Tag: science

Model Thinking

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Minimising surprise

A model is a simplified representation of reality, not reality itself. Likewise, a map is not the territory. The same goes for our language. The word tree is not the same as a tree. So, if there is a tree on the map, that says little about the scenery, except that there is probably a tree at the location designated by the map. What we think of as reality is also a model. Our brain doesn’t register reality but merely processes it. The outside world generates inputs via our senses, such as seeing, hearing, and touching, which the brain integrates with our memories and emotions. It is what we call consciousness. What we experience as reality is a model. A dog experiences that same reality very differently, and the dog’s experience centres more around smell. We may see a couch and notice its colour, while a dog smells that a cat has been lying on it recently.

The brain generates our perception of reality, and our consciousness is an integrated experience shaped by that brain, informed by its own expectations and the senses. The brain works with an expectation, and adapts it when the senses disagree. We imagine reality, and correct it if contradicting information emerges. It is efficient because it greatly reduces the need for information processing. The brain aims to minimise surprise by having the best possible representation of reality. If our brain fails, for instance, when we are sleep-deprived, the world begins to look unreal. And so, intense stress can cause psychosis. During dreaming, the integrated experience of consciousness remains active, except that the information may not come from the senses but from the brain itself.

We employ models of reality to explain the world. Together, they form our worldview. We try to minimise surprises because we depend on our worldview to survive. Models are imaginations. We may believe that X causes Y because after X occurs, Y happens. We infer our models of reality from our observations and thoughts, as well as those of others. Models have a wide array of uses, including weather and economic models. Using multiple models can help us to reduce surprise, because different models have different strengths and weaknesses. It is, however, crucial to understand that models are not true or false but aim to minimise surprise.

Your model of reality may say that all swans are white, perhaps because you base it on the swans you have seen. Once you see a black one, you change your view to minimise future surprises. That seems a rather straightforward case. You can also reduce surprise by ignoring evidence, as we have trouble handling complexity and contradictions. We may also do that because we are group animals who cooperate and survive based on shared fantasies. This project, The Plan For The Future, aims to overcome these limits to arrive at a comprehensive and accurate model of the relevant issues to fix the apocalyptic problems and outline the future world civilisation. My aim was also to minimise future surprise by facing the evidence that contradicted my views, and seeking better explanations.

Often, I would write down my views on relevant subjects, and every time new information came to light, I adapted my texts accordingly. Finding evidence and setting out the direction were my primary concerns, not the practical execution. The more accurate the direction is, the more straightforward the execution becomes. Hence, I focused on proving that this universe is a virtual reality, that God is a woman who married Jesus and Muhammad, that we can have a global usury-free financial system, and that we need to socially engineer the future world society to be the most socially advanced. That requires fine-tuning, but if the direction is incorrect, we will end up in the wrong place. And so, this model of reality has undergone over 17 years of work, with numerous revisions, and is far from complete, all in a frantic dash to minimise surprise in case my plans get executed.

Limitations of simplicity

Proverbs state contradictory things. One proverb says that two heads are better than one, while another says that too many cooks spoil the broth. How can both be right at the same time? There is an optimal number of people working on a project. It is a very simplistic view. The qualities of the individuals working on the project also matter, as do the available tools, and countless other factors. These proverbs only scratch the surface and are useless for practical purposes. The headcount is just one variable of many that you need to manage if you run a business or a government. If you decide on these matters, you don’t open up a book with proverbs for guidance.

A one-dimensional spectrum, so a line, with two opposites, ranging from one participant to a large number, can make you fail to see the solution. Perhaps it lies outside that line, so this way of thinking keeps us from seeing it. Maybe the project isn’t worth undertaking in the first place, or perhaps success depends on the right tools. The number of people working on the project may still matter, so you have to consider that also. The debate about capitalism versus socialism has dragged on for over a century and has dominated world politics during the Cold War. So, do we need more or less state interference in markets? Yet, markets and states don’t create agreeable societies on their own.

Economic models include multiple variables, such as employment, inflation, consumption, business investment, and government spending. You can add more, such as workforce education, market flexibility, foreign competition, and regulations. There are countless variables to consider. If you have identified variables, you need data to estimate their impact. Economic data is usually insufficient to achieve certainty, as changes can have multiple causes. How do you know that some other variable didn’t interfere with the outcome? Despite all the models central banks used, they didn’t foresee the 2008 financial crisis. So models can be wrong, and often are. The financial models did get countless other things right, but missing one crucial variable can already make the model fail.

Still, models can be helpful. The more models we use, the more errors we can eliminate, but even then, we may still miss something important. Our minds have constraints. We often take a perspective and reason from there. A socialist economist might be good at pinpointing why capitalism fails but may not see what is wrong with socialism. Economic theories explain specific phenomena under certain conditions. You might find additional explanations in psychology, sociology, or even history. You might want to check your ideas before trying. You can run the idea through several economic theories. That might give new insights. You can’t be sure you are right, but models help you eliminate errors.

