The Human Experience: A Simulated Existence

Do I have your attention?

How Often Do You Question Reality?

I am not going to try to convince you that we all live in a giant computer or some kind of fabricated world like in The Truman Show.

My goal is simply to get people thinking.

How can we be sure that the human experience isn’t a reality that’s become indistinguishable from a metaphysical realm in which we exist infinitely?

Maybe the reason we forget dreams is because we are accessing a realm that only our subconscious can comprehend…

If we were not conscious of the universe, would it cease to exist?

If the entire material world is a hallucination (an uncontrolled perception) does that make it any less real?

Whether or not we understand this existence does not change our basic human needs.

We have to eat, sleep, hydrate, and generally take care of ourselves in order to survive and live healthily.

But there is so much more to life than survival.

Exploring identity and existential purpose is a significant component of the human experience.

Let’s compare self identity and legal identity, shall we?

All of us and our material possessions are legally identified by a series of numbers:

Each citizen’s place in society is defined by age, financial equity, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, etc.

We’ve all collectively agreed (and are legally required) to carry around little plastic cards with our personal information — i.e. birth dates and ID numbers — as proof of who we are.

How weird is that?

Our vehicles have their own license plates and Vehicle Identification Numbers.

Our addresses, phones, credit cards, and bank accounts are all identified by series of numbers.

Our time and money are measured by numbers.

This system has proven to be functional and maintains relative order in society, but is it ultimately dehumanizing?

The way we record data about people resembles video game coding in my opinion.

How would you identify yourself?

Most people would probably talk about their families, jobs, hobbies, passions, desires, beliefs, and fears before telling you their ID number.

The things that make you you are as individual as DNA and cannot be replicated.

We are beings whose consciousness lives inside a physical barrier and we experience the world from within that barrier.

When we reference our physical selves, we don’t identify ourselves as our bodies.

You have a face, but you are not your face.

You have hands, ears, kneecaps, and organs, but they are not you.

So who are you?

“Reality is what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is what we believe.

What we believe is based upon our perceptions.

What we perceive depends on what we look for.

What we look for depends on what we think.

What we think depends on what we perceive.

What we perceive determines what we believe.

What we believe determines what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is our reality.” — , theoretical physicist David Bohm

Life as a Video Game

Imagine your consciousness as a player in the game of life;

Your body (the avatar) is the only thing you have control over.

You experience everything through five senses at maximum.

The goal is to learn how to manipulate your environment in order to progress individually and as a species.

The world is not the simulation; your body is.

If the human experience is a game, are you winning?

Life and death are simplified and completely devalued in video games, but it’s interesting to compare them in the context of “simulation theory.”

Most people spend the majority of their time focused on survival, sex, money, consumption, pain and pleasure, etc.

It’s easy to forget that there’s more to you than your physical reality.

We are spiritual beings experiencing humanity with no knowledge or memory of existing outside of it.

The real you is always present, never physical.

As far as we know, we get one chance at this life. The only thing our futures all have in common is that they come to an end. Or do they?

Many religions and spiritual people believe they have an understanding of death, but the truth is that we can only theorize about afterlife.

Uncertainty about these existential questions is part of being human.

Whether or not we can comprehend reality does not change these facts:

Love is real.

Pain is real.

Human connection is something that we will likely only experience in this lifetime.

We cannot comprehend what it means to be infinite in the midst of a temporary life.

I believe we are infinitely more than our physical existence on this planet;

I would rather go my entire life believing that and end up being proven wrong than believe in nothing.

I am always seeking new revelations and my perception is evolving as I learn.

Thank you for joining me on the journey.

For more of my questions about reality and consciousness:

Thanks for reading!

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