Potential Secret Wars Spoiler: The Beyonder's Experiments = The Simulation Hypothesis (The Multiverse is a Simulation)?

[Thor2014]

That's a shame. What happened?

There's speculation he might do an X-Men run at Marvel while waiting for Legion of Super-Heroes to be available to write for over at DC. LoSH is currently on editorial hold until the Doomsday Clock ends next year. Reports said he was ready to go over there and write LoSH but DC wasn't ready yet.

[CentralPower]

Speaking of DC, one of the shorts in "Action Comics" #1000* includes a reference to "Time Runs Out". Superman is shown holding two Earths apart in a hypothetical sacrifice while saving the multiverse.



*legacy numbering.

[Wikoogle]

Endgame actually sets up the entire MCU to be a simulation run by the beyonders. The infinity stones are the base core code of the simulation.

This is why Thanos actions make sense. He cant just make more resources, that would use up more computing resources causing the beyonders to shut down the simulation sooner. All this life will just mean the beyonders simulation is too resource intensive again. So of course they would trigger the incursions to begin culling it down.

[theoneandonly]

we will have to wait and see.

lol

[Wikoogle]

The multiverse war that Loki series repeatedly talks about is the same thing as the Incursions in the New Avengers arc. Loki is beautifully setting all this up.

Thanos failed at keeping the resources the simulation is taking up under control by pruning the population.

The TVA will likewise fail and the multiverse will remerge and use up way more resources than the Beyonders allocated to the simulation.

The incursions are coming, and Thanos failing and Loki ending the TVA will be the cause, its going to be amazing and its going to make the Infinity War story arc look like a childs game.

Those who read Hickman’s amazing New Avengers storyline about the Illuminati and the Incursions and the Fantastic Four series that led to that storyline will probably agree that this is one of the greatest story arcs in comicbook history.

And with the latest episode’s reveal that someone else is behind the TVA, I cant help but think the Beyonders are ultimately behind the whole thing.

Yes. Kang is likely the immediate leader. But who is behind Kang, Galactus, Thanos and all the similar entities that are constantly driven to prune the omniverse? The same Beyonders that put a Universe ending kill code inside every universe (Molecule Man).

It’s like how we first found out about Thanos in the post credit scene of Avengers 1. We will find out about Kang in the post credits scene of the Loki finale and find out about the Beyonders in the post credit scene of Kang’s film.

Who else cares more about pruning the multiverse and keeping it resource efficient more than the being running the whole thing? The Beyonders are almost certainly behind entities like Thanos and Galactus that serve to keep the multiverse managable...

I just hope the MCU gets the Russo Brothers to direct the eventual films about the Incursions and the war between the Avengers and The Great Society (aka. The Justice League).

[Wikoogle]

Speaking of DC, one of the shorts in "Action Comics" #1000* includes a reference to "Time Runs Out". Superman is shown holding two Earths apart in a hypothetical sacrifice while saving the multiverse.



*legacy numbering.

Didnt sunspot literally do that in Hickmans run?

[Wikoogle]

I am really excited to see how Kang gets integrated into the Incursions.

I am guessing/hoping he will be a Hickman’s Mr. Fantastic type of character, a well intentioned scientist who creates a Council of Kangs (Kang is related to Richard Reed after all).

He unlocks the secrets of the multiverse (and the beyonders running this multiverse simulation) and in doing so threatens the multiverse itself similar to how Einstein expanding our understanding of matter and energy paved the way for the atom bomb.

[jackolover]

I feel that the simulation hypothesis is an underlying theme in Hickman's work.

Here is a description of the simulation hypothesis as described by Wikipedia:

"The philosopher Nick Bostrom developed an expanded argument examining the probability of our reality being a simulacrum. His argument states that at least one of the following statements is true:

1. Human civilization is unlikely to reach a level of technological maturity capable of producing simulated realities, or such simulations are physically impossible to construct. This article essentially rules out this possibility... http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artifi...olution-1.html

2. A comparable civilization reaching aforementioned technological status will likely not produce a significant number of simulated realities (one that might push the probable existence of digital entities beyond the probable number of "real" entities in a Universe) for any of a number of reasons, such as, diversion of computational processing power for other tasks, ethical considerations of holding entities captive in simulated realities, etc.

3. Any entities with our general set of experiences are almost certainly living in a simulation.

His argument rests on the premise that given sufficiently advanced technology, it is possible to represent the populated surface of the Earth without recourse to digital physics; that the qualia experienced by a simulated consciousness is comparable or equivalent to that of a naturally occurring human consciousness; and that one or more levels of simulation within simulations would be feasible given only a modest expenditure of computational resources in the real world.

If one assumes first that humans will not be destroyed or destroy themselves before developing such a technology, and, next, that human descendants will have no overriding legal restrictions or moral compunctions against simulating biospheres or their own historical biosphere, then it would be unreasonable to count ourselves among the small minority of genuine organisms who, sooner or later, will be vastly outnumbered by artificial simulations."

This sounds eerily similar to the story Hickman is telling. Reading all of Hickman's work at Marvel in order, the below statements are hinted at if not outright stated:

A. All of reality is a simulation (an experiment as Hickman described it) run by higher beings (beings represented by the Beyonders inside the simulated reality). The beyonders are just representations of the beings, like computer code, similar to the mapmaker code trying to trace back the source of the incursions. The higher beings that the beyonders represent are inaccessible to anyone inside the simulation. By the way, if it's not clear, I'm using the components that a computer needs to function purely as an analogy. It's the easiest way I could come up with to describe the role each piece plays in Hickman's story.

