There’s a good case to be made for existence coming out of non-existence, at least how we can know it – stuff that’s tangible, objects, time, and space, and all that – that there’s something that decided for it to come into being. It’s either that or it’s just random and it just popped out of nothing, ever existing all on its own with nothing triggering it. That latter one seems the least coherent. So there’s a decision, and it’s no small feat following through, all this complexity, life, evolution, the fact that we’re here debating this, trying to wind back the clock – points to the awe of this task. So, if we think for a second that the one deciding all this is a non-thinking blob, an imbecile, we’re more likely that imbecile. There’s a profound type of intelligence needed to pull that one off! So how does it get pulled off?
To start with, it’s not like this being had all the stuff in a bag somewhere, like a cosmic Lego set, and just meticulously placing one bit together onto other bits while sitting in a cosmic sandpit. There’s no other material around for that when it’s all nothingness, as we’ve laid out before. So, it’s all in this being’s head – so to speak - by the same logic it also doesn’t have a head. It’s all mind or awareness itself. In that realm, with no-limit awareness, all possibilities as to what one might dream up is on the table. And that ability to dream up stuff, an imagination is the closest thing to what we see in ourselves, to simulate something from nothing, for whatever reason we’d like. It could be processing the garbage we push down during the day, it could be to figure things out – you know, like a trial run in our minds, or even a computer can do simulation - say a AI program running crypto investment simulations on how we’re gonna become the next Bitcoin billionaire. Not conflating human imagination with AI btw, just making this point - there’s a reason behind the dream or the simulation, or whatever we want to call it.
But no good simulation will work without parameters. It can’t have none, that’s a useless simulation. There’s stuff that can or can’t happen. So, our Bitcoin simulation can’t have a billion Bitcoins magically appearing in our simulated wallet every time someone says “Beetlejuice” three times. Again, what’s the point of wasting processing power on that? In a cosmic mind, the law of conservation possibly applies too, and even the “has no limit” simulation is a parameter itself. So, there are rules.
One rule here is there’s some kind of order or progression – something happens, it’s recorded as happening before the next thing, then that happens. Like was discussed above. There’s a before and after, and a physical signature. That’s time and space/matter. Now let’s get to this sticking point about time. The simulation came into being, so while by definition, it exists in a time-based medium, inside this simulation, time as we know it is not exactly linked. It’s like a fairy tale that starts with “once upon a time” – but story itself, the one we’re all created by, can simply have an embedded design that time will appear as if it’s always been around forever. Or that space just goes on and on. So, in this simulation, if one of us could travel trillions of galaxies in one direction, we might never get to an edge – there’s no crazy waterfall at the edge of the universe, it just goes on and on and on.
So that’s the hat trick; we won’t know one way or another when we’re inside this dream if things always were and will be or not. We can ponder infinity for the “infinity” designed in this dream, and we’ll come out none the wiser!
But there’s plenty of practicalities to deduce – for example there are parameters / rules of the game. That’s kind of the number 1 deduction – we have rules: it doesn’t matter if you’re just discovered a Larken Rose YouTube video on the merits of anarchism – there are rules to our existence, and there’s no getting around it!
Which brings us to another deduction, number 2 – rules are worth figuring out: If we’re subject to these rules, they’re worth learning. If we don’t know the rules of the game, we’re not getting any gold stars! We’re just gonna keep trying to do things we can’t, like banging our heads against a concrete wall to get to the other side. It’s a sure way to have a pounding headache!
This leads us to a deduction 3 – if it’s worth it for us to learn the rules, it’s worth it for others too. If we think the game is just for us, that we’re the centre of the universe, it isn’t useful. We go down all kinds of dead ends, often an institutionalized one. There’s no lack of folks thinking they’re the second coming of Christ locked up in a padded cell. Have you tried to argue with someone with a god-complex? Bashing your head against that wall might even be more enjoyable.
So there’s a whole host of pragmatic deductions that follow from those too:
- Don’t stop learning – this is what happens when we imagine there are no rules or they aren’t worth figuring out. We’ve got free will to learn; obviously, we can’t be forced to learn, so we’ve got to nourish our free will by continuing to learn and always improving the quality of how we learn along the way.
- Don’t be a c* ** – this happens when we reckon that our learning, our accumulating knowledge and stuff, is all that matters. This is when we don’t give a s*** about anyone else’s free will. We just go around making life and learning harder for everyone else. Maybe we can show that imbecile bashing his head against the wall where the door is? This is what happens with those means-to an-end arguments, self justification for some idea of “good” which underneath is what’s “good” for me / STS
- Don’t limit learning – we do this by trying to control learning to suit ourselves. There’s information in everything and everyone – life is full of rich information. When we go around smashing information, keeping it for ourselves, distorting it, etc., we’re f****** things up for everyone. Going around ripping up rainforests for no good reason, bombing countries even squashing an insect, just because we feel like it - is the same – killing life, killing information, removing access to learning from ourselves and all others.
Anyway hope my rambling adds something to this discussion!
