life as a simulation

Lately there has been quite a few mainstream ponderings that claim that we are not in reality but part of a complex simulation.

So, basically we are all in a complex video game in their minds.

So what are sentient and reliable choices when living your life out as part of a grand video game where you have no idea what the point of it is?

Obvious issue here is that since you really have no free will, nor any hope of an afterlife as far as I can tell, then basically you can commit almost any horrific act and say two things. First you can say that your actions were guided by your coding (Islam already beat you to that). Second is that you can say that there is no reward or punishment for your poor behavior, and therefore nothing any character does in this game really even matters other than to make the game more or less interesting. Atheist beat you to that.

So to me, I think this new idea of "reality" is a lazy attempt at understanding life and it is being preferred by people that already tend to want to vew their own lives as movies that other people really do need to pay attention to.

Other than video glitches that I see on "mystery shows", which can be CGI or just literal tricks of the eye, I see absolutely no real evidence that our lives are just a really big and complex video game.

Someone show me how I am incorrect please.

a reply to: dust2023

As I said in another thread yesterday about simulation theory, it proves itself wrong. If life is a simulation, as soon as a player figured this out, they would be removed. Also the simulated characters would be programmed to not even be able to figure it out.

a reply to: dust2023
I don't think anyone can show you that you are incorrect.

That being said, I think the basis for the idea is the work done at the Monroe Institute. Created by Robert A. Monroe to study out of body experiences. He wrote 3 books. You could find them on the web but copyrights and all that.

Interesting reads, but as for answers, YMMV.

a reply to: dust2023


The meat of this assumption can and has lead to the thinking of at least one serial killer, I forget which. In a revelation one day that was similar to the ideas you critique and dismiss, this killer ended up thinking that no rules applied to him and he began to kill and maim and eat people. There is great social danger in this thought that we are in someones video game with no free will at all.

originally posted by: BingoMcGoof
a reply to: dust2023


The meat of this assumption can and has lead to the thinking of at least one serial killer, I forget which. In a revelation one day that was similar to the ideas you critique and dismiss, this killer ended up thinking that no rules applied to him and he began to kill and maim and eat people. There is great social danger in this thought that we are in someones video game with no free will at all.

I wonder how long it will take a large number of "educated" people to start saying this is reality because it is scientific CONSENSUS.
And I am very sure that nonsense is the "begin game" phase for many psychotics out there just eager to start hurting and hurting and hurting other people. Because we are just in a video game and it is after all, scientific consensus.

Speaking of, I am thinking of hiring someone to design a new house for me. I want to make sure I get the best looking, and most popular person to do that for me because popularity is after all consensus and consensus is SCIENCE.

a reply to: dust2023
I don't think people like that need a reason.

I actually lean towards the idea and, if true, it really doesn't matter, consensus or not.

originally posted by: daskakik
a reply to: dust2023
I don't think people like that need a reason.

I actually lean towards the idea and, if true, it really doesn't matter, consensus or not.

No need to take that personally. I am thinking more along the lines of a general sociopath type personality. If what I said applied to everyone, I am not sure that any of us would be here in the amount that we are.

a reply to: dust2023
A simulated earth/universe does not always rule out the afterlife-
If we are inside a simulation we exist as code or information-but our "Sim"self may be being directed or steered in ways unfathomable to us,the avatar inside the construct.

Our real self may exist on a bed somewhere in a different universe-we may not be Humans at all-we could all be goopy tentancle creatures playing the game called "Earth-The great fall.V.4801"

So when we "die" here in the simulation-do not be alarmed to find you are some strange alien being plugged into a VR.
And that being may have an after life one day-or it may be immortal.

originally posted by: dust2023
No need to take that personally. I am thinking more along the lines of a general sociopath type personality. If what I said applied to everyone, I am not sure that any of us would be here in the amount that we are.

No worries, it wasn't taken personally, it's just that people like that, serial killers, psychopaths, etc., are like that without necessarily thinking this is all just a simulation.

It's more a lack of empathy or remorse that allows them to act that way. Like you said in the OP, their programming.

