The Physical World as a Virtual Reality

This paper explores the idea that the universe is a virtual reality created by information processing, and relates this strange idea to the findings of modern physics about the physical world. The virtual reality concept is familiar to us from online worlds, but our world as a virtual reality is usually a subject for science fiction rather than science. Yet the world could be an information simulation running on a multi-dimensional space-time screen. Indeed, if the essence of the universe is information, matter, charge, energy and movement could be aspects of information, and the many conservation laws could reduce to a single law of information conservation. If the universe were a virtual reality, its creation at the big bang would no longer be paradoxical, as every virtual system must be booted up. Ultimately, whether the world is an objective reality or a virtual reality is a matter for science to resolve. Modern information science can suggest how core physical properties like spa...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Brian Whitworth
• Keywords: CORR 2008, Education, Information, Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality Concept