Related papers: The Virtual Reality Conjecture
This paper explores the idea that the universe is a virtual reality created by information processing, and relates this strange idea to the findings of modern physics about the physical world. The virtual reality concept is familiar to us…
This paper links the conjecture that the physical world is a virtual reality to the findings of modern physics. What is usually the subject of science fiction is here proposed as a scientific theory open to empirical evaluation. We know…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
Our notions of what is physically 'real' have long been based on the idea that the real is what is immediately apprehended, that is the local or observable, the physically tangible, though there has always been an alternative philosophical…
When we want to predict the future, we compute it from what we know about the present. Specifically, we take a mathematical representation of observed reality, plug it into some dynamical equations, and then map the time-evolved result back…
Since its emergence, quantum mechanics has been a challenge for an understanding of reality which is based on our intuition in a classical world. Nevertheless, it has often been tried to impose this understanding of reality on quantum…
Suspicions that the world might be some sort of a machine or algorithm existing ``in the mind'' of some symbolic number cruncher have lingered from antiquity. Although popular at times, the most radical forms of this idea never reached…
The present study attempts to provide a consistent and coherent account of what the world could be like, given the conceptual framework and results of contemporary quantum theory. It is suggested that standard quantum mechanics can, and…
The question of what ontological message (if any) is encoded in the formalism of contemporary physics is, to say the least, controversial. The reasons for this state of affairs are psychological and neurobiological. The processes by which…
In resisting attempts to explain the unity of a whole in terms of a multiplicity of interacting parts, quantum mechanics calls for an explanatory concept that proceeds in the opposite direction: from unity to multiplicity. It concerns the…
The quantum world is fascinating. It presents a description of nature that defies our most rooted concepts about what reality is. For example, quantum objects possess \lq\lq spooky\rq\rq\ properties that allow them to be in multiple places…
A quantum theory of the universe consists of a theory of its quantum dynamics and a theory of its quantum state The theory predicts quantum multiverses in the form of decoherent sets of alternative histories describing the evolution of the…
The question whether quantum measurements reflect some underlying objective reality has no generally accepted answer. We show that description of such reality is possible under natural conditions such as linearity and causality, although in…
I take a pragmatist perspective on quantum theory. This is not a view of the world described by quantum theory. In this view quantum theory itself does not describe the physical world, nor our observatons, experiences or opinions of it.…
We will focus on the Quantum theory and starting from simple philosophical conjectures, we infer possible different physical realities. Also we argue of possible wavefunction emerging under specific conditions of the physical reality.…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…
We argue, through some philosophical considerations, on (i)dependent or (ii) an independent existence of physical reality underlying quantum states. According these simple considerations, we conclude that is impossible to have a clear…
It is argued that a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics is possible and useful. Current interpretations, from Copenhagen to many worlds are critically revisited. The difficulties for intuitive models of quantum physics are pointed…
The hard problem in consciousness is the problem of understanding how physical processes in the brain could give rise to subjective conscious experience. In this paper, I suggest that in order to understand the relationship between…
In recent years there has been a strong development of the concept of virtual reality (VR) which from the first video games developed in the 60s has reached the current immersive systems. VR and the consequent deception of perception pose…