The Maya of Simulation

World as an illusion or simulation

In an age of social media personas, gaming avatars, and immersive digital realities, the boundaries of personal identity are increasingly blurred. But what if this fluidity is not limited to our online selves — what if the world itself is a layered illusion? This essay traces the philosophical and technological roots of that question, connecting the ancient Indian concept of Maya with the contemporary simulation hypothesis. From Vedanta to The Matrix, from MMORPGs to brain-computer interfaces, it explores how perception may itself be a construct — and how reality, as we know it, could be nothing more than information processed through layers of illusion. This is the first in a two-part series; the second, Information is Power, will explore how information may be not just representational, but physical — a force as fundamental as energy.

We believe that we have the ability to discern the real from the illusory or the virtual. We know it because in our own life we play out multiple roles. Your behaviour is different when you are at home, at work or when you are with  your school friends or office colleagues at a resort. At home you could be an altruistic parent or a housing society officer or a poet. At work you could be a hard taskmaster, a glib salesman or an ace opportunist.  With your friends in the resort you could be rolling on the floor. So which one are you? Which is the REAL you? Would you know? Would you care? Or would you say that you are all of them and some more and the difference between these personas is blurred.

Now let us extend this to the world of social media. Where you could be a 'bhakt' or a 'psecular' and find yourself  in a violent confrontation with the other.  Even if you are not a political person you could be crafting an identity for yourself as a geek, or a sage and if you succeed that is how you would be seen by your 'friends', followers or connections in social media. It is not unlikely that your identity in social media is a magnification of only one of your 'real' identities, possibly  your professional identity or then again an identity that is defined by whom you hang out with. Or  you could be crafting a totally artificial identity with a hidden agenda in mind.   Depending on the amount of time you spend, or invest, in social media and the number of connections that you build up there, it is not impossible that this social identity overrides what your original identity was, or what you thought it was. In fact, going forward, your digital identity that has a far greater reach than your physical identity will increasingly become your dominant identity. More people might know you as you appear in social media than the fewer who know you in real life. But then, what is really your real life?

Now that you know that your original identity could very well be hidden or masked behind other more visible layers -- and frankly, masks have been around since much before the Wuhan virus  -- what about people who are around you? It is almost certain that they  too -- in social media and in the real world --  would be wearing masks as well, just like you.

When we look around we see ourselves enmeshed in a network of relationships -- personal or professional, commercial or otherwise -- that defines who we are with respect to the world around us. But if every member of this network is wearing a mask and is not who they seem to be then the network loses its structural rigidity, its deterministic nature and its discriminatory potential. It becomes instead an amorphous and shape-shifting cloud of illusions that is as impossible to pin down  as Maria, the irrepressible spirit from The Sound of Music -- how do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

So what was known and deterministic becomes uncertain, unreliable and illusory. What you see is not what it seems to be but something else.  Perceptions take precedence over the primacy of facts. Wise men say that opinions ( or perceptions) are free but facts are sacred.  In this case, the wise men are not so wise after all because while fact may be sacred, these facts are not accessible anymore. They are hidden behind layers and layers of illusions.

This gets even more complicated, and interesting, when we move from the flat, text based world of social media and into simulated three dimensional worlds. These virtual worlds are available in, or accessible through, Massively Multiuser Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, PUBG, CounterStrike. Non-violent, non-combative but equally enchanting are the simulated virtual worlds like Second Life -- that happens to be the author's favourite -- that are based on similar technology but have different goals and narratives. 

What are the common features of all these virtual worlds ? (i) A 2D image of a 3D landscape that is visible on the computer screen. (ii) The presence of humanoid figures, or avatars,  in this landscape that are controlled either by users or by artificial intelligence software in which case they are called NPC or non-playing characters. (iii)  The ability of the avatars and NPCs to interact with each other and with other elements of the landscape  through sound, visual cues and physical contact like push or  ‘fight’, (iv) The ability of users, through their avatars, to build, construct, dismantle, or manipulate specific elements of the landscape like buildings, cars and other inert or active artifacts. (v) The existence of quests or challenges that each user, through their avatar, is expected to accomplish, either alone or in collaboration with other users/avatars. This could include creating buildings, occupying territory, locating and exploiting hidden resources or acquiring skills to perform one or more of these tasks.

