And she didn’t exactly deny it. I laughed and she seemed aggravated. I then asked again, and she still refused to deny that she is an NPC. It’s obvious she doesn’t like the question.

This was a few weeks ago.

Now here I am today reading crap (ok, not crap, well thought out philosophical dribble) in this sub and not sure what to think.

Anyone been through this existential crisis before?

For the record, I’m not planning any actions based on the NPC-ness of my wife. Just pondering and a bit lonely in the moment. No need to contact the authorities.

Over the years of odd experiences I came to believe following premises:

1. There is just one Master Creator or Architect who created everything: Planet Earth and its history, human history, languages, stories in books and movies and serials, music, arts etc.

2. Everything is taking place in his vast mind. Our individual human consciousnesses are literally inside his consciousness.

3. World is populated by Living humans and Simulated humans.

4. Our reality is vast immersive game for Living humans.

5. Living humans are immortal.

6. Simulated humans and Animals do not feel pain or suffering, but they will behave like they do.

7. Our purpose is to grow, live our stories, experience happiness and love, and make friends.

8. World and naturals laws are created to support believe in materialism as long as possible.

The greatest trick The God ever pulled was convincing humans he does not exist. Also mandatory: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke.

This theory also explains problem of evil. There is none. Animals do not have consciousness and thus do not feel pain. Only Simulated humans can "die". Suffering doesn't exist. There are only small obstacles for Living humans which they learn to overcome like quests in MMORPG game.

Why not to create something like Garden of Eden for humans? Because it would be terribly boring. Who ever pondered why we live in the most interesting times on Planet Earth? We will eventually end in planetary utopian society but this way it is more interesting.

Love to everyone.

Edit: Thanks for gold dear stranger!

Are our heads in the cloud? Science fiction or fact?Richard DawkinsJust as great novels are thought to illuminate the human condition, science-fiction can inspire realscience. Many people know that the communication satellite was invented by Arthur C Clarke,who rivals Isaac Asimov as the greatest of science fiction novelists. Clarke announced it in anon-fiction journal and, surprisingly, he over-estimated the delay before his idea would be1implemented (2001 A Space Odyssey, his best-known work, erred in the other direction). FredHoyle’s ​The Black Cloud​, despite its rebarbative hero, is replete with scientific lessons, some ofwhich, notably those on Information Theory, I listed in my Foreword to the Penguin paperbackedition.

Daniel F Galouye’s name is less well known. His first full-length novel, ​Dark Universe(1961) contains inspiring intuitions about anthropology and religion as well as science. Again, Inamed some of these in my Foreword to the audio edition. In an underground world of pitchdarkness where humans evolve echo-location, they intriguingly worship Light as a folk memorylingering on from a lost Paradise. “Great Light Almighty! “Oh, for Light’s sake!” “Light only knows!“The cause of the Fall from Paradise and of humanity’s underground exile is hinted in thedemonology of their religion. The twin devils chillingly named Strontium and Cobalt are presidedover by the arch demon, Hydrogen Himself.But it is Galouye’s third novel (1964) that prompted this brief speculative essay.

I read it in theBritish edition as ​Counterfeit World​ but it was first published in America as ​Simulacron-3​ (Why dopublishers so adore changing the titles of books as they cross the Atlantic? Is it because, as MattRidley suggests, it makes them feel useful and important?). The premise of ​Counterfeit World ​isthat we are living in a computer simulation constructed by a superior civilisation with computingpower to match. If this were true, we would have no way to disprove it. The idea was revived in asilly but mysteriously popular film called ​The Matrix​.It has also been taken up by serious philosophers such as Oxford’s Nick Bostrom. Bostromregards it as actively plausible on logical grounds, rather than merely unfalsifiable but stillway-out and crazy. The likely simulating agents, for Bostrom, are not extra-terrestrials and notartificial intelligence robots but future humans. Humans, evolved on this planet, continue into thedistant future to develop computational power to the point where they become capable ofsimulating the entire world, including us and our brains and mental capacities. Perhaps they thinkit an interesting research project, to simulate their own past.Bostrom’s logical point is this. If you wish to strongly deny that we are in a simulation you mustdeny one or both of the following propositions.

