How real is real (part 3)

From time to time the idea that we are in some sort of simulation gains popularity. Sometimes down the pub you will hear a “this is all just the Matrix” type of conversation. More nuanced descriptions of what is meant may invoke interpretations of the multiverse or holographic universe hypotheses. The idea that what we see is not real was probably first clearly articulated by Plato, for example, in his Allegory of the Cave. More recently it has reportedly attracted the attention of wealthy and influential individuals such as Elon Musk.

But I am afraid I have to tell you: this is actually happening. We are not living in a simulation. This is all real. I am really writing this and you are really reading it. 

Processing power may be able to deliver increasingly realistic simulations, but these cannot themselves constitute reality without incurring various paradoxes related to infinite regress, the consequences of which we simply do not observe in the real world. The physics we observe in reality is governed fundamentally by conservation principles that occur only in systems that exist without external sources of additional information. Not only would the input required by a simulation violate the physics we observe, with a drip feed of bits from the system clock for example, but any external interaction, to the extent of initialisation or “switching it on” would contradict what we actually see. We simply do not see paradoxes like Penrose steps in nature.  

My first article in this occasional series, “How real is real? (Part 1),” focused on physics, and my second, “How real is real? (Part 2),” on epistemology. Future articles will elaborate on the ideas expressed in “How real is real? (Part 1)” and how the physics we observe emerge naturally from the self-consistency of a universe that is not in fact a simulation. But in this one I find myself making an excursion into metaphysics and moral philosophy.

Moral realism is the idea that there are moral ideas that exist, independent of our ability to perceive or understand them. For example, the idea that there is some ultimate good which might exist whether or not humans ever evolved to discuss and interpret it. Moral anti-realism would assert the opposite: that all moral ideas are arbitrary and contingent social constructs or artefacts of perception, and discourse regarding perception, that are not necessarily entailed by the substance of that discourse or the grounds of that perception.

For the record, I am (for the moment, at least) a moral realist. I would assert that love, for example, exists prior to and as a fundamental condition for the universe. My background is physics, and I am struck by the way that, at the most fundamental level, the universe can be described as either meaningless or as a miracle on the basis of entirely the same evidence. I adopt the latter interpretation as the only tolerable one, and the miraculous nature of reality itself is what I consider the objective moral reality. I have discussed this at some length elsewhere. But it is possible, I think, to proceed beyond the scientific evaluation of evidence in relation to this question. It is, after all, a matter, not of physics, but of metaphysics.

The final reality that is accessible to human thought is infinite, eternal and without structure or purpose. It is directly experienced in a way that cannot be measured and is not amenable to analysis or discussion. It is incommunicable in the sense in which a "mysterious contract with infinity" is discussed in “How real is real? (Part 2)". At this level it is indifferent to our conduct. It doesn't care what we think, say or do. It makes no moral demands on us. Our direct experience is not mediated by any value judgement. The world is encountered like an astronomical observation, or a meditation, or the trance in which an artist is committed fully to their performance. 

It is important to understand this: the source of any objective good, in the sense denoted by moral realism, in itself does not, indeed cannot, care if we are good. We are the origin of all judgement. The objective good to which we refer our judgements does not itself judge. Moral realism does not require the validity of any of our moral evaluations.

This is saying more than the observation that we are fallible. The objective good exists only if it is not limited by evaluations of the same sort we use to satisfy our need to evaluate our own conduct. The criterion against which we evaluate our opinion is not in itself an opinion if it has any objective reality. Objective good is not subject to any rules for which justification is sought with reference to the idea of an objective good. It legitimises without needing to demonstrate its own legitimacy. It is not compromised by our own fallibility. 

It seems unknowable, but these requirements still allow us to say something about it. We can still evaluate our conduct with reference to an objective good, even if that good is unknowable. Indeed, we must.

The difficulties with moral realism arise only when one considers the objective moral criteria, whose existence moral realism supposes, to themselves be knowable and subject to the same sort of evaluation as the judgements they underwrite. Then you incur all the paradoxes explored in myths where gods are required to be bound by their own laws and a war in heaven ensues which ultimately destroys paradise. Siegfried, a hero ordained by Wotan, shatters Gungnir, the very staff of Wotan, on which his authority as lawgiver and upholder of oaths relies, and on which the contracts from which he draws his power are inscribed, as the contradiction of a omnipotent being submitting to his own decrees is revealed.

