Simon Duan (4:22)

Oh, yes, absolutely. It's a fascinating case. I only came across this case recently when I attended the SPR conference. They have annual conference and at the conference, one of the presentations is about this case. And that was the first time I got to know this case and it intrigued me enormously. I think that was the highlight of this conference because it's really interesting and.

Jeffrey Mishlove (4:54)

You shared your intrigue with me and subsequently I've looked into it as well. I knew nothing about it myself, although I did learn that there are probably several dozen videos on YouTube about the case.

Simon Duan (5:09)

Yes, yes. A lot of podcasters exploring this. They actually have volunteer from the research group continue digging into this case. Yeah. So it's very active. There's a forums online, there's podcasts and people are still doing research. Yeah. Try to get the historic records to match up with the sort of messages they get from this case. So it's still growing. It's ongoing project, actually. It's not dead yet. It's ongoing.

Jeffrey Mishlove (5:47)

Our viewers will be very interested. I think we can say right at the outset we don't have any conclusions yet about the case. Whether the researchers I've investigated say it deserves research, clearly. But it's such a controversial and unusual case and people sort of throw up their hands and say it's too complicated, we can't make sense of it.

Simon Duan (6:13)

Yes, yes.

Jeffrey Mishlove (6:15)

And many people say it has to be fraud, it cannot be real, it's too unusual. But we better let our viewers know exactly what we're talking about. The case began in the 1980s.

Simon Duan (6:28)

Yes. For your viewers, I think they can certainly Google Doddleston messages on Google as Well as on YouTube. You mentioned there's quite a few podcasters and they have views of this subject. They reach millions, several millions of viewers because it's fascinating. But the best source of the information is actually the book. Yeah. Ken Webster has written. It's called the Vertical Plan, the Vertical Plane. This is the second edition.

Jeffrey Mishlove (7:08)

The author, Ken Webster, wrote a book about the case. He was a central figure involved in the case. He wrote the book, I think it was around 1986 or so, then it attracted some attention, was out of print for 30 years. He himself retired. He did not want publicity. But then finally he came out in the last five years or so with a new edition.

Simon Duan (7:39)

But Ken himself actually still doesn't want publicity. He doesn't appear in any social media interviews and he doesn't want to get involved in debate There are people who.

Jeffrey Mishlove (7:56)

Believe that he himself is either the victim of a fraud or the perpetrator of a fraud.

Simon Duan (8:06)

Those are different theories. Yeah. But essentially, between 1984, end of 1984, and the beginning, the spring of 1987, the BBC computer at home start to sort of appear messages. So initially they think of somebody maybe just make a sort of a joke, but it consistently happening. And then Ken decided, actually not only received the message, he said, maybe I sent the message as well. So the conversation started so back and the force. So ultimately, altogether, I think they had over 400 messages from this communication.

Jeffrey Mishlove (9:06)

We need to be clear with our viewers that at this time in the 1980s, using a BBC microcomputer, I gather, was the property of the school for which Ken Webster worked. He was a schoolteacher, and he brought the computer home to work on at home. But it didn't have an Internet connection, there was no modem. It was not equipped the way every computer today is for outside communications.

Simon Duan (9:37)

Yeah, but the computer just spontaneously display messages. Yeah. So it's very strange.

Jeffrey Mishlove (9:46)

This computer didn't even have a modem.

Simon Duan (9:49)

No, it didn't. Yeah. But before the message appears on the school computer, he brought back home, also there's a poltergeist action happens actually before the messages. So there's different strains of activities and footprint appear on the wall. And they thought maybe just the paint peels off and they paint it over and the second day the footprint appear again on top of the new paint and the footprint has a six fingers even. So then they realized something strange happening.

Jeffrey Mishlove (10:38)

Six toes.

Simon Duan (10:40)

Six toes, yeah, yeah, six toes.

Jeffrey Mishlove (10:42)

Six toes. On the footprint that appears on the freshly painted wall is sort of indicative of the whole event because there are all of these inconsistencies, things that seem improbable that would occur. It looks like, for example, he's communicating with a person who lived 400 years ago or so. But there are many inconsistencies with any single hypothesis you might bring to bear.