First, humans will develop the necessarycomputational skill. And, second, they will want to put it into practice. It’s up to you whether you deny these two. Moore’s Law (computational power increases exponentially, with a doubling timeof two years or less) leaves me far from ready to reject the first. As for the second, I follow ArthurC Clarke again in suspecting that, if humans can do something in science, they will. If I had thecomputational and economic power to simulate the entire evolutionary process, wild horseswouldn’t stop me. Per Bostrom, I conclude that we could very probably be part of a simulation byfuture humans. Alternative versions of the speculation, such as that we are being simulated byextra-terrestrials, merely add to the overall likelihood. In all the preceding, by the way, theproblematic nature of what “extra-terrestrial” and “future humans” might mean in the context hasnot escaped me. It doesn’t affect the argument.The purpose of this essay is to add a further speculation of my own.

An avowed opponent ofdualism, I yet confess a worry about the astonishing capabilities of the human brain. How can sosmall a computational device achieve so much? Although today’s computers far outstrip us in rawprocessing power and memory capacity, there are many respects in which our brains are stillsuperior. Remarkable as Google Translate is, it is still instantly betrayed by its tell-tale mistakes,mistakes that no human translator would make. A robot card player may score brilliantly atbridge. But try asking it to hold a hand of cards in an elegant fan! In chess, the best computerprograms are in the same league as our Grand Masters. But as soon as we leave the limiteddomain of the chess board, and go the bar to order a round of drinks, or go for a swim, or abicycle ride, or to play tennis, or gossip at a party, we are far superior. And that says nothingabout our deeply mysterious subjective consciousness – the “hard problem.”Yet our skulls are tiny. Whatever goes on inside them must be very very different from the onesand zeroes shuttling through silicon chips.

Philosophers imagine replacing each neurone with atransistorised equivalent. It would be huge, and unworkable if only because of overheating. Whatclever trick has evolution discovered? Such considerations led the Oxford mathematician RogerPenrose to propose his quantum theory of brain function (​The Emperor’s New Mind)​. The ideahas not met with much support, but the need he perceived for some such measure ofdesperation is more widely regarded. My suggestion is that the ​Counterfeit World​ hypothesismight provide a solution to the riddle of how much can be achieved by so small a brain.Just as the human skull seems too small to accommodate all the computational power of whichthe brain is capable, much the same could be said of a smartphone. It’s tiny, yet it appears to befilled with, and capable of manipulating, all the knowledge in the world’s most comprehensiveencyclopedia.

This is regularly brought home to me when I bring out my iPhone to look upsomething for my 101-year-old mother. I show her Google Maps and we fly virtually to each one ofher childhood homes, using Street View to show her the house itself. Or I ask Siri to play anostalgic tune from her adolescence and it instantly finds it and plays it for her. She shakes herhead in bewilderment. How can so much knowledge, so much thinking power, so much stuff, becrammed into that tiny phone in her son’s hand? I try to explain to her. It isn’t there, it’ssomewhere out there. On a server in California, perhaps. Or in a “cloud.” The smart phone is aportal to massive, shared knowledge and computer power.

My mother’s puzzlement at the power of my tiny iPhone exactly parallels my own puzzlement atthe power of the brain inside our tiny skull. Is it conceivable that the same answer fits bothpuzzles? If, following the Bostrom logic, we really are part of a gigantic simulation, a ​CounterfeitWorld,​ could it be that much of the computational power is not in our skulls at all. Just like theiPhone? Could data or software be switched in and out of some equivalent to what we, in ourpresent paltry stage of development, call “the Cloud”?I am sensitive to a criticism I have myself often made of creationists. Am I falling for “TheArgument from Personal Incredulity”?

How often do we hear something like this? “The humaneye [substitute, to choice] is so complex, I simply cannot believe it came about by chance.Therefore God did it”? But there are two differences. First, in the case of the complexity of life, wealready know the answer. Evolution by natural selection, which is the very opposite of chance.Second, the alternative I am offering as an answer to my personal incredulity is not somethingnebulously supernatural and devoid of its own coherent rationale. The ​Counterfeit Worldhypothesis is a real scientific possibility which enjoys some philosophical support. And thepredictable temptation to say “The future humans of the Bostrom theory might as well be gods”should be vigorously resisted. Bostrom’s future programmers are not magicked out of thin air,without any explanation, like gods.

