Anagrams as Easter Eggs?

Are we really just characters in a work of fiction? If so, how would we know?

Laugh all you want – but let’s be honest: Doesn’t it sometimes feel that way? As if the stuff happening around us is too bizarre to be real? As if our daily headlines and sound bites are being composed by some satirist with a wickedly warped sense of humor?

There are smart scientists and engineers seriously flirting with this notion. Let’s dig deeper.

The Simulation Scenario

First, there’s no one (so far as I know) arguing that we’re nothing more than characters on the pages of a printed book. It’s hard to see how mere ink on paper could manifest conscious entities like ourselves. There’s still the Descartes axiom: “I think, therefore I am.” Clearly we exist, at least in some sense.

But there may be other ways to be a fictional character. Some say it’s at least theoretically possible our environment is a vast computer simulation. (Think of the Star Trek holodeck. Think of The Matrix.) Perhaps we ourselves are part of that simulation – artificially intelligent, self-aware software algorithms programmed to see ourselves as “real”.

Admittedly, that sounds implausible. It sure sounds preposterous to me! When I pinch myself, I sure feel to myself like a biological being, living on a geophysical planet and interacting with other solid bodies like my own.

But isn’t that precisely how I would feel, if I were a digital subroutine programmed to feel that way?

Are We Almost There?

I mentioned “smart scientists and engineers seriously flirting” with this notion. One of them is Elon Musk (the Tesla guy). There are others.

They argue that our own computer technology is already quite close to generating simulations indistinguishable from the “real world”. And that we’re also close to creating artificial intelligences as smart as, or even smarter than, ourselves – intelligences aware of their own existence and their digital surroundings.

If we’re acquiring such capabilities, it seems possible – even likely – that other, more advanced civilizations already have done so. Maybe even millions of them! In which case it’s possible, perhaps even probable, that we ourselves are the products of such technology.

Most scientists scoff at such notions. They argue that there’s no way ever of testing such a hypothesis. If it can’t be tested (they say), then we can’t ever treat it as a scientific theory, so speculating is a waste of time,

Now I myself don’t necessarily believe we’re living in a simulation. But I do take issue with the argument that this idea can’t be tested. I think the naysayers just haven’t thought hard enough about how that testing might proceed.

We can test the simulation hypothesis by looking for so-called “Easter eggs”, most likely in the form of – tada! – anagrams.

Let me explain:

Clues to Look For:

In our alleged reality, computer programmers tend to be nerds. They – excuse me, we – have nerdy personalities, nerdy imaginations, nerdy senses of humor. We can’t resist indulging these attributes. And we have no reason to doubt that the designers of our simulated “reality” (if they exist) are the same.

Now here’s the thing: When software engineers design a video game, or a computer-generated movie, or even just a practical application such as a word processor or spreadsheet, they almost always include one or more Easter eggs.

An “Easter egg”, in tech jargon, refers to a hidden message implanted in the software. A digital gift you only find if you stumble across it (or know where to look).

In a video game, the Easter egg might be a key unlocking some tool or weapon. In a digital mystery, it might be a clue. In a movie or animation, it might be a sequel preview or a deleted scene. It might be an animated digital signature, highlighting the name(s) of the programmer(s).

You might access the Easter egg by inputting a special code, or simply by scrolling past the credits (if there are credits).

If we really are living in a simulation, then the obvious place to look for Easter eggs is in anagrams. The programmers writing our fictional environment will have littered it with anagrams so deliciously ironic and teasing that they can’t conceivably be sheer coincidence.

Rubber Hitting the Road

Examples? Okay, let me take a shot. (I’m not suggesting that these are real anagrams – just tossing out hypotheticals to illustrate my point).

What if (for example) we discovered that the letters in

“coronavirus disease”

really rearrange to spell

“a voracious direness”?

Or take our current political insanity (please!): What if we could reshuffle the letters in

“Trump administration”

to spell

“an idiot’s prim tantrum”?

Or perhaps something even more ironic, like

“Damn! I’m Putin’s traitor”?

Please note, I’m not claiming that the letters in “coronavirus disease” or “Trump administration” actually do spell out any of the phrases I’ve suggested. These just popped into my head as examples of anagrams that (if they were anagrams) could not possibly result from mere coincidence.

Or maybe they could, theoretically, like those infinite monkeys pounding on infinite typewriters till they accidentally compose the complete works of Shakespeare. My point is that it’s way too improbable to consider, in “real life”.

You can check these examples out, if you want to. (Just google anagram-checking websites; there must be dozens. Or use Scrabble blocks to play with the letters.) I haven’t bothered, because I don’t really take any of this simulation nonsense seriously.

Level-headed pragmatist that I fancy myself, I don’t really believe we’re fictitious characters in someone else’s crazy made-up story. No, it’s far too far-fetched.

Though surely not as far-fetched as the stuff I’m getting accustomed to seeing every day in my newsfeed. If someone checks the “anagrams” I’ve outlined above, and they turn out to be real, I’ll be forced to rethink my skepticism!