Simon Duan (11:15)

Yeah, it's complicated cases because there's so many messages. But significantly, one of the messages says, this is my home, you actually stay in my place. And he actually signed his name. Initially he was called Lucas. Yeah. Then substantially this sort of entity called himself Thomas. And he said he lived in 1541. He lived in this house in 1541. And then Ken asked him about the facts about that time. And he provided a lot of historical factors, including many people's name during that time. So that actually provided clue for people to dig into the history, see Whether his message, his information was correct. And also the language wasn't Modern English. Yeah, it's early modern English in 16th century English. So nowadays you can't even read it properly. But Kan happened to have an expert colleague in his school who can understand the early modern English language, and he helped him to translate the messages.

Jeffrey Mishlove (12:51)

The colleague, a friend named Peter, became very involved. He was a teacher of linguistics, I think, at the same school where Ken taught. And he did a lot of research on the messages and even went so far as to personally interact with the entities. Interact is a funny word because as we say, the computer had no modem, but the messages appear on the computer screen. And then in order to respond, they would type more messages onto their own computer screen. Often they would walk away or go down to the pub and have a pint or something. When they returned, there were more messages on the computer, either from the past or even there were some messages that were from an entity that used the nomenclature 2109 as if it was from the future.

Simon Duan (13:52)

Yes, yes. 2009 is another entity which leave message and communicate wisdom through this very old BBC computer.

Jeffrey Mishlove (14:03)

Yeah.

Simon Duan (14:05)

So I think your viewers would be find it interesting actually to read the book. So there's a lot of more information than the podcast covers, because the podcast only scratched the surface, I guess. And today I think we can only scratch the surface also. But there's a different interpretations. Most interpretations focus on the time travel because the entity is either from the 16th century in the past or 2009 in the future. So how they actually managed to get this message into the present day at the moment, in 80s, 1980s. So there has to be a time travel. So that's the most kind of speculated hypothesis at the moment in terms of time travel.

Jeffrey Mishlove (15:04)

But then there's the poltergeist activity. It was quite unusual. Objects being piled on top of each other and balanced in very unusual ways. Like a chair balancing on two legs. Yeah.

Simon Duan (15:19)

Yes, that's right, yeah. Yes. Lots of productized cases. So psychokinesis is heavily involved. And also they get messages not only from the computer alone, they also get message on piece of paper, handwritten piece of paper on the desk. So computer is only one of the means they communicate.

Jeffrey Mishlove (15:46)

And these messages, as you point out, ran back and forth ways for about two years. A lot of the messages, I understand, seem quite nonsensical or maybe poetic. And many of them were quite metaphysical. Others provide specific information. I gather maybe 3, 400 messages over that period of time. And many witnesses.

Simon Duan (16:11)

Yeah, it's Very difficult to debunk. But the, because the language they use, I mean Ken cannot type that message and no one except the Peter you mentioned who understand early modern English can make sense of it. And so either Ken and Debbie, his partner, won't be able to fake it. Yeah. And also lots of fact, historical fact are being confirmed, verified day by day. Even now they are still digging into the message and matching up with the historical records.

Jeffrey Mishlove (16:58)

It's a very, very complex case. You have an enormous amount of data. You propose that your platonic computer model potentially capable of explaining this case in a way that other hypotheses simply fail to do.

Simon Duan (17:17)

Most people try to explain this phenomena assuming it's true. In terms of time travel, they use physics for kind of time travel, assuming entity from the past or Future travel into 80s and type the messages.

Jeffrey Mishlove (17:42)

I interviewed the author, Eric Wargo, who wrote a book on time travel.

Simon Duan (17:49)

However, I am trying to develop a post materialist scientific paradigm. So in that paradigm not only the physical reality is real, but there's other realities are also real or even more real. So in the post material science paradigm, we actually expand the science, not only the physical reality as a sort of object to study, but non physical reality also should be included and to actually to expand the paradigm to including non physical entities, non physical existence and unreal phenomena which cannot explain by physicalist science paradigm we have now.

