I'm A Young Earth Creationist!

[It Aint Necessarily So]

But I think we should live our lives as though the universe and our planet are billions of years old, I think that is what the Over-Seers of The Projection want us to do, I believe I have a direct line to them and that we should treat our world as though it is however many billions of years old our best science tells us it is

Let's say that you are correct about reality being radically different than naïve realism suggests. I agree that this knowledge changes nothing. We go on living as we always have, since the rules experience has taught us still apply whatever their metaphysical basis. Maybe there is nothing outside of one's mind, and that finger and flame you see don't exist outside of consciousness. But if willing the finger into the flame still results in the pain of burning, you're not going to do anything differently from what you did before you knew it was all illusion.

Incidentally, in case you didn't already know, the Omphalos Hypothesis goes by another name, Last Thursdayism

 

[The Sum of Awe]

An entity called Madaba communicates with me

He is the superintendent super-intelligence of The Projection

I ask him something with my inner voice and he responds by touching my body

Where he touches me means different things

This has been going on since 2004

As you can imagine, the authorities have issued me with a horrible sounding psychiatric diagnosis!

Very interesting. Can you describe what it's like when he touches your body?

Why does he communicate with you in this way and not in a more direct way?

Why does he communicate with you at all, in fact? How did you earn this companionship? Can somebody else earn it?

I'd also like to know what is the purpose of The Projection? Why simulate us?

 

[Eddi]

Let's say that you are correct about reality being radically different than naïve realism suggests. I agree that this knowledge changes nothing. We go on living as we always have, since the rules experience has taught us still apply whatever their metaphysical basis. Maybe there is nothing outside of one's mind, and that finger and flame you see don't exist outside of consciousness. But if willing the finger into the flame still results in the pain of burning, you're not going to do anything differently from what you did before you knew it was all illusion.

Incidentally, in case you didn't already know, the Omphalos Hypothesis goes by another name, Last Thursdayism

Yes, I have heard of Last Thurdayism

But I haven't heard of naive realism before

So thanks for sharing

 

[Eddi]

Can you describe what it's like when he touches your body?

It is a gentle and rather neutral sensation of pressure usually applied to my head

Why does he communicate with you in this way and not in a more direct way?

Because people who "hear voices" are ten a penny!

Also, he wants me to think independently

He does not want to spoon feed me stuff

He wants me to put things into my own words, according to my own personal understanding

Our whole system of communication is based on "Yes" and "No" - touching my left head means "Yes" touching my right head means "No" but there is much more to it than that

Why does he communicate with you at all, in fact? How did you earn this companionship? Can somebody else earn it?

I have written about how he came to me in great detail here on RF, here's the link:

My Life: The Events of 2004

Edit: Although I no longer believe he is The Holy Spirit - when I wrote that I didn't believe in Sim Theory as much as I do now! - but this account does tell what happened to me, what I went through back in 2004

But I strongly suggest that you don't do what I did

I'd also like to know what is the purpose of The Projection? Why simulate us?

This is what I've been told has happened: Long story short, Homo Sapiens have become extinct in base reality and The Projection is an attempt at re-creating them/us

If you (or anyone else) want to talk about any of what I have written in this post in greater detail feel free to ask either in this thread or through a private message

 

[F1fan]

An entity called Madaba communicates with me

He is the superintendent super-intelligence of The Projection

I ask him something with my inner voice and he responds by touching my body

Where he touches me means different things

This has been going on since 2004

As you can imagine, the authorities have issued me with a horrible sounding psychiatric diagnosis!

Is there any chance that what you believe is happening here is all occurring in your mind and for some reason you prefer to think it's real?

Given that you are asserting simulation is occurring you acknowledge that reality is being manipulated. Wouldn't that include how an individual's mind manipulates itself? Possible?

 

[Eddi]

Is there any chance that what you believe is happening here is all occurring in your mind and for some reason you prefer to think it's real?

