or something driving this virtual device, it simply fails to be. It is the premise of something being created from nothing.
 

Beyondo

Active Member
A strange philosophy, but one I cannot say I haven't heard of before.

It falls apart with the assumption that it is virtual. Without somebody or something driving this virtual device, it simply fails to be. It is the premise of something being created from nothing.

Not at all. In the second paragraph I clearly state that the standing waves are not created but have always existed. The way by which the standing waves interact with one another is chaotic but could converge on several patterns that could be a universe. Self organization from chaos has already been proven in artificial neural networks, fractals, etc.
 
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BucephalusBB

ABACABB
Your story is a bit hard to read because you keep saying the word "random".
I asume you mean that it appears random rather than that it is random.

In that case everything is a fact, just not known variables. Without having all the information it is indeed not possible to know fully that something is a simulation. We can get closer to the endresult by having more information about "all".

Is that what you mean?
 
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Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
What exactly would make our existence "virtual," if what you described happened to be how things were structured. It would simply be reality.
 

Beyondo

Active Member
Your story is a bit hard to read because you keep saying the word "random".
I asume you mean that it appears random rather than that it is random.

In that case everything is a fact, just not known variables. Without having all the information it is indeed not possible to know fully that something is a simulation. We can get closer to the endresult by having more information about "all".

Is that what you mean?

If you're referring to the simulation of the 3 x 3 x 3 matrix of standing waves, the program was developed using an object oriented language, c#. The standing waves were class objects that could generate events when they cycled from 1 to -1. When the event is generated it evaluates its surrounding waves with respect to its own state to determine its output. This gives the simmulation the effect of each wave interferring with its surrounding neighbors.

The wave cycle was tried with a regular period of a millisecond and it was also tried where the cycle was random within a millisecond, meaning that the cycle may change 1 or -1 or would just remain at its' previous state. In both cases the simulation ended up converging on the same oscilating patterns...
 

Beyondo

Active Member
What exactly would make our existence "virtual," if what you described happened to be how things were structured. It would simply be reality.


It would be our reality as far as we can preceive. To give you an example of where this is going, the microscopic world of atoms and subatomic particles do not behave in any way as we expereince in our macrosopic world. It is the mass interactions of particles that creates our experience. In computer science this kind of layering of processes is called abstraction. As I mentioned before there are problems with physics where it cannot explain things like how does momentum work, because particles do not push on one another as if they're solid objects. Particles sense each others presence through fields. These fields are radiations of photons that particles "absorb". In doing so particles seem to have a degree of intelligence, e.g. An electron can tell the difference between an electro-magnetic photon and a force carrier photon. When an electron senses an electro-magnectic photon it increases in mass or energy, when it senses a force carrier photon it changes its direction of motion depending on the polarity if any of the force carrier. This kind of intelligence can not be explained by physics. But if you look at this photon absorbtion as a means of signalling then the electron is evaluating information. Looking at the universe as a product of information processing is what would make it virtual in the context of the layers of abstraction creating the beghaviors of subatomic particles just as the layers of abstraction of subatomic particles create our experience of the universe.
 
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9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
This topic is a strange one as it is regarding a hypothetical computational device. There have been a few scientist that hypothesized that our reality is a virtual reality of some kind generated by a computing device but not one of them ever conceived of such a device where no intelligent designer is required.
Why necessarily a "computing" device?

Anyone who's ever taken a hallucinogen can show you a "device" with no signs of being designed that generates a "virtual reality".
 

Silver

Just maybe
Can the output influence the input of your neural net?
In other words can the present/future influence the past of your neural net?
What effect would this likely have?

Silver:bow:
 

Beyondo

Active Member
Can the output influence the input of your neural net?
In other words can the present/future influence the past of your neural net?
What effect would this likely have?

Silver:bow:


Not directly, only through the propagation of influence from a standing wave's output from the surrounding standing waves can the input to that standing wave be affected.
 

Madasin

Seeker
I have to admit to being a little confused by the original posts so I’ll just answer the question from my own perspective -

Can the Universe be Virtual without a designer?

