The Quantum Physics Experiments
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To provide further empirical evidence for the idea that our seemingly material world is a virtual reality, Tom Campbell has devised a series of groundbreaking quantum physics experiments. If they work out as predicted, they will not only show that the physical universe is a probabilistic simulation generated by an intelligent information system – they will also go a long way towards a complete explanation of quantum mechanics.
Tom’s quantum physics experiments seek to help accelerate a scientific paradigm shift to transcend materialism, putting the natural sciences on a new, less limiting, foundation. Representing hard, solid, replicable science, the experiments are expected to produce some minor miracles – things that should be impossible if reality really were made of matter. In so doing they are also expected to corroborate the My Big TOE approach to quantum theory, which views seemingly weird quantum effects as natural artifacts of our physical universe being a virtual reality.
Quantum mechanics becomes perfectly logical once you understand that reality is not material
Demystifying Quantum Theory
Some of the greatest physicists have called quantum theory a “weird science” which nobody will ever understand. Quantum mechanics may well be the most successful physics theory we have when it comes to making accurate predictions and producing practical applications. It has enabled the development of modern technologies from microchip transistors and lasers to GPS navigation and MRI scanners. Yet the origin and nature of quantum phenomena such as wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle or radioactive decay remain deeply mysterious.
That is, they remain mysterious from the viewpoint of materialism, which is the idea that physical matter, laws and constants are the fundamental building blocks of reality. Materialism is still the dominant view in academic science today – despite the fact that quantum mechanics has shown for more than a century that at the most fundamental level, the physical world is neither material nor objective or deterministic, and that consciousness plays a key role in generating reality.
Latest Update
August 2023
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Expected Results
If they work out as predicted, Tom’s experiments will provide powerful evidence against the materialist paradigm. Not only will they confirm that reality is at the root information-based – they will strongly suggest that our physical world is in fact a virtual reality generated by an intelligent information system. More precisely, they will lend further support to the idea that it is a probability-based simulation computed from the top down, not a deterministic, matter-based, bottom-up process of particle interactions.
Along the way, the experiments should also help to clarify the role of consciousness and the concepts of “measurement” and “observers” in quantum mechanics. Although quantum physicists use these terms all the time, ironically they disagree over what they actually mean. With My Big TOE also explaining other supposedly “weird” quantum phenomena such as entanglement or tunneling, a successful outcome of the experiments would bring us closer to a complete explanation of quantum mechanics.
Implications for Humanity
The implications would be profound. A positive outcome of the experiments would greatly aid the paradigm shifts from a material reality to an information-based reality to a consciousness-based reality, corroborating the scientific model proposed by My Big TOE. This would represent an evolution in consciousness that has the potential to change the relationship we have with the universe – and even with each other. As our self-awareness grows, so will our relationship with the world. Rather than individual islands of ego, we will become a part of a much larger and interconnected system of creation and cooperation. Our time may prove to be a seminal inflection point in the evolution of humanity.
Should the experiments not produce the expected results, that would not necessarily imply an interpretation in support of materialism. More likely – but obviously depending on the way in which the results would deviate from predictions – it would mean that the simulation of our physical world is computed and/or rendered differently than My Big TOE presently suggests.
Why the Need for Crowdfunding
Paradigm shifts rarely happen from the center – they must be provoked from the fringes. With scientific establishments still firmly in the grip of the materialist paradigm, the C-word (consciousness) remains such a taboo in quantum physics that scientists at mainstream institutions have been reluctant to put their reputation on the line for experiments designed to prove materialism wrong. That’s why it was necessary to raise money through a crowdfunding campaign in order to contract a dedicated team of researchers who would carry out the experiments.
Conceptual Approach
Tom has designed the experiments so that they might collectively answer the question: Do we live in a virtual reality? Using the analogy between physical reality and video games (virtual reality), they are based on the following assumptions:
- The system performing the simulation (in either physical reality or virtual reality) is finite: it has limited information processing resources no matter how great those resources may be. All video games have finite resources and currently accepted quantum theory supports the finite nature of physical reality.
- To achieve low computational complexity (due to finite resources) such a system would, as in a video game system, render the content only at the moment when the required information becomes available to the player.
- In a video game, the (game box) processor cannot be part of the virtual reality it is creating. It follows that if physical reality is a simulation, the computations required to create the physical reality cannot be determined by mechanisms that are part of the physical reality created.
Guided by these assumptions, the experiments describe variations of the universally accepted wave/particle duality experiment (double-slit experiment). When successfully performed, they will test whether our currently accepted concept of physical reality will respond as if it were a simulation (virtual reality). If reality does respond to these experiments as only a simulation (virtual reality) could, and if there is no other hypothesis which can explain the experimental results, then the logical conclusion is that our reality is, in fact, a simulation (virtual reality).