Maybe

But I've been through some weird weird stuff

And strangely it all sort of makes sense to me

I think it is internally coherent

Given that you are asserting simulation is occurring you acknowledge that reality is being manipulated. Wouldn't that include how an individual's mind manipulates itself? Possible?

Might my mind be manipulating itself?

Possible, yes

But a thing being possible doesn't make it so

And here's the thing: where does one mind end and another begin????

I believe I have been wired to The Projection's super-brain in an extraordinarily direct way

 

[Clara Tea]

I never thought I'd say this but I'm a Young Earth Creationist

But not the biblical kind...

I believe that this dimension of reality is a computer simulation

I call this simulation The Projection

I don’t believe that our dear lovely planet is many hundreds of million years old even though this is what the evidence (that we currently have) tells us

I think it is only a couple of hundreds of thousands of years old at the very most - in our time, who knows how time works outside The Projection...

I believe that the Omphalos Hypothesis is correct – that our planet has been artificially aged so as to appear to be many hundreds of million years old

I believe that our planet is only as old as The Projection we inhabit

However, I believe that in the material reality that our simulated reality is based on the planets are in fact many hundreds of millions of years old

But the thing is, we cannot observe “base reality” – the outside world

We are trapped inside The Projection

So, we cannot make claims about the outside world, so it can only ever be a matter of belief or speculation

Is the universe outside The Projection the product of nature (in a Godless universe) and billions of years old or was it only willed into existence by a Supreme Being say 150,000 years ago? Or perhaps it was made by a Supreme Being but billions of years ago? That would be the third option!

We cannot tell, we are like the occupants of Plato’s Cave in Plato’s Allegory Of The Cave

We can only know The Projection

And The Projection is only a fairly crude rendition of base reality

The physics engine it employs is only very basic, but it does the job

However: I think that reason dictates that the outside world is many billions of years old

The thing is though, we cannot ever know what is outside The Projection or who is doing the projecting

But I think we should live our lives as though the universe and our planet are billions of years old, I think that is what the Over-Seers of The Projection want us to do, I believe I have a direct line to them and that we should treat our world as though it is however many billions of years old our best science tells us it is

The problem with proposing a projector is the need for someone to have made it and run it. . . and why. They would have had to use laws of physics that almost always apply (very hard to do in a made up world). Chemical processes in a body would have to obey the laws of chemistry. Why can't we test for a virtual world? Why fool us?

Neil De Grasse Tyson also believes that this is a virtual world (computer simulation, like the Matrix movie). This is why I don't think of Tyson as a scientist, because scientists shouldn't believe unless they can prove.

*Edited by staff*

My friend also thinks that this is a virtual world, because it seemed excessively cruel to her that a lion could eat a water buffalo while it was screaming in pain--a good God wouldn't allow that. But even if this is a virtual world, and no one and nothing got hurt, it still inflicts emotional damage. We are psychologically hurt by such things as cancer pain and death. Only a cruel God would allow such pain.

Socrates's Allegory of the Cave (recorded by student Plato), asserted that people tied in a cave would only see shadows on the wall, which they perceive as reality. But, when let out of the cave they would see reality, and, for a short while, while their eyes adjust to the colors, they would take a time to understand that it is real, and their previous shadows were not. Wisdom, Socrates asserted, was like that.

 

[Alien826]

I believe that we are all living in a simulated computer world that is run on a small and insignificant computer located in some kind of university that is only a very small corner of the wider universe - not the centre of any universe at all

A couple of questions if I may?

At what level is the simulation? I'll give some examples to help.
- The Matrix: There are real bodies, but all external sensation comes from wires stuck in our bodies.
- The Holodeck (Star Trek): We are real but our surroundings are simulated. It's badly named in the series as holograms are just projections, but they can touch them and be influenced by them.
- The Matrix, but like the Agent programs: We don't have any physical aspect, but are intelligent programs in a computer, which simulates what we think we are experiencing.

I have a feeling the last example is what you are describing, but I'd like confirmation.