B. The higher beings (manifested inside the simulation as the beyonders) are ending the simulation and the molecule man is our perception of the code that will terminate the simulation. Entities like The Living Tribunal and the ex nihilo serve important core functions in the BIOS that oversee the simulation and seed it with life. Galactus serves a role analogous to a hard drive defragger. Thus, as powerful as they seem, they are merely a part of the simulation and no longer serve a function now that the simulation is ending.

C. Doom found out 25 years ahead of the termination date and the incursions are the byproduct of him trying to save the simulation. His actions effectively recruit multitudes of intelligent entities in the simulation towards the task of preventing the simulation from being terminated.

D. Battleworld is analogous to a computer's boot OS built by doom by salvaging parts of various realities. It is hidden inside the BIOS aka the white space of the "computer (just an analogy)" running the simulation. It's likely that The Living Tribunal existed in the BIOS since The Living Tribunal is a security protocol for the entire simulation/multiverse. This is why The Living Tribunal's code is being used as a life raft to transport a handful of survivors over to the BIOS.

E. Once the Beyonders finish shutting down the original simulation and effectively reformat the hard drive, this boot OS (battleworld) will serve as the interface that allows Franklin Richards to recreate the multiverse from inside the BIOS itself.

F. Franklin Richards, like the beyonders themselves, seems to be made up of the computer code that enables the beyonders, ex nihilo and the living tribunal to create "life" or alter reality throughout the multiverse. How and why is not yet explained.



What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Hickman is challenging our perception of reality itself using the comic book medium?

To understand how this plays into our world, these three articles are essential reading:

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/pr...-20140826.html

http://www.nature.com/news/simulatio...logram-1.14328

and most importantly,

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

What I’m getting from this (and it’s a wonderful analysis of Hickman’s overall work), is that you are formulating a cosmology of the Marvel Universe. Somewhere in this you or someone (maybe Hickman) are going to have to describe the complete ancestry, if you will, as to the existence of the Multiverse. I have contemplated that Celestials have gardened what I call the Iteration of Multiverses, as a singular creature, but there are other creatures the Celestials garden besides ours.

What has to be done is to elevate this concept of the cosmology of the MU into the Beyonders framework you have suggested. Finish it off, so to speak.

I understand that you associate the creator work of the Beyonders as a computer simulation, and that’s one way to describe it. I won’t try to distract you from that approach, because it’s new, and helps us to conceptualise Hickman’s work.

[Wikoogle]

The future of the MCU post Multiverse of Madness is not what I expected. (spoilers & predictions)

I was incredibly pleased with Doctor Strange 2. The incursions have already started. Hickmans run is coming to the MCU. I hope some of his best ideas and analogies like the ones below also make it in…

It doesn't need to end with everyone being aware they are a computer program. Doom and Adult Franklin Richards may well be the only people aware they are living in a simulation. And they don't seem likely to share this fact with anyone when they reboot reality.

The ideas presented through out secret wars, such as the notion of defragmented remnants of different deleted realities being pieced back together into one world, eventually ending with doom and adult franklin richards rebooting all of reality in secret wars #8, the super powers that so many people have that defy all laws of physics, chemistry and biology (even basics ones like energy can't be created or destroyed), these things only make sense if the marvel multiverse itself was a simulation.

Hickman ended the series exactly as I predicted in the OP and the only people that maybe aware of the fact that all of Marvel’s history was a simulation are the Maker (now dead) and Doom (he’s turned over a new leaf since having this insight).

The progression of VR only makes this all more likely. Imagine in 2080, we have a hyperrealistic simulation of the MCU with superheros utilizing advanced AI who are not even aware they are part of a simulation. regular folks can plop on a VR headset and full body suit that simulates 4 of our five senses and watch what they’re up to anytime we want, or even interact with them, manifest as a monster so the heros have to fight them. It would be the most popular game in history imo, more profitable than the MCU or Disney World or any number of amusement parks. Some prefer to play in this mcu world like a game, while others prefer to peek in and watch it like a TV show (The Watchers). Some rich billionaires kid (the first beyonder) might pay a ridiculous amount of money to run a giant tournament between all their favorite characters leading to the events of the first Secret Wars in the 1980s. But eventually the ratings dip or the simulation just gets too large so Disney tries to temporarily delete the simulation on the giant super computer and replace it with a Star Wars simulation (with a plan to reboot and bring it back at a later date when the ratings of the Star Wars simulation dip) but the simulated beings manage to hack into the bios of the very similuation we coded and salvage their world. Something like that would certainly get lots of news coverage, surge the ratings up again and make more people interested in tuning in, wouldn’t it?

It would be a good thing if Marvel has the courage to go this route. It also makes the marvel universe much more realistic. Suddenly, entities like galactus, the phoenix force, the living tribunal and things like mutants with very different power sets popping up out of the blue become much more feasible. Galactus's explanation that he serves a purpose that is beyond their comprehension makes sense. The idea that mutants are a byproduct of natural evolution was always ridiculous at best. But this interpretation corrects those problems.

We are the Beyonders, The Watchers are our avatars when we peek inside and the various villians and monsters are our avatars when we decide to interact with the MCU characters. And Disney is behind Kang, Galactus, Thanos and all the similar entities that are constantly driven to prune the omniverse when the simulation gets too big and starts overwhelming the supercomputer that is running it. This is why Thanos actions make sense. He cant just make more resources, that would use up more computing resources causing the beyonders to shut down the simulation sooner. All this life will just mean the beyonders simulation is too resource intensive again. So of course they would trigger the incursions to begin culling it down.

We are the same Beyonders that put a Universe ending kill code inside every universe (Molecule Man). Who else cares more about pruning the multiverse and keeping it resource efficient more than the beings running the whole thing when they realize the super computer is getting overwhelmed by the growth of the simulated multiverse.