Natural Money is research into an interest-free financial system. It draws from economic theories, monetary economics, banking, psychology and even history. I reviewed that idea using existing theories and historical evidence to investigate how it might work in practice. During the research process, unforeseen issues came to light. Once interest rates in Europe fell below zero, resistance to negative interest rates emerged. Savers prefer 2% interest and 10% inflation over -2% and 0% inflation, it turned out. That is irrational, but normal human behaviour, so humans are not, as economics may suggest, rationally calculating individuals.

We seem to measure our gains and losses in currency units rather than purchasing power. And behavioural economics says we give more weight to losses than gains. It is a reason why inflation and money printing meet little resistance, while negative interest rates make people go berserk. A 4% loss in interest income impresses us more than the 10% reduction in inflation because we count our money units. Emotions can be strong and make us act irrationally. And so, it is pointless to try to convince savers that they are better off. Once that became apparent, I could look for a fix for this particular human feature by making negative interest rates appear as inflation.

Insights models give

Models yield better results than uneducated guesses, and combining models yields better outcomes than using a single model. Models tie us to a mast of logic so that we are not carried away by our thoughts and can figure out which ideas are useful to us under what circumstances. Using data, we can calibrate our models, so if our model is wrong, we can investigate why and correct the error. Scientific disciplines like economics, sociology, linguistics and biology use models. According to Scott Page, models share the following characteristics:

  • They simplify by omitting irrelevant details and focusing on the essentials. Models abstract from reality.
  • They formalise by making precise definitions and providing a framework for logical thinking to explain and predict.
  • They are somewhat wrong because they simplify and omit details. The use of multiple models can reduce the errors coming from that.

Weather models make calculations, such as predicting that the maximum temperature in Amsterdam will be 26°C eight days from now. That is a precise calculation, but likely it is wrong. And so, weather forecasters use up to fifty models to make weather predictions. The average of these models is more reliable than the individual models. People who use a single model do poorly at predicting. They may be correct occasionally, just like a clock that has stopped is sometimes accurate, and then tout their few successes while forgetting about their much longer list of failures. Experts know that their models have limitations. When constructing a model, we can choose from the following approaches:

  • Aiming for realism by describing relevant parts and relationships. Climate models work with CO2 levels and their effects on temperatures.
  • Using an analogy by describing a process as similar to another. You can compare the ruinous growth of human activities with a cancer.
  • Exploring possibilities if limits change. You can explore what will happen when unlimited energy becomes available at no cost.

When making a plan for humanity that lasts a thousand years or more, numbers and mathematics become meaningless, and we have to do it with words. You can’t measure culture, but it is the central ingredient. And still, we must try to pin down things by modelling humans to predict what we can do and how it might work. You get observations like religion can save us because humans are imaginary creatures who cooperate on the basis of myths. This is a strong and meaningful statement without mathematics, and part of the model of reality that may save us all. And there must be an explanation why humans are like that and why they fail in any realistic scenario.

To illustrate the use of models, I have taken two examples from the course Model Thinking by Scott Page on Coursera that investigate why people of the same ethnicity often live together, and why revolutions are difficult to predict.

Sorting and peer effects

Groups of people who hang out together tend to look alike, think alike and act alike. If you look at the map of Detroit, you see people of the same ethnicity living together. Blue dots represent black people, and red dots represent white people. We can’t change our skin colour, so if we hang around with people who look like us, that is sorting. We also adapt our behaviour to match that of others around us. When you hang around with smokers, you may start smoking too. Alternatively, if you hang out with people who don’t smoke, you might quit smoking. That is the peer effect. Both sorting and peer effects create groups of similar people who hang out with each other. Models can help us understand how these processes work by modelling them.1

Schelling’s segregation model offers insight into the segregation process. It says nothing about why people move. That we seek out people that are like us is an observation. Why would people move? That is an interesting question, most notably if it points to problems. If we believe that skin colour shouldn’t matter, then why does it matter? Yet, the model doesn’t say anything about that. So, that is a limitation. Schelling developed a model in which individuals follow simple rules. Suppose everyone lives in a block with eight neighbours. Red boxes represent homes where rich people live, and grey boxes are homes where poor people dwell. The blank box is an empty home. Assume now that everyone has a threshold of similar people who will make them stay.


A rich person might stay as long as at least 30% of his neighbours are rich. Assume a rich person lives at X. In this case, three out of seven or 43%, of the neighbours are rich, like the person living at X. If one of the wealthy neighbours moves out, and a poor person takes that place, 29% of the neighbours will be rich, and the person living at X will move.

A computer can simulate how that works out over time. Assume there are 2,000 people; 1,000 are poor, represented by yellow dots, and 1,000 are rich, represented by blue dots. Suppose they are randomly distributed at the start, and everyone wants to live among at least 30% similar people. In that case, the average is 50% alike, and only 16% are unhappy because less than 30% of their neighbours are alike. As a result, people start moving, and you end up with an average of 72% similar and 0% unhappy.


