Let
us imagine that you are a divine omnipotent being and you have just
decided to create a universe to keep yourself company. This may seem
like an impious or impertinent line of thought, but it is actually
one that may shed some light on an important philosophical issue. So
at the risk of committing blasphemy or some other spiritual sin, let
us pursue this thought experiment.
Given
this thought assignment, your first thought might be that you would
need to create some universe that starts out in a simple state, and
then progresses to a more and more orderly state, one in which life
can gradually develop. So you start things off by creating a gigantic
disorganized burst of matter and energy. But before long you find
that things are not turning out right. The newly created matter and
energy is not progressing in the right way. Things are not getting
more orderly.
So
you cancel this attempt at creating a universe, causing your creation
to vanish. You resolve to plan things out more carefully. First you
figure out some laws that will cause newly created matter and energy
to progress into ever-more-orderly forms. This may take quite a bit
of time. Then you figure out that there are physical constants that
must be set up just right. After settings up such things correctly,
you then create a new universe, one that will follow these laws.
You
wait a long time, and at first things seem to be going okay. Your
newly created universe is very slowly becoming more orderly. But
eventually it dawns on you: this is going to take almost forever
before things get interesting. So you ask yourself: what can I
do to speed things up?
Eventually
you realize: you don't have to create a universe in which order very
gradually evolves over eons. You can create a universe that starts
out as a highly orderly universe.
So
again, you cancel the universe you created, causing it to vanish.
Everything is now blackness and void once again. You wonder: how can
I “cut to the chase” by creating a universe that starts out in a
highly orderly state? Eventually you realize: you can just create a
planet full of life, and even a planet that has intelligent creatures
on it.
There
is no reason, you realize, why a newly created planet has to have a
“fresh born planet” look to it. You can create a planet in any
state you can imagine. You can instantly create a planet that looks a
thousand years old, a million years old, or five billion years old.
The older-looking planets simply require more details for you to fill
in. But that's no problem, since it is easy for your vast superhuman
mind to quickly churn out as many background details as you need.
So
you create such a planet, and a whole universe of stars and planets
surrounding that planet. You observe your handiwork with
satisfaction, focusing on the first planet created. On that planet
you have created a race of intelligent beings. They have minds big
enough to form a civilization and create cities. This is going to
get interesting real soon, you think to yourself.
But
things don't progress as quickly as you would like. For what happens
is that these newly created beings have blank minds. Since you have
just brought them into existence, and forgot to give them any
memories, they start out completely empty-minded. They don't even
know how to build a fire.
Again,
you think to yourself sadly: this is going to take too long before
things get interesting. But then suddenly you have a brilliant idea:
why not create people whose minds are already filled with memories?
There is, you realize, absolutely no rule that a freshly created
person has to have a blank mind. You can create a person who starts
out with any set of memories you can imagine.
You
suddenly realize: you can instantly create a planet that is in any state
of civilization you can imagine. The trick is to create people who
start out living with all kinds of memories in their minds. Such
memories, you realize, do not actually have to correspond to previous
experiences the person lived.
You
realize that if you want to create a planet starting out in a state
just like Earth was in on January 1, 1950, or any other date, you can
do so. You can just create people whose minds are already filled up
with memories. Such people can be right in the middle of some task.
For example, you can begin the planet's history with lots of people
in their cars, driving down some road, and convinced that they have
already lived 30 years, even though they were just created an instant
ago. In the same first instant of the planet's history, there can be
all kinds of other people whose lives just suddenly start, with their
heads filled with memories.
So
now you get rid of the previous universe you created, causing it to
vanish. Once again everything is darkness and void. You decide on a
plan to create a universe that will instantly begin in a highly
ordered state. From the very first instant there will be all kinds of
planets with all kinds of civilized and active beings, in various
different states of existence. On the first day of this universe’s
existence, none of these people will suspect that today was the first
day they ever lived, and that the memories of their previous days
were just memories that they started out with on the first day of the
universe’s creation.
So
poof, you create such a universe. This is great, you think. No
need to wait around. There are countless planets for you to observe,
most of which are in highly ordered states, with cities packed with
people, and cars and trains riding about, and all kinds of
fascinating activity. Now you are happy. You finally got things
right.
This
has been an interesting thought experiment, but it has been more than
just an idle exercise. There is a very interesting point behind this
thought experiment. The point is: we do not know how old our universe
is. The entire universe could have been created (by a deity or an
extraterrestrial simulator of universes) x number of years
ago, where x is any number between 1 year and 13 billion years. The fact
that you may have memories of having lived for, say, 50 years does
not prove you have actually lived for 50 years. The entire visible
universe could have been created 20 years ago, and on the first day
of your life, you may have started out with decades of memories in
your mind, memories that were just planted in your mind (and the
mind of countless others) on the first day of our universe's
existence.
We
cannot be certain that all of the people we read about in the history
books actually lived. Real human history (that which humans have
actually experienced) may not stretch back longer than 50 years or
500 years or some other shocking number. The fact that we have been
given various hints or clues suggesting that our universe or actual
human experience is a certain number of years old does not prove that
the universe or actual human experience is not some tiny fraction of
such a number – a hundredth or a thousandth.
Of course, it is far more likely than not that you have lived as long as you think you have. But the idea that the universe was created fairly recently is an interesting possibility.
Of course, it is far more likely than not that you have lived as long as you think you have. But the idea that the universe was created fairly recently is an interesting possibility.
Imagine a father gives a child named
Susan a story to read. The story tells the tale of a man named John
who was born 22 years ago. The father asks Susan to determine the age
of John. Then there might be a conversation like this:
Father: So tell me, Susan, how
old is John?
Susan (after re-reading the
story): John is exactly 22.
Father: Are you sure of that?
Susan: Yes, I'm quite certain of
that. It clearly says he was born 22 years ago.
Father: Well, you're wrong. The
correct answer is: John is only two hours old. Because that's when I
wrote this story involving John.
We may be making the same kind of mistake as
Susan. We live in a universe that seems to have within it a kind of
“background story” that it is something like 13 billion years old.
But that whole universe, including this “background story,” may
have been created much more recently.
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