You’re not real

Dude.

What if, like…

…like, the WHOLE UNIVERSE was just…

…like, made up, maaan? Like it was all VIRTUAL REALITY, man? (asks the latest New Scientist):

Brian Whitworth at Massey University says that it is perfectly reasonable to conjecture that “the world is an information simulation running on a three-dimensional space-time screen”. Deciding whether or not this is true is a matter for science to resolve.

Whitworth goes on to suggest various ways in which phenomenon associated with quantum mechanics and relativity can be explained in terms of VR.

He also claims that VR can resolve many of the philosophical questions associated with the Big Bang, such as what caused it and how could it arise when there was no space and time. His answer is that the universe simply booted up although he conveniently ignores all the questions that such a “Big Boot” would raise.

Whether the VR hypothesis is actually testable is a question Whitworth avoids.