Why I think the Universe is an Experiment

I think there is much more out there than just the universe. It is its own isolated experiment.
Everything we know formed through a matter of processes that have slowly developed for billions of years; and is still developing. The formation of stars and planets, the evolution of life forms-these all take time.

If the universe is the be-all end-all of creation/existence, made by a god-type figure, it would all have just popped into existence ready to go. If "god" wanted Earth and man to be here, he wouldn't have waited 14 billion years for it to happen. (That is of course going by religion claiming we are made in god's image, yadda yadda...the bible ain't my thing, just using a familiar point of reference).

Looking at it from another view, whatever made the universe, I'm sure "it" would have made more than just the universe.

We use the term "universe" as an all-encompassing belief. We think the universe is everything. Is there not something else beyond that the universe is part of? There has to be.

Could god have set up this science project we called the universe? Why would god bother?

Why wouldn't he have waited? Watching the event unfold is where most of the enjoyment is,... otherwise millions would tune out from watching sports and just read the final scores in the newspapers. Is the pleasure in seeing my child grown up or watching them grow up and being a part of their lives,... obviously much more so the second.

Created more than just the universe as we see it,... agreed.

Why do humans experiment? curiosity, enjoyment, discovery, alleviate boredom. If we are made in His image why would his reasons be any different.

Interesting. I've often thought we are actually avatars in a 'Second Life' scenario. We are made in 'God's image' (I use the term very loosely.) then we turn around and do the same thing. We play. We make models. We make up stories. We make avatars after idealized images of what we might like to look like. Maybe Second Life should be Third Life.

There's a book: The Universe: Solved, buy a guy who thinks the universe is a computer program. You'll have to look it up. I'm in a hurry for this post. who makes the case for the granularity of the Universe being caused by not enough memory. The entire book is not spectatcular, but he has his say and I think it's worth a read.

I think it was an experiment to see if intelligent life can be created. It's about to be declared to have had negative results and the petry dish thrown into the incinerator.

reply to post by dlifesjrny


If Bible ain't your thing, read the Quran, it states Life is a test.

Interesting indeed.

Originally posted by schuyler
Interesting. I've often thought we are actually avatars in a 'Second Life' scenario. We are made in 'God's image' (I use the term very loosely.) then we turn around and do the same thing. We play. We make models. We make up stories. We make avatars after idealized images of what we might like to look like. Maybe Second Life should be Third Life.

There's a book: The Universe: Solved, buy a guy who thinks the universe is a computer program. You'll have to look it up. I'm in a hurry for this post. who makes the case for the granularity of the Universe being caused by not enough memory. The entire book is not spectatcular, but he has his say and I think it's worth a read.

Something like this??

Original:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Follow up:
More Evidence that Universe is a Hologram


[edit on 14-7-2010 by oozyism]

[edit on 14-7-2010 by oozyism]

reply to post by oozyism

I actually am going to make a new thread to respond to you.

To the poster that mentioned the Universe:Solved book: I have heard his theory. My views are similar, but different at the same time.

I was watching that new science program hosted by Morgan Freeman and they were talking about this notion on there. One idea is that the fact that observation or measurement of a phenomenon in nature actually can have an effect upon it by collapsing the wavefunction is taken by some as possible "proof" (or at least evidence) that this may be what is happening in our universe.

They liken this effect to that of a video game like Second Life, or maybe "The Sims." Imagine, when you or your avatar within a game is pointed at something, your computer renders it so it can be seen by you. Everything else within the game is a series of potentials which only become rendered - they only exist - when you point your avatar to look at them. Likewise, many things like generated events within a game, such as other characters appearing, are randomly generated events. Before they appear for you to interact with them, they are potentials within the system that might be there when you turn around or might not be - you don't know until you open the front door to your Sims cottage if one of the next door neighbor characters will be happening by at that time.

It's an interesting notion, one I've been wrestling with for a good day now.

Another way to look at all this, though, is that every generation seems to try to define the entire universe in terms of the highest technology or concepts it has yet invented. In ancient days, the universe was thought to be a series of crystal spheres that spun about the earth, each containing one of the planets and each one producing a particular note in a kind of celestial symphony, and taken all together they created the "Music of the Spheres."

Later, during the Age of Enlightenment, once people like Newton were actually measuring and finally defining the rules and physical laws by which the universe worked, they began to think of the universe as an indescribably complex clockwork mechanism created by God and set in motion at the beginning of time. Clockworks were, in that age, among the latest and greatest and most powerful tools of science they were able to devise.

