So I'm saying we might be in a simulation
Sorry, I still need clarification. Are you saying we are playing a video game and our "avatars" are inside a simulation? This would be more along the lines of a matrix scenario, in that our bodies objectively exist in a prime world, it's just that some alien technology has tapped into our sensory input devices (aka, our nervous systems) and is feeding our brains with a false or "dream" reality, such that we do not know the objective condition of our prime bodies (but "suspect" we do in a vague plot contrivance kind of way).
OR, are you saying that "we" have never objectively existed and have no prime world and that everything is essentially ones and zeroes--guided by algorithms written by external beings? Instead of having avatars, we ARE the avatars.
I need to make something very clear at this point to inform your response, because, our objective nature follows this path in concurrent, ongoing developmental "stages" (for lack of a better word, though that is misleading as it's really all more fluid/dynamic):
- Zygote splits and "experience" begins, which is really just a slightly more robust way of saying "we start to gather information from the world;"
- Brain develops as a processor/storage component for experiences (still in womb);
- Fetus is born, its world and its relationship with it expands, brain absorbs information and rudimentary signs of processing occur, but initially, baby simply IS, without any higher thought process developed or needed at this stage; information/experience sponge, basically;
- Stimulus from the world (aka, "experiences," but at this level, more direct), causes more brain development and a feedback system begins to emerge between brain and information received through the body/sensory input devices (aka, the "senses" and nervous system);
- Child's world is initially just five inches in front of its eyes and expanding, over time farther and farther and farther out, like a ripple on a pond, such that, by age two the "world" of information/experience has about a five foot radius (and "object permanence" is fully set in); at age five it's the house you live in; age ten about a five mile radius (centered on your house); age fifteen--maybe you've been on a plane by then/travelled--but in general, around one hundred mile radius, which is important as it's the stage where you first understand that even though you can't physically see it, there actually is something over that distant hill or beyond your immediates senses, etc., so the extension of the object permanence to imagined objects, not just those you've more directly experienced;
- All the while the brain's capacity and functioning (aka, "maturity") is exponentially growing and filling up with information and honing its ability to discard non-pertinent information about this vast amount of information/experience it finds itself within, so the worm turns, so to speak, and instead of detailed maps of immediate prime reality, our brains start to store more generalized maps, with gaps and ways to fill in markers for things (essentially making maps within maps), because of the shear impossibility of storing and processing an infinite amount of information. The brain makes shortcuts, iow, and to do that it starts to reject or shunt repetitious information in favor of pertinent, or new information and it does this at TREMENDOUS speed and volume in a manner that the analogue self doesn't need to know about or be concerned with, thus forming a Cartesian theatre of some nature, with the "self" becoming the homunculus observer, but capable of feedback;
- Puberty is kicking in and that changes body/brain chemistry and higher order thinking emerges as a result of the exponentially growing feedback system of brain to information/experience back to brain again, etc;
- By late teens/ealy twenties, the final stages of brain maturity--full-on abstract thinking--occurs (in most), with a "radius" of infinity, or at least without limitation. The baby that started out not being able to process anything more than what was five inches in front of their faces can now imagine entire universes and contemplate infinite spacetime;
- 25 years old, brain fully mature and "in sync" (more or less) with the truly vast enormity of both spacetime (i.e., prime reality) and dreamtime (i.e., abstract thought).
Now, at some point during stages 5/6, the brain starts to develop an analogue of the entire body. A "narrator" which is the initial stages of a "self" that has an initial unique purpose; it is used by the brain to form a strategy for action prior to acting. It's likely first formed by "choice." When we're just starting out, we don't have any choices. Everything is done for us and/or everything is reactive directly to the "now" that is presented.
Even what foods we eat and when we poop and go to sleep and dress, etc. It's literally all on automatic (for the luckiest among us that is).
But at some point in some small, seemingly insignificant way, a choice is presented to us and our agency--our "narrator" or our "self" or whatever you want to label it (I call it an analogue) --is formed. We are no longer on autopilot; we are now on manual and have to consider whether to eat the blueberries OR eat the banana. Or something mundane like that.
It's the first time we "step back" and think about what blueberries taste like and do "I" want them now, or the banana?
Prior to this, it was just, ingest what was being stuck in our mouths. We might spit it out, but the whole notion of agency--of being able to choose--hasn't been introduced yet.
And this choice is encouraged, of course, but it is this capacity for introspection that has its first flicker in that simple binary proposition. From there it grows--again, like a ripple on a pond--such that our choices go WAAAAAAAAAAY beyond the binary and by the time we're 25 and fully comprehend (well, to our current abilities) that our universe of information/experience is apparently unbounded, well, that's where the zero is born and gods and demons.
So, what ALL of that boils down to is, once again, that our objective existence is: brain animates ongoing analogue of the totality of brain/body experience called a "self." It
is a simulation and its primary job is to be placed--by the brain--into maps of the external world/scenarios, such that the brain can consider all of the alternatives--all of the choices--before acting in the prime reality.