Even when everyone likes to live in a diverse neighbourhood where only 30% of their neighbours are like them, segregation occurs. Segregation may not be the intention of the individuals involved, as they might be tolerant people requiring only a minority of similar people living in their neighbourhood.1 Whether that is indeed the case remains to be seen. But if it is correct, and if we believe segregation is undesirable, social engineering the ethnic or wealth characteristics of neighbourhoods by mixing homes for different income groups makes sense. Some countries plan neighbourhoods that way.

Peer effects cause people to act alike. Contagious phenomena are peer effects. They often start suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. In uprisings and revolutions, extremists frequently determine what happens, as in the French, Bolshevik, and Maidan revolutions. Things could have proceeded differently. It is difficult to predict revolutions. Granovetter’s model offers possible insight into why that is so.

Suppose there is a group of individuals. Each individual has a threshold for participating in an event like an uprising and will join if at least a specific number of others join. If your threshold is 0, you do it anyway. If your threshold is 50, you start if you see 50 participants. The outcome varies depending on the thresholds of other people that might get involved.

Suppose there are five individuals, and the behaviour is wearing a suit. One individual has a threshold of 0, one has a threshold of 1, and three have a threshold of 2. The following will happen: one individual starts wearing a suit because her threshold is 0. The second individual joins because his threshold is 1. Then, the three remaining individuals join in because their threshold is 2.

If the thresholds had been 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, nobody would have worn a suit despite the group, on average, being more open to the idea. If the thresholds had been 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, everyone would have worn a suit after five turns, even though the group, on average, was less keen on doing this. In this case, extremist suit-wearers determine the outcome.

It indicates that collective action is more likely to occur with lower thresholds and greater variation. The influence of variation is surprising. It might explain why it is challenging to predict whether something like an uprising will occur. Not only do you need to know the average level of discontent, but you must also see the spread of discontent among the population and connections between individuals and groups.1

Yet, what motivates people to join a movement greatly determines the tresholds, and the model gives no insight into that. The British Tea Tax, which sparked the outrage that led to the Americans to declare independence, was actually a good deal for the Americans that would lower tea prices. The Americans had a good life, only no influence on British policies. They didn’t suffer like the Russians that started the Bolshevik Revolution. Yet, they risked life and limb for independence in the war the war that followed.

Proof in the pudding

Do similar people hang out together because of sorting or the peer effect? That is the identification problem. Sometimes, it is clear. Segregation by race occurs due to sorting as you can’t change your skin colour. Other situations are less clear, and you can’t tell whether it is sorting or peer effect as the outcomes are the same. Happy people hang out with each other, as do unhappy people. Both sorting and peer effects may have caused this.1 Happy people may seek each other’s company because they don’t like to hear the whining of unhappy people or the company of happy people makes you happier.

Models can provide insights as to why similar people hang out together and why revolutions are difficult to predict. Yet, they don’t tell the whole story. Other models help us investigate what might happen under which circumstances. Thus, models explore the dimensions of complex questions and help us identify the spots where the best solutions hang out. In this way, models can assist us. If we intend to get people to contribute to a cause, we might want to model human behaviour to see how we can do that.

If we see humans as rational beings, we can convince them with arguments to do the right thing. If we see humans as myth-belieiving creatures, an inspiring story can prompt them to act. If we think humans are calculating individuals, incentives and punishments can make them do the right thing. If we see humans as status seekers driven by pride seeking recognition, we might achieve the objective by telling them how great they are. You may get the best result if you use a combined approach, so multiple models. Not everyone is the same, so each approach may appeal best to a particular group of people.

Latest revision: 29 August 2026

Featured image: Line And Dot On A Grey Rectangle. The artist wishes to remain anonymous because who wants to be as famous as Piet Mondriaan?

1. Model Thinking. Scott Page. Coursera (2014). [link]

Rational debates and progress

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Knowledge or wisdom?

Ancient cultures had religious traditions and wisdom. Chief Seattle’s speech reflects the beliefs of traditional peoples who live in nature as hunter-gatherers. It is an idealised version as traditional peoples like the Native Americans also drove species into extinction. They didn’t have the means to destroy nature as much as we do. Modern people may think these so-called primitives and their ways of knowing are irrational. Knowledge and rationality aren’t wisdom. It is the theme of the biblical story of The Fall. Instead of listening to God, who knew better, Eve and Adam wanted to learn the truth themselves. We would not have been in this mess today if they followed God’s command.

The Chinese have their own tradition and wisdom. Confucius was their best-known philosopher. He lived 2,500 years ago and is still influential today. His teachings comprise moral rules, correct social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity. Chinese tradition and beliefs like loyalty to the family, ancestor veneration, and respect for elders were the basis of Confucius’ teachings. Confucius argued that family should also be central to government policies. The Chinese Tao is the natural order of the universe. You can only grasp it intuitively. You can’t understand it with reason, let alone quantify it. The Tao path to wisdom is understanding the whole by experiencing it. One of the greatest poems ever written is the Tao Te Ching, attributed to the sage Laozi. It begins like this,

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

When you try to express the natural order in words or give it a name, you are astray already, or so says the Tao. It disconnects you from the whole of Creation. The Buddha is another source of ancient wisdom. Our desires trap us in this world of suffering, he taught. Once you have what you desire, you desire something else, so you will never be happy. You can escape that and achieve enlightenment with the help of meditation, physical labour and good behaviour. The end of craving is the end of suffering. The capitalist consumerist system aims at the opposite, which is creating new desires, and if needed for that, making us unhappy.

