Just Another Day in the Simulation

The writer expresses horror at the idea that the advanced civilization watching over us would pull the plug on our world if we could prove we were a simulation. {{{{Poof}}}}, and we'd be gone. But it's actually a great way to go.

Wait...so not all of us are simulations? Some of us are real? Why are we not aware that we’re real? Or maybe we are on some level.

I’ve always had this feeling, ever since I was a child, that this isn’t the real world and this isn’t my real life. And that most of the people around me aren’t real. Or something. It’s a very vague feeling.

Could this be an indication that I’m actually a real person living inside a simulation? Maybe when I die, I’ll wake up in the real world (whatever that is) and be like...holy shit, that was a fucked up game!

Just as I was dealing with parallel dimensions/multi-verses, now this shit.

Fuck you, Science!

Well, that could explain this.

Nothing new about the concept of our reality being a simulation. The Hindus believe we live in an illusion called Maya.

"Maya, (Sanskrit: “magic” or “illusion”) a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, notably in the Advaita (Nondualist) school of Vedanta. Maya originally denoted the magic power with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion."

My intellect can’t grasp these concepts, and I’m old enough to stop pretending. Just gonna keep doing my best to be a good person.

I hope they pull the plug on us so I don’t have to lose any more loved ones and the people who love me won’t have to lose me.

I do believe we are simulated people, but the explanations for this are always so elaborate, so fancy-schmancy: we're being studied by a highly advanced civilization with incomparable computer processing power, for a complex study of civilizations, blah-blah-blah.

The real explanation may be much simpler and make tons more sense: we're a simulated terrarium science project conducted by kids the 7th grade on a slightly more advanced planet, and the kids are failing the class.

This reminds me of my favourite Twilight Zone episode. The couple wakes up to find themselves living in a town where everything is fake.

The plug doesn’t need to be pulled. We’re already doing it. Think of the huge jump we made in the past 100 years. We took this knowledge and elected cartoon characters as leaders. We’re de-evolving as humans with technological advancements still continuing.

R7 Simpsons did it!

I wish there were a song with a refrain that ended with

[quote] 'Cause it's just another day in the sim-u-LA-tion.

I 'd sing it all the time.

But I LIKE this world! A lot.

I love the trees and the oceans and butterflies and my dog.

I love the moon and the deserts and the northern lights and the mountains.

The rest of y'all can go "poof"! Leave me here with the beauty of this planet.

Jim Carrey was in a movie about this very subject.

I just hope I'm one of their favourite characters.

What I can't understand is the "smart" people who think it is absurd to believe in God, and that He created us and our world, yet they feel it is perfectly sane to think that we and our world was created as a simulation by another advanced group. Either way you are believing that we live in a world that was not created "naturally," that we were not created "naturally," and that ultimately we don't really control our lives.

Ok then, explain God. What is God?

R16 My point it is no more absurd to believe in God, than in simulation, even though "smart" people claim that it is. To me God is an entity, that created the universe, set nature in motion and then created mankind to have fellowship with Him. He can intervene in our affairs but rarely does, because we were created to have intellect and free will and therefore our lives are has good or as bad as we choose it to be. If we live our lives in a just and honorable way, then we get to spend eternity with Him.

I’m sure the advanced civilization is highly amused watching us multiply exponentially and proceeding to rapidly destroy the planet while being enthralled by a reality TV maniac and screeching “RACISM!” at each other.

[quote] I love the trees and the oceans and butterflies and my dog.

Yes, I programmed you that way. And your naked enthusiasm never disappoints us.

This makes sense. I've been thinking about the craziness of quantum entanglement, and how it could be explained as a simple trick of mirrors.

I don't believe we are an actual simulation, like we being avatars in a computer game. I believe we are feeding our higher selves with the data we discover in our lives by exploring this reality.

It's comforting to know that Simon Cowell's latest face is just a bored kid somewhere playing with the liquify filter.

R7

Failing?

Those kids are already in the process of being expelled!