Also, I think, and this is what I got from Monroe's books, is that there is a general purpose. There is a life before the 3D experience and after it. We just can't grasp it while in the simulation.

a reply to: dust2023

Perception and semantics. The arguments I saw yesterday to contradict simulation theory were not really substantive. I didn't think there was much serious interest or I'd have commented then. Typically this topic finds an audience that has already made up their minds. This seems to be one of the few things pseudoskeptics and pseudoscientists agree on, which should make anybody interested in truth scratch their heads.

Definition

the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another

Even if we discount the idea of existing in some digital simulation, the very nature of our perception can be seen as simulating the environment around us. Via electrical signals and specialized organs we can detect only a tiny range of the true nature of our physical surroundings. The sensory organs receive data and they send it through electrical signals, which are then moderated through brain functions into a simulation of what is perceived. These appear exclusively as an image/frequency/sensation in the brain. These experiences are real, but they are not all that exists nor do they relay the absolute state of things perceived.

I would argue that acceptance of quantum theory is acceptance that consciousness is capable of quantum computation and is not local to the physical body. That is, consciousness in this 3d reality is only a shadow of the full dimensional range of consciousness. Roger Penrose, a Nobel prize winning physicist, did what I consider an excellent job showing the evidence that the human mind can solve problems that would be impossible for Turing machines. Barring discovery of some yet unknown mechanism for biological quantum computing, this seems to be where the science has led us. You can look up Penrose and Hameroff "Orch OR" for further reading.

In my opinion none of this means that things aren't real... it merely means that real is not as limited as our tools and perception. Implicit in that opinion is the added detail that consciousness is not local to the body. The physical body is just a biological machine with an array of sensors. This vessel has high energy density to better influence things in this space, but it causes us to suffer limitations such as experiencing linear time and narrow perceptual bands of very limited types of energy.

a reply to: ksihkahe


So could we exist also in an "ether" for lack of a better description? To understand or to use something quantum from our current perspective - if actually possible - would mean that we have powers we cannot yet imagine but need to develop more tools to acquire that possibility.

Or, as much ancient philosophy and religion seems to point that some of these prospects may have already been known via meditation or other methods to at least get a glimpse into that "machinary".

I am barely even arm chair about these things, so if I sound dull in regard to the discussion please understand me as a child in this subject if not an infant.

a reply to: dust2023
Let me cut and paste a little of the Monroe POV:

From the book Far Journeys

The conditions of entering physical life as a human are relatively strict. It is as if a detailed agreement is entered into. First, the energy form must agree that time-space truly does exist. Without this agreement, it is impossible to have primary human consciousness. The energy form must agree that there is a time, such as the 1980s or any other time frame by earth reckoning. It must be agreed also that there truly is a planet earth designed and created in the form that it is. It must further agree that consciousness expressed as a human has certain characteristics and limitations.
The blanking or sublimation of previous experience is a part of the process. This is to assure that there will be a minimum of interference in the performance as a human caused by previous life patterns, physical and in other realities. Bear in mind that this is all at the conscious perceiving level; it is not removed from the essence of the energy form accepting the agreement. Such experience will remain with the newly human energy form in a nonconscious state. This is important because such experience or purpose may well be the underlying motive that is the driving force behind the performance of such energy in human existence.

When you see/feel a glitch in the matrix, is it the matrix that is glitching, or is it you that is glitching?
🤔

a reply to: dust2023

Imagine our universe is merely a bubble expanding and collapsing almost simultaneously. The rate may be at Planck time intervals, I don't know. Time isn't really as relevant above this dimension, but locked in physical bodies we're subject to the rules of matter in that regard. As the universe expands the underlying fabric of spacetime is in tiny Planck space "cells", like a pulse or frequency modulated from the epicenter.

Outside that bubble is some kind of higher dimensional foam or sea, but it has more than just our spacetime. That could be considered an ether, perhaps, just one we share with other instances of spacetime. Like a 3 dimensional cube may contain infinite 2 dimensional squares the fifth dimensional space, I would expect, can contain an infinite number of spacetimes. I believe consciousness has access to these higher dimensional planes, but there are no analogs that exist in our normal existence that can be used to describe them.

Only metaphors work because as previously mentioned our perception of this universe is incomplete, leaving little hope for us to even conceptualize higher dimensions as they truly exist. It lends itself to esoteric descriptions, because the science requires you construct quite complicated simulations to understand. Few people have the time or inclination. We have models, but the models are not such that their mechanics are apparent through observation alone.

