In the Digital Playground with Tom Campbell

Rarely during one’s life does a totally unique and alien concept arise to firmly grab hold of the attention strings that dangle so precariously – and with such vulnerability – from our minds. I’d like to open your eyes to one such concept: virtual realities and simulations as an explanation of our existence.

With a plethora of topics competing to climb our attention strings daily as they are exposed to (and bombarded by) countless novel memes and ideas through numerous channels, you may feel that a fly swatter is needed to chase away the worthless, the kooky or the totally irrelevant matters.

Skepticism is a worthy trait that we should all possess and use as a filter through which we view the world. So try your skeptical goggles on this one: there is increasing awareness to the possibility that we – meaning all of humanity, earth, even the entire universe – are a construct of a digital awareness that has created the physical reality we exist in as a playground and learning lab for our consciousness.

While those that seriously consider this possibility are still labeled as members of the outer fringes of mainstream physics and science, over time this concept is gradually finding its way into the ethos of a more intelligent, creative conversation.

How does this gradual acceptance happen? Take for example Nick Bostrom, a University of Oxford professor and his Simulation Argument, which converges to the idea that we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. Then there is S. James Gates who during an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson happened to mention that he found computer code embedded within String Theory equations. Jim, incidentally, is a well-respected theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park with a PhD from MIT.

Yes, nearly everyone is familiar with the movies The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor and others. This is kind of like that…but not really. Let me explain.

Consider Tom Campbell, a professional physicist that has worked for NASA and the Missile Defense Agency. Tom has developed the long sought after “Theory of Everything” that conjoins not only the large scale physics of relativity and the small scale physics of quantum mechanics (the only requirements for such a TOE in the minds of many), but also supplies well-constructed explanations for the metaphysical, paranormal and more – truly everything. All of this is encapsulated inside Tom’s trilogy “My Big TOE”, a fascinating mix of science, physics, anecdotes and humor.

Tom’s fundamental argument is that everything is “just information.” This universe is subjective and is manifested only through consciousness – our consciousness. So what are we? Tom says we are individual chunks of this consciousness-stuff fed an information stream – that “tricks” us into believing we are physical bodies – running around in a simulated, virtual world trying to find the cheese. Cheese of course is a metaphor for low entropy, highly evolved consciousness based on love, not ego.

As I read My Big TOE and got a feel for the Big Picture that Tom talks about, I jotted down some questions that – in a perfect world – Tom would answer. Well, I got my wish. You might call that good luck or synchronicity or maybe Tom was having a slow day. I like to view it as a step towards lowering my personal entropy.

For my readers, I would like to publish this Q and A and provide encouragement to expand your understanding of the possibilities of this strange universe we live in. If this is a concept that resonates with you, that’s terrific. If not, at the very least, you might find that Tom’s message of dropping ego and fear while living a more love-based live in addition to focusing your mind through meditation, can be quite beneficial to improving the quality of your existence.

Here’s the interview:

Yorick von Fortinbras: Tom, you speak with such a high level of confidence in My Big TOE concepts. Is this because of your physical [and non-physical] experiences or more your conceptual experiences?

Tom Campbell:  Both sets of experience were critical. MBT is a seamless unity of both experience sets.

YvF: Is it possible that you could be wrong about this reality being a virtual reality? I’m not asking for “proof” but really the question is about the origins of your confidence in this truth and whether it is more based in the NMPR experience or the PMR experience?

TC: Yes [it is possible I’m wrong]. Almost anything is possible.  However, because of the nearly perfect “goodness of fit” of MBT theory to all the available experimental data (the collective subjective and objective human experience), it is unlikely that the theory is fundamentally flawed, though it may not be complete or expressed in the best way possible.

YvF: Do you think there is a way [for us PMR humans] to bring the simulation “to its knees”, i.e. exhaust local/available resources?

TC: NO.

YvF: A possible way to do this might be to cause it to render incredible amounts of new data to many, many information streams concurrently. Not that the purpose would be to bring it to its knees, but that as a simulation it is vulnerable to a momentary glitch that could be observed/experienced…and if that glitch were caused, would we be able to even perceive it?

