Physicists often prefer to ignore the implications of quantum mechanics. “Just shut up and calculate”. Those implications push the discussion more into the realm of philosophy instead of hard science, incorporating elements such as consciousness and free will. Quantum mechanics turned Newton’s deterministic universe on its head and uncovered a universe that behaves in very strange ways. When I am not “looking” - nothing but waves of potentiality. When I “look” - waves of potentiality crystalized into particles of observed reality that did not exist until I “looked”.
Is there really a discrete reality “out there” that exists independent of my observing it. Quantum theory would tend to imply that the answer is not “yes”. Einstein was quoted as saying, “I’d like to believe the moon is there, regardless of whether I’m looking at it or not.”
The universe starts looking less like a real thing, and more like a grand idea. Welcome to the matrix.
Pop the QWIF.
I read the other day of a quantum physicist saying the same thing. I can't recall the name but he is well known. A person could point to that as evidence of Gods existence.
“The universe starts looking less like a real thing, and more like a grand idea. Welcome to the matrix.”
The concept does in fact resemble, roughly, the kinds of “shortcuts” that programmers use in simulations. If you are building a computer game with a giant world and thousands of mobile objects, you don’t have the simulation play out every detail constantly, because that wastes processing power simulating things the player is not around to see. You only simulate in real time perhaps one level, or even the immediate area that the player can see, then just shift the area you are simulating as the player moves and looks around.
If you believe you will succeed then the universe cooperates.
Nothing unreal exists.