by M I A Harba
‘Glitches are too unimportant for the program to correct itself. I’m talking about scenarios that will confuse the simulated characters if they remain uncorrected. For example, if a deceased character reappears again somewhere, the program loses control over events,’ Salam answered.
‘Let’s keep to science. Salam, I’m sure you are well-read, so you are familiar with the Theory of Relativity, and that the speed of light in a vacuum is fixed wherever you measure it at, and gravity warps space and time.’
‘I don’t claim to understand the Theory of Relativity, but I read about time dilation, where time appears to go slower near objects that create a high gravity pull, or when objects are in motion. Also, I trust the scientists when they say the speed of light in a vacuum is fixed irrespective of where you measure it from, whether from a moving object or stationery,’ Salam explained.
‘How do you cater for this in your simulation theory?’ Sam asked.
‘Again, simulation is not my theory. I read about it, and to some extent, I believe in it although would like to see more evidence. To understand how these predictions of Relativity are catered for in the Simulation Hypothesis, you need to understand how computers work. There is a central unit for processing data, i.e. the Central Processing Unit or CPU, and a unit for displaying the scenes or the images on the screen, i.e. the Graphical Processing Unit or GPU.
‘As I mentioned before, space is pixelated and so is time. In other words, space and time consist of tiny steps or pixels. The processing unit needs to estimate and refresh values at every space pixel and every time pixel. The processing power of any computer, however powerful it is, is fixed and therefore the maximum speed at which it can do its estimations from pixel to pixel is finite, i.e. limited. This limit represents the maximum possible processing of pixels across the whole domain. This accounts for the maximum speed limit, i.e. light speed. It cannot exceed this value because it's limited by the power of the computing environment running the simulation.
‘For time dilation next to objects with gravitational forces, the area in the vicinity of these objects involves a lot of processing. So much is happening in this area, and the gravitational pull needs to be estimated at the various distances from the object. Therefore, it takes longer to process these space pixels. Remember, the processing speed of the computer environment is limited. More time is needed to process the pixel per pixel space in that area. This accounts for the time dilation experienced next to objects with high gravitational forces.
‘But this is not only what I wanted to talk to you about today. I have a friend at the Physics Department of the University of Baghdad, Dr Talib. He is a good friend of mine, who also shares many of the ideas I have been discussing with you. He is a professor of astronomy, and he'll be able to explain more and highlight aspects that I have been unable to probably explain clearly to you,’ Salam finished his explanation while Sam was perplexed in attention.
‘This is great. I'm already intrigued. When can we meet Dr Talib?’
‘Well, as soon as I make an appointment with him. I wanted to have your consent before I contacted him.’
‘Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to hear what he says, and I have questions of my own that I'd like to discuss with him,’ Sam said.
‘Okay, I'll make the appointment and will let you know as soon as I get it fixed with Dr Talib.’
They spent the rest of the evening talking about various matters, social and otherwise. It was quite clear that Sam was already bought in, as he could see merit in this simulation idea. He was no longer rejecting it outrightly as he did in the first meeting with Salam.
Salam gave Sam a lift to his house, and they parted with the promise of a meeting with Dr Talib. That came a few days later. Dr Talib was to meet them at his office, at the Department of Physics, University of Baghdad. He had one afternoon free, and they could do the discussions then.
On the designated afternoon, Salam came over to Sam's house, and they drove together to the Physics Department. The university campus is situated in the Al-Chadrea district of Baghdad. The Tigris creates a half-island, or a tiny peninsula, in this district as it loops and turns in its flow towards the southern part of Iraq. The university campus is built within this half-island. It is a beautiful area of Baghdad, green and densely populated with date palms, orange and fig trees. The Tigris has made this land very fertile, and the university made an extra effort to beautify this area with various trees, flowers beds, and irrigation conduits.
Dr Talib’s office was on the 1st floor. Upon entering the building, they went to Reception and, indeed, Dr Talib had left instructions for them to come straight to his office. His office was cluttered with books and papers on his desk, on the shelves, and everywhere else in the room as typical of a professors’ office. Dr Talib greeted them at the door and appeared gracious and hospitable. He sat on his chair behind his desk and asked them to sit on two chairs on the opposite side. He picked his phone and asked them what they liked for a drink. They both asked for coffees, so he spoke instructions on the phone and hung up.
‘It's a pleasure to see you here, Salam, and it's a pleasure to meet with you, Sam. Salam and I often had discussions about astronomy and new discoveries in physics,’ said Dr Talib.
‘Yes indeed, we spent many sessions together,’ Salam said.
‘I understand you have a few questions, and you'd like to discuss some aspects of the Simulation Hypothesis,’ said Dr Talib, addressing Sam.
‘Yes, Salam has blown my mind with this new theory, and whatever I threw at him to prove this theory was wrong, he was ready with answers. I'm not absolutely sure I agree with it and have my doubts. But certainly, it merited more discussions. I find my mind completely confused now, and I'd like to have clarity,’ Sam answered.