Jeffrey Mishlove (18:52)

So the Platonic computer model suggests that there's a Platonic realm, which is obviously a very ancient idea, goes back to Plato and that realm is able to influence experiences that we have here in the physical realm.

Simon Duan (19:15)

That's correct. There's different realms. Physical realm is only a shadow or poor imitation of this realm of forms. Yeah, in the realm of forms you have entities, you have archetypes which are more real than is a physical reality. So in the last 400 years we actually turn it upside down, which is a mistake, I think. Yeah, so we think physical reality is real. Anything non physical, non tangible is not real. Yeah, that's a mistake. So to understand the Platonic computation, we have to accept the Platonic realm exists. And one step further, we have to accept it's even more real. So based on this promise, I actually built the Platonic computation model. Although actually, although materialist science dismiss Plato, actually they are using it all the time. Because modern science is based on physics and physics is based on mathematics. Yeah. Even the particles nowadays you have to describe it with wave function and with mathematics. Yeah. So therefore they based on their hypothesis, on their theories on mathematics and the Mathematics derived from entities which are not in physical space. Yeah, it's outside the physical space. Mathematics based on the natural numbers. Yeah, natural numbers is not in physical space. It's non physical.

Jeffrey Mishlove (21:21)

I understand that most mathematicians consider themselves Platonists.

Simon Duan (21:26)

Yes, they have to. Otherwise where can they locate mathematics? Because mathematics is non local. Okay. Non local means it's not in this space. Non local doesn't mean it's everywhere. Actually, it means outside the space. And therefore you can access from anywhere in space. Yeah, it's not in this space.

Jeffrey Mishlove (21:53)

My understanding of Plato's exposition of the world of forms is that it was pretty much limited to the Platonic solids. Let's take a globe, a sphere. Plato would say, well, we have many spheres in the physical world, but none of them are perfect. The only place where a perfect sphere exists, or a perfect tetrahedron or a perfect cube or any other Platonic solid would be in the Platonic realm. I don't think he went much beyond that. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.

Simon Duan (22:32)

I'm not sure whether I agree with you. Platonic solids are one of the entities in the Platonic realm. And it's more than that. I mean, it's all the archetypes. Yeah, all the archetypes in the Platonic.

Jeffrey Mishlove (22:51)

Realm, the Jungian archetypes.

Simon Duan (22:54)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the archetypes, all these abstract concepts is causal. Actually, in the last three or four hundred years we take materiality as a causal. Yeah, but according to Plato, the realm of form is causal. Yeah, the physical reality is a shadow. So if you stick, put a stick under the sun, outside you have a shadow. So the stick has to be first before the shadow appears, or they appear at the same time. But the stick is primary, the shadow is secondary, it comes with the stick. So that stick actually cause the shadow. The materiality is a shadow of the Platonic realm. And everything in material reality have a correspondent archetype in the realm of forms. According to this philosopher, we have a material computer in this reality. Therefore we ought to have the correspondent corresponding archetype computer. I call it the Platonic computer, which is the blueprint of this physical computer. Physical computer is made from chips made from silicon, whereas a Platonic computer is made from abstract forms. So based on Platonic. Based on Platonism, I deduce there ought to be a Platonic computer. So with the Platonic computer, we can make it work as a rendering engine to render the physical, physical reality the same way our physical computer renders the virtual reality. So this is the basic principle you.

Jeffrey Mishlove (25:10)

Probably Know that I've done many interviews on this channel recently with Tom Campbell, who has a similar model and I believe you've interacted with him and that the two of you agree that your thinking is very similar. Is that correct?

Simon Duan (25:28)

That's correct. Yeah. We are in the same camp also. Another friend you interview is Virg Rith Van Werk. Yeah, yeah, we attend same conference, we speak as a panelist. So we are certainly in the same camp. Yeah, we are kind of a different interpretation of this simulation hypothesis.