Do you have any knowledge of the nature of the "programmers"? Are they human like, but more developed? Aliens? Programs themselves? In the last case, if they don't know, have they wondered if there is a series of simulations within simulations?

The last paragraph was inspired by a Sci Fi story that described just that. The people figured it out and were struggling to get "up" to the highest level (actual reality).

What is the purpose of it all (from their point of view)? I think you said it was scientific research. In the story I referenced it was to test people's reactions to products. Kind of an advanced focus group.

A thought, if it's just a computer simulation, not everything has to be simulated all the time. In other words, the stars only have to "exist" while someone is looking at them, with a different "picture" for each person.

 

[Clara Tea]

Maybe

But I've been through some weird weird stuff

And strangely it all sort of makes sense to me

I think it is internally coherent


Might my mind be manipulating itself?

Possible, yes

But a thing being possible doesn't make it so

And here's the thing: where does one mind end and another begin????

I believe I have been wired to The Projection's super-brain in an extraordinarily direct way

Is only one of us real? Are we all simulations? Are all of us real in a simulated world?

 

[Clara Tea]

A couple of questions if I may?

At what level is the simulation? I'll give some examples to help.
- The Matrix: There are real bodies, but all external sensation comes from wires stuck in our bodies.
- The Holodeck (Star Trek): We are real but our surroundings are simulated. It's badly named in the series as holograms are just projections, but they can touch them and be influenced by them.
- The Matrix, but like the Agent programs: We don't have any physical aspect, but are intelligent programs in a computer, which simulates what we think we are experiencing.

I have a feeling the last example is what you are describing, but I'd like confirmation.

Do you have any knowledge of the nature of the "programmers"? Are they human like, but more developed? Aliens? Programs themselves? In the last case, if they don't know, have they wondered if there is a series of simulations within simulations?

The last paragraph was inspired by a Sci Fi story that described just that. The people figured it out and were struggling to get "up" to the highest level (actual reality).

What is the purpose of it all (from their point of view)? I think you said it was scientific research. In the story I referenced it was to test people's reactions to products. Kind of an advanced focus group.

A thought, if it's just a computer simulation, not everything has to be simulated all the time. In other words, the stars only have to "exist" while someone is looking at them, with a different "picture" for each person.

Killing holodeck beings would be like killing Voyager's doc. It seems cruel to kill even simulated beings.

 

[Eddi]

Is only one of us real? Are we all simulations? Are all of us real in a simulated world?

I believe that all of us in The Projection are simulated humans

I don't think there are any organic beings plugged into The Projection like in the Matrix films

 

[Eddi]

- The Matrix, but like the Agent programs: We don't have any physical aspect, but are intelligent programs in a computer, which simulates what we think we are experiencing.

Yes - this

I believe we are all computational in nature, that none of us has an organic body that exists outside of The Projection as in The Matrix films

I actually think being a computer program is pretty cool

Do you have any knowledge of the nature of the "programmers"? Are they human like, but more developed? Aliens? Programs themselves? In the last case, if they don't know, have they wondered if there is a series of simulations within simulations?

They are "humanoid" due to convergent evolution

They have a tradition of ethical monotheism but are not especially religious - mostly agnostics

Perhaps they are like humanists???

We would consider them genteel academics, they are very curious and more intelligent than any human

They live in a lush, high-tech utopia - in balance with nature

They want us to become like them

What is the purpose of it all (from their point of view)? I think you said it was scientific research. In the story I referenced it was to test people's reactions to products. Kind of an advanced focus group.

The purpose of this simulation we are in now is to enable the beings who run it to better understand Homo Sapiens who have gone extinct in base reality

I think they want to re-created Homo Sapiens as biological beings - like bringing back a wooly mammoth or a dodo

Hence they are simulating Homo Sapiens

 

[Alien826]

The problem with proposing a projector is the need for someone to have made it and run it. . . and why. They would have had to use laws of physics that almost always apply (very hard to do in a made up world). Chemical processes in a body would have to obey the laws of chemistry. Why can't we test for a virtual world? Why fool us?