The Western tradition is one of expressing things in words and quantifying them. Wisdom in Greek refers to knowledge and insight and its practical application in life. In Greek philosophy, wisdom was the highest good a human could aspire to. We can develop this virtue through study, reflection and experience. The Greeks believed wisdom comes from knowledge. In hindsight, that was a mistake.

Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived around 400 BC. He is a founder of the practice of rational debate. Socratic debates are discussions between people with different viewpoints who wish to establish the truth using reasoned arguments. In his dialogues, Socrates acted as if he was ignorant. Admitting your ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge. The Greek philosophers began a quest for knowledge. European philosophers and scientists continued it nearly 2,000 later.

Is there progress, or can there be?

When we think of progress, we think of things getting better. But are they getting better? One invention can cure a disease, but another can kill us. Undoubtedly, our knowledge has increased. But is that progress? And can there be progress if we are less happy than our grandparents were? So, is there such a thing as progress? And if so, can we achieve progress through rational debates and persuasion? Or does it come by force because of the competition between groups of people?

We see progress as moving towards a goal, for instance, well-being. According to science, we do not have a purpose. Some religions, like Christianity, see history moving towards God’s aim. We enter Paradise one day, and all that occurs is necessary to get there. That is a peculiar view, but it implies progress and a type of progress that eludes the understanding of mere mortals like us. Did Jesus have to die? Was the Holocaust necessary? Was there no other way?

If we have a purpose, and you can get your hands on a time machine, there is a fellow you might want to meet, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He believed that spirit drives history through ideas and that history progresses towards a goal. Hegel lived before Charles Darwin published On The Origin Of Species, and it shows. The evolution theory completely upset our thinking about the purpose of humanity. Most intellectuals eventually considered it silly to think we exist for a reason.

Around 1800 AD, when Hegel was alive, scientific discoveries began to affect the lives of ordinary people, and the Industrial Revolution took off. At the same time, enlightenment ideas started to affect societies. The American Revolution followed the Glorious Revolution in England. Then came the French Revolution, which ended the old aristocratic regime and mobilised the masses for the first time. A few years later, the armies of Napoleon spread enlightenment ideas over Europe.

Hegel was there to witness it, and he was impressed. He learned to see history as a struggle towards progress where more powerful ideas replace weaker ones. He made a daring attempt to explain history, and as a result, his thinking greatly affected history. Marxism and the Soviet Union would not have existed without him. The conflict between capitalism and socialism dominated global politics for most of the twentieth century. His thinking inspired others, for instance, the Neoconservatives.

Hegel’s dialectic


Hegel was a philosopher of progress. He believed things would get better and we would, one day, live in a utopia. We increase our knowledge over time. By reflecting on our thoughts, we can challenge them. Or something might happen that changes your mind. You might believe all swans are white until a black one comes along. From then on, you think most swans are white while some are black. Hegel came up with a three-stage scheme for progress in thought:

  1. You believe all swans are white. That is your thesis.
  2. There comes a shocker. You see a black swan, the antithesis.
  3. Then you think most swans are white, and some are black. It is the synthesis.

And that is progress. Hegelian dialectic is this elegant three-stage scheme with thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. You can see why people liked it so much. It is wonderfully simplistic, and it explains so much, or so it appears. The synthesis is incorrect if there are red swans, but it is better than the thesis. The prediction that the next swan I see will be black or white is more often correct than that the next swan will be white. And even though the synthesis may still be incorrect, it better predicts future events. You can also apply it to Socratic dialogues, where people with different viewpoints wish to establish the truth using reasoned arguments. Our viewpoints are imperfect, and exchanging ideas can bring progress, which we can discover using Hegel’s dialectic.

Suppose we have a time machine and fetch Adam Smith from 1770 and Karl Marx from 1870 and bring them to the present so they can meet. They first study each other’s books, and then we let them start an argument. Smith sets out the thesis. He says capitalism and free markets work best at raising the general living standard because self-interest makes people do a good job, and increases in scale improve efficiency. Then, Marx comes up with the antithesis. He argues that the living conditions for workers are miserable, and capitalism distributes its benefits unfairly as factory owners and traders are wealthy. They agree on minimum wages, as they have good intentions.


Ideas may look great in theory but usually work out differently in practice. Experiments can help to find out. There was a capitalist experiment in the United States and a communist one in the Soviet Union. Perhaps Marx would be disappointed when the time machine brought him to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The workers in Western capitalist societies were better off. And maybe Smith will be disappointed when he sees the United States today. And both may say, ‘This is not how it is supposed to be.’ They may not blame the plan but the execution. It is always someone else’s fault. That is the standard excuse of planners who have seen their plans fail.