Jeffrey Mishlove (25:54)

Yeah.

Simon Duan (25:55)

So it's also natural because we have, I mean, even quantum mechanics, you have different interpretations. Yeah. You have a Copenhagen interpretation, many words interpretation. David Bohr also have interpretation. So there's a different interpretation for the simulation theory. It's also, I think we have different interpretations, which is getting interesting as well. But fundamentally we all agree this universe is output of computation. And this concept is actually not this new. Not as new as you imagine. It was proposed in 1969 by a German computer scientist, Conrad Rosey. He developed the first programmable computer in 1940s. And in 1960, end of 1960s, he actually speculated. He made a speech in IMOT. He speculated the universe is being computed by a computer.

Jeffrey Mishlove (27:09)

I think I first heard of that speculation in about 1970. As a matter of fact, I was discussing it with my friends at Berkeley back then.

Simon Duan (27:20)

Okay. Oh yeah. So you are one of the early explorers, at least.

Jeffrey Mishlove (27:25)

Well, at least I was aware of this point of view at the time I first heard about it. It seemed totally unintelligible to me. But these days it makes much more sense.

Simon Duan (27:37)

That's right. You are so early. Yeah, so he proposed it in 1969. You started to hear about it in 70s. Yeah. But many people dismiss it until 1980s, 1990s, John Wheeler started to, I mean, realize information is fundamental. It from bit is one of the famous phrase from John Wheeler. So people take information as a fundamental this concept more seriously. And another pioneer I admire very much is Edward Fredd, is also MIT professor. He speculated the physics is being computed. Yeah, I paraphrase. He proposed a concept like digital physics. Yeah. He speculated there is this place he called other converted comma, other, which host the engine which runs the physics. I actually pinpoint the other, this other as a platonic realm which is outside the space.

Jeffrey Mishlove (29:01)

Even in the platonic realm, a computer would need to have a programmer. It would need to have a designer.

Simon Duan (29:10)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So to make the speculation into a theory, we need to answer a series of questions. Several questions we need to answer it. So otherwise it's just speculation. It doesn't sort of doesn't work as a theory. So for speculation to progress into a theory we need to understand several questions such as where is the computer? Yeah, I just discussed there's different answers to this question. Then you have a different interpretation, different models. The second question is what is made of? So another question is how is it made? Yeah, and of course you mentioned the final question is who or what is the programmer by offer different answers to those questions. You have different variants of this simulation hypothesis. So yeah, you can combine different answers into different models. So it's a very active field actually. So my model is only one of the variants of many combinations of answers to those questions.

Jeffrey Mishlove (30:36)

There may be a dozen different serious theoreticians working on the problem.

Simon Duan (30:42)

Yeah, yeah, I hope so, because for me, model isn't the reality. Yeah, model is just tools we can use to answer questions, to offer perspectives, to solve problems. And the more tool we have, more powerful we become because we can offer different perspectives. But it's mistake to take it as a reality. Oh, this is actually what it is. It is not. It's just a model.

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Yeah.

Simon Duan (31:16)

And in mechanical era we model universe as a clock because a clock and watches are the most advanced technology. When the human society was electrified, we had electricity. So we modeled the micro universe using electricity. Electrically charged particles. Nuclear is positively charged, electron is negatively charged, we use electricity. Nowadays we are in the information age, we have AI age, we use new metaphors to understand maybe a few years later we have a different metaphor, then we have different answers, different theories again. So yeah, we shouldn't take it seriously. But with the theory as a tool, it's like a microscope or telescope. We can see things not easily seen, we have perspectives and we have a new understanding of the reality.

Jeffrey Mishlove (32:15)

I went so far, Simon, is to ask ChatGPT, from your perspective of the platonic computer, how are you likely to explain the Doddleston messages? What it suggested to me was that you would probably say, and obviously want your feedback that the messages were not coming from the past and from the future, but they were coming from the platonic realm where different layers of information processing, including information from both the past and the future, were being. What would be the word? Synthesized perhaps.

