Does the future reach backwards to determine the past? The reasonable answer is no, at least not in the material universe around us. For conscious sentient intelligent beings, the answer isn't so simple. The CIA STAR GATE documents prove that the U.S. Government would like to know more about the day after tomorrow.

Now we may know why.

Many years ago I was thinking about the best way to explain weird metaphysical phenomenology and the psychology beneath our experience of the future, and concluded that a coherent explanation must involve a model of the physics of information. It also happened that around the same time period, a mini revolution was taking place in physics and information in the form of quantum information theory.

Traditional systems of applied metaphysics typically involve highly developed and complex landscapes of characters, forms, and emotions interacting under strictly controlled protocols. This is sometimes reduced in description to the word "ritual" with attendant meanings open to interpretation.

Information theorist Seth Lloyd, an MIT expert in quantum computing, in a recent discussion at www.edge.org , stated that, "Many of the systems we regard as processing information, particularly sophisticated ones, have a notion of correspondence of a message with something else ... I regard those as emergent features that we can only ascribe to objects like living things, or perhaps to life itself. Those emergent features are very important. However, it is possible for a system to register information without that information having some kind of semantic meaning."

Over the last several years the information revolution has been complemented by an increase in data about the construction of the universe. As a result there is now a general consensus that what was traditionally called the universe is only a member of an infinite set of all possible worlds collectively known as the multiverse. Recently physicist and string theorist Leonard Susskind added the word megaverse to refer to those worlds in the multiverse which are actualized.

Given this enormous set of worlds as fertile ground for the imagination of mankind, the metaphysical and the physical once again have embraced, at least briefly, and have perhaps made a temporary truce. The ground of being is no longer terra firma, it shifts and sways to the beatnik strains of the meta-mega-physicalist.

Dr. George Ryazanov is a Russian physicist with a strong interest in unifying a vision of physics and metaphysics in a grand synthesis he calls the syncretic science of the future. Ryazanov's ideas are rooted in the concept of the opposition of coincident objects, in particular the symmetry of two signs of time. Two signs of time refer to advanced information processing from the future, and retarded information processing from the past. Many years ago Ryazanov experienced a metaphysical visitation and was inspired to recreate an old idea originally attributed to the renowned physicist Richard Feynman, but with a twist.

In Ryazanov's version, two worlds, one reaching backwards in time from the future, and the other reaching forwards from the past, shake hands together and co-evolve the present moment. Welcome to your future self. The past is no longer fixed, but mutable.

For Seth Lloyd, the physical universe is the ultimate computer, performing at the limit of all possible computations.

In Lloyd's worldview, the quantum universe works like an enormously powerful computer. We live in a quantum universe, under absolute quantum rule. There is a small problem, one that Lloyd is still considering in the new light of his information revolution. Einstein's legacy, of space and time bending and curving, of black holes and wormholes cutting through vastly separated regions and times, has yet to fully yield to the quantum kingdom. There appears to be room, at the end of the universe, for a menu that derives ultimate meaning from the final thought of our future self.

The problem that Einstein struggled with in the last years of his life, has been known to give modern superstring theorists headaches: What connects the ultimate shape and motion of the largest and smallest things in the universe? Lloyd expects that this difficult problem may ultimately yield to the power of quantum information theory.

When we consider the whole shebang; when we ask the ultimate question of "life, the universe, and everything," the answer is not likely to be 42 (the answer supplied by Adam's fictional 'deep thought' computer).

As soon as we move beyond the merely computational realms of matter and energy, we find our existence to be strongly affected by what are called emergent properties. Emergent properties evolve into semantics, and semantics form the basis of the metaphysical language of which magical properties are most fond. There is a semantic barrier that determining the demarcation line between physics built upon ideas of matter and energy, and the next level of a more powerful and exotic physics of the mind.

The closer one moves to this new physics, as in the future shaking hands with the past, the closer one comes to the idea that "life, the universe, and everything" are part of a vast living simulation: the ultimate computer game.

Welcome home, you live in "The Matrix."

Are we living in a simulated world? MIT Professor Set Lloyd argues that there is no difference between a simulated world in a quantum computer, and the real thing, given enough computational resources. This is simple enough to understand at the basic level given that bits are bits (or qu-bits, in their quantum version) and that a universal computer (such as the universe, or multiverse of universes) can perfectly recreate any computation possible in any other computer (or universe!)

Somewhere, it is thought, there must be an interface between these very different levels of the world. How do we reconcile the fundamental computational power of the universe, based as it is on the interaction of matter and energy in motion, with the power of emergent phenomena: emotion, thought, and the semantics of life as the language of being?

There are suggestions, at different ends of the theoretical world, purely speculative but worthy of exploration.

One is born of the language of superstring theory; the world is swept out in various dimensions, and writes in what physicists call membranes, or just branes. These branes form brane worlds, and they may be floating in a higher dimensional space, side by side, as parallel universes.

