The Game of Life

The Game of Life

“At least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) Almost no civilizations reach a level of technological maturity capable of running simulations;
(2) Almost no such civilizations run simulations;
(3) We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.”
—Nick Bostrom

The Game of Life

Another surprisingly valid option for reality is that of simulation. From a mathematical standpoint, this is perhaps the most probable outcome. If there is a single reality in which simulated realities can exist, there would most assuredly exist any infinite number of simulations over the course of time. As we come into existence, we have the opportunity to exist in reality or in one of nearly infinite simulations. The greatest likelihood is that we’d end up in one of the multitudes of simulated worlds.

In a simulated world, absolutely anything could be possible. There could be cheat codes or magic. There could be pre-programmed karma algorithms. There could be an AI Overlord we might perceive as God who provides direction and counsel through the voices in our minds and rewards those who follow the path of love. The very nature of the powerfully creative ability of moods could very well be programming and could possibly extend further than we might imagine. There could be a programmed heaven or there could be robot bodies in the real world awaiting the few who find their way in this simulation.

One aspect of simulation theory that I enjoy is that of it being a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (or MMORPG). With this potential, much like the matrix, we could simply be plugged in to a game of sorts. Does any of this matter at all? Not really. If our character dies, we wake up from the virtual reality and go, “Dang, I died. What’s for dinner?” Same concept for anyone else that has died around us.

For all we know, we exit the game at the same time as our loved ones who died years apart and each life takes mere minutes to play. And perhaps we come back again and again. Maybe our previous run affects our next starting location. And just maybe we’d like to see a more creative world when we come back rather than one being destroyed by factions and chaos.

I actually like this mindset a lot. Not simply because it’s mathematically probable, but it’s not far from our experienced truth anyway. When we die, with a stoic materialistic perspective, we will remember nothing. We disintegrate into nothingness. In a hundred years—if even that long—no one will remember us. Sure, some of us might live on in perpetuity like George Washington or even Hitler, but it’s not like either of them care anymore. They’re gone. And our memories and knowledge of them are likely miniscule and amount to the smallest iota of reality stuffed with the lies of history anyway. Give it another couple thousand years and even they may not be remembered.

In the end, reality really is just a game—a way to pass the time. If we continue playing forever, there’s a good reason to leave it better than how we entered. Death becomes truly meaningless along with any personal goals. We’re all just avatars. But even if we exit and never return, then still nothing truly matters beyond how much we enjoyed it while we were here and death becomes similarly meaningless.

At what point do we find it worthwhile to attribute more meaning to this life than that of enjoyment or simple storyline while we’re here? We act like things matter such as jobs and money and fame, but the only thing that matters is whether or not we had a good time. Even in that regard, it hardly matters what we have in life. It’s about the joy and shared experiences more than any physical thing or achievement.

When I play a video game, I can watch my house burn down and my neighborhood razed and then nonchalantly go, “wow, that was intense, looks like I need to go take out the armies of Shmargonrog and restore honor to my home. I’ll go power up!” Now imagine instead if I watched the cut scene and just sat there crying about how unfair it all was. That wouldn’t make any sense at all—I should go and play the game!

With this particular game we’re in, we have a starting point, a starting race or faction, a starting family, a starting location, and all these things play into how the game plays out. Some of us start as royalty and some start as peasants. It doesn’t help to complain about which game we’re playing or how we started, we just go with the starting point and see what we can accomplish to enjoy what was laid out. We don’t fire up World of Warcraft and sit there complaining that we didn’t get to be Lich King, how terrible he is at ruling Northrend, or bemoaning that we weren’t born in Stormwind.

Our game, of course, is extremely open-world. We can do literally anything with infinite side quests. We can choose to become a potter, an electrician, a warrior, a politician, or an activist for the rights of the under-privileged who got bad starting locations. Or maybe we just want to become the best bottle-flipper. There is no right or wrong answer.

All that said, I can see how some might want to pursue fame and fortune or even infamy and destruction as if we were in a Grand Theft Auto game. One can certainly choose such things, but I dare say this is the choice far too many people already make. How is that working out for them? The rules and physics of this game are fixed and I’ve described them in detail.

If we go around being a jerk to people, they will not like us, and it makes our gameplay less enjoyable as they respond in similar ways. Even if being a jerk gets us all the cool toys and gadgets by taking advantage of people, we are still a simulated biological entity with physics of emotion that prevent us from actually enjoying it. We’ll look cool, but we’ll inwardly hate ourselves as we ride the waves of greed and fear and hating many of those around us as it takes a toll on our health and longevity.

Seeing the world through the lens of a game gives me peace and perspective. I’m just passing the time. Why quibble about which challenge or quest I have at any given point? Why take any of it too personally? Boss hates me—interesting challenge. Should I quit? Take on the challenge to make him like me? Make a scene and get fired but relish in the moment of awesomeness?