Simon Duan (33:06)

Yeah, I'm impressed with that answer actually. ChatGPT is getting really intelligent nowadays. So I'm very impressed actually because this platonic computer can operate at a different clock speed. At each clock speed it renders different. At each clock speed it render a Particular universe, particular layer of universe which operate at a different frequency. So the clock speed determines the refresh rate of this rendering update rate. Update rate determines the vibration frequency of that universe. Because the computer can operate at different clock speed. Therefore it produce a layer upon layers, multi layers of parallel universes. Each layer operates at a different vibration frequency according to the clock speed of platonic computation. So it's a multi layered parallel universes. So that's what beyond this physical reality. Physical reality is one of the layers rendered by this platonic computer. So there's many layers and we actually as one of the layers in the cosmos also are producing another layer below us, which is virtual reality. Yeah. So virtual reality is one layer below us, but above us is non physical reality rendered by the Platonic computer. Because each layer of the parallel universe in my model need an observer, otherwise it's meaningless. So who is observing the parallel universe above us? In physical reality we have ourselves physical person to observe the physical reality at level above us. It's our higher self. Yeah, it's our higher self. So our higher self also exists at all level of the parallel universes and the level below as well. When we play a virtual reality game, we play a video game. Our lower self is the avatar. So our higher self is the player of this physical avatar. So it's the player which place the level below and the player is the higher self relative to the lower level reality. Just like we play the avatar in the video game, our higher self play this avatar as a physical human body. But this higher self is also a nested.

Jeffrey Mishlove (36:38)

Being.

Simon Duan (36:39)

Like nasty dolls. Like nasty Russian dolls. Yeah. When we sort of, when we descend into the level below, into the virtual reality, into a video game, into a avatar, we layer attributes of avatar. If we play a football game, we layer an attribute, a football player, we play game. Yeah. When our higher self descend into this physical reality, we layer ourselves a physical body. Yeah. So in this model we have a post materialist cosmology. In this cosmology we have a multi layered parallel universes. Each layer below is nested in the layer above.

Jeffrey Mishlove (37:44)

How would that account for the messages from Dodleston in England? A little village where these people lived in an old house. Why would they all of a sudden receive messages purport to come from the past or purport to come from the year 2109? Why would that happen? How does the platonic computer arrange? I don't want to say arrange because that's not what I mean. I mean, maybe a different question is why Doddleston. And why doesn't it happen to the old BBC computers everywhere?

Simon Duan (38:28)

Yeah, that's an intriguing question. In my model, to explain this phenomena, we need to introduce the concept of higher self which exists above this universe. Above this physical universe is outside the universe. Let's look at the video game again. As a player, we are outside the video game. That's why we can play the virtual reality game. And the person who, relative to the avatar, is the higher self, it's outside the game. The higher self have the access to this computer, and therefore it has access to the database of this computer. If you can interact with the database, you can actually render, you can change the outcome of this computer. Outcome, this game. And also because you're outside the game, you can choose which point you enter. Yeah. So virtual game. In a virtual game, it's like world, it's like at least a city. Los Angeles, for example, you can enter from the outside this GTA game. You can enter either west end or east end of the Los Angeles. Virtual Los Angeles. So you can choose where to enter and also you can choose the time to enter. Because at the higher level, the clock runs very slow. It's exponentially slower. When you sort of ascend to the different level reality, the clock speed slow down exponentially. Yeah. Therefore, at high level, the present moment at high level encompass past, present and the future of the lower level. So you can actually enter into different space at the lower level and also different time of that lower level reality. So you have a freedom to manipulate it as well. Because you have a database. You can actually find out who actually lived in this house in Dordeston 400 years ago. You can gather some information and you can play that role to send the messages. Yeah. Because at the higher level, you can also manipulate the computer, therefore manipulate the outcome of the computer. Manipulate the rendering of the computer. Yeah. So at a high level, again using the Platonic sort of concept. Yeah. Everything in the physical reality has a higher, more real, more substantial existence at this level. Nowadays we have AI which is built based on the physical computer. At a high level, I think there ought to be also. I call it divine intelligence, not the artificial intelligence, design intelligence based on the platonic computer. So the higher beings actually can actually interact with the divine intelligence as a machine to give it a prompt, then the machine actually render the result for you. Again, come back to the virtual reality game. Nowadays we don't have to actually type or code. We can just give it a prompt, give it a verbal instruction. Yeah, Let there be a Dragon. The dragon will appear. Type me a sentence like this. You just dictate and it types for you. Again, in this case of Doddleston's messages, I think the higher being can just give a prompt. At the high level, you don't even need language. You just give it a sort of verb, not verbal, just give a mental instruction. Then this divine intelligence will actually perform that function for you. To displace any message, display any information, and prevent a pretend to be anybody in the past and future. So that's how I would like to interpret this case.