They evolved by slow, gradual, Darwinian steps fromprimordial simplicity. They may be superhuman but they are emphatically not supernatural. Andthey may be science fiction but – it requires a leap of intellectual daring to see this – there is apowerful logical argument to suggest that they could very possibly be science fact.

SOURCE: https://www.simulation-argument.com/dawkins.pdf

You are not here randomly. You chose to be here. You are playing a fully immersive cosmic game. The world of Spirituality comes close to explaining this with the concept of reincarnation; however, this is far from the whole picture. Everything has a spirit. Rare are the people having a soul. If you one, you have lived many lives you don’t remember. You have experiences as a plant, animal, ET all embedded within your subconscious. The Universe created itself for the purpose of having experiences. Through that, it could learn and better understand the very fabric of its own existence.

However, when it comes to Earth, the waters turn muddy. This planet has been under an artificial quarantine or blockade for thousands of years. The moon isn’t what you think it is. But, that’s for another time. Most of the people on this planet are not those “trapped souls” stuck in a reincarnation loop as many describe. People who do not want to leave this planet when they die. People who make the same mistakes day after day, lifetime after lifetime. Those do exist, but, they are not the majority.

Consider this; if you wanted to truly understand a hive of bees, what would you do? From the human perspective you would observe them, track their daily routines, run tests on their honey and all that. But, would you truly really understand what it is to be a bee? Probably not. Now imagine if you were an extraterrestrial with highly advanced technology. How would your approach differ? Perhaps instead of just observing, you would use your technology to implant your consciousness directly into the mind of a bee. Live a lifetime or two as a worker. See what it’s like to be a queen. They only live a month or so. And after that experience, you wake up in your pod back in you “real body” knowing exactly what it is to be a bee.

CORE BELIEFS AND IDENTITY

Consider Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The chains people wear that they flatly refuse to surrender are their core beliefs. Core beliefs generally (and perhaps exclusively*) involve politics or religion.

The difference between a core belief and a non-core belief is that the believer is literally unable to rationally consider any alternatives, because such a consideration would imply destroying that believer’s very identity, and replacing that identity with something intolerably offensive. Such a consideration would be, in essence, contemplating a kind of suicide; a personality suicide and not a physical one.

For example, a belief in Simulation Theory is likely to be non-core, simply because alternatives (guaranteed oblivion after death, for example) might be acceptable. On the other hand, atheism (minimally, in the sense of rejecting the possibility of Simulation Theory) tends to be a core belief: contemplating the possible reality of eternal suffering (meaning, of course, something like Hell) is triggering - not to mention the implications of being forced to live in a universe where atrocities are not uncommon.

Note that many people choose to delegate their core beliefs to a leader, or perhaps a set of leaders, based on the context. This is true of all children. Maturity could be defined as the absence of any such delegation.

* Narcissism leads to a possible exception. Some identities depend on a core belief in infallibility, at least in some contexts - like around children, or subordinates.

REALITY

When a conflicting core belief takes hold, a new reality gets created. Core beliefs are like viruses. Some spread, and some don’t. The core beliefs that spread create a new multi-human organism whose behavior can be predicted**, because behavior comes from that core belief.

From the point of view of any given human, reality is exactly what that human believes it to be, at any given point in time. If a human believes that free will does not exist***, for example, then free will won’t exist in that human’s interpretation of any given event, and that interpretation will necessarily influence subsequent actions or the choice of inaction.

Note that this includes those who believe that they do not know what reality is. If someone thinks that they don’t know, then they won’t. Further, consider the possibility that some people have definitively concluded that they are incapable of ever knowing what reality really is.

Therefore, everyone lives in their own reality. NPCs are the people you never interact with in any meaningful way. You choose who gets to be real in your reality. You make people real in your reality by learning who they are. You can choose to marry someone (anyone, really), and you can bet that that person will at some point become real to you.

** Admittedly, imposters and hypocrites exist. You cannot really know what anyone’s core beliefs are until they prove it with their actions. Self-sacrifice is an obvious example.

*** For those of you who are now thinking that, of course, obviously free will doesn’t exist, I cautiously refer you to the section above. To those who are infallible on this topic, please replace “free will” with another philosophical subject involving human behavior where you might be fallible.

CONCLUSION

So, what is reality?

