Genesis Ultima

Genesis Ultima, Latin for "Ultimate Beginning," is the name given to the hypothetical beginning of not just reality and eternity, but of all realities and eternities.

The question of whether there was an "ultimate beginning" is considered a Verum Ex Logica problem with Doctrina Ultra suggesting such a beginning is logically unlikely given that if there were one, you should rationally expect there to have been more than one.

a new universe born from the ashes of this one or a fundamental interplay of energy or what have you?

The only reason this declaration should be compelling is because you are experiencing sensations and therefore know the experience of sensations to exist. This wouldn't change whether all of reality were ultimately a digital simulation or a cosmic symphony of quantum fluctuations.

Assume there are two realities: one is a computer simulation and the other is a "real" world comprised of atoms and quantum fields.

Let's say your reality happens to be the computer simulation and therefore, you are in this simulation. That doesn't change that as long as you are experiencing existence, that something which can experience exists and that thing being you means that you exist. As such, whether this simulated world works out such that your life is full of happiness and joy or misery and pain is something that for you is of great import.

It doesn't matter if the underlying structure is ultimately comprised of atoms or some code cascading in vertical streams like in The Matrix. If you experience the sight of colors, the taste food, the passage of time or you feel pain, or pleasure, or emotions, then what difference does it make if the reality that underpins your existence is one base substrate or another?

Now imagine a real universe made of atoms and quantum fields with similar biological machines that do not experience existence at all. They have inputs that result in outputs and thus the machinations exist to facilitate this process, but there is no being that exists in this "real" universe that is literally experiencing its own existence.

There is "no one there" to see the colors, or taste the food, or experience the joy or the pain, or anything at all - there is only an unconscious process that produces outputs from inputs.

You may think this is an arbitrary distinction until you are given the choice as to which universe you'd rather be eaten by a lion in.

In the simulated universe in which you viscerally experience existence, you will go through the horrors and excruciating pain of being eaten alive. In the "real" universe of atoms and quantum fields where nothing is experienced - atoms are simply being shuffled around by the voracious act of one complex machine deconstructing and absorbing another.

Nevertheless, one can never fully rule out the possibility (however remote) that our results are not merely the product of a miraculous string of lucky outcomes, fooling us into believing something is true when, in fact, it’s not.

This isn’t even accounting for the dark-horse possibilities (again, however unlikely) that we are contending with an all-powerful trickster, like Descartes’ demon, or that our reality is unfolding within a simulation specifically designed to obscure the truth.

Genesis Ultima

See Also