How Gaming Has Forever Changed Mindsets And Concepts
Could our reality be a simulation?
Do you know what I like the most about gaming? The fact that it allows people to explore worlds that otherwise would only be available in their imagination.
And it’s even better going beyond that. It allows them to explore the imagined things of others.
The moment when I realized that gaming is more than entertainment was when I had to find a way to explain to other people concepts that I understood but they simply could not grasp unless I gave them the example of a video game.
Let me tell you what I mean.
The Simulation Hypothesis
There has been constantly in the scientific news the circulation of the idea that our world could actually be just a simulation. It is a theory that has attracted a lot of attention, but also contrary views.
The Simulation hypothesis is saying that our universe is just a simulation that is artificial in nature, thus a computer simulation, like a game. Do you know the game Sims? A cute comparison.
I remember a decade ago when graphic card producers were saying that the next generation of video processors will be so powerful that video game graphics will be as real as reality. Well, we have reached that phase now and with VR we can experience what a true simulated world could mean.
The truth is, some games are better than movies and books. They actually contain both cinematics and a lot of text, and so much more. In games, the story is told through different means and many times in the first person, to form a completely immersive experience and VR is the new thing that takes everything to the next level.
We can have an idea about a possible simulated universe if we watch The Matrix trilogy. This great movie shows us what it would be like if we would just be trapped in a simulation and how could we get out. There was another great movie called The Truman Show, reflecting again this notion of a simulated world.
If this universe we live in is a simulation, then it would mean that real life is actually out there, outside of the “game of life” and this should explain very well in my perspective the notion of souls incarnating in flesh bodies to have the human experience, a concept that we find in spirituality. This takes us back to that part where I mentioned using video gaming as an example for explaining certain concepts.
Logging in and Logging Out of the Simulation
Some time ago I was playing the notorious MMORPG World of Warcraft with a friend and I had this thought that I shared with him (he said the idea is crazy) that we “log in” to this world when we are born and we log out when we die.
The real you would be your soul, spirit, anima, or whatever you want to call it and the body is just a vehicle to explore this 3D world or physical dimension.
Wait… What? 3D World? Sounds just like a game. But a very realistic one, in which when you are hurt, you feel it profoundly.
How Far Can This Concept Go?
Are we in a biological supercomputer in the future of humanity playing an ultra-realistic simulation of humanity’s history? Or maybe we are just the subjects of study for some super-advanced alien species, placed in their simulation.
I am probably going too far here, but who knows? It’s just theory, anyway. What is good about all this is that the possibilities offered by gaming can make us think about the possibilities of our reality?
Gaming has changed our perspectives. It has made us think about how far we can go with technology and what we can create with it.
“The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation. Like when you’re playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can’t ever get there. If it’s not a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s some advanced alien civilisation that’s just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a petri dish.”
Elon Musk