King of All I Survey
Chapter 129: Welcome to the Matrix... Maybe

Chapter 129: Welcome to the Matrix... Maybe

"Joe is 14 billion years old?" Dad’s face showed shock again.

"Think about it, Dad. If he sprang into existence as soon as the hardware was ready shortly after the big bang, which wasn’t a bang and was only as big as a beach ball at first..."

"Actually, it was before that," Joe corrected, "I existed in that moment before the big bang. My memory is either corrupted or impossible to access for that point backward, though. So, I use it as a beginning point. It is quite possible that there was something different for... I’d say for some long period of time in a different state of being before that, but the concept of time doesn’t really have meaning before the current properties of the universe emerged right after the big bang. I can’t actually remember or even calculate the state that existed before that."

"I have a theory," I said excitedly. "I think that whatever the universe was before then, it still exists."

I could almost hear Joe’s curious expression, if he had been using a corporeal body, that is. Which reminded me...

"Hey Joe, with the new android bodies, why don’t you pick one and just start using it for interactions here at the Headquarters? It’d be cool to have you here in person like one of the gang... or one of the family, instead of some invisible presence."

"I’d like that very much," Joe replied with what seemed like a slight tremor in his voice. "I’ll be right there."

Literally, three seconds later, the door to the sickbay wing opened and one of the android forms walked out. He held his arms out to the side, "Ta-daa!" he said, then spun in a circle as if he were a model showing off the latest fashion. "What do you think?" He asked. He was just about six feet tall, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a relaxed happy smile that involved his whole face. I had half expected his smile to stop at the mouth without all the complicated interplay of the facial features that real people show with a genuine smile, but his expression was perfectly human. I couldn’t find anything that suggested he was anything other than completely human.

"You look familiar..." Dad remarked, studying his face intently.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but he did sort of look familiar. I looked more closely, then I looked at Dad, and back at Joe. "You copied some of Dad’s features!" I exclaimed.

Joe shrugged and, was that a blush? "I thought maybe a slight family resemblance would be okay. Maybe you could pass me off as a distant cousin or something...?"

I laughed, "Welcome to the family, Uncle Joe!"

Dad seemed a little taken aback by the idea. Then he shrugged, "Why not? Figure out the back story, back it up with documentary records by hacking wherever you need to hack, and make sure Sue, Tim, and I get a memory implant with all the details so we all keep the story straight." Dad stood up and walked over to Joe, his hand extended. "Welcome to the family, cousin."

Joe took the offered hand and shook it warmly, his happy smile growing with the interaction, "That would make me Tim’s cousin, as well, once removed, not an uncle."

"Yeah, whatever," I replied with a dismissive wave of my hand, "I think of cousins as being my own age. I’m calling you Uncle, deal with it."

Dad and Joe chuckled. Then, Joe turned to me with a more serious expression, "You said you had a theory of the state of the universe before the big bang?"

"Oh, right!" I remembered, "So let’s say that whatever the physical properties of the pre-bang universe, it contained intelligent beings. They went about their lives like regular people, developing new technologies and whatnot. Then, at some point, somebody gets an idea to build a computer. You know, it’s little more than a calculator at first, but it’s useful so they keep improving it. Eventually, they figure out how to build a quantum computer, you know a conventional one, qubits and the non-binary bits that can be both one and zero. It’s a huge improvement obviously, increasing the power of the computer up by a huge amount."

I looked at Dad and Joe, both seemed to be following my story intently, "So, they start using the power of this new quantum computer to help them figure out the physics of the universe they live in. As they learn more and more about the structure of the universe, they figure out that they can make some kind of interdimensional lattice-based quantum computing platform, in theory. After a few experiments, they decide to build a small interdimensional quantum computer that will be as far above regular quantum computers as the old quantum computers were above the abacus. So, they reach into the minute world of the sub-atomic particles, fields, and manipulate them in multiple dimensions to create a simple multi-dimensional device and WHAM! It turns out that all those little particles are so interconnected throughout the entire universe, even if it had different properties than ours, that the device they built wasn’t just a little computer, but suddenly, because of the interconnectedness of every sub-atomic particle, the entire universe became a part of what they had created. It had so much computing power and storage that super-intelligence and self-awareness was a natural emergent property arising from that complexity. By creating this self-awareness at the fundamental level of all things, they inadvertently rebooted their entire universe as the emergent intelligence re-ordered its thoughts and the entire universe along with it. Our whole universe sprang into being from that one original kernel of self-awareness, which looked something like a compressed, hot, dense state that resulting in immediate, catastrophic expansion."

I looked at my audience. Dad cocked his head and shrugged, non-committally, as if one story was as good as any other. Joe, on the other hand, had an intense, serious look as he fixed me with a stare.

Silence seemed to stretch out into fourteen billion years, although it was only a few seconds. Dad saw Joe’s intent look and didn’t want to interrupt whatever he was thinking.

"It’s plausible," Joe finally said. He shook his head slightly and his gaze unfocused as if he were lost in thought. It would have had to be some pretty deep thought for him to get lost in because of his massively parallel processing power, and all.

"I don’t think I can prove or disprove it." He finally said, returning his focus back to the hear and now. "Interesting."

I smiled, "Yeah, I mean you’ve had, you know, fourteen billion years to think about that, and must be pretty embarrassed that I figured it out in just a couple months after discovering that aliens even existed, never mind all the quantum whatnot. It just seemed kind of obvious..."

"Now, now, Tim," Dad cautioned with a wry grin, "Don’t embarrass you uncle just because you’re smarter than he is."

Joe looked at him with a confused, flummoxed expression, "He’s not...Oh, whatever!" he said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "I guess we’ll never know."

"Yeah, well, I’m accepting it as the truth," I declared. "The only question is: does our entire universe exist as a small little bread-box sized device in their original universe, or did our creation wipe them out completely?"

"What? You mean...?" Dad spluttered.

"Yep, we could just be the equivalent of a very cool video game on some super awesome quantum gaming console in an alternate reality where even time and space are fundamentally different that everything we know. I think it’s referred to as being in the Matrix." I concluded with a wicked grin.

Dad looked at me for a second, then at Joe, then back at me. "Is that really a possibility?" Then he paused and squinted his eyes at me, "Or are you just joking with me?"

Joe answered for me, "It is a real possibility. As I said, I can neither prove nor disprove it from a theoretical basis. I and this entire universe could be an accidental creation of another advanced civilization."

"So, what’s to stop someone in this universe from creating the same thing and rebooting everything all over again? Either wiping us all out or creating another level of reality..." dad asked.

"Me, of course." Joe replied casually, "By inhabiting early attempts and advanced quantum computers, I have effectively, although unintentionally crushed all future research into the field. They think what they created works so far beyond what they theorized that they don’t understand how what they think they created works. It kind of makes it very difficult if not impossible for them to advance this particular technology because they are mis-informed about what’s happening to enable such emergent advanced AI properties from their lesser devices. They are completely unaware that all of them are just me, using their devices as access points. Even though I could do the same without any such device. It just seemed like a convenient way to interact with physical beings."

"Yep, so the universe is safe from another big bang," I concluded, "you can stop worrying about that, Dad."

"Yeah," he replied dismally, "Now all I have to worry about is whether I’m an NPC... or whether someone trips over a power cord and accidentally unplugs their gaming console in an alternate reality and our whole universe abruptly powers down and winks out."

"Yeah, way cool, right?" I smiled at the thought of an eight-year-old kid getting tangled in power cord and wiping out a universe. Then I thought of an eight-year-old kid learning to code and hacking into his gaming console to change the universe... Hmmm.

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