R22 A face only a Mother can say, “what the fuck have you done to your face now? Do you have any idea what you look like? What am I supposed to tell the neighbours? He just started to grow into his face? Who’s going to believe that!?! I don’t even know who you are anymore! Mostly due to your face!”

This is the bullshit that professional philosophers spend time thinking about now?

R29, philosophers are science buffs with no data.

[quote] This is the bullshit that professional philosophers spend time thinking about now?

WTF? You do understand that in the early stages everything starts out as a theory, right?

Do these scientists happen to work for the Umbrella Corporation??

I think Sondheim new this decades ago. In "Anyone can Whistle" a character is asked: "Do you ever wonder if you are real?" He answers, "Oh no Sir. Never. I know I'm not real." Does he go to group A or B. I don't remember.

Anyone who knowingly brings a child into the world is a simulation.

Antinatalists are the real deal!

Well Susan Dey must be a simulation - that no-hearted bitch!

R13 or was he?

Professor Smoot it's a moot point, because he you're right, what can we do about it?

I think it’s odd that this theory is being taken seriously by the same people who riducule the notion of f.i. aliens visiting earth.

I always thought there was a lot of 'fake' people.

I call them "the Cutouts".

Absurd.

But what about Muriel?

The writer is a big fan of the Waikowski bro.... err sisters.

How dow they define ’simulation’? This term i.m.o. suggests that you’re dealing with something that’s only an approximation of the real deal, the way objects in Java or C++ programs are. Maybe our ‘higher selves’ (a new age term) are running the simulation and when we die we become ‘whole’ again, or we go to a higher level of consciousness.

It'd be a relief in terms of explaining Trump.

R15 is rather strange and defensive, with an odd anti intellectual vibe.

I float around the nerd and science parts of the internet and can't think of anyone who says "the idea of God is stupid but the idea of an advanced civilization creating us is super smart."

What I've seen is usually "it's not God, per se, but something controlling a simulation."

R15's idea that all smart people believe dumb, hypocritical things sounds more like a religious person who feels they're a victim because of their beliefs.

[quote]odd that this theory is being taken seriously by the same people who riducule the notion of f.i. aliens visiting earth.

What?

f.i. = fer ixample, silly

The problem with this theory, is that it presupposes materialist science and emergence theory. It is assumed that every computer program can be modeled by a Turing Machine, but there’s no proof that a Turing Machine can exactly model human consciousness. Scientists don’t even know what that is.

[quote] What I can't understand is the "smart" people who think it is absurd to believe in God, and that He created us and our world, yet they feel it is perfectly sane to think that we and our world was created as a simulation by another advanced group.

It is not that different. There being a higher power which kickstarted our universe and / or our existence. We start wars about silly and trivial semantics over what to call this higher power. God, Allah, Alien race, etc. But in the end most of us believe that there is a greater power.

Gosh, you guys are really making me miss the meth

JizzLane is definitely a simulation

Maybe we are in some kind of game / competition where the goal is to program intelligence that can escape hell.

[quote] I’ve always had this feeling, ever since I was a child, that this isn’t the real world and this isn’t my real life. And that most of the people around me aren’t real. Or something. It’s a very vague feeling.

Exactly the same here, right down to the vagueness. It's something I can't put my finger on, but it's there. I remember wondering about it as a child, long before I had heard of computer games like Sims. Weird.

R16 When anyone asks what God is I always say that he is one of us. Just a slob like us.

R50, I love that song.

“God” is beyond human comprehension...to define “God” is to set limitations. We simply don’t know, just like we will never know with certainty what caused the Big Bang or even if it definitely happened. 🤷‍♂️

Black Mirror’s San Junipero episode! I hope technology is advanced enough in 50 years when I’m nearing my expiration date (hopefully) that technology has advanced to the point that we can “upload” our consciousness to the cloud and live forever in a simulation of our choice.

I must be a background character, then. Or maybe just an extra.

It's comforting to know that in a different version of this simulation that I might be faring much better. Perhaps in that other version Henry Cavill is an unfortunate looking cretin, while I can't leave my house without being mobbed by the adoring masses. To switch to that version, simply press Alt-Tab on your computer keyboard, then click your heels three times.

