But ... words are important. In most respects we should try to stick with the terminology traditionally used by a particular field in philosophy or science. Wouldn't you agree that the current discourse in the physics world matching your "non-mechanical" argument is contained within the debate between "non-locality" and the many worlds interpretation ("MWI")? http://www.pnas.org/content/111/31/11281

What's with that "c)" quote? Are you saying that Einstein wrote that? Or, are you saying that you are Einstein?

I love your thought process though. I think often there does have to be a option "c"

Free-will requires that we find our own way. Science is the guide book - not the recipe. I am going to approach the questions more from a "purpose of religion" perspective. Then hopefully it will help tie back into why programmed reality truly is at the intersection of science and religion.

Let me begin by defining "God" as the great "Programmer." Yes the universe could have created itself, but then by all definitions, the universe itself is God and God is the universe. It doesn't have to be circular; it just is the nature of things. Creating a world from the raw matter - is by definition organizing. Making logical order out of disorder is the same as programming. The universe is just a different kind of operating system and much more grandiose than we fathom our digital computers could ever be. But, quantum physics tells us that all matter is nothing more than vibrating frequencies of information. Our visit to this planet in these mortal bodies is a whole lot more individualized than we dare to understand. The rules of quantum particle physics carry beyond the micro particle smashers. This macro world also behaves according to the same physics and it makes a whole lot more sense if you can just try to grasp what science tells us today about the nature of your reality. Why should Atheists be the only ones who get to know scientific truths? At base, all "reality" is nothing more than an observation to us. Religious folks could at least try to understand science. I have and it doesn't contradict anything in my faith in the-nature-of-reality being organized.

So, this "program" puts lots of things out there for you to experience, like being born, growing up, enjoying seasons, having parents (some of us) falling in love … global warming, war, job stress, money problems … media, computers, TV shows … all these things to fill your time. Religion is one of these.

On other worlds in the universe, you might have had a perfect religion that had all truths and where that religion’s God is all knowing and controls everything - and where scriptures are law. But, the problem with an All Knowing and All Controlling God, however, is that it cuts out indeterminism and then you are left with no free will. If God controls everything and knows all that has or will happen (right down to each and every choice we make) free will is called into question. Self awareness itself would be a ruse.

Instead, the programmer of your world wants you to become more self-aware and more sentient, which requires that you have to figure it out for yourself. So, the Programmer(s) allowed for both science and religion in your reality.

But if these sentient bags of mostly water are going to become truly self-aware in this program, religions and beliefs in Science or God must come from within the program. They must be based on the stories and traditions of the player characters in the program – else it is not the player’s religion, but nothing more than the programmed environment.

So in your personal programmed reality, you are offered these imperfect theories about the nature of everything. When in my opinion, the only nature of reality solution that works in all cases - is the programmed reality. I was convinced of that even before I read Jim Elvidge’s book. After reading it (when if first came out) my belief in the programmed nature of the universe just became even more reinforced.

Jim Elvidge once told me, “When you look into the nature of reality with an open mind, yet armed with the tools of math and hard science (such as quantum mechanics and cosmology), it is hard not to arrive at the conclusion that a programmatic mechanism is behind the workings of the universe. The evidence includes the discrete nature of reality, the inevitable direction of virtual reality, the finely-tuned universe, and the fact that all known scientific and metaphysical anomalies are only explained by such a model.”

See Elvidge, Jim, author of The Universe Solved, Alternative Theories Press, (2007) ISBN 978-1-4243-3626-5 quoted 02/27/12 http://theuniversesolved.com

Book: This will make you smarter.
Part: The name game. By Stuart Firrestein.
=.
" Too often in science we operate under the principle that ' to name it is to tame it',
or so we think. One of the easiest mistakes, even among working scientists, is to
believe that labeling something has somehow or other added to an explanation or
understanding of it. Worse than that, we use it all the time when we're teaching,
leading students to believe that a phenomenon named is a phenomenon known,
and that to know the name is to know the phenomenon." / Page 62./
#
" Even words that, like 'gravity' seem well settled may lend more of an aura
to an idea than it deserves. . . . . .
And still, today, physicists do not have a clear understanding of what
Gravity is or where it comes from, even though its effect can be described
quite accurately". / Page 64/
===…

Book: This will make you smarter.
Part: Cultural attractors. Page 180. By Dan Sperber

*In 1967, Richard Dawkins introduced the idea of a meme . . . . .
"Meme" has become a remarkably successful addition to
everybody's cognitive toolkit.
. . .
Not only do "memeticists" have many quite different definitions
of "meme", but also, and more important, most users of the
term have no clear idea of what a meme might be. The term
is used with a vague meaning, relevant in the circumstances.

( . . . , we produce a new token of the same type without
reproducing in the usual sense of copying some previous token)*
Page 182. By Dan Sperber.
==..

When an idea is lost, then new words would be invented.
=.