This only happens where the institutions of gods are presumed to resemble the institutions of men. And if the institutions of our divine lawgivers resemble the institutions of men then we could put the statue of the lawgiver himself on trial and convict it using the laws he gave us, and having toppled the statue, we would revert to a pre-moral condition, and the apotheosis of our anthropomorphism becomes our undoing. That is why we can erect no monument to the objective good. It is either inscrutable, or it is not objective.

When the institutions of gods are presumed to resemble the institutions of men, the logical conclusion is apocalypse, in which human destructiveness is extrapolated to the point of divine omnipotence. The destructive ambition of man has prompted science to deliver to the modern age the capabilities of a Brahmastra, an irrevocable weapon created by Lord Brahma powerful enough to create a desert, which we can now achieve with nuclear weapons. In the age of the Mahabharata a small number of individuals are spoken of as being capable of invoking a Brahmashirsha astra, a weapon created by Lord Brahma Himself that can kill devas (gods), and even a Brahmanda astra, capable of destroying the entire universe (or Brahmand). There can be no better illustration of Man’s deeply cherished illusion that we can justify our actions with reference to an ultimate objective criterion of goodness that conforms to the same understandable criteria we would apply to our own limited agency than contemplation of a weapon that can destroy the universe.

The only moral criterion to which we can attribute any objective reality must necessarily be unfamiliar and unknowable. The difficulty is then ascertaining what we can do given that the objective good is hidden from us. It is intrinsically mysterious, because otherwise we would assail it with our own fallible attempts at judgement. But how are we then capable of any judgements at all? How can we legitimise them with reference to an objective good we cannot describe and whose own legitimacy cannot be demonstrated?

We are divided from it by our finitude. Our impression of structure and purpose in this world arise only from the limitations imposed by our finitude, that is, they are artefacts of how we reconcile conflicting perspectives on incomplete information – our own at different times, or the perspectives of others at the same time. Our capacity for moral conduct, for being ennobled or annihilated by our own actions, arises from how our thoughts and actions allow us to apprehend this final reality. We have to act in a manner that is consistent with what the ancient Greeks and early Christians called eusebeia (ε?σ?βεια) and the Vedas call dharma. This must be our credo.

We may not be able to approach the truth, but neither should we obscure it. The problem of evil is a moral fallacy similar to denying the antecedent. Limited, knowable criteria, such as the those that can be understood in human terms, would underwrite moral conduct. However the absence of such knowable objective criteria does not make moral conduct impossible. Even if moral conduct is underwritten by unknowable criteria, this does not mean we should abandon our efforts entirely.

We must continually aspire to the unattainable to avoid the moral extinction that would result from quiescence. We must live in a manner consistent with the idea of an infinite objective reality that is indifferent to the inconsequential concerns that would otherwise consume us. Sin and selfishness arise from placing an emphasis on our individual affairs that contradicts this eternal indifference and so obscures our infinite and glorious insignificance that can only be endured through transcendence, altruism, and ego-less awareness of our situation, through ε?σ?βεια.   

The only good of which we are capable exists in the shadow of an objective good upon which we cannot look. We must not scrutinise the face of the law giver. We may only draw up our court in the shade his statue provides, in the faith that his statue exists. 

Except, let's not persevere with this "male lawgiver" metaphor anymore, this rigid town square courtroom analogy. Let us dispense with the patriarchal omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent masculine god, the Omnidude! If we must dwell in the penumbra of an unknowable and indifferent objective reality, mesmerised by the miraculous, let it be in the cool shade of a sacred grove over which a feminine divinity presides.

And rather than promulgating the flawed laws of men, let us sing. Let us raise our voices in praise and offer Her music as tribute, rather than the tedium with which we codify our pretensions of ownership, which is the most that can be achieved with the laws of men. Let us be governed instead by the infinitely varied harmonies with which She reconciles our limited understanding of Her cosmos. And in being reconciled to Her world and Her divine, benign indifference, we will at last be reconciled to each other.