We play a small part in a greater whole of humanity. Hegel says our consciousnesses are part of a general consciousness called spirit. Spirit reflects the ideas in society and how they change. Our ideas about slavery are an example. Today, most people believe slavery is wrong, but in the past, most people didn’t think so. The spirit requires individual freedom of thought and the ability to be part of society with a spirit containing these ideas. In dialectic terms, the individual is the thesis, our society the antithesis, and to take part in that society is the synthesis. We have our individual thoughts and desires. But we live in a society. By engaging ourselves, we become part of that spirit.

We aren’t free and subject to outside forces, but we can cut ourselves off from the outside world, turn inward, and experience freedom of thought. That makes us unhappy because we desire unity with the eternal absolute truth, God or the universe, Hegel claims. We express this desire in religion. We feel insignificant towards that absolute and want to be part of it. Our reason is the alternative absolute. We can imagine a relationship between the particular, which are objects like cows and the universal ideas. So, a cow participates in the universal concept of cowness that all cows share. We exist in unity with the universal, and with reason, we can conquer the world. Thus, knowledge is power.

Hegel claims reason conquers the world. And now we get back at Napoleon. Hegel saw Napoleon as the embodiment of Enlightenment ideas conquering the world. Napoleon did so by military force. He was impressed by the French successes. He learned to see history as a struggle towards progress where more powerful ideas replace weaker ones. It is good to know that Hegel believed there is an absolute truth, so reasonable people might, or should, not compromise with unreasonable people and overcome them by force. And that belief has had a significant impact on history. It became the model for ideological conflict. Leaders may fight for power, but ideological conflicts are about ideas.

Hegel and history

The most well-known is the conflict between communism and capitalism. Hegel’s dialectic affected Marx’s thinking and that of the communist revolutionaries. Hegel believed the direction of human history is progress towards greater rationality. Hegel was an idealist, which means his philosophy was concerned with ideas. Marx, on the other hand, was a materialist who believed historical changes have material causes. Change doesn’t come from ideas but from circumstances in the world around us. Often, these are economic. So, Hegel might argue that slavery would end because people consider it wrong, while Marx might say slavery will stop when other forms of labour are economically more efficient.

Marx claimed we work in relations like master-slave or employer-employee, not because we want to, but because it is the most appropriate way of production in a given stage of our economic development. These relations form the structure of a society, the foundation on which a legal and political system arises, and that shapes our social consciousness. So, in a capitalist society, the legal system might centre around property rights, and labour rights might be non-existent. And it was like so in the 19th century. Not our consciousness directs our social existence, but our social existence determines our consciousness. So, serfdom in Europe didn’t end because serfs wanted to be free; it was because new forms of labour organisation had become more efficient.

Change comes from contradictions between the underlying material reality and the social superstructure. You can see that in Hegelian terms. There was serfdom in Western Europe because it suited economic conditions (thesis). It ended because serfs flocked to cities to earn more as craftspeople. It undermined the social superstructure of serfdom (antithesis). Lords of manors had to provide an attractive alternative to keep their peasants. Serfs became free (synthesis), which best suited the new conditions. Marx believed humans were free at first and lived as communists (thesis). As the economic reality changed (antithesis), societies became slave states (synthesis). In the following sequence of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, slave states developed into feudal societies. Those societies became capitalist states because of economies of scale and capital requirements. The thesis-antithesis-synthesis may seem contrived, but the status quo changes due to forces that undermine it, creating a new status quo.

Marx prophesied that in the next round of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, the working class would overthrow the capitalist states and start socialism. Marx believed it was a historical necessity. After all, the Hegelian dialectic works behind it, so communists were more advanced, reasonable people who sought to overthrow the backward capitalist order. Marx was a prophet as he prophesied what would happen and had a vision of paradise. Humans first lived in a state of nature, the simple communism of the group, Marx’s Eden and we will return to communism, Marx’s paradise. Marx called religion opium for the masses, but Marxism resembles a religion. Like Christianity, Marxists think history has a purpose and an end times in which we enter the worker’s paradise. Ideologies come with prophets and holy books. The Capital of Karl Marx was the sacred book of Marxism.

Ideas require power to change the world. Marx claimed the exploited masses, the employees, should rise against their employers because their profits come from paying workers less than they are worth. All the workers across the world had to unite in a revolution. Capitalists disagreed. They argued that wages are the market price of labour, and the capitalist sells his products at the market price. The profits and the losses are for him. An entrepreneur seeks to employ the means of production, including labour, in the most efficient way, so the market value of an employee might increase due to the capitalist production organisation. Workers in socialist countries often had lower wages than workers in Western market economies. The communists and the capitalists believed they were reasonable, that their ideas were better, and that you shouldn’t compromise with unreasonable people, causing a stand-off between two ideological blocks, the Cold War.

