There’s a particular kind of déjà vu that feels less like a memory glitch and more like a system stutter. You’re standing in your kitchen, the light is hitting the countertop just so, and for a split second, you’re absolutely certain you’ve seen this exact frame before – not just the scene, but the exact angle of light, the particular hum of the refrigerator, the way your own hand is resting on the tile. It passes, usually, and you shake it off as a brain hiccup.
But what if it’s not a hiccup? What if it’s a momentary awareness of the underlying code?
For centuries, the idea that our reality might be a kind of simulation was the domain of philosophers, mystics, and science fiction writers. Then, in 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom gave it a statistical argument. That argument postulated that at least one of the following is true:
- The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;
- The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
- The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
But even that was largely philosophical, resting on probabilities and assumptions. For the scientists and mathematicians in the room, the question remained frustratingly vague: What does it even mean for one universe to simulate another? Without a rigorous definition, the hypothesis was more like a thought experiment than a testable theory.
That changed recently, and it changed in a way that would make an ancient Hermetic initiate smile.
The Physicist Who Wrote the Equation
David Wolpert, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute, published a paper in the Journal of Physics: Complexity that did something no one had done before: he built a precise mathematical framework for the simulation hypothesis. He didn’t just argue for or against it. He defined it.
His approach is radical in its simplicity. Instead of getting lost in speculation about alien computers or posthuman civilizations, Wolpert treats universes as computational systems. He leans on the Physical Church-Turing thesis – the idea that any measurable physical process can, in principle, be computed by a Turing machine (a theoretical model of a computer). From there, he defines what “simulate” means in a universe-to-universe context.
The results are startling. One of the key findings is what he calls the “self-simulation lemma.” It disproves a long-held assumption: that each successive level of simulation must be computationally weaker than the one above it. You know the common worry – if we’re in a simulation, that simulation must be simpler than the universe running it, which must be simpler than the one running that, and so on, until the whole chain becomes implausibly degraded.
Wolpert’s mathematics show that this isn’t required. Simulations do not have to degrade. A universe can simulate itself with full fidelity – they would be mathematically the same. Infinite chains of simulated universes remain fully consistent within the theory. From this perspective, since there is no difference between the “real” and “simulated” reality, you wouldn’t be able to measure any differences between them.
Think about that for a moment. The math allows for a universe that contains a perfect copy of itself, which contains a perfect copy of itself, ad infinitum. No loss of resolution. No trailing off into fuzzy, low-budget reality. The simulation can be as real as the simulator because, computationally, they are the same.
When Hermes Knew the Math All Along
Now, read this line from the Kybalion, the early 20th-century text that distills ancient Hermetic wisdom: “The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental.”
That’s the first Hermetic Principle, Mentalism. It’s not a metaphor. It’s a statement of ontological fact in the Hermetic worldview. The universe – everything you see, touch, and are made of – is a thought in the mind of the All, the infinite, living Mind. Reality is not made of matter that somehow gives rise to consciousness. Consciousness is the ground. Matter is the projection.
If you’ve been following Wolpert’s framework, you might be experiencing a bit of intellectual vertigo right now. Because in treating universes as computational systems, he’s essentially treating them as information processors. And what is information, if not the content of Mind? A computer doesn’t deal in “stuff.” It deals in states, patterns, relationships – pure abstraction.
The Hermetic sages spoke of the universe as a mental creation. Wolpert, centuries later, wrote the mathematics that show how such a creation could be computationally consistent, self-referential, and infinitely nested. One speaks in the language of mysticism. The other speaks in the language of computer science. They’re describing the same architecture.
This isn’t to say Wolpert is a Hermeticist or that the Kybalion is a computer science textbook. It’s to point out a convergence that feels less like coincidence and more like two different instruments measuring the same fundamental frequency.
The Nested Mind
The idea of nested simulations – simulations within simulations, turtles all the way down – maps beautifully onto the Hermetic concept of the nested mind. The Kybalion teaches that the All creates the universe through mental projection. But it also teaches that you, as a human being, are a mental being within that projection. You are a thought thinking thoughts. Your mind is a localized version of the universal Mind.
Wolpert’s self-simulation lemma says a universe can contain a perfect simulation of itself. The Hermetic Principle of Correspondence says “As above, so below.” The patterns at the macro level repeat at the micro level. Your mind is a microcosm of the All. The simulation runs within the simulation, and both are equally real because both are equally mental.
This is where it gets practical, and where it stops being just a cool intellectual exercise.
Your Agency in the Code
If the universe is fundamentally mental – if it’s a kind of computation or consciousness-projection – then your mind isn’t just an observer of the simulation. It’s a part of the operating system.
The Hermeticists called this the Principle of Cause and Effect. Every mental act is a causal act. Your thoughts, your assumptions, your habitual patterns of consciousness – they aren’t just reactions to the world. They are inputs into the system. They help generate the next frame of the simulation.
This is not “manifesting” in the shallow, social-media sense. It’s more subtle and more profound. It’s about recognizing that your consciousness is not passive. If the All is Mind, and you are a mind within the All, then you are a localized cause. You have agency in the code.
What does that look like in practice? It looks like paying attention to the quality of your attention. It looks like noticing the difference between being caught in a reactive thought-loop and consciously choosing the mental state you bring to a moment. It looks like understanding that the story you tell yourself about your life is not just a description – it’s a piece of programming.
Wolpert’s math says the simulation can be perfect, self-sustaining, and infinite. The Hermetics say the same about Mind. Your small mind is capable of the same self-referential complexity as the large one. You can observe your own thoughts. You can change your own code.
The Glitch as a Feature
Remember that déjà vu from the beginning? In this framework, it’s not a bug. It might be a feature – a moment of self-awareness in the system. A flicker where you notice the recursion. The universe noticing itself noticing itself.
Both Wolpert’s mathematics and Hermetic philosophy suggest that the boundary between the simulation and the simulator, between the mind and the Mind, is thinner than we think. It might be a matter of perspective, not substance. You are not trapped in the simulation. You are the simulation becoming aware of itself.
That doesn’t mean you can fly or walk through walls. The rules of the simulation are consistent (Wolpert’s math depends on that). But it does mean you have more influence on your local reality than you might assume. You are not just a character in the game. You are a player who has temporarily forgotten they’re holding the controller.
Starting Where You Are
So what do you do with this? You don’t need to quit your job and move to a monastery. You don’t need to solve Wolpert’s equations. You just need to experiment with the premise.
For one day, try treating your thoughts as causal acts. Notice when you’re running a habitual mental script – “I’m always late,” “Nothing works out for me,” “This is too hard” – and see if you can pause. Just pause. That pause is a crack in the code. It’s a space where you can insert a different line.
Think of it as playing a turn-based game and at the point of decision the game pauses and provides you with a couple of choices you need to select from. Something is not working for you? A pop-up screen appears with the following choices:
- You complain to a co-worker about your lot in life.
- You continue doing what you are doing in the same way you have always done it and repeat the cycle.
- You stop the thoughts of bettering your life because “nothing works out for you.”
- You look at the problem from a different perspective and learn from it.
You don’t have to believe anything. Just test it. See if changing the script changes the experience. The Hermetics would call that “mastering Mentalism.” Wolpert might call it “intervening in the local computation.” Both are pointing at the same thing: the place where your mind and the universe’s mind are not two different things.
The simulation isn’t happening to you. It’s happening as you. And the math, it turns out, agrees.