Another is born of the language of biology; there are structures in the brain, called microtubules, and that these form tiny living quantum computing circuits that are coupled to the shape-structure of space and time.

For the physicist, the parallel sheets of the theoretical world-branes are layers of realities, and should exist independently of one another, apart from gravitons, particles of gravity, that escape into the higher dimensional bulk in which the brane-worlds are thought to be embedded. One may construct a plausible theory of inter-brane communication (presumably via gravity waves passing through the brane layers) in order to predict strange interactions between conscious observers.

Even Dr. Brian Greene, the highly visible physics theorist featured a few years ago in a PBS series on superstring theory, was willing to speculate on the idea of inter-brane 'telephone' communications with other intelligent entities. These extra-dimensional denizens might exist invisible to our world, living within some of the other branes.

Gravity has long been imagined to be related to the emergence of consciousness. One of the most recent appeals to a gravitational influence in conscious thought was championed by Sir Roger Penrose, the famous mathematical physicist, in collaboration with Dr. Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist interested in brain function. The combination of a gravitational selection principle, guiding the protein conformations (the shape of these structures) in the brain's microtubules, together with the world-brane sheet construction, paints a picture of brains in other brane-worlds yielding the power to influence human thought.

Is this not the requirement for a theory of strong 'telepathic' influence, like the weird mind-bending effects reported by scientists studying phenomenology at Utah's Skinwalker Ranch?

I wrote to Dr. Hameroff an inquired if he knew of anyone exploring these possibilities. He replied, "... it is my impression that Penrose believes branes derive from more fundamental spacetime geometry which he is dealing with ... maybe a topic for Quantum Mind 3 in 2007."

If our universe is a brane to brain sandwich, then what are the ultimate implications? Consider the brane world layer. From existing experiments we know that each brane world must be less than one tenth of a millimeter from the next brane as they float in the higher dimensions. Gravity propagates at the speed of light. If the brane-world picture is correct, near the space of our planet a vast section of brane worlds exist.

Somewhere amongst the vast brane-world set, it is likely that a vast, planetary scale super-computing network exists.

As Nick Bostrom, a world-class philosopher at Oxford has pointed out, "Even a single planetary-sized computer, constructed with advanced molecular nanotechnology, could simulate the entire mental history of humankind by using less than one millionth of its computing power for one second; and this presupposes only already known computational mechanisms and engineering principles." This means that the universe might be expected to be populated by countless simulations of reality.

Information about our world travels into the bulk of the brane-worlds in the form of extremely weak gravity waves. However in the Penrose process that was invoked for consciousness selection, the conformation of the brain microtubules is determined by quantum superposition of different spacetime geometries. One would expect that nature makes a choice, and perhaps nature may be biased by brane-worlds coupled to the human brain matter that produces the emergent conscious thought of a living sentient being.

If this were true, then living systems would no longer be limited to the confines of a single universe, along with the computational limits calculated by Seth Lloyd. The ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything may be a lot bigger than was ever thought possible.

Welcome to the 21st century gone wild:

An imaginary but also very real world that exists inside a matrix; a vast living simulated existence, coupled directly into a semantic control network -- a layered net of multiple parallel universes simulating individual perceptions.

And we would not be alone for the ride. The control network is layered, and hierarchical. A certain ultra-terrestrial 'MAJIC' pervades this universe, one of interacting subsystems and emergent self-reflecting features.

There are several different ways of looking at this fundamental scenario.

Although they differ in essential details, they have the same basic simulation argument in common. The primary message that emerges from this line of reasoning is that the human species is not the ultimate arbiter of what happens to planet Earth, or even of human thought. There are other forces moving through the planet determining the fate of our race. They appear to be of such intelligence and act with such powerful anticipatory foresight as to simulate the appearance of working outside of space and
time.

In fact, they appear for all practical purposes to be shaking hands with us from our future.

In exploring the many 'human-centric' simulation options, we find:

Those of a religious basis, forming an hierarchy of heavenly beings, of a non-material nature.

Psychological paraphysical options, with subconscious mental undercurrents clashing amongst various populations and their non-compatible belief systems.

The problem of interference from an advanced civilization, or multiple civilizations with vastly superior mental abilities.

The sub-anthropic idea of Gato-Rivera, that we are a protected species and Earth is a planet owned by a more advanced civilization.

Interference between parallel universes, alternative realities that for some reason have interacted with each other and continue to do so, if intermittently.

Conspiratorial models involving human beings and higher intelligence agents working hand in alien hand to direct human events for unearthly agendas.

So we must ask ourselves once again: Are we living in a simulated world?

Nick Bostrom says a single planetary-sized computer could simulate the entire mental history of humankind by using less than one millionth of its computing power for one second.

MIT Professor Set Lloyd argues that there is no difference between a simulated world in a quantum computer, and the real thing

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary S. Bekkum & Starstream Research.

All Rights Reserved.

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