Now, in our age, we have computers and maybe it's just tempting to see the universe in terms as a computer simulation because that's just the kind of world we live in and those are the limits of what we can understand or conceive in terms of tools by which we are measuring, examining and explaining the universe. It may be no different than scientists of the Enlightenment era rending the Universe in terms they could understand, as the product of a Divine Watchmaker. One also has to wonder how we might imagine the universe once we come up with the next great tool that helps revolutionize the world the way computers have to our current lives. Right now we cannot even imagine what that might be, the same as the watchmakers and scientists of Newton's time couldn't imagine the laptop I am typing this upon.

[edit on 7/14/2010 by LifeInDeath]

reply to post by oozyism

My thread about religion is here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Do stop by, thanks!

reply to post by LifeInDeath

Dude, you might really like my other thread. There's a connection in there to your statement about man seeing through his current-day eyes.

About the The Sims thing, so he's saying it's possible that you are actually telling me that you are part of my game? Pretty revealing of yourself, no? It's like finding out I'm on The Truman Show.

reply to post by dlifesjrny

Could god have set up this science project we called the universe? Why would god bother?

Because the Spirit of Life works through emanation....orders and cycles.

Energy emanates...from one form to another. There are reasons for this. For the very blueprint of the Universe shows us...orders and cycles.

Originally posted by dlifesjrny

About the The Sims thing, so he's saying it's possible that you are actually telling me that you are part of my game? Pretty revealing of yourself, no? It's like finding out I'm on The Truman Show.

Either that, or we are all just "little" AI constructs, operating on sets of rules within the computer system. None of us may be Users in this world, instead we are the AI constructs the Users (i.e. God/The Gods) are observing, manipulating, interacting with using their Avatars, etc.

If the current rate of geometric growth of computing power continues (i.e. Moore's Law, which actually now doubles every 13 months instead of every 18 months when Moore first suggested it), we are actually shockingly close to achieving computers that can model every sub-atomic particle in the Universe. Assuming it's even possible and that we'll achieve it in something like a century after the first digital computers are built, then it's quite likely, even mathematically more likely, that we are in a constructed Universe rather than a real one. If that's the case, God may not be some omnipotent being so much as he/she/it might be some sort of Peter Molyneux-like game designer of another universe.

If this is the current true state of things, one has to wonder what the actual RULES of the game are. I suppose the rules would be what we call "the Laws of the Universe," but then what is the goal of this game? What of religion? Maybe all of our religions and ideologies are just game constructs, ways for various players to interact and compete against each other for primacy within the game, much like Molyneux's early classic games Populous and Populous II.

[edit on 7/15/2010 by LifeInDeath]

reply to post by dlifesjrny


What if the universe just popped into existence without some sort of outside influence.

There goes the whole "experiment" theory.

Could God have created the universe and why? I think the answer is; he/she/it's God. God can do whatever it wants to for whatever reason.

[edit on 15-7-2010 by Mayson]

What is Reality, Really?

Let's start with two simple exercises.

For the first one, I ask the question "How do you know that what you perceive is not an illusion?" Your perception of reality is nothing more than electrochemical reactions in your brain. So is it not possible that those perceptions are actually produced by an intelligent computer program that is linked to your gray matter via some wireless network? As we shall see, such a technology is only years away.

Thought experiment #2...

How do we really know what happened 2000 years ago? From what we read in books? Doesn't it seem kind of arbitrary that we might consider some books to be authoritative history and others simply mythology. Theoretically, our history may have been planted into our society and collective consciousness. If so when did our "real" history start? 500 years ago? 100 years ago? One might argue that it couldn't have started a century ago because we have contemporaries who were alive then. And since they had contemporaries who were a live many years before their birth and so on back to ancient times, it would seem impossible that an artificial reality could be imposed upon us. However, we are only years away from the ability to upload, download, erase, and restore our brains memory banks. Which makes it impossible to be fooled into believing an entirely different reality?

For many people out there, reality is simple, and unquestionable. You are taught what reality is by your parents, teachers, leaders and friends. It is what you see around you - a continuum of objects at various positions and states, all of which is smoothly moving along in time. You trust history and sciences that you are taught in school. The winners of the World Wars were good guys. You obey the laws that your country and religion set forth because they are "right". You trust your recollections from the past. We evolved from apes, time travel is just science fiction, and every human is an independent living being with free will.

Probe a little deeper, however, and things change a bit. Political parties vehemently disagree on policy, different religions disagree on right and wrong, history sometimes turns out to be different than you thought. The same people funded both sides of WWII. Science says that free will is an illusion. Religious leaders and mainstream science disagree on the question of an afterlife. You peer deeper and deeper into space and find strange anomalies that defy explanation with current physical laws. You peer deeper and deeper into the atom and things really get strange. You find that time and space is not really continuous but discreet, like a TV screen.