TC: That depends on how such a glitch is manifested, but the highest probability is that we would not notice…and if there were something subtle that could be noticed, we (collectively) would never guess the cause.

YvF: What is “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy”s relation to the other dimensions/reality streams?

TC: None. They are “fudge factors” that are required to be conceptually invented in order to force physics theory to be consistent with experimental results.  They are “dark” because they are invisible.  That the theory may be wrong is never considered as a possibility.  Dark matter is more likely to one day find an ordinary physical explanation.

YvF: Are you a non-PMR being assigned to help us? That is a bit of a joke, but really, do you see yourself as a catalyst for helping this PMR evolve consciousness faster?

TC: I am a flesh and blood PMR being like you and – like you – this is not my first trip to this PMR.  However, I do have a mission to support positive consciousness evolution in PMR and MBT is a part of that plan.

YvF: While it is true humanity is obsessed with power, domination and control/manipulation, is it possible to NOT have these obsessions and still rise to the level of knowledge that we have so far?

TC: Yes, not only possible, but we would have accomplished, (from a big picture viewpoint) much more, much faster by using cooperative caring (love) instead of fear, ego and belief as a prime motivator.

YvF: Do other entities have these obsessions?

TC: Yes

YvF: If they didn’t, would it help or hurt their progress to knowledge and consciousness evolution? How many others have the knowledge that this PMR humanity has? Do many have the clear view of the Big Picture?

TC: In the other reality frames I have visited, fear, ego, and belief is a more common motivator than love.  We are somewhere in the middle with some being much more fear based and some being much less fear based than our PMR

YvF: When a baby is born, is it the foundation of a new consciousness that starts dim and evolves to a higher state of being within its limits?

TC: That is a possibility happening in the margins, but not a likely occurrence.

YvF: If yes, this means that a new individuated consciousness comes around every time a baby is born. Where are all these individuated consciousnesses coming from?

TC: Most are simply recycling while some newbies are added as needed.

YvF: Or is it the case that the consciousness that connects to a newborn is a piece (or whole) of a consciousness that previously existed elsewhere?

TC: This is the most common condition.

YvF: Are there limits to the number of individuated consciousness within the AUM?

TC: Sure, there is a theoretical limit because the LCS is finite.  However, this constitutes no practical problem for the LCS since it can always optimize its work load to fit within its resources while maintaining conditions that favor positive evolution.  Each PMR has a finite “carrying capacity” based on the rule-set and the cleverness of the inhabitants, so none can grow beyond specific limits.

YvF: Couldn’t AUM have invented (better) ways of directly (or more directly) generating low entropy consciousness or the aggregated result of individuated digital consciousnesses achieving low entropy instead of through complicated virtual-reality experiments?

TC: NO.  This is likely the optimum process.  Evolution is dependent on individual choice modifying the quality of an individual being.

YvF: Will reality cells ever evolve to have more than 2 states? Wouldn’t that offer an incredibly more rich and robust (low entropy) solution?

TC: They might – the two state binary model is the metaphor I used because it is easy for most people to understand.  When technical details are not all that important to the fundamental theory, I try to keep the explanation as simple as possible.

YvF: Did you hurt yourself coming up with this? Seriously, how did this Big TOE idea evolve in your mind through your life? At what point did you put all of your experiences together to realize this? Very early? If later, what was the Eureka moment for you?

TC: There was no big EUREKA! Moment.  More like many little eureka moments all interacting with each other to build the foundation.  After the foundation was solid, the rest was just logical process.  I didn’t figure this thing out in a week… it was about 35 years in the making… that is time enough for lots of incremental understanding to accumulate through experimentation into a big picture.

Thanks to Tom Campbell for answering my questions. I did hurt myself coming up with these. While I recover, it would be great to hear from everyone with some comments/questions.

YvF

Blue Cloud Zoom by Alexander vanRossum