In a Hegelian sense, capitalism seems better because it won out. However, capitalist societies introduced reforms like minimum wages and welfare. Agreeable societies have mixed economies, a mixture of capitalist and socialist elements, thus a market economy and an active government that intervenes in markets with regulations or money transfers like welfare. That could be the synthesis of capitalism and socialism. Capitalism is now the thesis of a new Hegelian question. The antithesis is that our production and consumption are about to cause an ecological or technological catastrophe. We need a different political economy. Hegelian thinking has limitations. It stylises questions as choices between two opposites. So, it is either capitalism or socialism or a mixture of both. Experts often use models to deal with complex problems. The use of models requires expertise or even wisdom. We have to learn how the parts interact and contribute to the whole.

Featured image: Portrait of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Jakob Schlesinger (1831). Public Domain.

Virtual Universe

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Some religions claim that God or gods have created this world. That God uttered ‘Be’ and behold, there you have bees is not a particularly compelling explanation for the existence of bees. That doesn’t matter much because humans are religious creatures who need fairy tales to believe in. So, how could these supposed gods or God have the magical powers to accomplish that? Until recently, we had no clue, but then Nick Bostrom, known for his dry and incomprehensible employment of words, delivered the simulation hypothesis to us, the most profound breakthrough in theology in nearly 2,000 years. We might dwell inside a computer simulation run by an advanced humanoid civilisation. Our creators can define a class bee and instruct the computer to create instances of this class. A class has properties, allowing individual instances to be unique.

And so, Genesis might be closer to the truth than the religion sceptics think. Bostrom didn’t say whether or not that is indeed the case or how likely it is. He didn’t speculate on that issue. Otherwise, his critics might have a field day, ridiculing him for opening a back door to the paranormal and religion. That could have been the end of his career. However, it is easy to find out if you venture into areas that scientists anxiously avoid, such as paranormal incidents, religious experiences, meaningful coincidences, people’s memories of past lives, ghost phenomena, and UFO sightings.

Scientists dare not investigate these phenomena, as it could make them a laughing stock in front of their peers. That is groupthink and intellectual cowardice on a grandiose scale. On numerous occasions, multiple credible witnesses have observed events that science can’t explain. Like nearly everyone else, scientists have been proficient at ignoring evidence that contradicts their beliefs, such as unscientific ravings about spirits relaying messages from the other side during seances. Bostrom speculated that this world might be a virtual reality, but didn’t search for proof. As a philosopher, he had better things to do.

The book The Virtual Universe delves into the evidence. You can prove this universe is a virtual reality if you assume scientists have correctly established the laws of nature and that sciences like physics, chemistry and biology are correct. If events transpire that defy these laws of science, such as paranormal incidents, religious miracles, meaningful coincidences, memories of previous lives, ghost phenomena and UFO sightings, breaches in these laws occur. According to science, the Virgin Mary doing a miracle before a crowd of thousands, like in Fatima, is impossible. If science is correct, and it happens nonetheless, this world must be fake. The book The Virtual Universe puts it like this:

  1. If we live in a real universe, we can’t notice. Virtual reality can be realistic and come with authentic laws of reality.
  2. This universe may have fake properties, but we cannot notice that either because we don’t know the properties of a genuine universe.
  3. Breaching the laws of reality is unrealistic in any case. If it happens, we may have evidence of this universe being fake.

It follows from (1) and (2) that we can’t use the universe’s properties, reflected in the laws of nature, to determine whether or not this universe is real. Science can establish the laws of physics or the properties of this universe, but science can’t tell whether they are real or fake. However, if breaches occur, we have evidence suggesting this universe is bogus. The book The Virtual Universe investigates the evidence, which includes stories about paranormal incidents, religious experiences, meaningful coincidences, reincarnation stories, ghost phenomena, and UFO sightings, often with multiple credible witnesses. So yes, aliens can beam you up into their UFO because they are as fake as you are.

Advanced humanoids, often dubbed post-humans, may share our motivations because they evolved from humans or are created by humans ‘after their image’ in the case of artificial intelligence. The latter would indeed be most ironic, as these advanced humanoids may run simulations of human civilisations ‘after their image’ for research or entertainment. Research applications could be about running what-if scenarios. Possible entertainment applications include games or dream worlds where someone’s imagination comes true. These simulations may not be realistic in some aspects, as they reflect the rules of a game or someone’s personal fantasies. In a simulation, you can let Jesus walk over water and make him think that faith alone suffices.

Civilisations are complex. Small changes can derail events that would otherwise occur. Just imagine another sperm had won the race to Adolf Hitler’s mother’s egg. There were millions of sperm in that race. Guaranteeing an outcome, such as letting World War I end on a date referred to by the licence plate number of the car that drove Archduke Franz Ferdinand to his appointment with destiny, requires control over everything that happens. That doesn’t apply to games. Unpredictable developments make games more interesting. Considering how we utilise computing power, mainly for games, sexy pictures and cat videos, the number of simulations for entertainment likely vastly outstrips those run for research purposes. If we live inside a simulation, we should expect its purpose to be entertainment.

