Which is true: creationism, or evolution?

Notice the above question assumes the two concepts to be mutually exclusive. Either creationism must be true, or evolution; both can’t be true. But what if this is a false dichotomy? What if there is a way for both to be true? Is it possible that they only appear to be mutually exclusive, simply due to our impoverished viewpoint and ignorance of the details?

Imagine the following…

It’s the year 2030. Computer technology has advanced to the point where there is now true artificial intelligence — software-based agents who are sentient and possess free will. Computing power is now sufficient to host these agents and also to simulate reality (either the real one or an imagined one) in extreme detail.

You have access to all these technologies and the skills to use them.

You decide to use these abilities to build your own simulated universe. Your creation will appear on the computer screen like a comic book — a series of frames, in time order, each a small interval of time apart¹. You can see many frames at once, or go to any point in time you want (i.e., a particular frame), or play through chosen frames like a movie.

You begin your creation on Monday, June 17, 2030, by choosing some laws of physics and programming them into your blank universe. Now that you’ve done so, if you were to add an object into a particular frame, the laws of physics would automatically show what happens to that object in subsequent frames. For instance, if you draw a planet in orbit around a star, the simulation will fill in subsequent frames to show the planet orbiting the star forever (or until the planet’s orbit decays, or the star goes supernova, or something). You can edit the details — put oceans, rivers, and mountains where you want them on the planet, and so on — and the laws of physics will show the rivers change course over the eons and tectonic activity slowly changing coastlines and mountain ranges.

The laws of physics you’ve chosen are pretty much identical to those of our own universe. You’ve programmed in things like the laws of conservation of mass and energy. So when you draw a planet in orbit around a sun, your simulation not only applies the laws of physics to subsequent frames — it must also apply its laws of physics to previous frames to show how the planet and sun got there. (You can’t just create matter out of nothing; that violates conservation of mass.) Same goes for moons, stars, and everything else you draw in. So the previous frames fill in to show how the star and planet formed out of a rotating stellar disk, which in turn formed from a gas cloud within a galaxy, and so on. Ultimately, your creation backtracks to a simulated “big bang” of some type, about 14 billion year’s worth of frames earlier, to explain the presence of all this matter.

On Saturday, June 22, 2030, you do some more work on your creation. From the point where you first drew the planet and its sun, you flip forward a few frames and insert a person — one of our sentient software-based agents made possible by 2030 computer technology. You give him simulated human characteristics including reproduction, aging, and so on. A few frames later you insert a female version. Because you are horribly unoriginal you name them Adam and Eve.

The simulation must again backtrack in order to preserve conservation of mass (i.e., these two creatures can’t just suddenly appear out of thin air). Pretty quickly it fills in all the previous frames to show how Adam and Eve were born from parents of the same biological stock, which evolved from a slightly more primitive species, and so on, going back to the first simple-celled life forms floating in the oceans, about a billion year’s worth of frames ago.

The simulation fills in all the subsequent frames based on applying the laws of physics and the intelligent agents’ free will. The little software people have no idea that they are artificial entities within a simulated reality; their existence is every bit as “real” to them as yours and mine are to us.

At one particular point, you insert a special type of programmed agent to act as an avatar of yourself (requiring a fancy bit of coding to have him born as the “immaculately conceived” infant of an existing little software person, to avoid violating conservation of mass), just to see what changes your avatar’s actions can have on all the subsequent frames. You can modify your avatar’s actions in a particular frame and literally rewrite history from that point onward, and it’s fun to see what effects you can produce. The introduction of your avatar causes quite a stir in your simulated world, and the little software people come to regard its arrival as Year Zero on their calendar, with all of history being divided up into Before Avatar (BA) and After Avatar (AA). Incidentally, the frame where you first drew the planet and sun happens to be somewhere around 5,000 BA.

Now, some questions.

1. When was the planet created?

Was it created during the week of June 17, 2030?  Or was it created in 5,000 BA? Or 5 billion years BA?

My answer is yes to all of these. You created it, in your timeline, the week of June 17, 2030. In the little software people’s timeline, you created it in 5,000 BA. But from their perspective it is also accurate to say that the planet accreted out of a stellar protoplanetary disk about 5 billion years BA.

2. Should the little software people be expected to know the answer to #1?

No, I really don’t think so. They have no access to your world and your timeline, so they would be unaware of what June 17, 2030 even means. They have no idea that you see their universe as a complete representation from beginning to end, and can see all points in their time at once, like a comic book. Consequently they have no idea that your timeline is any different than theirs, and quite likely they naively impute all the characteristics of their own universe — including their own timeline — upon the realm where you, their creator, reside. They assume that if it’s 5pm on a Thursday in 426 BA in their world, then it’s also 5pm on a Thursday in 426 BA where you, their creator, are. And unless you informed them somehow (by adding in some stone tablets, or perhaps through your avatar), they would have no way to know that you created the world in what they would call 5,000 BA. From their perspective it formed billions of years earlier. And if you did leave them some stone tablets — a “Bible,” per se, informing them of a creation circa 5,000 BA — it would just conflict with the abundant evidence of a much earlier creation and cause confusion. The two options — 5,000 BA and billion of years ago — seem mutually exclusive from their point of view.

In short, the little software people are ignorant of the details of how their universe was created. They have conflicting information, none of which paints the entire picture.

In case it isn’t obvious yet, the preceding is a thinly veiled example of how our own universe could have been created in such a way that reconciles evolution and creationism. If my example or something like it were in fact true, then the whole evolution vs. creationism debate is a false dichotomy. Both would be correct. And we just can’t see it from our impoverished perspective, trapped within this universe, unable to see the details.

So in all my preceding analogy (and admittedly, a weak analogy it is), the “little software people” are really us, and the “you” building a universe is really God.

Which brings me to question #3.

3. Should we be expected to know that we shouldn’t be expected to know the answer to #1?

In other words, should we be expected to be aware of our own ignorance, with respect to how the world was created? Should we be expected to know that both evolution and creationism could both be simultaneously correct? Or, are we metaignorant - ignorant of our own ignorance? In the spirit of critical thinking this is perhaps the most important of the three questions I’m asking. And also, in my opinion, the hardest to answer.

If we are ignorant of our own ignorance then taking a side in the evolution vs. creationism debate is perhaps forgivable; by believing in only creationism or only evolution, we are merely being naive, not arrogant. (Although arguably naivety and arrogance are merely flip-sides of the same coin? A post for a different day, I think.) (And also, those who believe in creationism while disbelieving in evolution are engaged in denial and delusional thinking, as I posted about here.) It probably never occurred to anyone engaged in the debate that it could be a false dichotomy. If on the other hand we should know better, then we are being intellectually arrogant, which is inexcusable for a critical thinker. (Although the atheist, who on rational grounds does not believe in God in the first place, is excused here.)

Thoughts/comments/questions?

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¹ Many physicists have proposed that the nature of time in our own universe is quantized, i.e., discrete rather than continuous. If this theory is correct, then time in fact passes through a series of distinct “nows” similar to a comic book, with the frames one chronon apart. This smallest possible unit of time — the chronon — is something like 10^-24 seconds long.