Your other points aside, that doesn't have to be so. All it needs is to be reasonably believable to the participants. For most people, the fact that when you turn a light on you can see things is good enough. All that stuff about photons isn't required. How many people actually understand that anyway? What about the scientists? Simulate the results of their experiments and make sure you do it consistently. Hah! Maybe the big discoveries in science are just the programmers messing with us, or more kindly, part of whatever they are testing for.

We can't test for a virtual world because they control the results of our tests.

Why fool us? Why do we fool rats into thinking they are running through mazes to get food?

 

[Clara Tea]

Your other points aside, that doesn't have to be so. All it needs is to be reasonably believable to the participants. For most people, the fact that when you turn a light on you can see things is good enough. All that stuff about photons isn't required. How many people actually understand that anyway? What about the scientists? Simulate the results of their experiments and make sure you do it consistently. Hah! Maybe the big discoveries in science are just the programmers messing with us, or more kindly, part of whatever they are testing for.

We can't test for a virtual world because they control the results of our tests.

Why fool us? Why do we fool rats into thinking they are running through mazes to get food?

Many people drive cars without understanding how to fix them. I agree that we don't have to understand how a virtual world works in order to use it. However, why suppose that the world is virtual unless there are compelling reasons to do so. The OP asserted that he reached out to the creator with his mind, and the creator touched him in response. That sounds like a reasonable reason to believe, but it is not a reason that others could believe, unless, they, too, could reach out and be touched.

When we prove that dinosaur bones are 7 million years old, God might have made the bones yesterday, and fooled us. So, we don't really know what is real and what is not.

Maybe our reality is God's television. . . hmm...."lets see what the humans are up to today." Maybe we run randomly without God's help? If everything was predictable, everything would be boring.

But why add layers of speculation unless we are forced to do so?

 

[Alien826]

Killing holodeck beings would be like killing Voyager's doc. It seems cruel to kill even simulated beings.

It depends. We're off in la la land of course, but my impression was that the holodeck creatures were not self conscious entities. So in that case it would be no different from someone getting killed in a movie. Doc was probably self conscious, so in that case I agree. I've often wondered, in the case where AI produces real independent self conscious beings, would it be murder to turn the computer off?

I don't know if you play video games, but there are different levels of beings in the games. The dragon that attacks me is not real, so there's no guilt associated with killing it (though it usually kills me ). On the other hand there are avatars of other players. Real human beings. Often one player's avatar will kill another player's avatar. Generally that's OK because both players agree to be there and play according to the rules, and anyway, your avatar comes back to life and the real you isn't hurt at all. There is one thing though. Some people get so much into it that they get upset when they are mistreated in the game. Others get a sadistic pleasure from hurting them. So it's not always zero harm.

 

[Alien826]

Many people drive cars without understanding how to fix them. I agree that we don't have to understand how a virtual world works in order to use it. However, why suppose that the world is virtual unless there are compelling reasons to do so. The OP asserted that he reached out to the creator with his mind, and the creator touched him in response. That sounds like a reasonable reason to believe, but it is not a reason that others could believe, unless, they, too, could reach out and be touched.

When we prove that dinosaur bones are 7 million years old, God might have made the bones yesterday, and fooled us. So, we don't really know what is real and what is not.

Maybe our reality is God's television. . . hmm...."lets see what the humans are up to today." Maybe we run randomly without God's help? If everything was predictable, everything would be boring.

But why add layers of speculation unless we are forced to do so?

Oh, absolutely. I wasn't suggesting that there are good reasons to believe this. Occam's razor says otherwise.

My point was that your suggestion wasn't convincing, not that I believed any of this. It's fun to play with counter factuals though. Or I find it so. I'm a Sci Fi fan, as I'm sure you've already guessed.

 

[QuestioningMind]

I never thought I'd say this but I'm a Young Earth Creationist

But not the biblical kind...

