So, there's this Huffington Post article that's been floating around for the past few days asking us to ponder the possibility that the Universe is not a physical reality but rather a virtual simulation that we are all experiencing simultaneously - an idea very much like that presented in The Matrix. I can't say that I've never pondered this question (there I go with those double-negatives, but hey, it's my blog!!), both from a purely aesthetic point of view and from a spiritual one. I don't have a problem with the idea, and I'll get to that. But like most of my blog posts the germ of it begins with a problem.
In the article the author states the following...
Any civilization which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened.
And if it has? Well, then the statistical likelihood is that we're located somewhere in that chain of simulations within simulations. The alternative - that we're the first civilization, in the first universe - is virtually (no pun intended) absurd.
It's that last line that bothers me. Really bothers me.
Having grown up in what is likely the first modern generation that not only simply questioned the existence of a Creator but is also working vehemently on a global level to disprove the idea of one (I know I'll get criticism for that statement, but just roll with me for a minute), I was taught that it was through an incredible coordination of nearly impossible circumstances that an amazingly large number of inanimate particles somehow managed to come together over an inordinately long period of time and then, under super-extraordinary conditions the inanimate not only became animate, but that single animation has morphed into countless variations with amazing capability for intelligence and of incredibly complex form and construction. The statistical likelihood that this could truly happen all by itself as was always suggested is, well, virtually absurd!!
Absurd is either absurd or it isn't. So, if you find yourself agreeing with the premisses of this article after having personally spent most of your life thinking that the post-Big Bang formation of the universe followed by Darwinian evolution is far more practical than the account of Biblical creation please, PLEASE, do not attempt to point to this as another possible alternative to existence, for you look the fool in doing so. Folks, you can't play the same statistics both ways.
And so ends the "I've got a bone to pick with you" portion of my essay - and here starts the section where I embrace what I have just alluded to absurd and run with it.
The story of Biblical creation has been long ridiculed as impossible (or at least improbable) allegory, passed down by humans devoid of modern intelligence in an attempt to explain something they did not and could not possibly understand, and so instead attributing it to a Being of ultimate power and knowledge that they could then worship in fear because they knew no better. With that in mind, how much more practical does the 6-day creation story become in a virtual world, particularly when you first consider what a teenager can do in Minecraft in 6 days, and then consider existence's greatest programmer doing the same? Could not that god-like programmer build all this in six days?!
I am by no means advocating a position that our lives as we know them are merely some unreal (virtual) set of circumstances played out for the amusement of some greater form of existence, so please hang with me. When I consider the soul of a man, that thing that since my youth I have believed to exist forever, is it not unreasonable for me to posit that it is this soul that is somehow temporarily plugged into the matrix, locking it's eternal nature down to the four dimensional limits that we currently experience? Could that idea in any way impact my faith in a God who may be the great programmer, who exists beyond the virtual reality that I am currently experiencing? And should it in any way impact the way in which I spend this existence in a way that honors and worships Him for who He is?
I say it doesn't, shouldn't and can't - particularly if I do not impose my personal limitations on what the idea of a "programer" is, what they can do, or what "real vs. virtual" means. The truth is it actually helps me formulate answers to the myriad questions I have about what happens when life as I know it ends. For in a physical, four-dimensional world there is no room for an eternal soul, only what is in the here and now. But in an existence where life as I know it is a merely a set of parameters through which my autonomous soul must navigate while interacting not only with other like-souls but also other levels of existence that the Programmer has allowed to interact with it extra-dimensionally, it's no longer a mystery at all. The end of this reality is merely a transition to the next, and there now exists room within this paradigm for any other level of existence.
So the question of the existence of God becomes less problematic, but it still leaves me with the problem of this thing I have labeled my "autonomous soul". This thing that gets connected to these levels of reality must have both a sentient nature, an existence outside of them, and the ability to make its own decisions based on its own experiences and convictions (i.e. the soul is not some pre-programmed subroutine). It is the crux of my existence - that piece that simply is.
In the Bible, the Apostle John says that when I pass from this life a transformation occurs that makes me god-like (Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. - 1 John 3:2). I am not suggesting that we become gods, only that this transition leaves us on a level of existence equal with that of our Creator. Me move outside the box. We jump out of the Matrix. Until then I am stuck inside. But I am also responsible for working within it in a way that honors the instructions given me by my Creator. In other words, for me as a person of faith, this idea changes nothing.
I truly hope that haven't you've reached this point believing I've just spent several paragraphs belittling this existence, or suggesting that we are something less than we are because of the idea that all this may just be some virtual simulation. To quote the Apostle Paul, "God forbid!!" The mind of God is so much bigger than I can ever understand (at least within this existence). To impose on Him any restrictions on how He chose to speak creation into existence, and maintain that creation through time, would be ludicrous. But creation as we know it had a beginning and will have an end, and if we do exist beyond that as I believe we do, isn't it really virtual in some form? Does it not take something that is somehow other and impose limits on its experience?
I say all this in the hope that people of faith will not look at this as just another article pointing away from the existence of God. Instead I hope it causes them engage in a dialogue with those who would use it in that way and ask them to think about all the ways in which it points directly towards Him. How it provides reasonable answers, within the foundational arguments of the article, to all that "silly nonsense" in the Bible about creation and the afterlife. It is by no means proof, but it takes away the virtually absurd notion of a God they may have rejected and sets Him in a framework they may accept. For if this is all His creation, isn't it inevitable that the better we understand it the more it points back to Him?
