Is This The Matrix?

The Crème de la Crème of Existence

I read recently that a leading physicist says he has evidence that the universe we live in is a simulation and that everything we experience in this life isn’t real but only a complex computer program. If that’s true I’d like a little time alone with the programmer. Maybe he could tell me what he was thinking when he designed those diabolical prison mattresses? Or that dark gray turkey breast meat they served in the chow hall? And we don’t have the space for me to get started on free world programming glitches.

As for the science of it, I’ll make the explanation short and gentle, essentially University of Portsmouth scientist Melvin Vopson points to the second law of thermodynamics, which says that anything that operates…people, machines, or even the universe, will become increasingly disordered the longer they operate. I picture one of those spinning tops that after you start it spinning gradually starts to get wobbly. Vopson says. “We know the universe is expanding without loss or gain of heat, which requires the total disorder of the universe to be constant, not increasing.” But according to that second law of thermodynamics, everything is supposed to become more disorderly, except in the digital realm which uses data optimization and compression to reduce disorder. No idea how that works but I get the gist that everything gets wobbly after it runs for a long time, except computers because they have that unexplainable system, hence the reason he thinks we live in a computer program.

Vopson thinks that a complex universe like ours would require that same unexplainable system to balance out the increase in wobble that the second law of thermodynamics requires. Really? That’s your best postulation? A computer program? I love science and all that but can’t we just face up to possibility that maybe there is unimaginable power wielded by an unimaginable being who, with a nudge here and a push there, ensures that the wobble stays precisely constant. Maybe the only reason there’s a wobble at all is because this world, real or simulated, is only a shadow of a true reality that we just can’t see. I’d be willing to bet that nothing wobbles in Heaven. 

Now I don’t know if any of Professor Vopson’s simulation theories are true, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Why create two real ones? You’ve got the original reality in Heaven so why bother when all you need is a training simulator for future citizens. To separate the sheep from the goats so to speak. There’s no way to tell for sure so it really doesn’t matter either way.

While the Bible doesn’t exactly say this is a simulation it makes it pretty clear that this isn’t the crème de la crème of existence. But more like a waystation on the road to the real world. To another realm where Angels and Cherubim and Martyrs live. Where no tears are shed and death doesn’t exist. Where rulers and authorities of Heaven watch with interest at what happens in Jesus's church on Earth. Hebrews 8:5 tells us that earthly priests serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.

We tend to think Heaven is designed similar to Earth but doesn’t it seem likelier that Earth is designed similar to Heaven. Randy Alcorn described it marvelously in this exert from his novel Safely Home:

Compared to what he now beheld, the world he’d come from was a land of shadows, colorless and two-dimensional. This place was fresh and captivating, resonating with color and beauty. He could not only see and hear it, but feel and smell and taste it. Every hillside, every mountain, every waterfall, every frolicking animal in the fields seems to beckon him to come join them, to come from the outside and plunge into the inside. This whole world had the feel of cool water on a blistering August afternoon. The light beckoned him to dive in with abandon, to come join the great adventure.

“I know what this is, “ Quan said.

“Tell me,” said the Carpenter.

“It’s the substance that casts all those shadows in the other world. The circles there are copies of the spheres here. The squares there are copies of the cubes here. The triangles there are copies of the pyramids here. Earth was a flatland. This is…well, the inside is bigger than the outside, isn’t it? How many dimensions are there?”

“Far more than you have seen yet,” the King said, laughing.

“This is the Place that defines and gives meaning to all places,” Quan said. “I never imagined it would be like this.”

C. S. Lewis proposed that “the hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to the original, nor as a substitute is to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal.”

I am amazed when I read about new discoveries that cast light on this amazing and complex thing that God created for us, whether it’s real or simulated hardly matters. What matters is we’re all here for a reason and God has a plan for each of us. But it’s not always easy to define and we’re going to talk more about that next week. In the meantime, I wouldn’t worry about the wobble, it’s in good hands.

Just keep following Him!