Is our “Reality” a Time-Space Simulation?

In the current metaparadigm, consciousness is assumed to emerge from the world of space, time, and matter. In the new metaparadigm, everything we know manifests from consciousness. – Peter Russell, From Science to God

Current science is not so far from the mystical views of Yoga, Vedanta and Buddhism.  With the advent of quantum mechanics and more recent developments in neuroscience we get an understanding of how our experience of reality is not so much “out there” as “in here.”  On the quantum level there is recognition that conscious observation determines the physical reality that we experience.  Neuroscience tells us that we take in raw information through our senses which our brains organize into an inner representation.  Either way we look at it, our Individual, and collective experiences of reality are mediated by this mysterious essence we refer to as consciousness.

Advaita, or nondual philosophy says that consciousness is the ground of being, the ultimate reality.  All that is, is Consciousness.  Because we are in the strong habit of thinking that reality is something “out there,” this might seem disconcerting.  One way or another we have to look within ourselves in order to understand our world.  We are our experience of the world and we are more deeply the “experiencer.”  This deeper locus of being is not really located anywhere.  It is outside of and prior to space and time.  “It” cannot be objectified because it is the purely subject.  Nothing in our upbringing, education, religious training, etc. has ever taught us to truly look this deeply inside.  “It” is pure presence; your own true self.

But what of this world?  Advaita suggests that it is all an illusion, Maya.  Yoga philosophy takes a different position; the world exists but is dependent on the consciousness principle, purusha or atman.  As Patanjali explains, “The existence of an object does not depend on a single mind, for if it did, what would become of the object if that mind did not perceive it?”  This might seem like simple common sense.  However we know that on a quantum level an “object” is dependent upon observation.  The objects of our macro-world are the products of multiple observations over time.  Yoga understands the cosmos to be the product of a greater, universal mind at work.  Each of our individual ego-minds is a subsystem of this greater entity.  What we choose to perceive, what we focus on is what we bring into existence.  When the yogi is able to withdraw his awareness from objects, as well as the memory of and desire for them they no longer exist – for the yogi.  Because of memory and desire the rest of us are still stuck with them. 

In deep meditation we are sometimes able to forget the stressful world and to rest in an inner center of peace.  As A Course In Miracles states, "There is a place in YOU where this whole world has been forgotten; where no memory of sin and of illusion lingers still. There is a place in you which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard."  We all have access to this space but we are pulled back into the world of sin and illusion through our ego-based desire and fear.  These are powerful forces that have been conditioned within us.  Every time, however, that we enter into the eternal place of peace we lessen their hold over us. 

This is not escapism.  Sometimes we escape into a fantasy world, i.e. “primary process”, as a way of coping.  In meditation we bring all modifications of the mind into a state of quiet; no thoughts, no fantasies or dreams and no sleeping.  It is the experience of a deeper level of reality “behind the curtains,” as it were.  Because the ego-self is dormant in this state we awaken to Soul.  As we establish ourselves more and more deeply in our Soul-identity our desires change.  We no longer return to the world driven by self-centered, self-protective motives.  Instead we become more open and accepting, loving and compassionate.  We express more of our true spiritual nature.  We become agents of love-energy.  We become more the change which we wish to see in the world.

"An untroubled mind,
No longer seeking to consider
What is right and what is wrong,
A mind beyond judgements,
Watches and understands."

- Buddha

Now to switch gears a little, I want to go to an article which originally stimulated this post.  There is serious hypothetical conjecture within the scientific community which suggests that our universe may be a quantum simulation.  As Gary Scott reports in Serious Wonder:

Silas Beane, and the team at the University of Bonn in Germany, say that we may be able to see evidence that our cosmos is simulated. The technology review reports:

So if our cosmos is merely a simulation, there ought to be a cut off in the spectrum of high energy particles.

It turns out there is exactly this kind of cut off in the energy of cosmic ray particles, a limit known as the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin or GZK cut off.

(http://www.seriouswonder.com/the-simulated-universe-theory-may-be-real)

I am not going to pretend that I understand all of this.  I am not a “science guy.”  Instead I enjoy reading about how scientists grapple with this problem of “reality.”  It requires both sides of our brains to get somewhat of a handle on it.  Often science fiction precedes theory, discovery and accepted fact.  Scientists like to pretend that they are “just about the facts, ma’am.”  The truth is that there is always a hidden philosophy or underlying paradigm which guides their investigations.  From infancy we have been constructing a weltanshauung which we consider to be our reality.  Recently scientists have come to consider the possibility that the universe is not made up out of particles, or even “energy,” but simply information.  It is all “mind.”  Lord Buddha is surely laughing in his celestial home.  Sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick was ahead of this curve when he wrote VALIS in 1981; a novel based on his own puzzling mystical experiences. In it writes,

“We hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing.”

Wow!  I remember first reading VALIS after my return from India.  It wasn’t like some of the sacrosanct versions of the Upanishads that I had been exposed to but it resonated in a similar key.  Dick had a “paranoia” which ran throughout his works; a sense that the reality we are presented with is a fabrication.  Of course, this theme reemerged in The Matrix, a film in which the main character, Neo is enmeshed in a computer generated reality.  Is it time for us all to awaken to this informational, or mind dimension of reality?  Or as Scott writes in his above mentioned article, “So, if this theory is true, who is running the simulation and what are they trying to learn from this complex simulation?  I have said many times “the point of this simulation could be to see how long it takes us to realize we are being simulated.”

The Yoga Darshan says that we can awaken to the central power of the conscious mind within us to either create or destroy our reality.