"I ache," said the Mind "for a truth I seem unable to find." "The journey is the truth," answered a voice "it is just a path upon which you make a choice."

"What choice," pleaded the mind?

"To stay, or to go, is all that you may know."

Yeah, I had a little fun with that exchange above. Consider it a little poetic seepage from my @chaospoet account invading my thoughts for the day. Today I have the urge to revisit the concept of reality as a simulation. This is sometimes referred to as the Simulation Hypothesis and is a rather popular topic these days.

Before I dive into this topic with a new interest I want to share past posts on this subject from oldest to newest. Some of these may only touch on the topic briefly such as at the end of the Deism post.

Past Explorations

• The little religion that history has forgotten... Deism (not to be confused with Theism) - last year
• If reality were only a simulation how would WE the simulants be able to know for sure? - 11 months ago
• If you and I are part of a simulation have you considered time, and seeing outside of that simulation? Real Life 2.0 (RL2.0) - 11 months ago
• More thoughts on infinity... - 4 months ago
• How would we know if we were in a simulation or not? Take Two - Sparring with Infinity - 4 months ago

Continuing the Mental Exploration

Several times per week I hear little tidbits of information, observe some things, or am reminded of topics from our past. These can often circle back to the simulation hypothesis.

First for those of you reading this that are of Christian, Muslim, or any other faiths the existence of the Simulation Hypothesis does not destroy the possibility for your faiths. In actuality, the Simulation Hypothesis puts reality into a very large and almost boundless container.

If you believe the Genesis stories in a faith for example the Simulation Hypothesis does not destroy these things. In fact, it makes it easier to explain some discrepancies. Simulations can begin at prebuilt states. Thus, many things could appear almost over night, or instantaneously. Simulation Hypothesis does not preclude the idea of a "creator" in fact it requires some sort of creator. Someone had to create, and launch the simulation just as you have to start a simulation game on a computer or console game system when you want to observe it or play it.

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We as humans design simulations on computers that are often just observational models which begin with initial input and we just watch to see what happens. These are more common in scientific modeling. Then we also make games which follow the same concept but they allow the interaction of the player to change what is occurring in the simulation.

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In one you are simply an observer, in the other you are a participant and how broad your abilities are is defined by how the simulation/game was set up. These states can very nicely accommodate the concept of Gods/Deities. Though in reality the only requirement is that something started the simulation. If calling this a creator makes you feel more comfortable then that is fine. I sometimes call it a catalyst as well. This also fits nicely within the concepts known as Deism which have been around far longer than the concept of a computer simulation.

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In some of my earlier posts (which I linked above) I delved into some things we might look for to determine whether we ARE in a simulation or not. They answered some of the How Would You Know type of questions. In another linked above I also discussed Time and it's passage within a simulation. Since I have covered those in some detail in the past I am not going to specifically address those points here. If you want further detail on either of those areas I would hope you would read those older posts.

Instead what I want to focus on here is new thoughts. I want to SPECULATE WILDLY upon how some concepts might work, and some things that MIGHT BE. Please keep in mind I consider these pure speculation and it is simply me allowing my mind, and imagination free range to see what it can do with the concept of the simulation hypothesis.

Reincarnation

A fun idea I've been playing around with in my mind with relation to the simulation hypothesis of late has been the concept of reincarnation. I know the seed came from people talking about evidence to suggest that reincarnation is real.

The interesting thing about this is that reincarnation does not preclude the simulation hypothesis. In fact, it could work quite nicely within it.

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I should be able to explain quickly where the concept of reincarnation took me. I started considering our minds as being a representation of a PLAYER in the simulation. Our bodies and our lives are simply their current character. When we die there is an opportunity to continue as a new character. For the simulation to be the purest form we would want to not have our memories from our other lives bleed over into our current one. That doesn't mean that it might not happen in some cases. Ideally if you were living the life of a bear then you wouldn't necessarily want to be recalling your life as a human. This is of course assuming you can take the Buddhist/Hindu route and reincarnate as an animal. Whether you can or cannot is not really important to this concept.

