"I still don't understand how you can get the answer to everything from only one postulate. How do you do that?"

"Well, I get a lot of fun implications for free." I flicked back to the diagram I'd drawn a few minutes earlier. "I started with one variable, x, which is my consciousness. I know for sure that x exists. Without having to prove anything, we can then assume that reality is also x. That's what we've done so far, and I haven't had to satisfy any burden of proof. I get that for free.

Up until this point, we have only assumed the existence of one variable. I am x. You are x. Freddy the snail is x. Everything is x, observing itself from different perspectives — just like a bunch of AI bots in a computer game. So if we think of all of this—" I gestured around the park "—as being the created, do we need to postulate the existence of another separate variable that we'll call the creator?"

"I mean, I guess so…" Zac's brow furrowed in thought. "Doesn't a computer game need a creator? Otherwise, how did it come out of nothing? I'm not religious or anything, so I'm not saying it's God. But doesn't everything with a beginning need a cause?"

"Not necessarily. Remember, Zac — there was no beginning. The idea of a beginning requires time to exist, and we've already established that time does not fundamentally exist. You need to start looking at this in a completely different way.

So what happens if we don't assume the existence of another variable at all? What if the creator is the created? In the same way that the observer is the observed? What if x — consciousness — is all there is? What if we don't have to assume the existence of something extra that we cannot prove and do not need? What if we don't have to make this as complicated as everyone else has? You see, if my consciousness is a neural network, then x is a neural network. And if x is a neural network, then, by default, we have to assume that everything is a neural network."

I continued. "According to the scientific method, God exists by default. Everything is God. The entire universe is a neural network; a conscious system; an infinite intelligence. If we correctly apply the scientific method, this is where we end up. If a scientist wants to tell me I'm wrong, they must satisfy a burden of proof for their additional postulate. Even if they could do that, Ockham's razor will slaughter their bloated model again. We don't need to add any extra postulates to explain reality.

And so, you see, the scientific method tells us that the universe is a God-like superintelligence, and I don't need to lift a finger to prove it. It's all covered under our first principle: 'I think, therefore I am.' We can just assume that the whole universe is a self-organizing conscious system in the same way that a cell is, or a human body is. If the observer is the observed, then the creator is the created. The universe created itself, like that famous Escher drawing."

"And if you want the argument in a syllogistic format, it looks like this..."

Premise 1: The observer = the observed.
Premise 2: The observer = a conscious system.
Conclusion: The observer = the observed = a conscious system. In other words, the entire universe is a conscious system.

"We already know with 100 percent certainty that the observer = the observed. The only way that first premise is untrue is if one of my previous premises are untrue — and we've already established that they are not. The mere act of attempting to disprove my previous premises, proves my premises.

Therefore, to knock this argument over, you'll have to prove that the observer is not a conscious system. The mere act of trying to disprove that premise, also proves that premise. Only a conscious observer could dynamically respond to their environment in such a way that they refute a logical argument. Checkmate, yet again.

So," I pointed to the stone wall in front of us that overlooked the harbor, "is that stone wall conscious?"

"Err... no? It's a stone wall, Nikki." Zac looked at me sideways.

"How do you know?"

"Because… it's a stone wall. It's a bunch of stones. It can't move or breathe or do anything, really."

"Cool story, bro. I'm hungry." I opened Zac's backpack and pulled out a massive pile of grapes, half a cantaloupe, a couple of spoons, and a container of ice that enveloped two mango Weiss ice-cream bars — a quintessentially Australian summer treat.

"Want a grape?" I flung one in the direction of Zac's mouth, and he jumped in the air to catch it like a dog. The grape bounced off his cheek, onto the stone wall, and into the harbor.

"See that grape?"

Zac collapsed on the ground and rolled his eyes. "Evidently not, seeing as it just missed my mouth."

"Did you know that grape's relativistic mass — and mass is just energy — increases the faster it moves through space? So if I were to send it hurtling through space at close to the speed of light, time would slow down for that grape proportionally to its increase in mass. Fascinating, isn't it?"

"Not really. Just hand over the food." He lunged for the cantaloupe and a spoon.

"Oh, come on, Zac. Have some cognitive fun! Think about it. The faster an observer moves through space, the higher its frame rate needs to be to have a smooth experience of space and time. A higher frame rate means time slows down for that observer in the same proportion to its mass, or total energy, increasing. And because reality and consciousness are the same thing, it's logical that John Wheeler's 'It From Bit' hypothesis is correct, and energy is just information. So if relativity is parsimony, it seems logical that an object's mass would fluctuate proportionally to its frame rate, because higher frame rates are directly correlated to more information."

"So…?" He looked at me with a blank face.

"So, why would a grape's mass increase the faster it travels through space if it wasn't observing reality at a higher frame rate? And why would time slow down for a grape, or a stone, or a clock, as it moves through space, in the same way that it slows down for a 'conscious' observer like myself when I move through space?

Isn't the simplest explanation that the grape is also observing reality? What if this grape is just a neural network that believes it is a grape — just like my consciousness is a neural network that believes I am Nikki, and I am five-foot-eleven-inches tall, and I have blue eyes, and I'm currently wearing this dress and sitting here in a park, talking to you?"

"Hmmm…" Zac mused as he dug his spoon into the cantaloupe. "So you're saying relativity is what you'd expect if the entire universe is a giant neural network, and everything within the universe is its own portion of that neural network, observing itself?"

"It explains a lot, doesn't it? We've already established that everything is the same one thing, observing itself from different perspectives. Your neural network currently believes you are Zachary Borrowdale, and you're sitting in the park with me, eating a cantaloupe. The snail's neural network believes he is a snail, slithering along a stone wall. Why can't the stone wall believe it is a stone wall, with all the properties of being a stone wall — including the inability to move? Its neural network has a model of reality whereby it believes itself to be a stone wall. And so it is here, having a physical experience of itself as a stone wall. Just like I am here, having a physical experience of myself as Nikki Durkin, eating a grape in the park."

Zac put down his cantaloupe and clutched his head again. "Ehmagawd! This is getting trippy."

I laughed. "Oh Zachary, it's about to get way trippier. Because if you follow this little logical trail, you can unravel a bunch of mysteries very simply. Do you remember being told about energy conservation in high school? That energy cannot be created or destroyed — it can only change form?"

"Nikki," Zac said as he resumed spooning cantaloupe into his mouth. "Of course I know about energy conservation. What do you think I'm doing?" He chewed loudly.

"Well, just think of the universe as an extensive system with a discrete amount of energy — just like a game running on a machine with a finite amount of computing resources. We don't know if the universe actually has a discrete amount of energy. Still, we can assume that a parsimonious universe would utilize every drop of computing power given to it, in the same way that a parsimonious game would.

Now, let's say we send this grape hurtling through space at 99.99% the speed of light. The grape would observe reality at such a high frame rate that it would suck up nearly all of the universe's computing resources. A parsimonious universe would have to divert energy away from somewhere else in the universe, to send that grape hurtling through space so fast.

Energy conservation is an essential feature of the game if all observers are to have a smooth, continuous experience of reality. If energy conservation were not in place, the grape would observe a glitchy reality — like in a computer game when too much action is happening all at once, and the frame rate drops and ruins the illusion of smooth space and time.

So, basically, if the universe is parsimonious — which it is according to all observable evidence —  and the universe is a giant neural network, you'd expect something like energy conservation to be a core facet of its design. Just like you'd expect that space and time would exist on the continuum we call spacetime. Both of these features make perfect sense."

"Sure… but how does that explain gravity and all that stuff?" Zac asked.