Monica Anderson said on Facebook: “I can't figure out if the SA (simulation argument) is dualist and would like to know”

Note: That which she calls SA I have elsewhere called the VR analogy or computational metaphysics.

I have contemplated this issue of SA and dualism at some length from many angles, in particular by studying an intuitively received mathematical model (SMN) of the reality generative process and how it processes information in order to create the appearance of indivudual perspectives upon a physical universe.

In brief I have found that the term 'dualism' has a certain meaning within a particular context, however SA changes that context and thereby also the meaning of the term.

To explain, first here is a comment I made earlier in the same thread, which explains the context of our current meaning of the term.

“Imagine that you are a sentient character within a quantum computer-game, equiped with a mind evolved within the VR universe (I call this a virtual mind VM). The computational stream that animates the VM, the VR and everything could be called the Source or Spirit - it is universal and impersonal. The activity of the computational process animates the VM and causes the character to experience themselves as a "being in a world" with personal thoughts, feelings, etc.

It is from this perspective that such beings develop beliefs, world-views and discourses based on the principle of "beings in the world" and everything else is then comprehended from this back-to-front perspective and the computational aspect of their reality becomes incomprehensible and seemingly paradoxical.

This becomes a deeply entrenched cognitive habit, the deepest of which is naïve realism. Whilst ever these habits remain dominant, all information will be interpreted through this distorted lens before it even reaches conscious awareness.”

It is within this context of naïve realist, egoic, materialist discourse that the term 'dualism' has evolved its meaning. It is in this context that mystics rightly asssert that the transcendent realm of pure information processes is 'non-dual'. This means that in the deeper reality there is no light and dark, hot and cold, this perceptual object or that perceptual object, etc.

However the transcendent level has its own dualities that could be described as 0/1, yin/yang (Taoist), purusha/prakriti (Vedic), etc. The transcendent level of existence is not an amorphous mass; it has structure and features, just as the operating system and computational space underlying a virtual reality has structure and features, but these are of a different kind to the structure and features that are found within the VR universe.

Hence there are dualities at various levels of existence, but they are of a different kind. The dualities that we commonly speak of arise from assuming that objects of experience are external objects, however even at the transcendent level information could not be represented or processed without the basic 0/1 duality and the computation/information duality. These also lead to another duality between simulator / simulation or information process / information content. This duality is called by some, quantum/classical, Heaven/Earth, Brahman/Maya (Vedic), Nirvana/Samsara (Buddhist), Hundun/Wanwu (Taoist), etc.

We must however keep in mind that dualities are artefacts of perception (and consequent conceptualisation), they are not inherent in the fabric of reality on any level. Whilst we may speak of yin and yang as if they are separate, the Taoists knew that yin is born in the heart of yang and yang is born in the heart of yin.

Likewise computation is the coherent transformation of information and information is discernible difference that is discerned by computation – hence neither can exist without the other and in fact there is only the one unified phenomenon, which we are understanding via a dualistic disctinction.

Likewise with the simulator/simulation or Heaven/Earth duality. There is only the one unified phenomenon, but looked at one way it seems to be an information process and looked at another way it seems to be a world with objects, places and events. These are just different ways of looking at the same thing.