Rizwan Virk > Quotes

“Sliding Doors and Run Lola Run (1998)—These two movies, neither of which is technically science fiction, were released in the same year. We see the idea of timelines branching from a single point which lead to different outcomes. In the example of Sliding Doors, a separate timeline branches off of the first timeline and then exists in parallel for some time, overlapping the main timeline, before merging back in. In Run Lola Run, on the other hand, we see Lola trying to rescue her boyfriend Manni by rewinding what happened and making different choices multiple times. We see visually what running our Core Loop might look like in a real-world, high-stress situation.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Many of the world’s religious traditions tell us that the world around us is an illusion created for our benefit.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“Eyebrows were raised in 1994 when Peter Shor, working at Bell Labs, came up with a quantum algorithm that could break most modern encryption by using quantum computing algorithms. Today’s encryption is based on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. Even today, although there are no quantum computers that can implement Shor’s algorithm in full yet, there is worry that most of our encryption will be broken in a few years as more capable quantum computers come along. When this happens, there will be a rush to quantum-safe encryption algorithms (which cannot be broken quickly by either classic or quantum computers).”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Remember back to Bostrom’s startling simulation argument: if any civilization ever gets to the Simulation Point, then we are already likely in a simulation.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Today’s 3D printers have started to make a dent in von Neumann’s vision. They are now being used to assemble objects in space from raw materials. This is seen as a critical way we might be able to conduct manufacturing on foreign worlds, as long as raw materials are available. Theoretically, a 3D printer could print another 3D printer, thus realizing von Neumann’s general idea of self-replicating machines.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The idea of cosmological inflation, or just inflation for short, was proposed by Alan Guth, now a physics professor from MIT, while he was working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator with his colleagues as a way to solve a number of problems with the existing theories of the origins of the universe. 57 The basic idea is that this inflationary period began very soon after the Big Bang (in this case, I mean very soon, from approximately 10-36 seconds after the to 10-32 seconds). That means the whole process of cosmic inflation started and ended before a single second had passed from the Big Bang! The insight that Guth and his colleagues had was that there was a period of repulsive gravity.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Therefore, what we think of as a physical body can really be expressed as information that is interpreted by a biological printing process to create cells that are assembled into larger abstractions called living organisms!”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“Most scientists, certainly physicists, conflate the two ideas of randomness and free will. Horgan argues that free will, as we think of it, is about more: “They examine free will within the narrow, reductionistic framework of physics and mathematics, and they equate free will with randomness and unpredictability. My choices, at least important ones, are not random, and they are all too predictable, at least for those who know me.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Sliders (1995) —The science fiction series Sliders is a more direct example of navigating a quantum multiverse. In Sliders, wormholes are used to visit other universes, each of which deviates in some way from our own, many with different versions of the main characters. How do they develop the wormhole? Quinn, the main character, is shown how by a different, parallel version of himself, a theme we will see repeating in other multiverse stories.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Fringe (2008–2013) and Counterpart (2017–2018)— In the twenty-first century, two popular TV shows demonstrate the idea of a single parallel world that has somehow split off from this world, but retains many similarities, including a shared history. The source of the divergence is never explained fully, but the existence of a parallel world with alternate versions of the main characters is a key plot point in both. Both shows reveal that some physics phenomenon was responsible for either (1) breaching a way into the other universe or (2) causing a branch off the main universe to create the second one.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“When I was at MIT, one of the most important lessons I learned about science was that it wasn’t meant to describe reality exactly but rather to come up with a set of workable models that could approximate reality under certain conditions. The models needed to be reliable and fit the existing data.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“The wave of our consciousness continuum contains all of our experiences in this life and in our past lives in an infinitely complex web…”52”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“We would have the overwhelming impression that we were re-living the present—déjà vu—perhaps in precisely the same way: hearing the same words, saying the same words. I submit that these impressions are valid and significant, and I will even say this: such an impression is a clue, that in some past time-point, a variable was changed—re-programmed as it were—and that because of this, an alternative world branched off.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Dark Matter (2017) — In a similar manner, the hero of the novel Dark Matter, Jason Dissen, a failed quantum physicist who is happy with this life, encounters an alternate version of himself. This alternate version was more successful as a physicist and developed a machine which can put large objects into superposition (a concept we’ll explore heavily in the next few chapters). This device results in an ability to go to different universes and encounter alternate versions of well, everyone. The other Jason, the brilliant one, is keen on stealing the hero Jason’s happy home life. Chaos ensues. This is well worth a read if you are inclined to read novels and want to consider the possibilities of multiversal travel.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The best we can do is to observe shadows of the real world because we cannot perceive it directly”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“Many of the confounding aspects of quantum physics are confounding only if we insist on a completely deterministic, materialist model of the universe, with a single past and a single future. The observer effect, the collapse of the probability wave, even parallel universes all make much more sense if the universe actually consists of information that is stored, processed, duplicated, and, most important, rendered as the physical world we see around us.