I believe that this dimension of reality is a computer simulation

I call this simulation The Projection

I don’t believe that our dear lovely planet is many hundreds of million years old even though this is what the evidence (that we currently have) tells us

I think it is only a couple of hundreds of thousands of years old at the very most - in our time, who knows how time works outside The Projection...

I believe that the Omphalos Hypothesis is correct – that our planet has been artificially aged so as to appear to be many hundreds of million years old

I believe that our planet is only as old as The Projection we inhabit

However, I believe that in the material reality that our simulated reality is based on the planets are in fact many hundreds of millions of years old

But the thing is, we cannot observe “base reality” – the outside world

We are trapped inside The Projection

So, we cannot make claims about the outside world, so it can only ever be a matter of belief or speculation

Is the universe outside The Projection the product of nature (in a Godless universe) and billions of years old or was it only willed into existence by a Supreme Being say 150,000 years ago? Or perhaps it was made by a Supreme Being but billions of years ago? That would be the third option!

We cannot tell, we are like the occupants of Plato’s Cave in Plato’s Allegory Of The Cave

We can only know The Projection

And The Projection is only a fairly crude rendition of base reality

The physics engine it employs is only very basic, but it does the job

However: I think that reason dictates that the outside world is many billions of years old

The thing is though, we cannot ever know what is outside The Projection or who is doing the projecting

But I think we should live our lives as though the universe and our planet are billions of years old, I think that is what the Over-Seers of The Projection want us to do, I believe I have a direct line to them and that we should treat our world as though it is however many billions of years old our best science tells us it is

Are these beliefs based on any kind of verifiable evidence or do you believe it just because you think it sounds cool?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

And just what purpose would this deception serve? What reason would there be for it?

 

[wellwisher]

Science is based on verifiable observations. While all these verifiable observations require consciousness. Science cannot be done without a certain level of consciousness. A bug may be conscious, but he does not do science.

The question becomes when did consciousness reach the level needed to do sound science? The date is actually closer to the Biblical date for creation. Creation is less about modern science, as it is about the conscious basis that was needed for science; will and choice to describe reality and do science.

Say you had amnesia and you had to build science from scratch. All you have are your five senses, the world around, but no memory of precedent, theory or a catalog of data. There is a limit to the data you can use in your analysis from you local environment. You can see stars but not black holes. You cannot see the crystal structures of materials, to include that in your theory. Your theory can still rational based on your data, but it would be different from today, even if consistent with what you can see and hear. Modern science conclusions have more data, due to having more types of tools to extend the senses.The method is the same in both cases.

The constant change in the tools of science is why science never seems to reach steady state. There are always new tools and new observations, that can change even the best conclusions, of best rational mind, who created those conclusions with less data.

The creation of the universe; by man and by science, only began about 6000 years ago, when consciousness started to have the will and choice to analyze the world it could see. This allowed civilization to rise. This world view got better with time, but even today it still lacks all possible universal data. What we have is a human creation, for this point in time, but not necessarily the final truths implicit of the best reasoning with all the universe data being represented, that can and will ever be discovered. Our temporal approximation is an advance state of human intellectual creation.

In many ways, the concept of God, was sort of a placeholder that described the unknown data of the future, which will impact how we will see reality in the future. God was considered omniscience since he had all the best data needed to know the finals truth. We need to stay open minded and not think what we see today; our creation, will always be the same in the future. It is just a step up the ladder.

I was fortunate in that I ran unconscious mind experiments on myself, that led to a type of amnesia. I was trained as a scientist, but could not remember any detail from my education and experience. But my power of reason was still there and I needed to find answers since I needed to moor myself back to reality. Free floating was no way to live. Some of my first theories were very ancient in character, since they lacked access to the modern data. But this recreation of science in a vacuum, also had the affect of helping me avoid the bias of theory that have seen better days. Little by little I added science data until I formed a type of hybrid thinking that is still outside the box but which can also go inside to rest.

 

[Eddi]

Are these beliefs based on any kind of verifiable evidence or do you believe it just because you think it sounds cool?

The Projection communicates with me

It tells me that all I have said is true