First a few words about the work and then some links.

In brief, in 2000 I intuitively received a vision of the nature of reality that re-oriented my world-view. Other than a knew way of understanding, it mainly expressed itself in my mind as a form of mathematics, which I came to understand through the framework of information and system theory, mystic metaphysics, quantum mechanics and virtual reality simulation.

This evolved over time into a project that could be described as "laying down the mathematical foundations of a unified holistic science" and "using this foundation to shed light on and unify both ancient and modern wisdom". The work also involves self-enquiry; observation of, and participation in, the evolution of collective consciousness; and the navigation of a paradigm shift in our collective world-view.

To give some insight... Imagine that this physical universe could be thought of as a virtual reality simulation, within which we are evolved sentient virtual beings. It would all seem to us to be physical and in no way different from how it currently does. In this analogical context what I address is not the objects, people, places, events, sights, sounds, shapes, qualities, etc within the VR universe.

What I try to describe and model is the computational process, the logic of the simulator, the simulation process in action, the structure of the model that is animated, the low-level virtual processes and forms that arise within the VR, how these integrate and evolve into complex systems, how the behaviour of these gives rise to the principles of physics, how some of these complex systems may attain sentience and enquire into the nature of their situation, how they can most effectively achieve this, what they will find when they do and how does this whole situation relate to mystic wisdom and what it describes about reality.

What these virtual beings eventually realise is that ultimately they are not physical beings in a physical universe with individual identities, they are motions of a cosmic whole that is non-dual, non-physical, non-local, non-temporal, imperceivable, all pervading and the animating essence of all things.

Furthermore, there is a persistent cognitive habit that causes them to perceive and experience things from a dualist perspective. When this is recognised and its dominance over the mind is overcome, then reality can be apprehended clearly. Although it is not perceptible to their senses, it can be intuitively apprehended in no uncertain terms because it is the inner most essence of their being.

This underlying reality, beneath the film of appearances can be modelled mathematically and understood scientifically, thus providing a solid foundation for a unified holistic science/spirituality.

First see this memetic map of areas of interest.

Here is a general introduction, it's a bit dated but it paints an overall picture of my line of research. Here is a CV or rough chronological list of primary influences.

Here are various overview articles.

The main results so far and the main essay describing the world view implied by the results.

Here are a few brief articles...  More >

Below are extracts from the Lankavatara Sutra that are related to naïve realism, information theoretic metaphysics and self-realisation.

All that is seen in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things in the world are like a dream, or like an image miraculously projected. This is not comprehended by philosophers and the ignorant, but those who thus see things, see them truthfully. Those who see things otherwise walk in discrimination, they cling to dualism. The world as seen by discrimination is like seeing ones own image reflected in a mirror, or ones shadow, or the moon reflected in water, or an echo heard in a valley.

People grasping their own shadows of discrimination become attached to this thing and that thing and failing to abandon dualism they go on forever discriminating and thus never attain tranquillity. By tranquillity is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realisable only within ones inmost consciousness...  More >

The distilled essence of my input to a conversation on the forum of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE), which is still continuing so this will grow.

Within the latest SSE newsletter there is an article called "Signs of an Emerging Paradigm Shift", which is about naive realism. The newsletter can be read at: http://www.scientificexploration.org/explorer/explorer_22_3.pdf

The relevance of these issues for SSE is that naive realist assumptions are the foundation of the wall of denial that is maintained by established science. Thus by overcoming these assumptions that wall is falling apart. This has profoundly revolutionary consequences for the whole of civilisation, and SSE is in a prime position to be at the vanguard of the paradigm shift if it chooses to be.

Warning: This discussion explores an alternate paradigm that is radically different from the established paradigm. For many people the established paradigm is intrinsic to the familiar world that they have known most of their lives and within which their ego has found its comfortable and secure niche. So be warned that this subject matter can elicit an unconscious irrational ego defence mechanism within your mind. To keep an open mind one must exercise self-awareness and from this much can also be learnt.

Enter the discussion...

I have been very busy lately and not posting much at all so here is a quick update...

I recently wrote an article for The Explorer, which is the newsletter of the Society for Scientific Exploration. The newsletter has yet to be published but you can read the article here:
Signs of an Emerging Paradigm Shift.

I am also writing a book. It is a detailed explanation of the core principles of my work. In style, the book is somewhere between a popular science book, an introductory textbook on advanced mathematics and an introductory treatise on abstract metaphysics. Part one is complete and the last part is coming soon. You can read part one here:
System Science of Virtual Reality: Toward the Unification of Empirical and Subjective Science.

Right now I am mostly involved in a fascinating online conversation about naïve realism, its ramifications, its role in the global systemic crisis and how to overcome it for the sake of us all... If you have an interest in this subject then check out STAR for some background information.

