The Experiments

Here you will find video summaries of each of the wave-particle duality experiments that CUSAC intends to perform. The goal of these experiments is to find out whether or not our universe is strictly 'Participatory' - meaning without a player, it doesn't exist, much like in a video game.

Conceptual Approach
Campbell has designed the experiments so that they might collectively answer the question: Do we live in a virtual reality? Using the analogy between physical reality and video games (virtual reality), they are based on the following assumptions:

1. The system performing the simulation (in either physical reality or virtual reality) is finite: it has limited information processing resources no matter how great those resources may be. All video games have finite resources and currently accepted quantum theory supports the finite nature of physical reality.

2. To achieve low computational complexity (due to finite resources) such a system would, as in a video game system, render the content only at the moment when the required information becomes available to the player.

3. In a video game, the (game box) processor cannot be part of the virtual reality it is creating. It follows that if physical reality is a simulation, the computations required to create the physical reality cannot be determined by mechanisms that are part of the physical reality created.

Guided by these assumptions, the experiments describe variations of the universally accepted wave/particle duality experiment (double-slit experiment). When successfully performed, they will test whether our currently accepted concept of physical reality will respond as if it were a simulation (virtual reality). If reality does respond to these experiments as only a simulation (virtual reality) could, and if there is no other hypothesis which can explain the experimental results, then the logical conclusion is that our reality is, in fact, a simulation (virtual reality).

NOTE: Diving headlong into these experiments can be daunting. We suggest taking a look at our Videos page first to help wrap your head around this material first, and then coming back to this page. To fully appreciate the theory and methodology, please see the original paper 'On Testing the Simulation Theory.' You can also learn more by visiting Campbell's official website. 

Remember, an experiment resolves conjecture – our goal is to turn these conjectures about simulated reality and consciousness into facts via experimentation. Below are some of the proposed areas of exploration for our experiments.