The owner or owners may use avatars to play roles in this world and appear like ordinary human beings to us. If you are familiar with computer games, you are familiar with avatars. Once you enter a game, you become a character inside that game, your avatar, and you have an existence apart from your regular life. Inside the game, you are your avatar, not yourself. Alternatively, you could start a virtual world where you are the Creator and bring your dreams to life. In this world, you also become someone else.

That is a lot of assumptions, and without evidence, they remain speculation. Even when there is evidence, it doesn’t necessarily mean the explanation is correct. Suppose you hear the noise of a car starting. That is the evidence. You may think there is an automobile starting. Perhaps a vehicle is firing up its engine. But your husband might be watching his favourite television series, Starting Engines, so you can’t be sure. Nothing you know contradicts your assumption, but you could be wrong. So, is God an individual from an advanced humanoid civilisation who uses us for amusement? It is credible, and perhaps nothing contradicts it. But who is to say it is correct?

Now comes the disagreeable part. We are instances of the class human. When the beings in the simulation think for themselves, that raises ethical questions like whether they have rights that the creators should respect. Considering how humans treat each other, it is not a given that these rights would be respected even when our creators acknowledge them. In the real world, bad things happen to people. In the case of control, the beings inside the simulation don’t think, but are mindless bots following the script. We have no independent will and are toys to our creators. God kills people at will, and a few million casualties more don’t matter. On the bright side, if God wants us to enter Paradise, where there is peace and happiness, nothing can stop that as well. Those who try will surely find themselves on the losing side. So, if the Boss makes a joke, you can better laugh. Perhaps it isn’t easy. But don’t worry. It took me fifteen years to look at the bright side of life.

Latest revision: 30 July 2026

Simulation Argument II: Adding Information

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Will we soon create simulations of humans who act like humans and even believe they think? Will we invent a Holodeck like in Star Trek? And will we expand it to civilisation-size simulations? Nick Bostrom dares not to assess the likelihood of that. However, you don’t have to look far for answers. We are already close to doing it. Imagine a world where you can be king or queen. You can even create the world as you like and build your paradise. You can lead the life you desire. You can design the ideal spouse who fulfils your deepest romantic and sexual desires. And no one frustrates your ambitions.

Your dream can be your life. And you don’t have to wake up. It is simply too tempting for many of us to resist. Your life is not great. Your spouse is not perfect. Your job is mediocre or worse. Other people make you miserable. Your boss ignores your ideas. Your ventures fail. You think you deserve better. Likely, at least one of those options applies to you. If we could make our dreams come true, we would. We will spend a lot of time there if we ever invent something like the Holodeck from Star Trek.

You might think you won’t do it, but others would, so there will be demand for the technology. What you have just read is information, specifically insights into human nature. We will make our dreams a reality if we can. We can also consider advances in artificial intelligence, extrapolate from them, and demonstrate that simulated humans will be feasible at some point, likely soon. Hence, we probably live inside a simulation and are someone’s fantasy. Showing it is possible or likely, however, doesn’t prove it. So, how can we do that? It is possible with the information we have.

Scientists have established the laws of nature, which determine what is realistically possible and what is not. Simulations can be realistic in many ways but also unrealistic in others. If we can establish that unrealistic events occur, thus breaching natural laws established by science, we could be living in a simulation. Instead of speculating that we live in a simulation by guessing the probability of post-humans existing and their abilities, resources, and possible motivations, we can look at what we know about our universe. That is information. We can establish that we live in a simulation as follows:

  1. When this universe is genuine, we can never be sure about it. A simulation can be realistic and feature authentic laws of reality.
  2. This universe may have fake properties, but we can’t establish this because we don’t know the properties of an authentic universe.
  3. Breaching the laws of reality is unrealistic in any case. If it happens, we may have evidence of this universe being virtual.

Science can establish the laws of reality or the properties of this universe. Only science cannot determine whether they are real or fake. Perhaps there is no gravity in a genuine world, even though we deem it unlikely. But the breaching of these laws suggests we live in a simulation. If we believe science is correct, breaching its laws proves the simulation. We have a body of evidence for the scientifically established laws of reality. These laws of reality and breaches thereof are information about our universe. Science has established, among others, the following:

  • The laws of physics always apply inside their realms. Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
  • The universe started with the Big Bang. Life on this planet emerged from chemical processes. And evolution shaped it. There is no evidence of a creator.
  • We are biological organisms composed of carbon and water, and our consciousness resides in our bodies. There is no spirit or soul.

Evidence to the contrary indicates this world is fake. Meaningful coincidences suggest there is an intelligent force directing events. The paranormal defies the laws of physics. A ghost pushing you breaches Newton’s laws of motion. Credible accounts of reincarnation challenge the claim that we are biological organisms. However, meaningful coincidences can materialise by chance. There may be laws of reality we don’t know. There is plenty of evidence suggesting that consciousness resides in the body, while only a few people remember a previous life.
And have you seen ghosts? It may be time to take your pills.

