Some thoughts on Existence, God and Religion

Thinking about Avatar and Maya and the Matrix and neural nets, I began to wonder about the possibility of there being a sort of neural net that underlies everything, something like the “force” that runs through everything.

Maybe we are all just nodes on that net that have “forgotten” their connection to the net.

Things like visions and ESP could be more or less “remembering” those connections to that neural net.

Maybe our descriptions of God and Religions are just “vague” descriptions of that neural net from people that have had different levels of “remembering” their connection to that neural net.

 

I was talking about The Matrix the other day. The concepts in it are interesting, but I don't find the idea of us living in a "Computer Simulated Reality" really all that useful to us beyond fascination, nor all that comforting. If we did happen to live in a simulation, then there is the possibility of that reality being a simulation, and that one, etc. leading to an infinite regress.

Also, as The Matrix suggests with every human character in the movie aside from Neo, Simulated Reality would practically mean we live in a Deterministic Universe. If this were the case, then I don't see how any thoughts, stimuli or ideas would have any intrinsic values over others, It would all just be part of the "program" running itself. In regard to your example, what I'm saying is there would be no true way, as part of the simulation, to make the distinction between "things like visions and ESP being phenomena of 'remembering' connections to that neural net" or visions and ESP just being random sensory stimuli that serves no purpose.

 

My CPU is a neural net processor.

A learning computer.

 

this is one possible explanation of god. there are of course, infinity minus one others.
there is a universal wonder of strangeness that is real enough.

'doorways in the sand', and 'the pritcher mass' (both appearing in analog-sf in the 80s) were both stories that explored this possibility.
in considerably more depth then 'the matrix'

we don't live in an 'action adventure' universe. but we do live in a logical, statistical, and more diverse then most of us can imagine one.

as for existence, i think the important thing to remember, is that nothing depends for its existence, gods should the exist, nature, people on other worlds, even ourselves as a species, upon anyone knowing even that they do, let alone anything about them.

 

I beginning to regret mentioning the Matrix. I was not suggesting a simulation outside of reality but but the possible nature of reality itself.

 

If their is a god somewhere out there, he must think that we are really dumb. Particularly when we start killing each other just because we worship him in a different building. LMAO.

 

The possibility of infinite regress does not stop us from exploring the “simulated” reality we now live in.

I would think that a Materialistic Universe would tend to be a more Deterministic Universe than a Simulated Universe would be.


As for this; “what I'm saying is there would be no true way, as part of the simulation, to make the distinction between "things like visions and ESP being phenomena of 'remembering' connections to that neural net" or visions and ESP just being random sensory stimuli that serves no purpose”, since I’m just kind of feeling my way through this “picture” in my mind, I may not have described it properly.

Let me try again, in an old song it says; “no man is an island, he’s a peninsula” and so perhaps most people live looking only at the ocean thinking “I’m an island” but some have come to the realization that they are really connected to a larger land mass and that there are probably other peninsulas that think they are islands but are also connected to the larger land mass but don’t realize it. Also there may be those who can and have left their peninsula and explored the large land mass and when they have tied to explain that land mass to others that think everyone is an island, they were disbelieved.

 

Sorry to say, I didn't read either story that you mentioned but I agree with most of what you have said here.

As for this, it seems disjointed to me and I can’t seem to get the gist of it.

 

I would say God doesn't consider most of us the sharpest knife in the drawer

 

It's possible that God doesn't "Think" at all, and only thinks through us.

 

The concept of the OP might allow for the thought that God could be Schizophrenic with multiple personalities and that we are just one of those personalities.

 

Most of us that would get into a discussion like this probably have already seen the The Simulation Hypothesis and have already have formed an opinion of it but if you have not seen it you might find it interesting.

 

If there's a God I don't believe It looks down on us at all. Yes, we are feeble humans. The flesh is weak and our brain limited. But we are the ones living in this physical reality with all our limitations If God would experience human emotions (big if), I believe God could very well be overflowing with feelings of pride and love, even if most of us live (what we perceive as) mundane and meaningless lifes.

 

Everyone has their own idea of God. My vision is that God is distant, cold and unfeeling. I wouldn't really ascribe feelings to God at all.

 

Actually God to me just means an ineffable unanswerable question. Why existence at all. Both existence and non-existence seem to be equally improbable. That is all God is to me. A question.

 

I was hoping to discuss more the nature of reality than just talk about what you think God is.

 

Yes. God is easy. This neural net think is more tricky. I don't think it's literally like the Matrix though. And I think nor do you. We experience our reality through our particular sense-apparatus. Animas and particularly insects must have a radically different impression of reality. So in that sense there are many Worlds. The Universe exists as it is as a definite physical reality, but particle physics suggests it is affected by the act of observation. How Would the Universe behave if the were no sentient souls to observe it? How much do we as observing creatures animate the World around us through our thoughts and imaginations. Maybe it's like a feed-back loop, a to and throw of soul-data and World-data.

 

Every now and then , take a moment to be perfect . spin

 

Most of this was just in the back of my mind and then recently it all starting coming together. I haven't thought it all through and thought that this would be a good place to talk it out.

 

Agreed, but then why not just deem this as reality?

A Materialistic Universe likely would lead one to conclude Determinism as well. I don't think it's a more than scenario, just a different flavor. The flavor of Determinism that's implicated with a Simulated Universe is the bit that I find discomforting, in contrast to Materialism (or Physicalism).

It would seem that the probabilities, laws, and testable evidence we heavily rely upon in science and other methods of inquiry to gather/gain knowledge could theoretically be kind of arbitrary in a Simulated Universe, i.e. some random unknown object flies across a few galaxies to hit Earth, blow it up without warning. In the materialistic scenario, it's more difficult to imagine something like this happening as there is precedence for the prior cause and effects in our understanding of the cosmos.