‘Yes, indeed, the theory sounds too fantastical, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence to prove it might be correct. Many reputable scientists have bought into this hypothesis, and there are even proposed experiments to prove it. However, the latter is still fresh but hopefully, we will be able to see something in the next few years. Having said this, the logic behind the theory is beautiful and, no doubt, Salam has explained to you some of the experiences that science currently cannot explain, like UFOs, reincarnation, life after death, and near-death experiences, etc.
‘These subjects were always disregarded by science and considered either non-existent or purely imagined by the individual. They are mental, in the mind of the witness, rather than absolute truth, science claims. Yet, we know these have persisted over the millennia and have been reported in the books of history.
‘Religion has offered some explanation for some of these experiences, but unfortunately not all. It is based on the premise that there is a divine superpower somewhere up there that makes these happen. The religious explanations are not, unfortunately, convincing enough, so humans started looking for other explanations that can withstand the rigour of science and logic,’ explained Dr Talib.
‘Yes, Salam has explained some of these experiences. He explained them well but, unfortunately, I'm still not convinced. I think I need to read more, and perhaps more time to digest these ideas to clarify my mind,’ Sam answered.
‘Okay, let me start by giving you a summary of the huge advances made over the last 100 years in astronomy and physics. Did you know that only 100 years ago we thought the observable universe is basically the Milky Way that we are part of? Then one scientist, Edwin Hubble, in the 1920 s, through his telescope, found that the Milky Way was one of billions of other galaxies in the universe. Imagine, our universe went from being one galaxy to billions and billions of galaxies. This new discovery shook the world.’
‘Actually, I thought this knowledge was known for hundreds of years. I didn't realise it was only 100 years ago,’ Sam said.
‘And this scientist also discovered that the remote galaxies are moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distance from us. At that time, scientists believed in a static u
niverse. In other words, the universe looks the same everywhere one looks and is static in this sense. This new discovery told the world the universe is expanding at increasing speeds. Does this mean in the past the universe exploded from a certain location, and this explosion is pushing galaxies away from that point? Well, actually that was the starting point of the Big Bang Theory. It was named so by a scientist who didn't actually believe in it, as he believed in the static universe paradigm. He was arguing that the universe could not have originated from a point in a Big Bang. The name stuck ever since,’ Dr Talib explained.
‘This is very interesting. It is indeed fascinating how such a discovery can lead to all kinds of interesting theories and findings,’ Sam said.
‘Further research and discoveries have made scientists believe the Big Bang theory to be the most plausible for the creation of the universe, and it is the standard accepted theory at the moment,’ Dr Talib said.
‘Yes indeed, this new theory is common knowledge now,’ Sam said.
‘It was roughly at that time in the last century that Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity. He postulated that space and time form a 4-dimensional construct, he called space-time. Further, this 4-dimensional construct is flexible and can be squashed or expanded. Objects with gravitational forces tend to squash or warp space in their vicinity.
‘Space is expanding, and the speed of expansion is higher at the far galaxies. Galaxies at the far end of the visible universe are moving at almost the speed of light, and those beyond the edge of the visible universe are moving away from us at speeds higher than the speed of light. Therefore we can never see these galaxies. But what makes the universe expand?
‘It is what nature has provided. At the time of the big bang, space and time were created, and space expanded in an inflation kind of way, faster than the speed of light. Now we understand that space and time, or the space-time construct of the universe, is flexible, like jelly. You can think of the planets, the stars, and galaxies as marbles of different sizes buried inside this jelly. Additionally, the jelly next to these marbles is squashed or warped more than the jelly far away from the marbles.
‘Light and other massless particles move at the speed of light within the jelly. The marbles, with the deformed jelly around them, deflect the light and act as a gravitational lens that astronomers use in their observations of very remote and obscured galaxies.
‘It is actually quite difficult to comprehend that space is nothing but an empty vacuum, so it is difficult to imagine how it can expand or compress. Further, when it expands or compresses, what happens to the contents of that part of space?’ asked Dr Talib.
‘Yes, I agree. It is difficult to visualise the effects of expansion or compression of space,’ Sam said.
‘If we are within a part of space that undergoes expansion or compression, we will not feel it. We, I mean humans will expand with this space or compress with it. We will not feel the effect. However gravitational waves, which cause space to expand and compress, can be detected. They have been detected recently by an experiment which verified this concept of expansion or compression of space.’
‘This is really interesting,’ Sam responded with keen interest.
‘And you know what, space is not completely empty. In other words, to think of space as a complete vacuum and nothing happens inside is wrong. There are all kinds of activities taking place in the void. Particles pop out and disappear all the time. It is a hotbed of activity. But this is outside our discussions for the moment.
‘Our universe is about 13.8 billion years of age. Our planet earth is about 4.7 billion years old. And the first cell that is considered alive was dated to about 3.5 billion years.
