General discussion

Against all the odds the cosmos exists. Stuff exists. Atoms and molecules exist. Non-living things like stars and planets exist. Life exists and ‘intelligent’ life exists too. The cosmos would appear to be fine-tuned to allow for an orderly system containing life, the Universe and well everything to exist. It didn’t have to be that way of course. Absolute nothingness, randomness, pure unstructured chaos was a far more likely scenario since there are a vastly greater ways of producing a mess than something with structure and substance.

If you can't create an absolute physical something from a state of affairs of absolute nothingness, then something physical has always existed. Then if you have a Cosmos in which only a finite amount of something physical exists (and has always existed), then whatever goes around comes around, again and again and again, including you. It's like having a dozen eggs each of a different color in their egg carton. There are only so many finite ways you can arrange those dozen eggs within their carton before a pattern is repeated and has to be repeated.

Quite apart from a Universe which might well be deterministic and clockwork-like in its makeup, or even a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe where you are software, and software rules, (OK?) your free will is limited at best or perhaps lacking in substance entirely. The Universe is the way it is and no amount of wishful (free will) thinking is going to change that.

ORIGINS – No Free Will

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound; a dimension of sight; a dimension of mind. You are moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into ‘The Twilight Zone’”* where something is always screwy somewhere.

You have free will, yet you can't have free will. You have an immaterial mind yet you can't have an immaterial mind. The deceased can have no existence yet the deceased apparently do have existence. Observation changes reality yet observation can't affect reality. Causality operates, yet not always. And something can come from nothing. Something is screwy somewhere! So what's the ultimate resolution? Special effects rule, OK?

Continued from “Simulating The Immaterial: Part One: Introductions & The Immaterial”.

Causality - The First Cause:

You have free will, yet you can't have free will. You have an immaterial mind yet you can't have an immaterial mind. The deceased can have no existence yet the deceased apparently do have existence. Observation changes reality yet observation can't affect reality. Causality operates, yet not always. And something can come from nothing. Something is screwy somewhere! So what's the ultimate resolution? Special effects rule, OK?

The Question:

Where did we, the modern human species, come from? Science has a very convincing case that we evolved via Darwinian natural selection from primate ancestors over the past eight or so million years. New Agers suggest we are the product from those same primate ancestors, only by artificial selection via genetic engineering on the part of ancient aliens. Then there’s God’s religious claptrap, one of various mythological creation tales to account for mankind, starting with Adam and Eve.

When it comes to historical happenings, whodunit; what was done; where it was done; when it was done; and usually how it was done tend to be for the most part straight forward. In fact there usually tends to be a lot of emphasis placed on the who, what, where, when and how things were done or accomplished instead of ‘why’ things were done or accomplished that way, yet it’s the ‘why’ question that’s usually the most interesting – and also the hardest to address. Here are a tiny few of multi-dozens of possible examples that explore some anomalous ‘why’ facets within the historical record.

Humans share 98% of their DNA with their closest animal relatives, the chimpanzees. That 2% difference however was enough to put man on the moon while the chimps still frolic in and around the forest trees. So, humans should pat themselves on the back, right? We’re king of the mountain; top of the tops, lord and master over all we survey. But what else has that 2% difference bestowed upon us? Perhaps a closer comparison to the rest of the species inhabiting Planet Earth should deflate our massive egos a might.

We’re probably all familiar with the mythology of The Creation as outlined in the Book of Genesis: chapters 1 and 2. But if you believe in a Simulated Universe relative to a Supernatural Universe, here’s an annotated variation on The Creation theme.

From the King James [Alternate Universe] Version (KJAUV)

Genesis 1

In the beginning the Supreme Programmer programmed software creating the virtual Heaven and the virtual Earth. [Supreme Programmer’s Note: but wait, there’s more to come!]