hat would other universes be like? We take for granted that existence
presupposes a logical sequence of events in time, ruled by cause
and effect. But this is not necessarily the case.
The nature of cause and effect is that the past is unchangeable. This is essential for the defining characteristic of our world, which is that it is possible to create things. But it’s easy to imagine a world where one can go back in time and undo all the mistakes in one’s life.
Religious people sometimes argue that fundamental laws of thinking such as logical deduction and the law of the excluded middle were created by a deity. The laws would still exist, they say, even if the universe did not.
But this is not necessarily so. Our understanding of cause and effect isn’t innate. Children must learn, for example, that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight and out of consciousness by noticing that it would be impossible for an object to jump instantaneously to its new location. Therefore, they reason, the object must continue to exist even when not being observed. Babies have to learn from trial and error that specific behaviors lead to specific results.
It would be easy for a child to learn the rules governing any conceivable universe, even one without cause and effect, provided that some other way existed for memories to be formed and retrieved.
Many philosophers have tried to examine facts of nature like the finite speed of light or the mysteries of quantum mechanics as evidence suggesting the world isn’t real. But there’s a compelling reason why this type of reasoning cannot work.
Suppose an evil deceptive Programmer decided it was essential that we believed the world was real. The Programmer would not leave clues lying around that could be easily explained. For instance, the the fact that all atoms of hydrogen are identical could mean, as philosophers say, that the Programmer tried to save memory space by making copies of a single atom; but it’s just as easy to explain it by invoking laws of nature.
A better way would be to program us in such a way that if we somehow figured out the true nature of the universe, we would not be able to remember it. And it turns out that this is exactly what we have.
The human brain generates a narrative that is necessary for retaining and integrating analytical knowledge. If some insight doesn’t fit in with the brain’s narrative, we are unable to remember it. There are many examples: random nonsense words are harder to remember than meaningful ones. Scientific theories cannot just jump to the conclusion, but must be built step by step. Most dreams are quickly forgotten because they make no sense to the brain. But the most compelling reason is those moments that everyone has at some point in their life when they figure out some difficult problem.
The solution appears in one’s head only for an instant. Knowing that we’ll forget it again, we might try to index it, for instance by generating some keyword that reminds us. If we could fit it into a religious or scientific context, remembering it would be easy: we might say, for instance, that daemons did this or that, or that there might be a new subatomic particle. But if it cannot be integrated into the brain’s pre-existing narrative of how the universe works, it is impossible to remember for more than an instant.
This happens routinely even for ordinary problems. I once realized in a flash how to design a certain computer algorithm. At that moment, someone knocked on my door and interrupted me. After I got rid of them (and probably was a bit rude), I thought the solution must have been wrong and wouldn’t work. It took a week to figure out that it was actually the only solution.
Another clue would be that if we managed to write it down in the form of an utterly compelling argument, the file would mysteriously disappear from our computer, as if had we unconsciously deleted it. This is the third version of this damn article that I’ve had to reconstruct.
Well, maybe I dreamed that I wrote the article twice before. Some psychologists claim that nobody ever sees a cell phone, numbers, words, smells, tastes, or our reflections in a dream. It is not true. I can’t remember how many times I read some interesting scientific paper in a dream, then was unable to find the reference after waking up.
The article says:
When written documents do appear in dreams, people often report that the text is reduced to nonsense or abstract symbols. Even though some people remember being able to understand what this text said, cases of reading actual text in dreams are extremely rare.
I wish. It happens to me all the time and it is very annoying. Anyway, I’m posting this article before it disappears again. Assuming, of course, I’m not dreaming being online. And assuming that “online” really exists.
nov 17 2025, 6:12 am