This was, of course, vitally important to us in our early stages of evolution, where we could be killed literally any hour, if not any minute. Hostile environments meant our survival was, at the very least, day by day, if not hour by hour. In the whatever thousands of years since we first developed the ability to make an analogue of our selves--picked up a pebble and grunted, "This me" and placed it within a circle in the dirt to show placement--we have gone from a life expectancy of the next
hour to, what, 90 years (and I believe, supposedly, the first person who will live to be 150 years old has already been born).
So, yeah, the purpose for that survival tactic--of being able to think abstractly so that we can plot different possible scenarios of how to kill that beast that's been killing our strongest and bravest--going from an hourly immediacy to something more like week to week; then month to month (where far too many of us find ourselves even in the richest countries); to yearly plans; to a few (10%) that can plan their grandchildren's entire lives; to a VERY few (infamous 1%) that can ensure that their great-great-great grandchildren will never have to hunt or worry about shelter or their health care, etc.
Iow, a simple tool used for immediate
choice between possible outcomes/desires in an extremely hostile environment, over time, as that environment gets progressively less hostile (and therefore less of an immediate need to "war game" survival scenarios), that tool gets repurposed and the "self" analogue takes on new roles (social/emotional expressor, for example); and because it needs to be imbued with a sense of autonomy to go from brain map to brain map (yet retain its core reflection of the brain/body entire), it considers itself "prime."
But it really isn't. Brain is prime. Self is illusory; manufactured; animated. Simulated.
But also symbiotic. Again, when the brain dies or is injured or otherwise impaired (drugs, seizure, chemical imbalance), we see the malfunction that causes reflected in the "self"; in the "I", the reflection of the totality of the brain/body/experience.
And just to dig down a little deeper, because of quantum physics, we already know that our universe is made up of, essentially, ones and zeroes. We call them "particles" and they evidently behave like tiny vibrating strings, so it's a bit different than pure binary, but still fundamental and I believe the vibration is, of course, the key to it all, because that's how things get animated and illusions are generated.
Hence, thaumatrope.
where one of its major purposes is to test whether the person is a Bible literalist....
Ok, but, now, just take a step back for a moment (boot up all of the above) and ask, why would any being capable of creating either a false reality or a prime reality give a shit about a book
they wrote, let alone using it to test characters
they created?
Perhaps slavery and genocide were commanded in the Bible as a test to see if people will obey an apparent divine authority or whether they will look to their own "sinful wisdom" or still believe in Bible literalism and try to reconcile it with mainstream morality.
To what purpose? It couldn't serve the characters created in a video game, because they have no agency. It couldn't serve the creators of the video game, because in order to create it in the first place, they would have to already know its parameters and what would obtain.
But even if they didn't know all of the parameters or exactly what would obtain and therefore needed to "test" it, then they would necessarily need to test it on something that had
full agency separate to them, not simply be abstract reflections of them. This is often where the misnomer of "free will' is mentioned, but that's actually not what we're talking about; we're talking free
agency. Iow, the ability to choose, which, in turn, requires--requires--that we have equal understanding of all of the parameters involved and that our choice can in no way penalize us.
I need to repeat that. We MUST have the full knowledge of the creators in regard to what "morality" would entail AND be able to make a choice without fear of retribution for a "wrong" decision in order to make a free agency choice that would in turn serve the creators in any way (not ourselves).
That's what a "test" entails; not the ability of the student to learn, the ability of the teacher to teach. But punishing us for a teacher's failing is wrong. And yes, I'm stating that is what's exactly wrong with our entire education system.
The brain can imbue the "self" (the "reflection") with the illusion of free agency axiomatically; by simply creating the "self" with the ability to remain intact as it gets placed into countless thousands of different "maps" (scenarios, virtual realities), but it does so
in order to serve the brain/body's continued survival.
The purpose, therefore, is entirely for the brain, NOT the animated self.
It doesn't actually exist, only the brain/body actually exists.
So, the "sinful wisdom" or whatever you wish to call it cannot in any way serve the characters. It's not applicable
to them; it's only applicable to the creators. So, you're necessarily positing that God is the sinner and that "he" created all of us to inform his own sin and how
he should act, not any of us.
But that then immediately eliminates all omni-capabilities except the ability to blindly generate abstract reflections of himself, but, again, ONLY TO BENEFIT HIMSELF. Because HE isn't perfect; because HE is the broken sinner.
I need to caution you not to misinterpret that as being a sympathetic scenario that elicits your emotions and a desire to help, because in being his reflections--his creations--it necessarily means that he is imbuing us with his suffering, not our own. Which could only be described as pure evil. Torture, in fact. In that scenario, he is a serial killer taking a ballpean hammer to everyone's bones and sticking needles in our eyes--and doing far far worse and horrific things I'll not dig deeper into--because HE can't deal with whatever prime world pain/suffering he's enduring.
Now, at this point, once again stop a moment. Step back. Where would this idea--that we, humans, have come up with--be derived from? A creator that creates analogues of itself to make choices between variables prior to acting?
Do you see now where all "theology" springs from? Every religion on the books has never been about looking outward; it's all about looking inward. Because it's all about the relationship between the brain and the analogue it generates.
That's why platitudes like, "God is within you" and "God is everywhere" are such fundamental and essential components to all religions. Of course "God" is within you and everywhere you are and it created the self and its universe.
It's true once you understand that "God" is a referent to our brain and the way for the illusory "self" to understand its creator.