‘Our understanding of how we are built, or how the matter in this universe is built, has undergone a lot of changes, too. First, it was thought the atoms are the basic building blocks of matter. Then it was discovered that the atom has a nucleus and is almost all of it free space. The nucleus itself is built of basic components, the protons, and the neutrons. And the nucleus itself is mostly empty space. Further, the neutrons and the protons are themselves built on quark's, and, as a result, the neutrons and protons are mostly empty space, too.
‘When we go down to the level of the quarks, we really don't understand what's inside them. However, one theory, the String Theory, postulates that there are vibrating strings of energy inside these quarks. They are vibrating in an 11-dimensional space with frequencies that decide what each quark behaves like. So, if the string theory is believed, the basic building block of everything is nothing but vibrating strings of energy.
‘So, there is no matter as such, or should I say ‘stuff,’ because what we have is vibrating energy. In fact, it is believed now that there are no particles as such in the universe, but there are fields. For example, the electron is not a particle but a field. An electron may be represented by a wave within this field, and its position is probabilistic. It is likely to be found at the point of highest probability.
‘So, you see, the advances in particle physics have made us understand matter better, and in some cases, they have made our understanding even more clouded.
‘I don't want to go into the details of the standard model and the theory of everything because, first, it is difficult to comprehend by the non-specialists, and second, it is still not entirely accepted, and some scientists still have doubts.
‘The first elements to be created after the big bang were the simple elements in the form of the hydrogen atom. It has only one proton and one electron. These later became distributed in the newly created space, and the gravitational effects made them cluster together, and eventually light up in the form of stars.
‘Stars are hot, and at the centre of the star, the gravitational force is so strong the hydrogen atoms are fused together to form helium, which has 2 protons, two electrons and some neutrons. So basically, the stars began creating the heavy elements.
‘As time progressed, the helium atoms fused together, and this process continued to create even heavier elements, like iron and carbon. So, during the lifespan of a star, from its creation to its death, all the heavy elements that we see in the universe are made. So, what you see around you here, you, me, this desk, this glass of water and the coffee, are all made within the hearts of stars during its normal life span or at the end of it when it explodes.’
‘This is really very interesting. We are born in the stars,’ Sam commented with profound interest.
‘You see these elements get distributed in space after the explosion of the dying star. These elements, and due to the gravitational force, get attracted together and cluster into new stars. The remaining debris of the dying star gets pulled by the newly established star, and they start orbiting the star. These elements, due to their own gravitational force, group together and get bigger by attracting more of the debris in space, to create the planets that we see today.
‘Our solar system, for example, the sun and other planets are the remnants of a star that exploded in the past. It seems that the universe undergoes a cycle of death and birth just like us, living beings, get born and then eventually die. It's a very curious observation.’
‘So where does religion come into this complex life and death experience of stars?’ Sam inquired.
‘Well, religion does not actually offer any explanation for this. The Creator created everything in six days, the earth, the stars, the planets, the animals, the plants, and everything, in six days. It is a very simplistic explanation and most likely suitable to the time religion came down, i.e. 2000 years ago. If you explain to someone, who lived 2000 years ago, that stars are made of hydrogen and other elements, they wouldn’t understand it. The universe is what they see, and it will be impossible for them to understand complex theories. They probably would not even comprehend that earth was round and not flat. How could you explain planets and stars to them?
‘Again, this is very intriguing,’ Sam answered.
‘And, I mus
t say, we haven't reached the point of understanding everything in this universe. So don't believe the illusion that science knows it all. What we understand of the universe is the matter that we can see or detect, and this constitutes only 5% of the observable universe. 95% is still unknown and is in the form of dark matter and dark energy. So our knowledge is focused on 5%, what we see.’
‘Yes, Salaam explained this to me, and I heard about it somewhere before,’ Sam said.
‘And even within the matter that we claim to understand, there are aspects completely unknown, and frankly speaking, are absurd in behaviour. I'm here talking about matter on the particle or sub-atomic level. At this level, the mathematics that shows how these particles behave, are completely different from those we observe at a larger scale. I mean, the world that we see and experience every day.
‘The particles behave in a totally different way and are governed by what we call Quantum Mechanics. No scientist really understands Quantum Mechanics. However, the mathematics that had been invented for Quantum Mechanics work and have been proven to work time and again in various experiments. Though, nobody really understands how this mathematics relates to the actual behaviour of the sub-atomic particles.
‘Electrons, photons, protons, etc. behave in a dual way. What I mean, they behave like waves in certain situations and behave as particles in others. This is verified by the so-called ‘double-slit’ experiment conducted about 100 years ago and repeated many times since, with variations.
‘I'm not going to go into the details of this experiment because it needs time and some background, but basically these particles behave as waves until they are detected. They start to behave like particles.
‘There are several interpretations of this behaviour of these particles. One interpretation says that the process of detection, using other particles for the purpose of detection, impacts the detected particle and converts them from a wave into a particle. Another interpretation, which is probably less accepted in the world, says the detection by a conscious entity causes the change from wave to particle.