Experimental Setup
In this video Tom introduces his physics experiments and gives a brief explanation of each experiment for the scientifically inclined and general public.
Short version (14 mins)
Long version (60 mins)
Each Experiment Explained in a Separate Video
Experiments 1-5
Timeline
First introduced to the general public in 2016, the experiments were submitted to the physics community in a 2017 peer-reviewed academic paper. In 2018, Tom successfully raised crowdfunding to have a first batch of experiments carried out. In 2019, a research grant was awarded to a team of engineers at CalPoly, Pomona, California, who have since been working hard to get the experiments done. A lot has already been accomplished – but the jury about the results is still out.
2016: First Presentation to the General Public
2017: Academic Research Publication
Tom submits his research ideas for scrutiny by the physics community. Alongside three co-authors, he publishes the paper “On Testing the Simulation Theory” in the International Journal of Quantum Foundations. The journal is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, online, open-access publication dedicated to all aspects of the foundations of quantum theories, including conceptual and mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity.
'On Testing the Simulation Theory'
By Tom Campbell, Houman Owhadi, Joe Sauvageau, and David Watkinson. Published in Volume 3, Issue 3, July 2017, of the International Journal of Quantum Foundations.
“Can the theory that reality is a simulation be tested? We investigate this question based on the assumption that if the system performing the simulation is finite (i.e. has limited resources), then to achieve low computational complexity, such a system would, as in a video game, render content (reality) only at the moment that information becomes available for observation by a player and not at the moment of detection by a machine (that would be part of the simulation and whose detection would also be part of the internal computation performed by the Virtual Reality server before rendering content to the player). Guided by this principle we describe conceptual wave/particle duality experiments aimed at testing the simulation theory.”
2018: Additional Commentary and Explanations
My Big TOE Quantum Mechanics Experiments: Issues and Significance
Tom recaps the key issues and the significance of the experiments for our understanding of reality.
The Logic of Consciousness and Free Will and Details of the Experiments
Tom discusses the logical interlinkages of consciousness, free will and time. He also provides an update and some insight into his variations on the double slit experiment
2018: Creation of CUSAC and Crowdfunding Campaign
Tom sets up the Center for the Unification of Science and Consciousness (CUSAC), a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) corporation under U.S. law. Its vision is to unify physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, the normal and the supernormal within an overarching science of consciousness.
In the same year, thanks to the generous support by 1,127 backers, Tom raises $236,590 through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to have the first batch of experiments carried out. The funds are to be managed by CUSAC.
Immediately after the successful campaign, CUSAC publishes a call for expressions of interest outlining the details of the research which the potential grant recipients are expected to perform (summarized in a “Request for Information” paper available from CUSAC).
2019: Research Grant Awarded to CalPoly Pomona
After assessing the proposals received, CUSAC decides that the experiments are to be conducted by a team of credentialed researchers headed by Dr. Farbod Khoshnoud at California State Polytechnic University (CalPoly), Pomona. As soon as the contract with CUSAC is signed, Farbod and his team get to work.
2019 up to today
The CUSAC website traces the progress made by Farbod and his team in preparing and carrying out the experiments.
Background
The videos below provide useful background for a deeper understanding of the My Big TOE approach to quantum theory and the way our virtual universe is generated through top-down, probability-based computation.
How Is Reality Produced?
In this 37-minute segment from a 2014 workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, Tom contrasts two ways of generating reality: deterministically, from the bottom up, versus probabilistically, from the top down. The full workshop recording (three parts) and presentation slides are available from the “Workshops & Lectures” page of this website.
The Mechanics of Rendering our Virtual Reality
In this 34-minute excerpt, Tom describes how our virtual universe is computed using a top-down probability model sitting on top of a largely deterministic rule-set. He also expands on the databases required to establish the probability distribution of all possible events within the virtual reality.
A Brief Introduction to the Double-Slit Experiment
The Key to Understanding Reality
In this 45-minute segment from the 2014 workshop in Spokane, Washington, Tom explains in more detail how the double-slit experiment works from the perspective of virtual reality.
The Implications of Wheeler's Delayed-Choice Experiment
In 2015, researchers at Australian National University succeeded in carrying out a “delayed-choice” thought experiment conceived by physicist John Archibald Wheeler in 1978. They concluded that at the quantum level, reality does not exist until it is measured. In this 103-minute video, Tom explains in detail how the experiment works from a My Big TOE perspective.
Virtual Reality and Action at a Distance
This video is an excerpt from a 2016 workshop in Atlanta, Georgia. Tom explains how “action at a distance”, a real physical effect that seems mysterious from a materialistic perspective, is entirely logical if we consider the physical universe to be a virtual reality.
