A pair of physicists from the Baltic Federal University Immanuel Kant (IKBFU) in Russia have proposed an entirely new view of the cosmos. Their research combines the extravagant conclusion that we are living in a computer simulation with the "many worlds" theory.
The result of the speculation developed by the two physicists is that, essentially, our entire universe is part of a quantum computer. Moreover, of an immeasurably large quantum computer that embraces "innumerable" multiverses.
Quantum systems, a bit like Google's quantum computer with which the Mountain View company claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy". These are devices designed to work with subatomic particles (qubits) that perform quantum computations.
Today these computers are used more than anything else to design the computer science of the future, but once they are “fully operational” they could one day perform calculations so advanced as to be inconceivable not only for humans, but also for today's computers themselves.
Artyam Yurov e Valerian Yurov, the IKBFU researchers behind the above study, have their own quantum cosmology. They argue that everything in the universe, including the universe itself, should be viewed as a quantum object. This means that to experience "quantum reality" we don't need to look at subatomic particles or qubits: we are already there. Everything is quantum!
The study of the two Russian physicists
Yurov and Yurov begin their paper with an already strong statement. First, because Russian computers are far from being quantum computers. Second, because they claim to have overturned the major views of theoretical physics:
“We present a new quantum view of cosmology, based on the quantum model proposed by Michael and Hall. Based on the idea of that model we finitely consider many classical homogeneous and isotropic universes whose evolutions are determined by the standard Einstein-Friedmann equations but which also interact with each other quantum mechanically. "
The paper goes on to mathematically describe how our entire universe is itself a quantum object. This means that, like a tiny subatomic particle, it exhibits quantum properties that should include superposition. On the theoretical level, our universe can be simultaneously in different places and in different states.
That's not all: our universe would not only be able to be in more than one place or state at a time, but it would have such mechanics that it could also interact with itself in multiple states at the same time. And this is starting to overtake MY calculation skills.
Infinite universes, or infinite states of a single universe, interacting with each other.
The problem with expanding quantum mechanics onto large objects (like saying a single cell) is that other theoretical quantum features stop making more sense. At a certain point the "possibilities" of being anywhere and in any way vanish to make room for a specific object, in a specific state.
In this case the "quantum maturity", Or the way quantum objects" collapse "from multiple states to the physical state we see in our classical observations, does not seem to work on a scale as large as the cosmic one.
Yurov and Yurov have a simple solution for this: they unequivocally affirm in their work that simply "decoherence does not exist".
The lead author of the study Artyom Yurov said: “I myself was skeptical of the idea. Because it is known that the larger a body, the faster it collapses. A bacterium also collapses very quickly, and here we are talking about something much larger than a bacterium. We are talking about a quantum body. We are talking about the whole universe".
But the more the Yurovs explored the "many interacting worlds" (MIW) theory that all quantum functions physically manifest themselves in alternative realities (the cat died on one world, I live on another, on yet another Futuroprossimo law etc. etc.), the more they realized that not only theory makes sense, but mathematics and science seem to work better if everything, including the universe as a whole, is assumed to have quantum characteristics. From the quantum world to the quantum universe, to put it briefly.
Many universes, all connected in a quantum computer
The researchers then used their assumptions to come up with calculations that expanded the "many worlds" theory to include more universes. The big idea behind this quantum cosmology is that if the universe is a quantum object it has to interact with something and that something is probably other universes.
What the research does not explain (or more likely it's me who can't get there) it is WHY our universe and everything that exists would exist as something analogous to a single qubit in a giant quantum computer traversing multiple universes at once. If humans are not the magical watchers causing the quantum universe to “collapse” into tangible classical reality, we could be cogs in the machine ourselves.
Maybe the universe is a qubit, maybe we are the qubits. Maybe we are just noise that universes ignore as they do their calculations.
Maybe it's true after all, we live in the simulation of a mega quantum computer. Except instead of being an advanced creature's favorite games, we'd just be some math aspects that help the operating system run.