I’ve written before about the idea that we might be living in a computer simulation, but the time off work and the weird books I’ve been reading had gotten me thinking about it again.
I’ve been wondering about dreams.
I had a dream the other night that a toilet suddenly overflowed with snakes. Most were harmless, but I managed to pin a king cobra – fangs first – into a mattress. It occurred to me that we could use some time travel to prevent this, but it went wrong and in the new reality the cobra bit me in my arm. I killed the snake with a hammer and then wrapped up the bite. Later, I was at a party in an apartment complex that reminded me of the Destiny’s Child “Say My Name” video. I found a room where the conversation had faltered and told the people there about the bite. It occurred to me that I should check the wound so I unwrapped it and checked it out. The bite had caused a massive infection and the tissues were necrotic and sloughing off. If there was a smell, it would have been terrible, I’m sure. I cleared the dishes out of the sink and stuck my arm under the water to at least wash it off.
And then I woke up – and checked my arm. (I’m fine, by that way.)
So – how would dreams fit into a simulated reality? If there’s a player playing the decidedly boring “Game of Anthony” – would they perceive my dreams? Is it like some strange YouTube video? A pop-up ad? I can’t figure… unless the simulation is powerful enough that a simulated computer (i.e. my brain) can in turn run it’s own simulation?
It’s possible now to build a working computer inside the Minecraft game using only the built-in tools, so the idea is somewhat plausible.
So, if we don’t really exist and are just part of a massive computer simulation – which would explain 2016 pretty handedly – what does our future hold? On the one hand, I feel like maybe I should try to be a little more interesting for my player – and if they don’t exist, then at least a little more interesting for me. On the other, maybe I’m just in some idle game – earning coins by repeating the same tasks over and over…
Shit. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m in an idle/tap game on some trans-dimensional entity’s smart phone.
I’m going to go log off now.