Source: TW
Interlocutor: “So, what is your current view of the universe as a simulation?”
I: “I was not initially sympathetic to it. Why add an additional layer of complexity that is not per se giving you any major gain in terms of explanative power. But over the past decade, I have not found anything in my limited understanding and practice of science that falsifies it. Hence, I have come to view it as possible though not certain.”
Interlocutor: “But you have earlier expressed a disdain for intelligent design do you mean you are now conceding that possibility?"
I: “No, simulation does not mean intelligent design. Take a statistical example. If by analytical means you have a formula - like, say, for binomial or normal distribution - you do not need to run a simulation of tossing coins or something like that to compute a probability.
However, if it is a complex process, for example, a dynamical system that shows wildly different outcomes with very slight changes in the initial conditions, then you have to run a simulation.
Design, as per the former example, would be true intelligent design.(4) The latter, i.e., a true simulation, is run in order to discover an outcome or a design that does not exist in advance. Building blocks of it might exist in the “Platonic realm” or the “shuddha-bhuvanādhvan”(5) but matter has to run its course in the simulation to discover the objects of that ideal realm in a material manifestation. Hence, if the universe were a simulation, we see it as an effort to explore and discover the Platonic realm via the material.(5) Rather than intelligent design, this places processes like natural selection as a centerpiece in the simulating code. Given this kind of a view, the universe-as-a-simulation hypothesis is also theologically satisfying.”
विश्वास-टिप्पनी
This might not be the first or only simulation. So, even starting off from “exploratory simulation”, they would soon arrive at “intelligent design” play-mode.
Interlocutor: “But you are an inveterate polytheist - are you not conceding monotheism by allowing the simulation hypothesis?”
I: “This view only concedes the possibility of a protogonic deity like Prajapati or Rudra or the Purușa of certain streams of the IE tradition that were privileged in the late Vedic age. However, it does not concede monotheism; rather, it favors polytheism, and that is why we said it was theologically satisfying.
First, if there is an interesting simulation to be played out, there are likely to be multiple code-writers (perhaps even successive generations of such) who might want to engage in it.(5) Their productions might interact as an ecosystem that then becomes the universe.
Second, if the simulation is a complex piece of code with the need for multiple tweaks, then it would likely involve a team of programmers rather than a solitary, simultaneously omniscient one.(5)
Third, even if a protogonic coder started the simulation, other programmers would jump in to make the code actually produce something interesting. All these tilt the balance in favor of an existence of a pantheon or multiple generations of coders who set the simulation in motion and maintain it thereafter.”
विश्वास-टिप्पनी
Once the code is mature, a single entity can run/ maintain the simulation all by himself.
Interlocutor: “How do you see this polytheist theology of the universe as a simulation?”
I: “It is complicated to lay it out in its entirety, and aspects of it would certainly be beyond me. But the idea would go thus. The deva-s (the simulators) are in possession of the “Platonic realm” or “shuddha-bhuvanādhvan” which includes geometry and various other constructs of “meaningful rules”. Seeking to explore its full wonder, camatkāra - they set the simulation in motion with pixels that we see as matter-energy.
These explore the Platonic realm through actualizations, creating navya-camatkāra-s as these are “experienced” on the canvas of their consciousness.
There are asura-s who might introduce “viral code” into the simulation to cause various types of failures, which they episodically need to fix via interventions.”(5)