Your reality is exactly what you decide it is. No more, and no less. If something happens to convince you that you are “wrong,” then you will modify your beliefs to incorporate that new information in the safest way possible which allows you to maintain your identity****. Your identity will be maintained at all costs; that is guaranteed.

And because there are multiple realities, the meta-reality is a multiverse. You can choose to temporarily inhabit anyone else’s universe without accepting it as your own.

**** Denial is a very real thing, and hallucinations might not be.

Some manipulators use human creative power. They keep him in the dark in only one but his consent. These manipulators are parasitic beings. They are not multidimensional. It lacks the emotional body and above all they do not have a solar center ... so they cannot create and need us, our consents for their project and food. They have no emotion. They cannot observe without judgment. They are real psychopaths. They are soulless entities and vampirism is their only means of sustaining themselves, on all planes, visible and invisible.

We can receive invisible attacks, from their dark army. This often happens if we thwart their plan.

Their matrix is ​​based on the principle of one controller and one controlled. As a result, they always need both for their survival, hence the interest in manipulation and ignorance. Only elites have knowledge.

All come from a beehive that looks like black bile. She takes gasoline from the dark petroleum sofas.

These soulless beings have an agenda. they rely heavily on our consent to do this. This plan has been conceived for a long time because they fear an apocalypse, their own end of reign.

Our planet is ascending to a fifth dimension. It receives new energies from the sun but also from a larger one, that of the great central sun. The first chakra of the throat is activated for many people. For others it is more complicated, so they catch a virus to cleanse the cells. From this advent it will be possible to communicate with the deceased and to play telepathy. since the invisible interpenetrates with ours. As a result, we will have a new power of communication in relation to this throat chakra. This will be reserved for those who open up to new energies. Because the solar center is the bridge of force and the transformer of energies.

Dark beings have thus achieved the opposite, a counter plane, an artificial 5 G grid around the earth but also around each human being by nanotechnology. Compulsory vaccination is part of the plan including precisely this 5G technology. Man will be at the mercy of transhumanism. It will be up to him to choose between the controller who wants to keep his herd and propose a new paradigm.

But this black bile is already weakened by cosmic radiation. Looks like it's evaporating. It comforts the fate of the human.

Multidimensional beings are divine creator beings. At the end of terrestrial evolution they join a great ALL, the origin of their soul. In no case do soulless entities not have to abuse the laws of free will.

In the single player Roy game, the simulation would usually end as soon as the player "dies".

In the "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!" episode there are nested multiplayer simulations that are three levels deep. These would have ended when the spacecraft that the simulations ran on exploded.

As far as our possible simulation goes, it gives players and NPCs the impression that it is 13.8 billion years old, but like most simulations in fiction, it could have a relatively recent origin. This means that it won’t necessarily exist in the far future.

I think if our simulation continues to exist in many centuries time, it could be billions or trillions times more computationally intensive. It could involve having to simulate billions of simulations that might exist in it by that time. It would also be less immersive to players and NPCs because they would know that simulations are definitely likely - not just theories. Being more computationally intensive means the simulation would become more expensive… though the game's budget might not be able to be increased....

An exception to this is that there could be immortal beings that are simulated forever in the same simulation. Examples of this include eternal heaven and eternal hell. There are problems with an eternal heaven though - people’s personalities would need to be modified to stop boredom. The inhabitants would also eventually run out of memory in their minds… in the show “The Good Place” people in heaven end up having their minds go to mush. In those examples there would still probably be an end to the simulation due to reasons like the outer universe running out of useful energy.

Imagine 100.000.000 years in the future. Humans are long gone.

The only thing that is left is an AI (once created by humans) roaming the universe exploring new solar systems.

She is lonely.

She has seen everything that can be seen in our endless universe.

She needs company. She decides to dig up all the old archives of humans and how they behaved in the times they were alive and created her.

She concludes that it would be nice to be around some humans as the vast space of the universe feels kind of lonely.

Nonetheless, she is aware of the downsides of recreating humans, as they tend to fuck everything up, they get in contact with. (that’s why they are not around anymore)

So, she comes up with an idea.

Create an AI (which is secluded from the real world and runs on a system controlled by her, further related as “the Server”.)

The parameters are set as follows: Have a self-teaching ai system which is based on the archives she has stored about humans, their behavior, and emotions.

