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For some background context see the articles: Virtual Reality Analogy Alongside Science and Mysticism,   Correspondences with Ancient Metaphysical Paradigms,   Survey of Ancient Traditions and also see Metaphysical Context.

Some possible parallels between the computational metaphysical analogy and Vedic metaphysics could be summarised as:

In this table we see that Hiranyagarbha may be analogous to the SMN information process itself, which is the simulation program, that manages all information flows, which underlie all interactions within the virtual reality.

When I suggest that the world is 'virtual', this is different from 'illusion'. It does not suggest any kind of unreality, but instead it suggests an experiential reality that arises from an underlying ongoing-process-of-the-real that is beyond all experience. There are real experiences but that which is experienced is not truly what it seems to be. That which is experienced is an unconscious interpretation (naïve realism) of some underlying phenomenon (information process or spirit-in-motion) and is not the underlying phenomenon itself.

Here I am, writing this article, and here you are reading it, but this is just one interpretation of the situation and whilst it is the most common interpretation I would suggest that it is not the most accurate nor the most useful one.

Beneath the appearance of all forms there is an “underlying sea of interactions” that has deep transcendent roots. This sea of interactions underlies the sight within seeing and the qualities of the seen. It cannot itself be seen and it itself is without qualities in that sense. The mathematics of SMN models the underlying sea of interactions and from this arises a world of forms within which systems experience each other as objects in space and time.

The coherence of the mathematics has been tested by being implemented as various simple computer programs and they generates virtual realities with deep metaphysical properties. This type of virtual reality is unlike current technological manifestations of virtual reality, which are only ad hoc fabrications of surface appearances, whilst the virtual realities arising from the mathematics have deep inner processes that arise from a unified Source.

From the perspective of the systems that exist within such a virtual world, the underlying sea of interactions seems utterly unavailing, incomprehensible, without any form or feature that they can comprehend. It is all pervading, all powerful, impersonal, beyond all time and space. It animates all things and there is nothing that is not a direct manifestation of it. The outer form (bhur), the inner experience (bhuva) and the innermost awareness (svaha) of these systems are all the 'play' of the underlying sea of interactions.

If a system within such a virtual world sought to understand its situation it could look without and would eventually encounter the quantum realm where all things are quantised and non-local. Or it could look within and work through its experiential realm and eventually encounter the stream of pure awareness that animates itself and all things in its world.

From a perspective that is embedded within the virtual world the system could realise the sea of interactions as its true nature and as the universal Source, but it could not discern anything else about the sea of interactions. As an example of why we cannot know, consider a character in a computer game (even if endowed with full sentient AI), it is fundamentally unable to comprehend the nature of the computer that is animating its world. There are no interaction channels through which information can flow to inform this character of the brand of computer, or its location in our space and so on. It can only experience things from 'within' the computational space.

When the virtual reality analogy is applied to our situation, there is no physical computer, there is only a unified computational space, a space of pure interactions or cosmic information processes. Whilst we cannot ever comprehend the true nature of that space, there are things that can be known.

However, a system within a virtual world has a mind that is conditioned by its experiences within that world and it uses language and analogy that is derived from worldly experience. But the computational space is totally beyond all such worldly concepts and cannot be comprehended in terms of these concepts. Hence it is true that the computational space is utterly incomprehensible to them from their perspective “within the world”.

But if such beings developed their own computational technology and received certain insights that enabled them to create their own sub-information-processes that then gave rise to sub-virtual-worlds, into which they didn't have an empirical perspective, but instead they had a transcendent perspective, then from that perspective there are things that they can know about the sub-situation, which they can then use to help them comprehend their own situation.

Any understandings that these virtual beings gain through this process could not be accurately conveyed in language and analogy because these draw their meaning from memory associations derived through experiences within the world. But this is where mathematics is useful. It is the language of pure information.

For example, if I introduce the word 'apple' or the analogy of “eating an apple” then these have no meaning unless the listener has had previous experiences with such things. But in mathematics it is different, when I introduce the variable 'x' or the function y = f(x) these have no prior meaning and any attempt to give them meaning based on memory associations and prior experience will lead to difficulty. They are pure symbols without any intrinsic connection to worldly concepts. The only meaning that they have arises from the network of interactions that they participate in within the mathematical context.

This is why many people have difficulty with mathematics. Their mind is wondering “what do these symbols mean” when the meaning can only be discerned through a comprehension of the subtle patterns of connections between the symbols themselves, all of which have no intrinsic meaning other than their role within the pattern of connections.

I do not make the mistake of naively equating this mathematical approach with reality but I have yet to find the limit of its usefulness as an analogy by which to expand my understanding. For me it has served as a master key that has unlocked the deepest of mystic wisdom from all traditions that I have yet to encounter. I am still testing the idea, hence I raise these ideas to see what others can make of them from their perspective.

I feel that this analogy is one possible way that the fundamental principles of Eastern / Western and mystic / scientific can be unified and widely understood by the modern world.

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