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The Thirteenth Floor (1999)— As mentioned in the previous chapter this film is one of the best representations of ancestor simulations. When the protagonist finds out he is living in a simulation, one of the RPG players, who exists outside the simulation, tells him that their simulation is “one of thousands.” The thing that makes this simulation unique is that it is the only one where they in turn develop their own ancestor simulations, or nested simulations. Although we see only the nested simulations and not the parallel ones, they are definitely there, which means that it is also faithfully representing a simulated multiverse.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The idea of cosmological inflation, or just inflation for short, was proposed by Alan Guth, now a physics professor from MIT, while he was working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator with his colleagues as a way to solve a number of problems with the existing theories of the origins of the universe. 57 The basic idea is that this inflationary period began very soon after the Big Bang (in this case, I mean very soon, from approximately 10-36 seconds after the to 10-32 seconds). That means the whole process of cosmic inflation started and ended before a single second had passed from the Big Bang! The insight that Guth and his colleagues”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The second is that far from living in a single universe, we live in a complex, interconnected network of multiple timelines. This concept is broadly referred to today as the multiverse. Not only does the multiverse warp our understanding of the world around us, it also warps our understanding of the past and the future. In short, neither space nor time is what we think it is.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The only mechanism we know of that allows us to run the universe multiple times would be a simulated universe. If run on a type of computer, would allow us to run multiple scenarios either serially or in parallel.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The metaphor of multiple lives entered the video game world well after the Eastern doctrines of reincarnation and its concept of multiple lives. It’s not clear whether the original moniker of “multiple lives” in video games had any connection with multiple lives in Eastern spiritual traditions.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“Initially, von Neumann was referring to physical machines. The idea that he first presented in a lecture in Pasadena, California, in the 1940s was very complicated. Stephen Levy, in his book, Artificial Life, describes the basic components that made up von Neumann’s theoretical self-replicating machines, which he called kinematics (but which are mostly called von Neumann machines today). The system consisted of raw materials in a lake, along with four components required for this self-replicating machine labelled: A, B, C, and D. Component A was like a factory, which scooped up raw materials from the lake and used them in ways that were dictated by some data, which we might call a computer program today. Component B was a duplicator that read and copied information from the first machine to its duplicates, in the same way that DNA is passed down from parents to children. Component C was like a computer and controlled who did what, like a central processing unit. Component D was the actual data, or instructions, which in those days von Neumann envisioned as a very long tape.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“One of the first things Tessa asked me was whether I had seen the whole Metz speech, not just the famous quote, which she repeated word for word:4 We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“In fact, this is where Wheeler’s later insight, that the universe consists of information (“it from bit”), seems to tie surprisingly in with the simulation hypothesis and to the quantum multiverse. It is much easier to think of cloning the information of a universe than it is to think of cloning the actual universe.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“The multiverse idea is so common now in the world of physics that physicists have proposed not just one but many types of multiverses. The one that was most interesting to me, given my previous research into simulation theory, was the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics, also known as the parallel universe theory, or the quantum multiverse for short. It is a well-respected explanation for the mystifying phenomenon of quantum indeterminacy by many physicists. In this interpretation, the universe is spinning off new branches every time a quantum measurement is made, resulting in an almost infinite number of parallel universes with some level of shared history.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their root in quite different parts of human culture, in different times or different cultural environments or different religious traditions; hence, if they actually meet … then one may hope that new and interesting developments will follow.66 —Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“In just one example of such an attempt to update the metaphor, the Mormon Transhumanist Association has put forth the New God Argument, which argues that we are in a simulation of some sort and that this is not in conflict with their faith (the Church of Latter Day Saints). This is an explicit attempt for existing religions to stay on top of the theological implications of the development of technology and the simulation hypothesis.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect

“Bostrom’s conclusion is that if any society ever makes it to the simulation point, then it is more likely that we are already inside a simulation!”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulation Hypothesis

“Many adherents of the simulation hypothesis think that quantum indeterminacy is simply an optimization technique with the same basic idea: only render that which is being observed so that not every particle in the whole universe has to be rendered at one time, only those which are being observed. Everything else is in a state of superposition, or stored simply as information. If there’s one thought I want to leave you with about computer science and information theory, it’s that optimization of information is one of the key ways in which we accomplish seemingly impossible things. A more detailed overview of both quantum indeterminacy and quantum entanglement as optimization techniques is given in The Simulation Hypothesis.”
― Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect