THE BELLUM DEORUM INTERPRETATION
 

THE ORIGIN OF BDI

I feel that it is important to explain how this theory originated, because doing so might allow you to better understand the process from my perspective.
As much as I hate to admit it - I just turned 40 years old, and I am an anime geek. Supposedly, that’s more

From YouTube > How Did Anime Go From Geek to Cool? (PBS Voices | Subcultured):

 culturally-accepted these days, but I remain sheepish. Regardless, one thing I truly enjoy about the genre is that because its plots are usually not at all grounded in reality, it can allow you to consider possibilities that you might not otherwise. And in this instance, that is exactly what occurred. One day in the not-so-distant past, I was watching a series while my wife was busy working on her college classes. I wish I knew the exact date, but (since Netflix decides to erase your previous viewing history if you rewatch something,) I do not. What I do know is that it was some time after December 11th 2019, since that was the date the episode that I was watching was originally available.
In the

From Netflix > The Seven Deadly Sins:

 series, there are two opposing gods that command the beings under their reign to battle each other. The Supreme Deity, who commands the Goddess Race, is in direct conflict with the Demon King, who commands the Demon Clan. One might think that the Goddess Race would be benevolent and good, while the Demon Clan would be underhanded and merciless. But as it turns out, (and is common in the genre), both sides fight just as dirty. Most belligerents on both sides are willing to exterminate the other without pause or mercy, usually because each side is seeking vengeance for past atrocities wrought by the hands of their enemy.
The episode I was watching explains how the (up-to-then) four seasons of the show are connected. I don’t wish to spoil the plot for anyone in case they wish to watch it, because I highly recommend the series if you can get over the overt cheesiness of it. However, the culmination of the plot tells the single most tragic love story I have heard in my entire life. In my opinion, the suffering in Shakespeare’s tragedies can’t hold a candle to this story. For a moment, it affected me emotionally to the point that I actually had to pause the show to process it, mostly because I was unprepared for the fact that a cartoon geared for a 14+ audience might include such a tragic plot.
In an episode prior to the one I was watching that day, one of the main characters says this:
“As bad as the world may seem, true evil isn’t that common. From what I’ve seen, through those I’ve battled till now, everyone has a reason for doing what they do. A guy could be scum, at least from my perspective, but that same guy might be someone irreplaceable to my sister. I mean, it’s the same for you, isn’t it?”
At that moment, I recalled this quote. Coupled with the plot of two opposing gods, it caused what felt like a fuse blowing in my brain. As I sat there, I felt a chill roll down my spine, and it seemed as if time stopped for a brief moment. I considered the one man most of us think of when the concept of evil is brought up. If you were to ask five random strangers on the street of any major city who they thought the most evil person in all of history was, who do you imagine the majority, if not all of them, would name?
I imagined that a malevolent higher consciousness could have exploited Adolf Hitler’s sense of injustices imposed on Germany after World War I, and his sins of racial/national pride and greed for land and resources, to justify committing horrific acts of evil. And to him, he did those things with the best intentions. In his own mind, he felt he was absolutely justified in everything he did because it was for the good of his own people. By extension, once he started down his path, motivated by that pride, wrath, and greed, that allowed for his fellow countrymen to also be easily exploited in his wake, since they, too, (either already or eventually) were convinced of the same beliefs and justifications. The cascade of those factors could have led to what is historically accepted as the worst acts of brutality and genocide in human history.
As I reflected on that possibility, I realized that two opposing gods, each within their own separate-but-linked universes, would explain just about everything in terms of philosophy, human behavior, and the human condition. It would both resolve the problem of evil and allow for God, perhaps even a loving one, to exist at the same time. The realization shattered my sense of reality, because it opened the possibility for religion, philosophy, and logic to all coexist. But surely, the laws of physics should dictate that this is impossible, right? Could another entire universe made of antimatter really exist?
From there, and over the past 3+ years, I began trying to understand what I could of the extremely complex laws of physics, and how that thought could be either possible or impossible in terms of our actual, testable reality. From the point I started, I knew that relativity imposed the restrictions of locality and the speed of light upon us, that quantum mechanics and entanglement were extremely strange phenomena that seemed to violate that same locality and speed limit, that antimatter exists, and there was baryonic asymmetry in our universe.
However, I fully expected that the more I researched physics, the more I would find that I would have to bend or break the rules of reality for this ultra-bizarre dueling gods theory to make any sense whatsoever. Quite honestly, that is precisely what I was looking for. I simply would never accept a system of belief that would contradict science. If I could prove to myself that the construct was impossible (or even highly improbable) within the laws of physics, I could dismiss it and return to my agnostic beliefs. It would mean that my worldview could remain what it was, and I would not have to change. I could go back to my quasi-nihilistic ideology wherein God almost certainly does not exist, we all evolved and exist due to countless throws of the dice and random happenstance, and the only thing that really links any of us is that we are all made up from the same cosmic goo. Above all, I could go back to believing that the only thing that really mattered in anyone’s life, including my own, is individual happiness. I could go back to being the selfish person I had been my entire life. Somewhat comically, I was experiencing effects of

From Wikipedia > Cognitive Dissonance:

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.
 cognitive dissonance associated with my own thought experiment.
I never expected or dreamed that the more research I did, I would find out that the concept is not just possible, but that the physics of our universe seem to completely align with what I imagined. So well, in fact, that to me, it seems as if our entire reality might have been purpose-built for it. I found a universe in a complete state of imbalance, and the theory I came up with looked as if it would complete the equation. At that point, I had started to see that this might be a viable candidate that could truly explain everything, and my beliefs began to shift.
Then, the more I learned about the other interpretations of quantum mechanics, I felt that the one that I had come up with explains the absolute most in terms of logical reasons behind the strange behaviors of physics and reality, and allows for the complete unification of what we know about physical reality with both philosophy and faith. By this time, I was beginning to reshape my own beliefs with what I had found. However, I was not yet at the stage that I truly wished to try and change anyone else’s mind, other than anecdotal banter with friends and family. But as I continued to explore further, more consistencies still kept occurring to me.
One issue I have considered (at great length) is that by looking at physics from a reversed angle, meaning that I am trying to figure out if an idea is possible within the currently-known laws and theories, I run the risk of introducing a rather large amount of cognitive bias. I could simply be seeing functions and patterns that do not truly exist, simply because that is what I am looking for. While I admit that is true, the reasons behind why the quantum world behaves the way it does has stumped the greatest minds of our planet, including intellectual giants such as Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, Heisenberg, Bell, Hawking, and so many more, for over a century. The very people who discovered the quantum nature of our universe never expected reality to behave in that way. The idea of particles being physically real, and having defined and indivisible physical pieces, was what the best scientists of the 19th century expected to find once their tools were advanced enough to divide that matter and view it. In the early part of the century after, what they found instead was interesting, but also both confusing and discomforting.
So, then: why does this quantum world exist? Is it the only possible way our macro reality could have been described? Or, could an extremely similar version of our current macro reality be constructed without such a complicated and strange underlying mechanism? Put another way, if we conclude that there may have been multiple ways to “skin the cat” and come up with a very similar result, then why would

From Wikipedia > Occam's Razor:

Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, or Ocham's razor (Latin: novacula Occami) in philosophy is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”, although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as “The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”

This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires fewest assumptions, and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions.
 Occam’s razor not apply? Why wouldn’t we have found a much simpler mechanism, instead? If there are simpler methods, then the only logical reason for the more-complex option must be that those complexities serve multiple purposes, rather than serving only as our reality’s LEGO bricks. Therefore, I feel that this is one possible theory that provides logical functions for the complexities in question.
The one aspect that really solidified my desire to communicate this to others, though, comes down to one deciding factor: from the best of my understanding, the theories this framework is built upon do not seem to contradict each other. They all seem to paint the same general picture of reality. Any current inconsistencies between them could be resolved in ways that would not exclude this theory. And in that sense, from the best I can discern, this theory itself is also (mostly) self-consistent.
Let’s try this from yet another angle. If you are an engineer, scientist, or physicist, I present you with the following challenge: Design it better. If you assume that our reality is not a competition between two dueling GCs, then taking what we know of our universe, how would you have improved upon its design in order to make it into one? Design the game under the following assumptions:
  1. The game is a competition to create a universe with the greatest amount of conscious life.
  2. The game should be for two GCs with huge amounts of computational power, who can interact with the game constructively and destructively.
  3. The game should last a very long time, because such beings would have many billions or trillions of years at their disposal.
  4. The GCs are not permitted to directly communicate with their conscious creations, as that would be cheating (an automatic loss).
  5. There should be a subtle breadcrumb trail that would allow the created conscious life to figure out the reality of the game, since that is the goal. If a GC is able to help conscious life survive long enough to understand the truth of the game, the odds of winning increase.
Based on these requirements, how would you do it better? I ask because personally, I am at a complete loss. I certainly cannot come up with any better way. Viewing the known laws of physics from this perspective, I feel that the engineering behind it is beyond absolute and utter elegance. It is the embodiment of perfection, in every conceivable way.
Trust me, I can understand that you probably still feel it is ridiculous that two highly-advanced consciousnesses, controlling two entangled universes, could be the driving forces behind all reality. However, consider some of the major competing interpretations of quantum mechanics:

  • From Wikipedia > Many-worlds interpretation:

    The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realized in some “world” or universe. In contrast to some other interpretations, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, the evolution of reality as a whole in MWI is rigidly deterministic: 9  and local. Many-worlds is also called the relative state formulation or the Everett interpretation, after physicist Hugh Everett, who first proposed it in 1957. Bryce DeWitt popularized the formulation and named it many-worlds in the 1970s.

