What’s the difference between a VR simulation and a Divine Creation, though? - Both are synthesised realities contingent on the patronage of some kind of administrative creator.
I always liked this thought experiment, as outlined by Alan Watts:
> Let's suppose you were able, every night, to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power to dream in one night 75 years' worth of time.
> Or any length of time you wanted to have.
> And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, fulfill all your wishes.
> You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive.
> And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say
> 'Well, that was pretty great. But now let's have a surprise.
> Let's have a dream which isn't under control, where something is going to happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be.'
> And you would dig that, and come out of it and say 'That was a close shave, now wasn't it?'
> Then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you
would dream, and finally, you would dream where you are now.
> You would dream of the life that you are actually living in today.
> That would be within the infinite multiplicity of the choices you would have.
> Of playing that you weren't God. Because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he's not.
> The first thing that he says to himself is 'Man, get lost,' because he gives himself away.
> The nature of love is self-abandonment, not clinging to oneself.
> Throwing yourself out, for instance as in basketball; you're always getting rid of the ball.
> You say to the other fellow 'Have a ball.' See? And that keeps things moving. That's the nature of life.
Countless people have seen past the veil and lived to tell about it. Until now, the mainstream of the developed world has provided a strong inoculation against any such views spreading - namely, that it can be safely and instantaneous disregarded as mental illness. No further inquiry necessary.
That's the part that's about to begin changing. Slowly at first, as people like Kanye West come to realize they've been gas-lit. I expect this change to pick up steam though I can't guess the rate right now. HN will be the last dark dominion of Left-Hemisphere-Dominance to be dragged, demanding citations and invoking logical fallacies all the way, into the present.
> HN will be the last dark dominion of Left-Hemisphere-Dominance to be dragged, demanding citations and invoking logical fallacies all the way, into the present.
Thanks for giving me a good chuckle this morning! God, this place is great.
> Until now, the mainstream of the developed world has provided a strong inoculation against any such views spreading - namely, that it can be safely and instantaneous disregarded as mental illness. No further inquiry necessary.
Too true.
> That's the part that's about to begin changing.
Agree...it is becoming more and more common on the internet (in varying forms), and appearing in places where it would have been formerly rejected outright.
> Slowly at first, as people like Kanye West come to realize they've been gas-lit. I expect this change to pick up steam though I can't guess the rate right now.
The rate is not necessarily a costant - for example, if a catalyst was to appear on the scene, the rate of change could take on a much more steep upward trajectory (for good or for ill).
> HN will be the last dark dominion of Left-Hemisphere-Dominance to be dragged, demanding citations and invoking logical fallacies all the way, into the present.
My intuition strongly suggests your intuition is right...but then this sort of thing can be taken into consideration.
Now how to work within the VR world handed to us. That’s the next steps. Soon to become apparent I’m sure.