A social media handle and an MMORPG avatar are essentially the same, in the sense that they allow an individual to interact with others through  a common, intermediate platform. On Facebook, you can build a page and your handle can argue with others, while in MMORPG, you can build a castle or have a fight with other avatars. What is different is the extent of realism or similarity with real life where an MMORPG avatar is far more realistic than a social media handle. With the advent of virtual reality or augmented reality gadgets, like helmets, spectacles and gloves, the level of realism can be increased till it is almost impossible to differentiate between the virtual and the real.

In fact, the illusory nature of both the MMORPG avatar and social media handle can be extended into the illusory nature of the multiple personalities that we carry in real life. This is where the border between the real and the virtual world becomes increasingly blurred. What is real and what is illusory becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish. For your own self, it may still be possible to switch between alternate realities and hence distinguish one from the other but for people around you it becomes increasingly difficult to detect the real you, especially if the digital channel is the only channel of communication. Similarly, it becomes impossible for you to detect and distinguish between the alternate realities for the people around you and the worlds that they inhabit. Each of us live in our own cocoon of perceptions that shields us from the reality of the external world.  We live in ..

Maya or The Matrix, The World of Illusions

Maya is an idea that was first articulated by Sankaracharya, the 8th century Hindu savant, who distilled the concept from the primordial Upanishadic insights. Much later, in the 20th century, it was reintroduced to the West through popular culture in The Matrix, a movie set in a not too distant dystopian future. 

Sankar’s philosophy of Vedanta posits that Brahman is the only real entity in the sentient universe. The Brahman -- which is different from the Brahmin jati or caste, as in Brahmin, Kayastha, Bania (or Beney)  etc. -- is the embodiment of Truth, Consciousness and Pleasure, or Sat-Chit-Ananda, that is without form,  qualities or attributes. It is pure knowledge or information that has no equivalent in the world that we are familiar with. Out of its own desire --  and for no other reason -- this Brahman dreams up a world of form, quality, and appearance. This is Maya, that, for the lack of a better word, is described as an illusion or a dream. Within this Maya and because of it, the physical world exists as a multitude of objects that exhibit a wide range of forms and qualities. Some of these objects are conscious and sentient in the sense that they have the ability to observe and interact with other objects within this illusory world. These conscious entities are called Atman that are an extension of the formless Brahman but because of the shroud of Maya, they see themselves as an imperfect reflection of their true nature, the Brahman -- the ultimate reality. However, some of these conscious and sentient objects acquire the ability to understand the illusory nature of the world around them. These are the mystics, the Yogis, for whom Maya dissolves and they see, realise, or experience the continuity of the seer and the seen, the subject and the object, and of themselves -- with form, shape, qualities -- with the formless and shapeless Brahman. This is the Monistic philosophy of Vedanta that is significantly different from the monotheistic religions that sees the duality of a creator God that is distinct from his creation, the world and its people.

For a person who is a product of Maya and is immersed in it, the fact that the world around them is illusory is almost impossible to accept. The Matrix movie demonstrated a hypothetical, sci-fi, framework where this could be implemented. In the movie, every human body is, right from birth, deprived of all sensory information from the real world -- of real mountains, real machines and the few real people who exist in it  -- and is instead fed an alternate set of information that is sent directly to the sensory part of the brain. This means that the brain is only aware of this alternate information and hence constructs its own alternate world -- complete with its illusory mountains, machines and people. This alternate world is created with a software program called the Matrix. The story, that is too well known to be retold here, is all about how some real people detach one such body -- that of the hero, Neo --  from the Matrix and opens his eyes, literally and metaphorically.  Now that  he can see for himself that there is a real world that is different from the alternate illusions that his brain and body have grown up with, he can make a choice to take either a red pill or a blue pill and choose for himself the world that he wants to live in. Unfortunately, the choice between the red pill and the blue pill is not available to most people, or body-brain combinations, so their brain continues to live in the alternate reality created by the Matrix as long as the body is in a state to function. In The Matrix, choice is shown to be rare, as in the case in real life, where only a handful of adepts can exercise this choice and look past the illusion of Maya.