No. I liken it to the disc your console or computer game is on; everything is already there, whatever outcome you get will depend on what path you choose to follow during the game. It’s all there. There is nothing to be added and there is nothing to be taken away. It’s all on the disc. You need only find and conquer that which is most relevant to you and where you are in this game of life. As for the ‘designer’ - Who created the game? We did. We create our own reality. We each live in a world of our own making and we each project our beliefs about that world onto the ‘real’ world.
 

Beyondo

Active Member
I have to admit to being a little confused by the original posts so I’ll just answer the question from my own perspective -

Can the Universe be Virtual without a designer?

No. I liken it to the disc your console or computer game is on; everything is already there, whatever outcome you get will depend on what path you choose to follow during the game. It’s all there. There is nothing to be added and there is nothing to be taken away. It’s all on the disc. You need only find and conquer that which is most relevant to you and where you are in this game of life. As for the ‘designer’ - Who created the game? We did. We create our own reality. We each live in a world of our own making and we each project our beliefs about that world onto the ‘real’ world.

You're answer doesn't account for a system that is self organizing. The whole point of the system described is that is doesn't require a designer because chaotic systems can converge to patterns that have structure and function. Other examples of this are artificial neural networks and indeed the system described works is a similar fashion as a neural network. The diference here is that unlike artifical neural networks where there is an explicit error correction function the standing wave computer can only achieve this from the propagation of surrounding waves that it has influenced and influence it. Another difference from artificial neural networks is that there is no data set to sample so the system is free to converge on many patterns. Looking at the limitations of a 3 dimensional wave structure a more robust standing wave computer requires many more connective paths. I hypothize that the physical universe could be made up of 5000 dimensional hypercubes with 10,000 sides that could provide 10,000 connections per wave. This kind of connectivity is similar to human biological neurons. Also the number of standing waves would have to be astronomical. Of course as I mentioned before proving the universe is a product of a computational device is almost impossible.

But if one could hack the universe...One would become a GOD.:cool:
 

Madasin

Seeker
Well that's all over my head and much too complicated. I'm sure there are much simpler explanations out there. Thanks anyway.
 

Beyondo

Active Member
Aren't you kinda describing a combination of the movies "The Matrix" and "Thirteenth Floor"?

Both the Thirteenth floor and the Matrix are simulations that were created by a designer. The benifit of using standing waves interacting with another is they become a state machine. This state machine doesn't require a designer. The standing waves either re-enforce thier neighbors or cancels them out, 1 or 0. A binary system that could build micro-logical functions such as "AND", "Not", and "OR" could build more complex programs. In fact all you need are two of the three listed and you can derive all binary functions used in programs today. Also this kind of standing wave state machine is completely asynchronous and each wave acts as a parallel processing unit at a binary level. Today's desktops are 64 bit macines, the standing wave state machine I'm describing has orders of magitudes of bits much higher. Just one bit element has 10,000 connections it can feed. That's like one bit in one register in your Intel cpu havng a 10,000 bit bus to comunicate its results too. Your desktop only has a single bit bus for each bit in a register.
 

footprints

Well-Known Member
Not at all. In the second paragraph I clearly state that the standing waves are not created but have always existed. The way by which the standing waves interact with one another is chaotic but could converge on several patterns that could be a universe. Self organization from chaos has already been proven in artificial neural networks, fractals, etc.

Then it is the other miracle, that something can exist without ever having been created or formed. An effect without a cause.
 

Beyondo

Active Member
Then it is the other miracle, that something can exist without ever having been created or formed. An effect without a cause.

Getting something from nothing IMHO doesn't cut the mustard. So the only logical conclusion is something had always existed. The religous call the something god but a god is a complex system made up of parts that can give god; thought, memory, and interfaces that allow god to create matter and communicate to its creations. These parts make the whole, without the complete package there is no god, so god is a product of parts.

In the end the stuff of reality, "parts", always existed, it's irrelevent if it forms a god or purposeless universe...
 
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