    In many-worlds, the subjective appearance of wavefunction collapse is explained by the mechanism of quantum decoherence. Decoherence approaches to interpreting quantum theory have been widely explored and developed since the 1970s, and have become quite popular. MWI is now considered a mainstream interpretation along with the other decoherence interpretations, collapse theories (including the Copenhagen interpretation), and hidden variable theories such as Bohmian mechanics.
     Many-worlds Interpretation: Wave functions never collapse. Every possible outcome of every possible wave function result that has ever occurred has branched into its own reality and exists independently, and we only find ourselves following a randomly-chosen path of one of those realities. This implies that there are nearly infinite versions of you that exist right this moment. An interesting variant of this is the

    From Wikipedia > Many-minds Interpretation:

     Many-minds interpretation, in which rather than worlds that branch, it is the observer's mind that branches instead.

  • From Wikipedia > Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation:

    The von Neumann–Wigner interpretation, also described as “consciousness causes collapse”, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which consciousness is postulated to be necessary for the completion of the process of quantum measurement.
    [...]
    It can be predicted using quantum mechanics, absent a collapse postulate, that an observer observing a quantum superposition will turn into a superposition of different observers seeing different things. The observer will have a wavefunction which describes all the possible outcomes. Still, in actual experience, an observer never senses a superposition, but always senses that one of the outcomes has occurred with certainty. This apparent conflict between a wavefunction description and classical experience is called the problem of observation (see Measurement problem).
     Von Neumann–Wigner Interpretation: Reality depends on a conscious observer. Until a conscious observer makes an observation, nothing is real. Some suggest that when a conscious observer is not looking, reality ceases “being real” until it is observed again.

  • From Wikipedia > Quantum Bayesianism:

    In physics and the philosophy of physics, quantum Bayesianism is a collection of related approaches to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, of which the most prominent is QBism (pronounced “cubism”). QBism is an interpretation that takes an agent's actions and experiences as the central concerns of the theory. QBism deals with common questions in the interpretation of quantum theory about the nature of wavefunction superposition, quantum measurement, and entanglement. According to QBism, many, but not all, aspects of the quantum formalism are subjective in nature. For example, in this interpretation, a quantum state is not an element of reality—instead it represents the degrees of belief an agent has about the possible outcomes of measurements.
     QBism (or Quantum Bayesianism): Reality is subjective, based upon the agent observing it, or realism is based upon participation within reality. The outcome of wave function collapse is based upon the “degrees of belief” an agent-observer has about the possible outcomes of measurements.

  • From Wikipedia > Quantum Darwinism:

    Quantum Darwinism is a theory meant to explain the emergence of the classical world from the quantum world as due to a process of Darwinian natural selection induced by the environment interacting with the quantum system; where the many possible quantum states are selected against in favor of a stable pointer state. It was proposed in 2003 by Wojciech Zurek and a group of collaborators including Ollivier, Poulin, Paz and Blume-Kohout. The development of the theory is due to the integration of a number of Zurek's research topics pursued over the course of twenty-five years including: pointer states, einselection and decoherence.
     Quantum Darwinism: The classical world emerged from the quantum world as a result of Darwinian natural selection, which is induced by the environment interacting with the quantum system. The classical/relativistic world we exist within somehow evolved on its own.

  • From Wikipedia > Copenhagen Interpretation:

    The Copenhagen interpretation is a collection of views about the meaning of quantum mechanics, principally attributed to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It is one of the oldest of numerous proposed interpretations of quantum mechanics, as features of it date to the development of quantum mechanics during 1925–1927, and it remains one of the most commonly taught.

    There is no definitive historical statement of what the Copenhagen interpretation is. There are some fundamental agreements and disagreements between the views of Bohr and Heisenberg. For example, Heisenberg emphasized a sharp “cut” between the observer (or the instrument) and the system being observed, while Bohr offered an interpretation that is independent of a subjective observer or measurement or collapse, which relies on an “irreversible” or effectively irreversible process, which could take place within the quantum system.

    Features common to Copenhagen-type interpretations include the idea that quantum mechanics is intrinsically indeterministic, with probabilities calculated using the Born rule, and the principle of complementarity, which states that objects have certain pairs of complementary properties that cannot all be observed or measured simultaneously. Moreover, the act of “observing” or “measuring” an object is irreversible, and no truth can be attributed to an object, except according to the results of its measurement. Copenhagen-type interpretations hold that quantum descriptions are objective, in that they are independent of physicists' mental arbitrariness.
     Copenhagen Interpretation: The closest of these to this interpretation, wave functions collapse upon measurement, although what constitutes "measurement" is not well-defined, and is subject to debate.
I appreciate the fact that two dueling GCs sounds, well, fairly crazy. But ask yourself: Really, is it much more so than any of the others? The quantum world, and reality itself, are both mind-bogglingly strange. I feel strongly that because of that fact, there will never be an explanation that does not seem outlandish. All interpretations will seem crazy to a degree, and we may have no choice but to pick the ones that seem the least illogical and put them to the test. Apart from our ability to do that, perhaps we simply pick the one that sounds the most logical, and/or makes us feel the best, to believe.
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