The essay Changing How we think for the sake of all describes my input to that conversation. The comments have been arranged and edited into a single essay that expresses the vision that I am sharing in the conversation.

Before I start I will mention that this explanation has been simplified into common sense (naïve realist) language hence it doesn't accurately convey what I think but it is adequate. The points are not random but develop in sequence.  More >

Let us begin with the proposition that:

1. Consciousness is fundamental and universal.

2. The individual self is not unitary.

3. The world is not an illusion as in 'unreal' but is an illusion in that it is not as it appears to be.

Clarification of (1 and 2): Many millions of people have successfully performed the experiment of deep meditation and attained the realisation that everyday consciousness is a complex self-propelling system of thoughts, emotions, day-dreams and so on which self organise into a personality, but beneath this there is a level of pure awareness that is often called the watcher or the seer. This deeper level transcends the individual personality and has its source in an underlying universal consciousness.

It is this level of consciousness that is proposed to be fundamental and universal. Let us call this level of consciousness pure-awareness and the more complex levels of consciousness can be called mind. Think of pure-awareness as a thread of consciousness and mind as a complex dynamic knot of pure-awareness.

Clarification of (3): Whilst the world appears within the mind as objects and events within space and time, these are the appearances of things but not their deeper reality. As the many streams of pure-awareness interact they produce in each other the contents of consciousness (phenomena) and thereby each stream of consciousness experiences a phenomenal world. But that world is an interpretation of the contents of consciousness whereas the actual reality is a field of interacting pure-awareness that are part of a single unified process.

This sounds rather counter-intuitive to many people who are habituated to a common sense realist (naïve realist) world-view – however it does make sense. Furthermore, given its explanatory power and ontological simplicity Occam's razor would fall in its favour.

Is there some comprehensible model or analogy through which we can make sense of these propositions? We cannot use models involving objects and events in space and time so are there any other known models we can use?

How about virtual reality – not the current technology of VR where a physical human is tricked into perceiving a virtual world, but rather a simulated universe within which simulated systems exist and experience that universe from within. I will be considering a particular type of reality generative simulator called SMN. The idea that reality may be virtual is growing in acceptance and becoming a compelling world-view, hence here we look at its spiritual implications. For an introduction to the scientific approach to the subject see the article God Is the Machine and A Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.  More >

Some comments inspired by two fascinating essays written by David Chalmers, The Puzzle of Conscious Experience and Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.

The “hard problem of consciousness” is the issue of why is it that we experience anything at all, or why is it that there is something that it is like to be something? The reason why this problem is intractable to empirical science is because in its philosophical foundations empiricism takes the contents of experience (phenomena) to be the foundation of its ontology, upon which all its later knowledge depends.

However it is impossible to use the contents of experience to construct a theory of experience because, in a causal sense, experience precedes the contents of experience. Empirical science studies phenomena, their perceivable attributes, behaviours and functional relationships hence it can explain much of the functional aspects of consciousness such as how do we integrate information from many sources into a coherent knowledge base or how can we verbalise our internal states (the easy problems of consciousness) but it cannot explain experience itself (the hard problem).

However, empirical science is not the whole of science. There are rationalist methods which, as quantum physics shows, can be very accurate (quantum physics is by far the most accurate science ever developed and it has rationalist rather than empiricist foundations). Rationalist approaches must eventually connect with, and be verified by their correspondence with the objects of experience, however these are not their starting point. They take a rational theoretical model as their ontological foundation and only when this foundation later connects with experience are they considered to be verified. It is conceivable that a rationalist theory could overcome the limitations of empiricism and provide a scientific explanation of conscious experience.  More >

Lately my focus has been primarily on inner work hence there has been very little published for a while. But below are some links to some recent work.

Unification of Science: A brief outline of the path towards unifying introspective science (Eastern spirituality) and empirical science (Western science).

Roots of Meaning: an essay on meaning, conditioning and misunderstanding - proposes a way to overcome entrenched misunderstanding.

Perception, Cognition & Communication Ontology: to help clearly reason about what we experience, think and say.

Exploratory Analysis of Naive and Unified Realism: uses the PCC ontology to clearly explain the difference between naive and unified realism.

SMN Latest Version: Introduces the latest version of the SMN general system simulator.

How Does SMN Work: Introduction to the details of how the SMN algorithm works.

SMN Ontology: An ontology showing the logical structure of the SMN algorithm.

SMN System Modelling Using Ontologies: A tutorial introducing the idea of using ontologies to create system models that can be immediately simulated in SMN.

STAR: STriking at the Roots - a proposal for a project to identify the root causes of systemic social dysfunction throughout history and work towards rectifying the situation.

I have also brought an end to the experiment with public discussion of these issues, it has not been successful, hence there are no more public comments on this blog. If you wish to discuss these things then email me.