The Matrix was released in 1999 and since then, technology has moved by leaps and bounds. While all that is described in the Matrix is far from being a reality today, nevertheless there has been substantial progress. The ability to create virtual worlds is very well established with MMORPG products that we have discussed earlier and the usage of advanced display devices like virtual reality and augmented reality helmets, gloves, etc allow for an extreme level of immersion. Moreover it is now possible to connect the human brain directly to external, digital devices and it is possible to have bidirectional movement of information. Signals from the brain are routinely being used to control external devices, giving rise to thought-controlled devices like wheelchairs and MMORPG game objects. The reverse process of sending external digital signals back to the brain to create an artificial illusion is also possible but is not as effective as the outward process.

Unlike in The Matrix, where individuals are trapped from birth with no awareness of an alternative, our present-day technologies still allow us the freedom to disengage from virtual worlds and return to what we consider the physical real.

So the Matrix is not totally sci-fi as it seemed to be when it was released in 1999. We now have the bits and pieces of technology that were referred to and it is now only a matter of integration to replicate what The Matrix talked about and make the transition from science fiction to science reality. However there is one aspect of the movie that is still far from being replicated in reality and that is the role of intelligent computers in building the physical infrastructure for the Matrix to operate. In the movie, it is the computer -- software and robots -- who do all this whereas today, the MMORPGs  and brain-computer interfaces are still designed and built by humans. Hence there exists a fairly well delineated boundary between the virtual reality of MMORPG and the real reality of the external world. So it is always possible for anyone to exercise the choice of the blue pill or the red pill -- to continue to live in virtual reality or to switch off the display device and come back to the “real” world.

But what if the boundary between virtual and real -- already blurred -- were not left to our discretion at all? But what if this choice is withdrawn? Either voluntarily or as compulsion. This choice between realities, while available today, may not remain voluntary in the future.

What if it is mandated that going forward every child will have an implant on their skull that will allow an external digital feed to send signals directly to the brain and in the process drown out the natural signals from the eyes, ears, nose, touch and tongue? Assuming bodily functions are taken care of by someone else, the child will grow up -- just as in The Matrix -- in an alternate reality.  One challenge could be how to enable procreation through the act of sex. This could be overcome in the alternate reality by simulating the feeling of sex, of ejaculation, of orgasm and eventually of the labour pain leading to the sensation of touching and feeling of the child. In the physical reality, procreation is simpler because of artificial insemination and subsequent childbirth. Which is why we say that the premise of The Matrix is theoretically not impossible though there must be a dramatic change in the socio-cultural structure of human society.

Which makes us wonder if this has already happened as a part of biological evolution? What if we already are a part of and  surrounded by an illusory world where our five modes of sensing the external world are nothing more than digital signals sent into our brains. In fact, in the previous section we have seen that, in a sense, we have already isolated ourselves in a cocoon of perception -- created with our multiple personalities, our social media personas and MMORPG avatars -- that shields us from the reality of the external world. Have we already taken the blue pill that allows us to live in an altered reality?  But perhaps there is no real choice between the red pill and the blue pill because what we think of as physical reality does not exist at all. If we can liberate ourselves from the technology or theology of the Matrix, rid ourselves from our dependence on biology, then we can think of ourselves as non-biological artifacts, or avatars that are being operated by a higher level of sentient beings. Which leads us to echo Sankar and ask whether we are living amidst an illusory Maya and ...

Are we a simulation ?

The simulation hypothesis is not new. It has been around for quite some time but was articulated in its current form by Nick Bostrom [2003] and was made into a movie, Are You Real [ YouTube, 2006] by the author. Of late, many people including Elon Musk have enthusiastically supported this proposition but the most comprehensive articulation for this point of view is Whitworth’s paper,  “The emergence of the physical world from information processing”.[1]

In his paper “The Emergence of the Physical World from Information Processing,” Brian Whitworth challenges the conventional assumption of objective reality — the idea that the universe exists in and of itself, independent of perception. Instead, he proposes a virtual reality hypothesis: that our physical world is not foundational, but a product of information processing beyond itself.