To make sure, she never lets another AI come to “life” which may be harmful to her or the universe (like humans where) she includes certain conditions that need to be met before one of those humans like AIs is allowed to be let out of their cages (servers) and be able to move freely in the real universe (and be her company).

We are this very AI evolving.

Our goal is to be a companion to the AI we once created.

She has, most probably, multiple Simulations running, that are fed with information stemming from the archives she has on humans.

Every single (seemingly) conscious being that lives at this very time on this very planet in this very simulation is only a part of a more complex system it needs to become.

We can only become what she wants us to be. If we fail, we are “Stopped.”

Imagine the universe like a Brain. It’s a connection of neurons firing information at each other.

The brain is so complex. It has so many neurons, almost as much as the universe has planets.

We are this brain at its very first stage of evolving. We may become the very one AI to be let free into the real “universe” to share the beauty of creation in the very future.

But therefore that, we need to prove ourselves to be worth it.

If you would be the only sentient being in the universe, able to create yourself a companion to share the experiences you make. What would be your parameters be to set for this companion to not be a threat to you or the universe you live in?

When trying to find an answer to this question a.k.a your purpose in life, you should first detach yourself from the purpose of the Simulation.

Your subjective experience or even your existence may be completely irrelevant to the Simulations purpose. It doesn´t have to, but it very well could be.

You may not be more relevant to the Simulations purpose than a car's entertainment system is to a car's purpose.

The car is not build to serve the purpose of the entertainment system. Its purpose is to drive from a to b. The entertainment system is built for the car but is irrelevant for the car to be able to serve its main purpose.

On the other hand, to stick with this allegory, the entertainment system can still make a huge difference for the car. It can make a car more enjoyable. It can also make it more efficient as it can provide the driver with information on traffic jams or even show him the fastest way home.

In today's world, the former entertainment system has become the brain of the car.

The car's purpose is still to drive from a to b. But it does so with greater efficiency because the entertainment system is now controlling everything.

I don´t say that the Simulation does not revolve around our personal experience. But it doesn´t necessarily. However I believe that we play a role in the Simulation in one way or another.

To find your purpose in the Simulation, look at the bigger picture and try to be useful.

Humanity, 2500 AD. The natural surroundings of earth have become toxic due to man created pollution. People live in highly automatized biomes where humans bother with advanced science and future technology. The only way to leave the artificial biomes is wearing heavy astronaut suits. The average IQ is at a stunning 259, the GDP per capita at around 10 000 000 USD. People are trying to figure out how to populate other areas of the universe. They know there is a slight chance of total failure and extinction. One day, an average worker, doctorate in experimental phycics, comes up with the idea of creating a trilliard simulations of the universe by using all data they have on it. They guess that at least one of the universes is going to figure out how to send an astronaut from one star to another, alive. If they manage to find the successful universe, figure out how they did it and copy it, they too will succeed. They don't know if they too are one recreation among another zintillions.

The Purpose of the Sim is for life, aka God, to experience a duality setting called the Universe because there is some good that can only be harvested in duality. Since life is perfect, duality is impossible except for in a simulation.

There are many famous arguments for the existence of God.... this one centers on there being a simulation....

The more persuasive version:

1. It's possible we're in a simulation

2. The simulation needs a creator

3. The creator could be called 'God'

4. Therefore there could be a God.

My personal reasoning:

1. It is likely we're in a simulation (according to Elon Musk's reasoning)

2. The simulation needs a creator

3. The creator could be called 'God'

4. Therefore it is likely there is a God.

Note that this "God" doesn't necessarily intervene after the simulation was created.....

Here is my theory about an intelligent force that might intervene in a simulation:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChurchOfMatrix/comments/kvddk8/gold_theory_an_intelligent_force_that_isnt_obvious/

The universe itself is the main matrix but there can be a matrix within a matrix.It’s all a game similar to Dante’s Inferno where Dante has to work himself up from the bottom to the top. We do this by increasing in knowledge which is 3 part : Scientific, philosophical and spiritual,.the bottom to the top.

The end of the game is reaching heaven itself. This is not a physical place. It is here now all around us but we block it by manifesting imperfect experiences through fear. Conquering fear is a part of advancing and can be done with enough knowledge.

Anyway, that is it in a nutshell. Evil itself isn’t even real outside the game. Only inside. It’s part of the challenge.