Simulation Overflow: Intervention

In previous posts on simulation theory, I had written with full certainty that our simulation was based on non-interventionist principles. That once a simulation was created, the simulator would not dare interfere in its rote operation as not to taint its outcomes, so that the simulator can observe what interesting results become of each unique fork of a simulation. I had also surmised that the purpose of a simulator creating simulations is for its own intellectual amusement.

I want to make clear that my musings with simulation theory are not just a pastime, but unfortunately what I actually base my spiritual—or lack of spiritual—beliefs on. So it’s quite important that I ascertain I am working with the most reasonable model possible.

An unshakeable thought, however, has recently struck me.

A few months ago I planted a row of several dozen arborvitaes in my backyard, in an attempt to create a privacy barrier between my neighbors and I. The summer here has thus far been dry and rainless, so it was imperative that I gave each plant at least a couple gallons of water 4–5 times a week. For the first few weeks, I was watering the plants by hand. My garden hose flow rate was about a gallon every 20 seconds, so I’d spend about a minute hovering over each plant with the hose until it got its daily dose. Needless to say this was an excruciatingly boring process that sucked me out of half an hour each day.

I decided automation would be key if these plants were to have any chance of survival. So I set up a simple drip irrigation system. You have a long black flexible poly tube that you run through the plants in a horizontal S pattern. Where the tube meets the root of each plant, you pierce a little hole. You connect the tube to your faucet, turn on the water, and droplets of water begin dripping from the holes onto each plant. Slowly but surely, each plant gets its fill.

Initially I had the tube running on the ground level, zig-zagging through each plant in the aforementioned horizontal S formation. On one plant the tube would meet the roots from the front, and the adjacent plant would meet the tube from the back. I had this system running for about a week before noticing the results were suboptimal: only one half of each plant’s root area would be watered. So on some plants only the front half of the soil would be moist, and on other plants, the back half.

I decided to refactor the setup so that instead of zig-zagging on the ground, the poly tube would instead zig-zag through the center of each plant, elevated about 1 foot off the ground. The redesign process was extremely painstaking, but it was the right thing to do. The end result was that each hole in the tube met the plant directly at its center. When the water flowed, drips would begin splatting and hitting the branches and landing in random locations, but overall the distribution pattern meant that I now saw a perfect ring of moistness around the roots of each plant: both halves, front and back, got an equal amount of water. Problem solved.

You see, I had engineered a solution, and when it wasn’t working as expected, I fixed it. I changed things up. I knew what the desired outcome was and found a solution that was more directed towards that outcome.

So why was it with such certainty that I had ascertained in my previous posts that the simulator-thing was non-interventionist, when it could be equally likely that the thing is an engineer? In fact if the universe is fractal and likes to repeat itself at every scale, we are more likely similar to the thing than dissimilar. What does an engineer do when a design isn’t working as expected? The engineer fixes. The engineer engineers.

Does our simulator-overlord fork the universe repository every time it wants to make a change, or does it interject fixes on the master branch? I had previously been cocksure that the thing dare not intervene in a simulation past its initial creation, akin to the watchmaker theory. But if the thing were an engineer, I daresay it probably can’t help itself.

What I like about an interventionist simulation model is that it allows for spirituality, whereas previously I had been at the mercy of a cold and barren scientific interpretation of the universe that made me feel small, helpless, and at the mercy of random unfoldings which you’d be a fool to assign any sentimental value to. While more acceptable in a scholarly scientific setting, I am a human and live my life 99% outside the realm of scientific academia. Science has been absolutely useless to me, if not a harbinger of despair and isolation and a vacuum of meaninglessness.

So fuck it, the simulator intervenes. It grants my wishes when I ask for them. The events that transpire in my life have meaning. My life has purpose.

It seems I’ve arrived at…God…with extra steps.