I used to obsess over whether or not I lived in a simulation. Beforehand, I was worried whether or not life had meaning, or if I had free will, but somehow the simulation theory really freaked me out. I wanted the world around me to be real--if it wasn't, everything I did was meaningless.I became obsessed with heavy philosophical topics since I was 17, to the point where I would think about them for hours and hours on end, and I was suicidally depressed. I had attempted to already kill myself once but thankfully, I'm still here today.I often would try to "check" if I was in a simulation, or a dream, or whatnot. I'd think "If I see a red car pass by me soon, that means I must be in a dream." Or I would ask God something like, "If you're real *don't* let this certain song play on my iPod". I checked hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Every time after checking, I'd feel a sense of relief wash over me, and I'd feel normal again--only for the anxiety to return minutes or hours later and I'd check again.One time I was waiting for an appointment with my therapist and I was playing Temple Run. I thought something along the lines of "If I get 6200 coins when opening this chest in Temple Run, it means God isn't real." And sure enough, I did. I was terrified. I explained what happened to my therapist and she said I was said I was suffering from "cognitive dissosance". I became so depressed I wanted to kill myself.Not much later I went back to testing again, and I thought, "If the song 'Nothing is Real' by Boards of Canada plays on my iPod on shuffle, that must mean I'm inside of a dream." And sure enough, it did. Now I was really freaking out.Continued below.
>>41147011This happened two more times--once again with 6200 coins in Temple Run, as well as "Nothing is Real" playing again on my iPod. A few months later I tried killing myself. My parents freaked out. I didn't even know what was going on anymore. Was I just crazy? Or was something supernatural happening? What did all of these coicidences mean? I tested again and again but not much came of it.I volunteered at a Christian summer camp a few months later. I had serious problems with God--I couldn't tell if he was playing some sort of cosmic joke on me, or if he was even real. At the end of camp, my friend who lead a cabin of children told me a story: he was having some one-on-one discussions with each kid about their life and their relationship with God. It was raining really hard. But somehow, whenever they talked about God, the rain would stop--it would be raining all around them, but not a droplet would fall on them. They felt close to God when they did this, and this happened with several of the kids in the cabin. Sometimes, they'd see all this lightning in the sky right above them, but not hear a sound (this can be explained away as light travels faster than sound, but it was still quite beautiful).I always wanted to see a miracle. Something to prove to God that he was there. That's why I tried to kill myself, so I could talk to God and get that final sense of certainty, that I'd no longer have to suffer through this horrible existantial crisis.After my friend told this story, I was walking back to my cabin with another friend. It was a clear night, and since we were so far away from civilization you could literally see the belt of the Milky Way. It was beautiful. He remarked to me, "Isn't it great, how God made this vast Universe, but he still cares about us? No matter how small we are?" That brought me great comfort. Then he said he noticed something in the horizon--lightning. Lightning on a clear night.Continued below.
>>41147028After my friend told this story, I was walking back to my cabin with another friend. It was a clear night, and since we were so far away from civilization you could literally see the belt of the Milky Way. It was beautiful. He remarked to me, "Isn't it great, how God made this vast Universe, but he still cares about us? No matter how small we are?" That brought me great comfort. Then he said he noticed something in the horizon--lightning. Lightning on a clear night.I didn't see the lighting, but it really shook my friend. I don't think he was lying at that moment. He believed he saw a miracle.As I've gotten older I've come to accept a lot of my obsession were ridiculous. I realized it was absurd to kill myself over an uncertainty. I learned regardless if I lived in a simulation or not, it was best to accept the world as real, because it might very well be. Imagine if I wasted my entire life obsessing? That would be a horrible life.I've also chosen to have faith. I spent all of my time looking for a grand sign from God, but I had to learn to trust in what I didn't see. Certainity was I wanted, faith is what I needed.Anyway. I felt like sharing this story and getting it off my chest.
Good story. Thanks for posting. It’s easy to obsess over what is real and it’s easy to miss out on things. We are constantly having “fake” experiences that are still meaningful, moments in games, watching movies, talking on the internet. It’d be easy to throw these out but there’s so much there to gain.
>>41147032Even if you were in a simulation you could still be like neo
we in fact live in a simulationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ishaUps9E
>>41147011Thanks for sharing anon. I can relate somewhat to your story. It's a shame our society doesn't accommodate children and young people who are too smart for their own good. There's likely similar stories out there that didn't end well.There's lots of problems with Simulation Theory but none of them are a direct criticism because ST is an unfalsifiable claim - you can't prove or disprove it. I'm too lazy to type it all out cause I'm on my phone but if you can take a stranger's word for it, don't worry about ST. It's just a madness of the current ontological paradigm. People in other eras had their version of the same basic idea.
>>41147180Thanks for your reply. I also noticed some issues with ST as I obsessed about it day and night. Mainly, how it completely discredits intuition as a valid form of knowledge--Descrates started knowledge with "cognito ergo sum", putting the *I* as the beginning of what man can know, the purely rational is only regarded as the most real. Deep down, we all know that isn't true.Modern simulation theory just seems like a regurgitation of Gnostic ideas. Safe to say, I try to have faith in Christ now. I like to think God was trying to teach me a lesson in all of this, I hope. My mental health is definitely scarred but recovering. I hope I can heal.
>>41147032The reason why you can't see God is because you have a preconceived notion of what God must be like. Once you are past that you will see that God is everywhere, and everything is part of God.The Absolute is God, and His presence is what illuminates and allows reality to be. He is the thusness of the all. It's the only thing you can be 100% sure of with utmost certainty. And once you are able to see it, it can never be unseen.
What lies beyond your perception is ultimately real. It is your perception itself what causes the the illusions, or in your terms, what creates the simulation.
>>41147011You do realize simulation theory is just God for atheists as more and more scientific evidence points towards deliberate design. So why freak out about a modern coping mechanism for God and instead see what the relifions say? If you want a shortcut, yes we have free will, yes you are eternal, yes you can be saved but only in Christianity out of all world religions could God be bothered to do something for us to save us, in all the others, you have to continuously do something for God.
>>41148145Pray for my soul then. It's very hard for me to believe. My brain keeps searching for certainty.
>>41148181Well I'll do that but here's some hard science for you as well. God is mathematically provable, look up Goddards theory. Now before you say it's dependent on axioms well so is infinity which atheists rely upon. So if one is untrue because of axioms so is the other by definition. Look up the fine tuning of the universe, it's converted many famous physicists. Look up teleology, a fact that drives evolutionary biologists insane because it appears evolution has a purpose or design if you will. They can't get rid of it as the evidence keeps supporting it but they can't explain it either
>>41148181 There IS certainty. Read what I wrote: >>41148123Drop all your preconceived notions of what God is like. Look into the apophatic path.
