Is life a virtual reality game?

I don't fully support this theory, but I was thinking; haven't you ever had such a strange occurance, like someone acting very unusual, or if you put something somehwere and it "dissappeared", though you vividly recall putting it there? I have a possible, very outlandish, idea. What if we are all just in a game and we don't know it? A game that we chose to play, or that we are forced to play by some more powerful system. I recently found an exact copy of a shirt I had. TWO. Maybe this would be a "glitch" in the game. Computers all have glitches at one point or another. I asked all my freinds, and NOONE I know had one. The even stranger thing is, is that it mysteriously dissappeared a week later, even though I closley guarded this evidence.
Think about it, this would explain EVERYTHING. Religion, conspiracies, aliens, ghosts, psychics, etc. The list goes on and on. An advanced enough computer can simulate anything. Ponder this

I'm not sure if it relates to this disappearing, but are you familiar with the Holographic Universe ?

It's a theory relating to quantum mechanics that I find particularly appealing since (at least in my opinion) it marries modern science with possible explanation for 'para-normal' activity and certain long-standing religious or spiritual ideas and themes.

That is a very intense book, which brings up some amazing points.

Only for those willing to see things in a different shade of light, if there is such a thing

according to hinduism it is.It is known as maya a sanskrit word meaning illusion.The matrix movies have borrowed a lot from hinduism.Search maya in wikipedia

I was working on a starter solnoid one day and a part the size of a toonie, flung out of it (spring action). I tore the place appart looking for it, never found it and I swear an elf took it. Maybe our minds can alter reality in unexpected ways.

XL5 needs GF, badly - since I already have food.

homepage.mac.com...

I seem to find all kinds of glitches in computer software without even really trying. I remember one old game now called The Crusader where it was a third person shooter. Anyway at one point in the game I had the joy of getting stuck and my character accidently left the game. He walked right outside of the program into the black area outside the main screen. I kept him walking until his image became a blur. Then I had him go back to the wall and break back into the game. Then I continued playing as if nothing happened. I had other glitches in that game as well including finding some of the programmers hidden rooms. Usually the glitches I find are more irritating instead of amusing though.

I've thought about what if the reality we experience is some sort of virtual reality as well. I know it seems strange to me when I think about something off the wall and then it happens. It's almost like my mind and the computer core are linked and things happen as I think about them on occasion. Makes me want to be careful what I think about on occasion. Then there are other strange things such as burning my hand tonight when some boiling gravy splashed up on my hand. It seems strange that the burn is almost completely gone in just a matter of hours. I'm glad though.

Upon rereading this when I said the computer core I was merely remembering a dream where I was communicating with an intelligent AI. I'm not trying to confuse anyone.

Dammit, maybe that's what I was getting at here?

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

But nobody replied.

I suppose that could be the case, but I think it's a little more complicated than a game. When it comes to stuff disappearing, my girlfriend blames the pixies.

Life seems more like a beam of light through a prism, a segmented, abstract approach to understanding, moreso than a consciously designed simulator for our entertainment. Take the example of a Zen garden: one can never see the entirety of the arrangement from one position. Perspective is a component of any experience, an important one.

It seems that one's life and memories are a powerful tool for understanding something that is, on the surface, as simple and seemingly ephemeral as a beam of light. If you had never seen a beam of light disassembled by passage through a crystal, how would you know the secret construction and processes hidden to the casual observer?

Humanity may be the cosmic equivalent of a prism, the purpose of which is to filter and interpret life, through endless unique perspectives.

Ahh yes. Epistemology. Plato's Cave. It didn't all start with The Matrix, you know. [ And actually, there's a lot of back story to the Wachowski's version of The Matrix, Val Valerian, the Mothman Prophecies, MIB, Major Jack Downing...but that rabbit hole's way too deep].

Try this link for the virtual reality topic -
Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? Nick Bostrom's an interesting guy.

how about this one

you are all actually just figments of my imagination, and you only exist for my amusement. If I forget about you, you cease to exist.

got that from some book, I think.

I like the ending to the MIB movie, where our galaxy is just a play thing for another life form in his bag of "marbles"

today might be the first day of existence, maybe our memories are just planted there

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
you are all actually just figments of my imagination, and you only exist for my amusement. If I forget about you, you cease to exist.

No. You're all figments of MY imagination. Don't get uppity, figment of my imagination! I'm on to you! Trying to convince me you're actually real! Nice trick.

*ahem*

Carry on.

Christ, it's actually possible.


www.simulation-argument.com...

No, in fact, likely. But these planetary mass computers would have to be ridiculously powerful to simulate every mind on the planet, and everything associated.
Jeez, we're just beginning to understand the brain. But as the argument says, these computers can be made, not by us, then by these post-humans.

I think this is a very plausible scenario. I get the feeling from time to time that i need not fear anything in this physical world as I am in complete control, as if it were a dream. However nothing has actually happened to me whilst in that state to verify my suspicions.

What I don't like is that you know you have something and it should be in a certain place but you just don't see it there. You even ask someone else if they see it. None of us saw it. Then a few days later, it seems to magically appear where it should have been and you notice it when you are looking for something else. Then you start thinking, I could have sworn I looked at that same spot and didn't see that item there but you always seem to have a certain bit of uncertainty as if your memory is fuzzy.

Using the word 'game' only works if in fact there is another realer world than this which we return to after our life points have ran out. It would also only be a 'game' if our actions here held no real consequence in the realer world.

It wouldn't matter if this world was a hologram or a real place. The same rules would apply.

I wonder if Jesus knew the cheat codes....

CaptainIraq: Your theory is very possible. I once burned some Mp3's on a cd, the disc burnt and i put it down on my desk because my phone rang. My phone is in the same room where my computer is and all i had to do to answer the phone was turn around, after a couple of minutes of being on the phone i turned around to not find my CD on my desk. I thought i was going crazy, i started looking everywhere for that CD but it could not be found. I know for a fact that i put it on my desk because i just used a marker on it, the marker was still on the desk.

When this happend i thought in my head if this world is a game and sometime things might go missing because the computer makes mistakes.

Originally posted by albie
I wonder if Jesus knew the cheat codes....

Funny stuff.

But it probably isn't a game. It's a simulation. Like that paper says, it's all a simulation. We make concious decisions, and are not controlled by something. Maybe they're trying to see if we start a nuclear war? Hehe, like that failed war sim on BTS.

cool concept...this theory is catching on...

It's impossible to ever know if we make conscious decisions or not.

Originally posted by albie
Using the word 'game' only works if in fact there is another realer world than this which we return to after our life points have ran out. It would also only be a 'game' if our actions here held no real consequence in the realer world.

Good point. That was also a big part of my theory, the fact that we are part of some highly advanced race who, as a hobby, puts themselves into this game, with no memory of our "real" lives. Although it isn't that amusing of a simulation. Perhaps a right of passage, or that we are forced to do it.