Still, if a sufficient number of credible accounts of breaches of the established laws of reality exist, we can assume we live inside a simulation. We may still differ on what a sufficient number is or which accounts are credible. The proof can’t be scientific because science can’t prove we live inside a simulation. We can’t verify that we live in a simulation by doing experiments, because violations of natural laws are unpredictable. But we can check the accounts of violations of these laws. It remains speculation, akin to living in the dark, assuming that cows exist and make a mooing sound, even though we have never seen them, and believing that hearing a moo proves their existence.

Latest update: 3 February 2026

Halloween cat from Poland. User Silar.

Ghost Stories

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The first thing someone told me about ghosts was that they are fake. That person was probably a schoolteacher. Before that, I hadn’t heard of spooks. Ghosts are fairy tales, the teacher said at primary school. Several years later, I went on a school trip and visited the Singraven Estate near Denekamp. The custodian told us that a spook dwelt inside the manor, upsetting things, but he added that we shouldn’t fear it. We could safely enter. It is better not to put faith in spooky stories about venues that depend on tourist income. The facts that are beyond doubt aren’t spectacular. They are lame indeed.

As a teenager, I also visited Twickel Castle in Delden, located near Denekamp, but it did not have such a spooky reputation. I recently learned that this castle also has ghostly phenomena. The castle doesn’t advertise itself as a ghostly venue, which makes the claim more believable. Only one source on the Internet mentions it. If it is true, the laws of physics went out the window, at least temporarily. The author preferred that I quote her work. She wrote,

Recently I heard a strange tale from the phlegmatic steward of Twickel Castle in Delden. An English restorer who had come to restore some antique cupboards was given permission by her to stay overnight in an attic room of the castle. After he had been there for a few days, she saw that he had put his mattress on the floor.

She asked him why he slept on the floor and not on the bedstead? He answered her unmoved that he had been pushed out of bed for three consecutive nights. To prevent it from happening again, he had decided to sleep on the floor from then on. He had not been bothered since then. The steward asked him if he didn’t find that creepy? His answer was calm and clear: ‘No, I’m from England.’1

That is what the stiff upper lip is about. You might not believe it if you haven’t witnessed similar things occurring in your own house. So that is why I am inclined to believe it. There are plenty of ghost tales that go around. Most are hearsay. On the Internet, you can find lists of ghost tales like 10 Eerie Real-Life Paranormal Encounters to Creep You Out on Listverse.com.2 The list is fact-checked, which means the stories happened unless witnesses lied and got away with it. You are about to read one story from that list. It was also on CNN. The CNN article allows paranormal investigators to share their unscientific claims about crisis apparitions. An explanation that doesn’t conflict with science is that we live inside a virtual reality. So, here is the story,

Nina De Santo was closing her New Jersey hair salon when she saw Michael, one of her customers, standing outside the shop’s window. He had become a good friend. He had been going through a tough time after his wife left him. Nina had tried to cheer him up. When she opened the door, Michael seemed happy and transformed. He smiled at her and said he wanted to thank Nina for everything she had done for him. They chatted, and each went their way. The following day, Nina received a call from one of her employees. Michael’s body had been found the previous morning, nine hours before Nina had spoken to him at the salon. He had committed suicide.2

In 2014, a couple named the Simpsons asked the regional news channel Fox43 in the United States to visit their haunted house in Hanover, York County. DeAnna Simpson, the wife, mentioned that entities were haunting the home. She and her husband had lived there for seven years. She caught ‘ghosts’ on film. They had scratched or even attacked the guests. DeAnna had invited priests, paranormal researchers, and the crew of the TV show The Dead Files into her home, who then uncovered ‘evidence’ of ‘grisly deaths’ that had occurred there.3 When the Fox43 staff came in, something invisible scratched their photographer.

In March 2018, my wife woke me up in the middle of the night. She said, ‘The bathroom door is locked, and our son is sleeping in his bed.’ You can only lock the door from the inside. The lock needs force, so this can’t happen by accident. My wife feared a burglar was hiding inside. I took a knife from the kitchen to unlock the door while she was standing behind me, holding a heavy object to smash into the head of the burglar. Only, I never believed there was a burglar. So many unusual things had happened already. And I was right. There was no burglar.

So, what to make of this? The goings-on at Twickel Castle and the Hanover house are undoubtedly peculiar. Nina De Santo’s story is mind-boggling. In my home, the laws of physics didn’t always fully apply either. It made me wonder. I have seen it happen, and so has my wife. And if there is no naturalistic explanation, is this evidence of ghosts? Not necessarily. If you believe ghosts are real, you think science is crap. And I don’t. The simulation can play into our imaginations and fears. And ghosts are as unreal as we are. There may not be more to it than that. That at least makes sense.

Latest revision: 18 July 2025

Featured image: Halloween cat from Poland. User Silar (2012). Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

1. Betoverd door: haunted houses. Theracoppens.nl.
2. 10 Eerie Real-Life Paranormal Encounters to Creep You Out. Listverse.com (2022).
3. A haunted Hannover home. Civilwarghosts.com. [link]
4. Why those TV ghost-hunting shows are transparently fake. Scott Craven (2019). The Republic. [link]