Probe even deeper, spend some time surfing the web, listening to alternative radio programs like "Coast to Coast AM", reading conspiracy books or new age books, and you may find yourself becoming a truth seeker. If reality is what we perceive, for example, and what we perceive is based on a large set of neural synapse firings, then isn't reality just an artifact of what your brain is doing? And the more you probe, the more you will no doubt be confused by the morass of seemingly conflicting information that is out there.

Consider...

1. Standard science taught in American schools, supports Darwin's theory of evolution of life.

BUT, many scientists disagree and embrace an "interventionist" point of view. The late world-renowned astronomer from Cambridge University, Sir Fred Hoyle, once said that the probability of producing life anywhere in the universe from evolutionary processes, was similar to the probability of a whirlwind assembling a fully operational Boeing 747 jumbo jet from its parts.

2. Mainstream scientists say that there is no such thing as paranormal phenomena.

BUT, alternative viewpoints are supported by strong experimental evidence. State of the art mass consciousness studies by no less of a reputable institution than Princeton University have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there are phenomena that are completely unexplained by conventional science.

3. Well respected scientists, such as the late Carl Sagan, deny the existence of UFOs.

BUT, astronauts, such as Edgar Mitchell, scientists such as the late Harvard Professor Dr. John Mack, and respected statesmen like Jimmy Carter have seen UFOs, and believe that they are extraterrestrial in origin.

4. The Warren Commission's and the official US government's position on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, is that it was done by alone gunman.

BUT 77% of the people in the United States, according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll, disagree with the Warren Report's conclusion, and believe instead that JFK assassination was a conspiracy, and possibly, a coup d’état.

5. Conventional wisdom is that the physical world that we experience is exactly what it seems to be; e.g. what you see is what you get.

BUT, some reputable scientists believe that there are too many levels of reality. Psychedelic drugs may allow the user to jump between levels. A philosopher from Oxford University has written a paper implying that we are actually living in a simulation, a la "The Matrix"

So, which is it?

Do we live in a world that is exactly as it seems to be? One in which there are no UFOs, no Yetis, no conspiracies, there was no Atlantis, the Egyptians build the pyramids, paranormal experiences are hoaxes or have simple explanations, the earth is 4 billion years old, humans evolved from the apes over the past two million years, you can trust your government, we only have five senses, and when a tree falls in the woods, it makes a sound if nobody is there.

OR

Is our world completely different than what we think we perceive? One in which humans are the result of extraterrestrial genetic experiments, parallel universes exist and can be traveled between by ingesting Ayahuasca or simple remote viewing, there is a huge global conspiracy involving hidden knowledge, with a reptilian shape-shifting power elite at the top, and falling trees only make a sound if observed, although valid observers do include plants and rocks.

Or is it somewhere in-between.

And how do we decide where the truth lies? -- From the Universe Solved by Jim Elvidge

I've been reading this book sitting next to my husband while he was watching a movie of a similar nature. The name of the movie was "The Invention of Lying" starring Ricky Gervais. In this movie he was a loser citizen in a parallel world similar to earth. Everyone in this world could not lie and so believed what everyone said to them, they came off as stupid, non creative and obnoxious people. That is until the lead character, Mark Bellison lies. And the movie goes on from there. Included further down is a part I think relevant. It's the "Man In the Sky" / Moses and the ten commandments scene.

So many people, even here on ATS believe what they believe and "know" to be true, simply because that is what they have been programmed to "know", without really questioning, without really researching. And no I don't consider watching ABC news and reading the newspaper qualifying as research.

I was born in the fifties, grew up in the sixties & seventies, matured in the eighties and will approach old age in the first half of this new century.

I remember being JFK was shot a few months after my mother died from lung cancer. I was ten and becoming "aware" of the world around me.

I could read at a third grade level the first day of first grade and have been a voracious reader, researcher ever since.

People, from my own observation and in my own humble opinion, you and I have been lied to many times about many things.

Our history, politics, religion, the man up in the sky (see the movie).



What we perceive reality to be and what it actually is are two different things and what’s more, (here I am running and donning a flame suite so you trolls out there can't burn me)..............David Icke might be more right than most of you ATS readers care to admit.

Remember, a closed mind and a proud heart gathers no knowledge. - Ofhumandescent.

Before people comment about this really insightful book, I think they ought to read its 238 pages. It is probably one of the best ten books I have read.


[edit on 8-8-2010 by ofhumandescent]

My son showed me an episode of a Japanese cartoon a while back and it has this kid that is growing some kind of a civilization in a petri dish (or a slide. I forgot.). After every now and then, the kid looks in this microscope and sees the civilization flourish and advance and this kid talks to them to be good since they're killing one another in wars, murders, and such. The microscopic people sees the kid as a god. After a while, the civilization becomes war torn and they built a space ship to escape their dying (I forgot) "planet" and launches themselves out of the slide and all over the kid's room.

It's an interesting view on the whole creation thing.

I forgot the title of the cartoon.