Jeffrey Mishlove (43:55)

It would suggest then that there is a higher intelligence perhaps behind the whole two year long episode, including back and forth communications with different people and many messages that seem completely nonsensical or things that contradict themselves. From my point of view, it might be the case that a higher intelligence decided to help us along in our evolutionary journey by giving us a puzzle to solve. That seems almost impossible.

Simon Duan (44:30)

That's a good insight actually. Yeah. And a higher intelligence is not somebody else. It's our higher self. Yeah. And when we go down from the higher level to lower level, we actually cover ourselves by contents. Therefore, the authentic kind of quality are being covered layer by layer until at this level we become quite dumb. Yeah. Compare with the higher level beings because we'll be covered up as a Russian doll. We put layer upon layer of body, put layer upon layer of contents which cover the true nature of ourselves, which is love, which is the truth, which is the beauty, which is the expansiveness. So all those qualities getting covered and covered until we come to this level. And when we go down further into the virtual reality level, there is not much love anymore. There's a lot killing game, lot of violence. Yeah. So the higher intelligence actually definitely more intelligent. And one expression of intelligence is actually humor, as you indicated. Maybe just play something with us. Yeah. Because they have a sense of humor and they can sort of play some games with us or just create a puzzle for us.

Jeffrey Mishlove (46:15)

You're suggesting then that all of the mysterious things like why this particular house and this village and why the messages began at a certain point in time and then ended at a certain point in time. Those would have all been, I assume, decisions made by some higher self entity.

Simon Duan (46:38)

Yes, that's right. Yeah. Ultimately we share the same higher self because it converges. Yeah. So the layer upon layer is not like a turtle all the way. It actually converges. Our higher self converges when we ascend at certain levels, we converge as the angels or demons or God with a small ji. Yeah. Eventually Even this God with a small Qi converge into the ultimate. Yeah. Which people call Big G God or Dao. I call it matter consciousness, which is the source of everything. So we converge into that source. When we go down, we diverge into different avatars, play different roles at different levels, and we cover ourselves. Yeah. And that's my cosmology model.

Jeffrey Mishlove (47:49)

I hope we have many more interviews in the future because I want to follow your work very carefully.

Simon Duan (47:56)

Yeah, thank you. It's worth paying attention to at least among many others. I mean, among many others interpretations. And as I said, we need a toolbox. The toolbox need different tools to solve different problems. Mind is only one of those potential. One of the potential ones.

Jeffrey Mishlove (48:23)

Well, Simon Dhuan, this has been, as always, a fascinating conversation. I think you are at the forefront of theoretical thinking about the nature of reality. And I will be following your work very closely and hope to have you back on New Thinking Allowed many more times.

Simon Duan (48:43)

Thank you so much for your interest and for your encouragement. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I of course, follow your work as well. I learned from so many different guests we invite. It's a source of wisdom. I mean, your channel is a source of wisdom, source of inspiration. So I applaud to you. You make tremendous contribution to our sort of civilization moving forward. Thank you for that.

Jeffrey Mishlove (49:09)

Thank you, Simon. And for those of you watching or listening, thank you for being with us because you are the reason that we are. For early access to our videos and live stream events, sign up for our free weekly newsletter@newthinkingallowed.org.

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