Zhuangzi Dreams of a Butterfly
One day, Zhuangzi is taking a nap and begins to dream. In his dream, he is a butterfly. What is the butterfly doing in the dream? The butterfly is also taking a nap and dreaming. The butterfly dreams that he is Zhuangzi. And what is Zhuangzi doing in that dream? He is taking a nap and dreaming. And in that dream he is again a butterfly. And that butterfly is taking a nap. And on and on and on.
All of a sudden the original Zhuangzi wakes up and asks himself a very serious question, “Am I real or am I just a Zhuangzi in a dream of the butterfly who is dreaming me?”
My tai chi teacher, Gaofei Yan, explores this Taoist concept of the Multi-verse. In these multiple layers of the universe, Am I the dreamer or the dreamed? The ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher, Zhuangzi (sometimes spelled Chuang Tzu), contemplated this long before Elon Musk and The Matrix movie.
Article reprinted below with permission of the author, Gaofei Yan, originally written September 2018.
Elon Musk’s Views on a Simulated Reality are Way Out There, but Taoism Doesn’t Think That’s Far Enough
~ by Gaofei Yan with Todd Plager
Elon Musk stated in an interview that our world is a simulation created by other beings who possess technology that is far beyond ours.
The media immediately pounced on this with most drawing a direct connection from Musk’s comments to the storyline in “The Matrix”, the 1999 science fiction film. They asked, “Are we trapped in a real-life Matrix?” The views Musk presented in the interview have stirred up a great debate as to the nature of reality and most people would certainly not accept this idea as the truth.
Upon reading the article I couldn’t help but laugh again. I remember watching the first “Matrix” movie. In the movie, the world Neo inhabits is a simulation (say S1) created and based upon the physics and characteristics of the real world (say R1).
My first reaction to this was that Hollywood had finally caught up to a 2300-year-old Taoist master, Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi expressed this Taoist view of the universe in his book – that our world is but one layer of countless layers. While I enjoyed the story, I hoped that any sequel to the film would provide an explanation for how humans and advanced computer programs could finally have a true peace and why Neo is able to be “The One”.
Because the physics of the simulation world S1, are based upon the physics of the real world R1, it should be apparent that the humans in S1 will repeat the same things that happened in R1. Humans in this simulation world would again be taken over by programs, be put into tubes, and inserted into another simulation (say S2), which was created by the S1 simulation world programs. This process would repeat itself continuously and never end.
The logical inference can also go in another direction: how do we know that real world R1 isn’t just a simulation created by a prior “reality” that we could call R2 and so on?
If the Matrix movies had explored and explained this concept they would have approached the same level of exploration that Zhuangzi did 2300 years ago. Unfortunately, the sequels to The Matrix didn’t continue their own logic that was set up in the first movie. They stopped with R1 and S1 and then turned the rest into an action movie. It was fun to watch, but only scratched the surface of this deep philosophical topic.
Taoists not only agree with Musk’s idea that we might be in a simulation world, but think he didn’t go far enough. Perhaps the next time he should smoke a bit more pot, be a bit “crazier”, and go a bit further “down the rabbit hole”. Of course I’m only partially kidding.
Ancient Chinese Taoist practice holds that the universe is comprised of infinite layers. In the traditional Taoist view of the universe, the simulation world humans are in now, is a simulation created by a prior simulation, and so on to forever. Additionally, humans are also doing the same thing in the other direction.
Taoists believe that they have a training method that enables a being from R1 to travel to R2 and “back”, or to S1 and “forward”, through as many layers as they want. This is really an ultimate level of freedom and real eternal life, and an escape from being trapped in a “Matrix” world. Someone who can do this will gain great ability and superhuman power in and through the different layers of each world. It’s very much like a computer game developer who can define whatever characteristics his characters possess. This is what I wanted to see in the sequels to The Matrix; an explanation of Neo’s supernatural ability. And once he figures out the way to travel to the many layers of these worlds, he can fix the computer problem and find a real solution for humans who are confined underground in the city of “Zion”.
Finally, here’s how Zhuangzi expressed this idea, on the countless layers of our simulated world, with the story, “Zhuangzi Dreaming of Butterflies” from his book in a chapter called, “On the Uniformity of All Things (Qi Wu Lun)”.
One day Zhuangzi (say Z1) was taking a nap and dreaming. In his dream he is a butterfly (say B1). What is the butterfly B1 doing in the dream? The butterfly B1 is also taking a nap and dreaming. In that dream, the butterfly B1 dreams that he is Zhuangzi (say Z2.) And what is Zhuangzi Z2 doing in that dream? He is taking a nap and dreaming. And in that dream he is again a butterfly, say B2. And that butterfly B2 is taking a nap. And on and on.
All of a sudden the original Zhuangzi Z1 wakes up and he asks himself a very serious question, “Am I real or am I just a Zhuangzi in a dream of the butterfly B0 who is dreaming me?”
By Lu Zhi – Upload of December 2007: http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/taoism/butterfly.html
Ming dynasty painting on Zhuangzi having a dream of a butterfly.
Books about Zhuangzi
