Glitches in the Matrix? From Dead Reckoning for ‘Believable’ Peer-to-Peer Gaming to a Many-Interacting-Simulations Explanation of Quantum Mechanics

This paper outlines how a potential new interpretation of quantum mechanics—the Many-Interacting Simulations (MIS) interpretation—may explain why our world has many of the bizarre quantum features it does. §1 provides an overview of what has been termed the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Simulation Hypothesis, showing how it explains general features of quantum phenomena. §2 then examines dead reckoning, a framework utilized to ensure ‘believable’ simulated worlds for P2P networked games. §3 details how dead reckoning in P2P games reproduces—and hence, computationally explains—properties broadly analogous to (§3.1) quantum mechanical standing waves, (§3.2) Gaussian wave packets, (§3.3) the double-slit experiment, and (§3.4) the ‘Wigner’s friend’ thought experiment. §4 then details how, if this explanation is correct, then traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics each contain elements of truth. §5 concludes that quantum phenomena may be the ‘glitches in the Matrix’ that many have suggested would be evidence that we live in a computer simulation.