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Unless you enjoy dallying in the vast field of ideas, you probably aren't aware of some of the more profound discoveries and theories about reality that have emerged as of late. If you've ever wondered what life really is, why there is anything at all, or what it is we're doing here, you'll find this fascinating. The rest of you may go make a cup of tea and turn on Netflix. And that's a perfectly acceptable response to profundity.
We'll start with a foundational idea proposed by Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who has spent decades studying evolution and consciousness. His research has led him to a rather astonishing theory: Evolution did not necessarily equip us to perceive reality accurately. It equipped us to survive.
In other words, the way we perceive reality may be useful but not necessarily accurate. Think about turning on your computer and seeing a file icon. You aren't aware of the electrical circuits and complicated processes that magically put that icon on your screen. Nor would you want to be. The icons provide a useful interface that allows you to accomplish things without understanding what is happening underneath.
Maybe reality is the same way. We see what is useful for survival but not the complicated processes beneath. And even after all of our probing--telescopes, splitting atoms, and trips to the moon--we may just be studying an elaborate representation of reality rather than reality itself. In other words, we experience life as the file icon without seeing the processing behind it.
And here's another fascinating possibility: Maybe our brains don't manufacture consciousness. Some scientists and philosophers have proposed that consciousness exists independently of our physical bodies and that our brains are merely receivers.
Think of a radio. The music doesn't originate inside the radio. The radio receives signals and translates them into something we can hear. What if our brains work something like that? Maybe consciousness is fundamental to reality, and matter, space, and time emerge from it, rather than the other way around.
And here's the most fascinating part of this magic show: Scientists have discovered that tiny particles behave differently depending on whether their paths are being observed. When nobody is measuring their paths, they behave one way. When measuring equipment is watching, they behave another. A scientist doesn't even have to be in the room. A simple camera can change the outcome, almost as though the particles know they're being watched. But here's an even more intriguing possibility: What if our expectations influence the reality we experience? Could we, in ways we don't yet understand, be participating in the creation of our own lives?
Now here's yet another possibility being tossed around: According to Hoffman and other researchers, developments in physics and mathematics have raised an astonishing question: What if our universe is something like a simulation? In other words, what if the world we experience is generated from something more fundamental, much like the old computer game The Sims? Everything looks perfectly real to the characters in the game, but behind their world is something entirely different. Could the same be true of ours?
Hoffman isn't necessarily proposing that somebody programmed the universe. His theory suggests that consciousness itself may be fundamental and that the physical world we experience is something like an interface. Other researchers have explored the possibility of a computational universe. Neither possibility has been established, but it's interesting to ponder whether the entire physical world may be a representation of something much deeper.
And that leads naturally to a wonderful question: If we're living in something resembling a simulation, what--or who--is responsible for creating it?
It leaves a lot of room for God.
Perhaps the greatest lesson in all of this is that we ought to be a little less certain about what we think we know. Even matter, the stuff we believe to be solid, is mostly empty space at the atomic level. The physical world is not nearly as solid as it appears, and perhaps it's not nearly as important as we've made it.
We have built an entire civilization around the material world, measuring our success by what we own, what we earn, and what we accomplish. We spend our lives accumulating things, maintaining them, worrying about them, and eventually leaving them behind.
But what if the material world is only a small part of a much greater reality? What if consciousness is more fundamental than the things we can see and touch? What if there's a purpose to our existence that has very little to do with the things we spend most of our time pursuing?
Perhaps we should devote as much attention to exploring our inner lives as we do to managing our outer ones. Beauty, love, compassion, creativity, and our longing for something greater might deserve a more prominent place in our lives.