The best way to explore is some kind of system, but I suggest consuming a wide range of information. The Gateway Experience is popular and people have a fair bit of success when they stick with it, but there are exceptions. Some people have a natural talent for it, but I believe most people should be able to work toward experiencing a bit of what consciousness is through mindful practice.

I would say being able to connect an 11 dimensional consciousness to a timespace biological entity is itself a superpower. I have no doubt there are many things we're capable of that would be scoffed at by virtually all Western scientists. Energy density in spacetime is probably the largest barrier to what we can do. It takes a lot to make things happen in the physical space. I lean toward manipulation of quantum probability as the key to doing really sci-fi stuff within our specific spacetime experience. Energy, intent, and sometimes a little technology.

It really does help to have an experience of some kind. That's the real proof, when coupled with logical analysis and some theoretical physics.

To me it's actually somewhat comforting that there will always be things I can't fully understand. It's just constant refinement of perception, aggregation of experiences, and learning.

a reply to: dust2023

I wonder if the poor sods that get blown apart, burned to a crisp, and lose all their limbs, yet live to tell the tale, or the likes of people who are tortured and/or gang-raped think they are living in a simulation?

Somehow i think the reality of this existence is somewhat more a complex experience than a mere simulation.

Then again, if it were and we are merely NPC there for the entertainment of who knows what, why does it really matter?

This is probably the 100th Life is a Simulation post I've seen on ATS .

Firstly , The Matrix was just a movie yes it was incredible and ground breaking but still just a movie.

Secondly , the Mind does not know the difference between reality , thoughts or dreams.

so like Andy said , does it really matter ?

originally posted by: asabuvsobelow
Secondly , the Mind does not know the difference between reality , thoughts or dreams.

I have to disagree with that, I can imagine something (daydream), I have normal dreams (where I don't realize it is a dream until I wake up), lucid dreams (where i know I'm dreaming while still in the dream) and I have had OBE's which are like none of the above. They are not the same.

Also, I don't get the NPC thing, I mean I know they are a thing in video-games but anyone alive doesn't just sit in one spot their entire lives waiting for the player to come up to them and ask them something. There are no NPC's, there might be some boring lives but they are experiencing human life just the same.

a reply to: daskakik

For my part the NPC thing is touching on the free will or predestination/deterministic aspect of the entire "life is a simulation" dilemma.

Also, there is a difference between imagining something and it really happening no matter what we dream.



This short video raised some interesting questions as to the topic being discussed.

a reply to: andy06shake
I'm not sure NPC defines that, also, if you choose to be Pikachu in the game, that was your free will before the game started and you are stuck what that character can do.

So someone said, I want to be an 18 year old american male in good shape in 1942.

Cheesy 80's video game voice: "Your quest adventurer is fighting in WWII."

They chose that. They might die, come back maimed or come back in one piece but they are not an NPC.

ETA:

Also, there is a difference between imagining something and it really happening no matter what we dream.

Right, I'm not saying there isn't. If a ghost catches you in pac-man the game deducts one life. They catch you three times it is game over and, unless you have more coins, your are done playing but that doesn't mean you, outside the game, die.

a reply to: daskakik

I'm not sure NPC defines that, also, if you choose to be Pikachu in the game, that was your free will before the game started and you are stuck what that character can do.

Well if the universe turned out to be deterministic we would indeed amount non-player characters as far as i can establish.

Not quite sure what choice has to do with much in a deterministic verse never mind Pikachu.

Coz that choice would be an illusion.

So someone said, I want to be an 18 year old american male in good shape in 1942.

Well, good shape is preferable to the alternative.

Cheesy 80's video game voice: "Your quest adventurer is fighting in WWII."

They chose that. They might die, come back maimed or come back in one piece but they are not an NPC.

A lot of them did choose it willingly no less.

My grandpa chose to go to war, and although it was terrible he would have told you it was the best time of his life.

As to what people are, well the real question is what consciousness is, and whether or not our path is set.

I like to think we do indeed possess a modicum of free will.

But the fact that humanity chooses to repeat her past historical transgressions and expect a different outcome does not inspire much confidence.