nothing unreal exists

Back on 2003 Dec 18 Thu (I know because I was emailing folk about my discovery), I came to the realization that we potentially have evidence already that our entire universe is but a virtual simulation. I was learning graphics processing in Java and encountered the concept of "culling". With culling, objects are defined mathematically and then drawn visually on the screen only as needed. Objects that would be hidden by other foreground items are simply not drawn in the first place so that the computer saves on processing time needed. Why spend time drawing something that isn't ultimately needed, right?

I suddenly realized that this process works just like wave/particle duality in physics, where something exists as a wave (when it has the potential to exist) until it collapses into a particle at observation (when it's really needed to exist somewhere). As I see it (pun intended), "wave function collapse" is just "back-face culling" in action.

So Slashdot hosted a discussion last week on the topic of our universe as a simulation based on a recent article titled, "The Physical World as a Virtual Reality". I didn't quite follow some of that paper, but it seemed to me that my culling example was not presented in the article. So I wrote the author to let him know of my insight a few years ago. He wrote back this week to explain that he did include the idea. "If what we call reality is a multi-dimensional space-time interface, it would likewise be expected to be calculated only on demand. "  But he thanked me for introducing him to the term "culling" which he had not heard previously.

So, there it is.  I did my (teeny, tiny, insignificant) part to expand our understanding that this universe doesn't... well... exist.   Sort of.   :)