If only.

How do you explain ME?!

How do you explain ME?!

[Quote] I remember wondering about it as a child, long before I had heard of computer games like Sims.

Now if only I could get rich just by typing in the word [italic] rosebud [/italic].

R57 as long your'e not turn pixellated whenever taking a dump

Somehow I ALWAYS forget there actually are Gay Jesus Freaks Like R15 / R17.

Such self-hatred in them.

R28 is posting from an underground lab in Raccoon City.

R2 r49 I had a somewhat similar feeling too. With me i always felt like I was born in the wrong place or life . I would walk around or go outside and the colors and area where I lived looked bizarre, wrong, and ugly to me.

That might explain my weird "fear" of time in a philosophical manner.

It's not ageing I fear. I don't feel time is "real". It scares me to think how tenuous it is. You could easily fall into or out of it and just be lost in some nothingness.

What keeps our consciousness in time? What is consciousness? How does it stay attached to physical form? Why can't we switch forms at will or jump around time at will?

See, I think we CAN do all of this stuff but what happens to our current physical form? Too many questions, no answers and time flows through me.

Lisa Randall explains why this theory doesn't make any sense.

The high school and college pseudo-intellectual debate comes to life.

Of all the things to worry about, this gets our oxygen. I can't believe this intellectual cliche has any supporters or any research.

We need to wake up.

If true, can I speak with my programmers supervisor?

Get futilely working...

Futilely working take II...

Is Heather Locklear a Special Guest Star in the Simulation?

"I'd like to speak to the simulation manager, NOW"

"I'd like to speak to the Simulation Manager, NOW"

If this is a simulation, then why is my life mundane? No one would be entertained or fascinated by me sitting here posting nonsense on DL.

Turn that frown upside down, r72. [italic]Someone[/italic] has to fill seats in the simulation.

We can’t all be Brendad Icksons.

[quote]If this is a simulation, then why is my life mundane?

Some people get off on "feet" ffs, so there's probably some extra-terrestrial out there who gets off on you unboxing pie or something else completely mundane.

If this shit is true, why can’t the simulation rethink the mauve wallpaper as fast as I want it to?

I created simulations in college that remind me of this business. We created them to learn how to code, which would be used for practical purposes once we got jobs. So that could be it. I think it’s nonsense, though. We’re not a simulation.

Even if it were true, all it would mean is a different understanding of what life is. It wouldn’t mean we weren’t living.

I’m reminded about how Alexander the Great was thought to be a God. But he wasn’t thought to be a God, in the sense of the Christian God, omnipresent and omnipotent. He was thought to be a God because he was a seemingly invincible warrior, and his word was law, and had power over life and death. It was a different kind of God, entirely, than we might think of today.

Likewise, a simulation wouldn’t mean we weren’t alive, it would just change how we define the word, alive. And not really change it by too much, I don’t think.

I've been watching a lot of Rick and Morty recently. The animation series is a total mindfuck since it's all about the weird concepts of what life really could be.

This would explain why my life is always taking these dramatic yet nonsensical turns.

Think of it like this. Sim City. Not the sims or life but SIm City. Someone from a 10000-foot view is building and creating an existence based on what-ifs. A simulation. When you play sim city, you don't care about the tiny little people, you work at a 10000-foot view. You affect things that will change the landscape. Watch as your world progresses, see what happens when you apply disasters. If we are simulations the concept of time to us is nothing to them. My lifetime may be a blink of an eye to someone on a computer screen. It could be as grandiose as a program simulation of the universe and we are but one very very tiny part of that program. Someone running a simulation on the creation of the universe and we are in it, unknown to anyone. Once the simulation is over the data is reviewed and oh look in this solar system there was life. Someone asked what is God then? God is just a piece of the simulation. A concept born out of a program running to a conclusion. God is not running the sim, it is part of the sim.

The masters won't ever let you win that oscar G.

Them nerds on their Ivory Towers. Always trying to predict the future ie. scared of death.