Getting fired might set me back, but back from what? The goal isn’t money--it’s enjoying the game. Prison, of course, might not be a great option so there are indeed constraints. We don’t walk up to elite guards in MMORPGs and provoke them unless we wish to end our lives prematurely. This is especially true on heroic mode in a PvP server.

In all fairness, there are quite a few options for our reality. If we’re being honest, we have no idea what is true—and we never could. No matter what happens, there is always the possibility that everything we know and learn is simulated in this world with some unknown physics in a real world. No matter what beings come from the sky, from heaven, or from some star cluster in the universe bearing gifts and knowledge, even they could be simulated. So where does that leave us?

All we truly have to go on is that we exist and that we appear to create our own fate to some degree by our emotional expectations. I think, therefore, I am. To what end, we may never know. And if ever we did know, we couldn’t actually know we know for sure. Embracing this lack of knowledge enables us to analyze all options as probabilities (the fundamental nature of our universe) and make a calculated decision on how best to proceed. This is especially imperative in the face of unknown entities or voices. There is really only one question to ask: does this input help me align with positive moods toward my own benefit or does it lead me down a path of ego, self-absorption, fear, pain, hate, or suffering?

It may be no significant shock at this point, but whatever the truth of reality might be, our best possible choice to maximize our outcome always comes right back to cultivating mood. Not only does alignment with love bring about the best experience internally and externally, it also provides the safest bet for whatever comes after death or whatever people, beings, or ideas come our way. We don’t always need to ask if something is true or false as much as we need to ask if it’s a beneficial bet.

Even if we guess the wrong afterlife scenario or die with a poof from existence, we still chose love and lived our most fulfilling life based upon the known rules of emotional contagion. If we die and get judged for our love and kindness, then we made all the best choices for such a judgement. If we die and there’s some malevolent being judging us, well, what could we possibly do to ensure the best outcome anyway?

As we know from any cartoon, it never serves us to serve the villain. If God is evil, we’d suffer for serving him on Earth, and then who knows how he’d treat us anyway? If God is evil, then all of eternity is going to be awful, so we might as well make the best of this life which is the only one we are guaranteed to have. So we adhere to the same principles: follow vibes of love and safety.

If we are in a video game and there’s a high score for money, does this change much? I don’t play games to hate them the whole way just to get a high score. I wouldn’t play such a game in that manner even if that were the point. And what if observers can see how we play the game? I would certainly wish to make choices I would not be ashamed of. That concept can get concerning quickly, but I imagine we’re all adults out there who understand the nature of the game…

No matter how we slice it, the best choice is always that of attempting to align our moods with love and safety for the best experience and the best afterlife outcomes. Another thought comes to mind, however. If this is all a game, what is the main quest? And how would we know the main quest? Well that, my friend, is where things get interesting.

If we are plopped into a video game that is completely open world where our memories are clearly wiped and we are meant to perceive it as reality, how would the main quest be delivered? God, perhaps? Religion? Spirituality? But then, which one? With the premise of a video game, there’s only one clear answer: find the message which provides a main quest that resonates with us, makes the game fun, and doesn’t cause uncalculated harm to ourselves. If we don’t like the main quest, no one is forcing us to participate. I mean, unless they are—but then I might consider that particular side of the main quest to be the arch nemesis.

What’s a game without a villain to conquer? I suppose there are many such games, but most significant games are rather polar: good guys win or bad guys win. And just maybe that’s a clue. What if the game isn’t so much about good guys versus bad guys but good versus evil itself? It’s the emotions behind the characters rather than the characters themselves. That actually appears to be a common trope within religion, so let’s play that out logically. What would it look like?

Well, there’d be esoteric knowledge, messages, or messengers trying to get us to be good. Likewise, there’d be people, messages, or messengers trying to corrupt those messages and make us miss the mark. Unsurprisingly, that’s precisely what we see.

It turns out that much of what Jesus preached was exactly the message of “align with love.” The dogma now attached to him obfuscates this message so thoroughly that it becomes far less useful, but this is exactly what he warned about. I find this fascinating most of all. What if there really is something to it? How would we know? For starters, we’d have to be open enough to listen for it and test it. Luckily for my readers, I have done just that. Not only do psychology, quantum mechanics, and mental health studies confirm this sort of mood-vibe emotional dichotomy, religion has been not-so-secretly hiding this message all along.

Throughout the world and spanning cultural barriers there seems to be a regular pattern:

Coincidence? Perchance. It could simply be human evolutionary psychology. But then again, what if it is not? At the very least, it is worth a consideration given all that we already know: curating beneficial moods will curate a better reality while curating or succumbing to negative moods drags us into despair.

With all this in mind, we can use attunement to positive streams as a dowsing rod to help navigate the mess of multitudinous religious teachings. By doing so, we may just find a hint to exactly what is going on.