He expands this idea through a three-model framework:

• Objective Reality – The traditional view: reality exists independently and observes itself. This model, however, leads to paradoxes in modern physics and invokes the logical problem of a self-creating system.
• Externally Created Virtuality – Reality is a simulation created by an external agency — gods, machines, or aliens — for some purpose. While this can explain quantum anomalies, it lacks popular and scientific acceptance.
• Self-Simulating Reality – A more nuanced view: reality simulates itself to become aware of itself. The observer and the observed are both real, but their interaction happens through a locally-real, virtual interface. According to Whitworth, this model is logically consistent, explains physical phenomena more simply (Occam’s Razor), and aligns with modern physics.

In essence, this third model closely mirrors the ancient Indian notion of Maya — an illusory interface through which consciousness perceives and participates in a world that is not ultimately separate from itself.

This third option is in fact nothing more than a restatement of the concept of Maya, the illusion, or what we refer to as virtual reality. This is where the Atman, the individual observer, sees itself as different from the Brahman through the prism, or illusion, or Maya, of virtual reality. When Maya that creates the illusion of reality is removed, the Atman sees itself as it really is, an extension of the Brahman -- the fundamental unity of a Monistic universe.

While we may be veering around to the idea that we are indeed living in a simulation and the physical reality that we see around us is actually a virtual reality that is created by the processing of information, there remains a nagging doubt. How can the world around me, the world that I can touch and feel be not real? Even if the world around us is a simulation then there must be something physical on which the simulation must execute. In the Matrix, this was the biological body of the humans who were trapped in the Matrix from their birth to their death. In the case of MMORPG, it is the ‘hardware’ of physical computers on which the information to simulate the world must be processed. Where is this hardware? One could argue that this hardware is also a simulation as we have in the case of VMs or virtual machines that we see in many platforms like Oracle VMWare or Dockers but that is merely postponing the problem and not addressing it. VMs may be virtual but then they must execute on underlying physical machines. 

This issue has been addressed in the concept of "Turtles all the way down". This is an expression of the problem of infinite regress that  alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle that supports the flat earth on its back. It suggests that this turtle rests on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column of increasingly large world turtles that continues indefinitely (i.e., "turtles all the way down"). This idea has been expressed in the mythology of many cultures including that of India but once again, this postpones the problem without addressing it. 

Given that recursion doesn’t resolve the question, we now ask: what underpins the simulation -- matter or information? What is more fundamental -- matter or information? Does information depend on the existence of matter or does matter depend on the existence of information?  In the first case, we would need a physical computer to process and display information and in the second case, information itself is adequate to create the illusion of matter. Common sense would say that matter is primary and information is something that emerges if and only if there is a material mechanism to process it. However, quantum mechanics has repeatedly shown that common sense is not a very reliable mechanism and many of the cherished principles are extremely counterintuitive -- as in the same particle taking two different paths or the mysterious correlations of quantum entanglement.. Once we ignore this so-called common sense, many things fall into place including what John Wheeler referred to as “IT from bit” or "IT from qubit”. This suggests that material bodies can emerge from a bit of information or, as is the case now, a quantum bit.

But if we look a little deeper, the idea that information underlies everything --  even matter and energy --  is not as counterintuitive as it first appears. The phrase “information is power” is often used metaphorically, but could it be literally true? Is it possible to find a concrete link between the bits of information we manipulate and the energy described in physics textbooks? Of course, the newsprint in a newspaper doesn’t light a bulb -- but deeper theoretical frameworks suggest that information and energy may not just be analogous, but interchangeable. Exploring this equivalence --  from Shannon entropy to Boltzmann entropy, from Maxwell’s Demon to Szilard’s engine --  is a journey in itself. That, however, is the subject of a separate inquiry: one we take up in the next paper, Information is Power.

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[1]   Brian Whitworth, Quantum Biosystems 2010, 2 (1) 221-249, [https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3436]. [ alternate http://bit.ly/BrianWhitworth ]

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