The main thing is that reincarnation does have its place that would make complete sense in the Simulation Hypothesis. Let me give you a quick example using a popular movie Simulation Reality of the Matrix. (If you haven't seen the Matrix, watch it, it is worth it, and this will not make sense without that context)

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Imagine that Neo is captured, his mind is wiped (we are actually making strides in erasing memories), and he is put into a new body, life, character, and perhaps even with new memories. Would this not be similar to reincarnation?

Ancient Aliens

Now let's go with the concept of Ancient Aliens. This could be the hypothesis as pushed by the History Channel series Ancient Aliens, or the various authors and people exploring this topic. I personally find this topic intriguing and there may be something to it, but I think they reach often to try to make everything fit into the Ancient Alien narrative, when in some cases things are just myths. Everything need not be true.

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However, for the purposes of the Simulation Hypothesis. It does not preclude the existence of the Ancient Alien hypothesis. The Simulation Hypothesis is a rather huge concept and pretty much every other idea (except atheism) can fit inside of it. So you can still have an Ancient Alien situation and reality still be running inside of a huge simulation.

Archaeology That Seems Out of Time

There are documented cases of archaeological findings that do not fit the accepted history which are usually gathered up and stuck in a basement somewhere in a museum like the Smithsonian Institute. I picture the vast warehouse in Raider's of The Lost Ark where they hide the Ark of the Covenant.

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However, these things could also be the result of a simulation hypothesis. Could it be possible that some things were placed at the time of the simulations launch to lend back story? The other more likely story for me is that our accepted history is being treated like dogma and a lot of cognitive dissonance and censoring occurs to try to keep the status quo view as it is.

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So I do not necessarily think these things are Simulation Hypothesis related, but I did want to throw the idea out there that they COULD BE.

Fragmented Minds

An idea I remember friends and I playing around with long before I'd heard of any Simulation Hypothesis and before The Matrix or anything like it came out was the idea of a large massive mind that is incomprehensible to ours, but is capable of fragmenting itself into parts. Rather than us being PLAYERS in the simulation hypothesis we could instead ALL be fragments of a larger complete mind. The mind is playing the simulations with itself. This would make this mind something very alien to us and slightly incomprehensible.

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A game friends and I had when I was a late teen and early 20s was to sit around and make up new religions that explained reality on the fly. This would be kind of like a Flying Spaghetti Monster approach to things before that existed. It was kind of like a little party game. This concept of the large mind was a product of one of those sessions. I think we called it the "Gray Man". :) I wasn't on drugs, or drinking, but some participating were likely on both. I never really needed chemical assistance to have weird and deep thoughts.

Body As A Container

I've often found myself thinking about Out Of Body Experiences (OOBE), Near Death Experiences (NDE), how telepathy or psychic abilities might work if they were real, and ghosts. For me these things could all be possibly interrelated if we assume there is some truth to them. If they are true one idea that has often come to me is that the MIND is actually bigger than our body. The body may be simply a container, or perhaps even more properly an anchor. It is something the MIND attaches to and as the person moves about. This could fit with the concept of a soul, or a spirit if that makes you more comfortable. What you choose to label it is unimportant for this speculative mental exploration.

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Could the mind be the manifestation of the player? It certainly could still fit within the Simulation Hypothesis.

The Magic of Simulations

One thing that is interesting about the simulation hypothesis is that IF we are indeed in a simulation then, yes it should be following perceivable rules. This could be what we discover using physics, and science. Yet, I think it is interesting to note that a simulation need not be static. Rules can change, and patches can be applied. There can also be other depths to the simulation that we have not even considered or stumbled upon.

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Closing

This was a purely speculative journey. I do not believe any of the things I discussed here are TRUE. I simply cast them out there as possibilities. This post was purely a mental journey of exploration, speculation, and exercise. Thinking these things can stretch the proverbial mental muscles and hopefully strengthen the mind. Some people may consider such things as lunacy, and the path to madness. Perhaps they are, perhaps they are not. I don't close my mind to thought, I simply try to apply REASON to everything that I think of. I often fail, but I also try to learn from my failures.

If you made it this far, thank you for sticking with me through this mental odyssey for the weekend. My mental muscles do feel like they got a little bit of a workout.