Aditya explores on DifferentTruths.com whether the human brain operates like an advanced AI program running the universe.
Key Takeaways:
- Mathematical Universe: Physics and the cosmos operate on strict mathematical structures, mirroring programmed systems akin to a grand computer simulation.
- Philosophical Echoes: Ancient concepts like Maya and René Descartes’s radical doubt parallel modern simulation hypotheses about an overarching creator.
- Biological vs Artificial: Human intelligence and silicon AI share atomic building blocks, differing only in information processing and arrangement.
Are we not programmed like an AI? The speed and capacity may differ; otherwise, a human brain can do everything that an AI can do. Maybe the AI mechanism is new to us, but it can be as old as the beginning of the universe. Everything in our universe is mathematical, and it functions in a programmed way; gravity and electromagnetism follow strict mechanical mathematical laws. Max Tegmark argues in his groundbreaking paper, The Mathematical Universe, that our physical world is an abstract mathematical structure.
The universe we live in is highly computable. Who knows if someone, a superbeing, programmes us? It is thought-provoking when Nick Bostrom asks, “Are we living in a computer simulation?” Is it true? Nick’s simulation hypothesis takes us closer to the ancient Indian belief of the Maya. What we see as reality is not real, but what lies behind it is. The outside world changes like a computer screen, and our reality seems simulated as it disappears. And biologically, it’s impossible to know what lies outside our physical self, since we can’t get out of it. There may be a super being who is programming us and dictating our lives and everything in our life, body, and activities planned by it.
Our birth is like switching on a programme, and death is like switching it off. We can call that supreme being God. We have many philosophical/religious/scientific speculations about the creation of the universe and the nature of the creator. Still, it is a mystery. But this is a fact that we know, and we can prove scientifically that every creature is a small mathematical system.
The universe not only functions like a mechanical system following mathematical rules, but everything in the universe does the same. We may be designed and run on pre-calculated code. A super being may be behind everything here, using highly efficient AI technology. It is biologically impossible for us to know it, as we can’t come out of it; once he switches us off, we are no more, and then we can’t know anything; we become elements. Why this is so can never be answered. We can never be certain. René Descartes thought about some evil spirit who may be cunning and powerful, deceiving us. He wrote:
I will therefore suppose that, not God, who is perfectly good and the source of truth, but some evil spirit, supremely powerful and cunning, has devoted all his efforts to deceiving me. * I will think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds, and all external things are no different from the illusions of our dreams, and that they are traps he has laid for my credulity; I will consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, and no senses, but yet as falsely believing that I have all these; … (Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes).
This is a thought experiment by Descartes, who has given us a systematic approach to radical doubt. He also stated that even if a supremely powerful evil spirit manipulates him, the spirit can never deny that he feels doubt. To feel doubt, one has to exist. This means a thinking subject exists. Descartes’s thoughts precede the idea of the world as a simulation. Reality seems to be a projection, and we can’t say what is real, like Zhuangzi’s Dream of the Butterfly.
It is a play of power, energy and machines. Humans program current AI and functions like a brain, though not completely. This may sound like fiction if I write that a super AI created the universe, started with the Big Bang, and switched on the elements of the universe to function on their own. The entire universe is interconnected at the atomic level. Artificial intelligence is created by human intelligence, and it is no surprise, since it functions like a superhuman brain. Artificial intelligence is as natural as human intelligence, and human intelligence is as artificial as artificial intelligence. At the atomic level, both are the same. Whether it is a human biological neuron or an AI silicon transistor, both are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. This means the difference is not what they are made of, but how they (the elements) are arranged and process information.
AI technology has already surprised us, and in future it may also shock us. Maybe we are reaching toward the super AI behind the universe; the mystery may be solved soon.
References
Bostrom, N. (2003). Are you living in a computer simulation? The Philosophical Quarterly, 53(211), 243–255.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Michael Moriarty, Oxford University Press, 2008.
Tegmark, M. (2008). The Mathematical Universe. Foundations of Physics, 38(2), 101–150.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
Aditya Kumar Panda is working at the National Translation Mission, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. He has expertise in Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies. Many of his papers and books have been published in national and international journals and publications. Please visit his publications here: Aditya Kumar Panda – Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL)
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