This one, I repeat over the years (and sometimes months) in various flavors. Because I do not consider reality as anyone else does outside my very small shared social and private world. I look in at everyone else from a very far away and strange place.
(But that I can talk to them, is so cool!)
I mean, can you, personally even seriously consider such a possibility? And what do I mean seriously consider? Put more then, say six hours of thought into. Preferably, of course, far more. (I think on it probably every day, several times, over decades, since the mid-80s.)
So, obviously, 1999 was a huge year of celebration for me. Merely because, Dark City, the Matrix, the 13th Floor.
The later of which is The Movie for “reality is a virtual reality” movie.
With that “can you do it” barb, I do not mean it as a barb, but a note. Normally, I never get any responses on this, even back in the old day’s when the audience was far larger.
I am therefore not sure of another way to encourage the consideration.
Their argument is that the possibility that there are human beings other then us is so huge due to the length of time and size of the universe… and the chance that some of them evolved so very before we did happened, say, a billion years. And as virtual reality is already coming together now, and at an extremely fast pace, so virtual world such as this one is soon to happen… ala, 13th Floor, again…
That the chance we are not them and this is actually not another world is pretty much exactly next to nil.
It would be beyond “astronomically improbable” this was not the case, in other words due to the sheer scope of time and space.
There are better quotes, but that is one way of saying it.
I do not hold this specific viewpoint, but have delved on it many times. There are many other possibilities. I am decided on a different one, my own self, but there is no little equation between the two. And I do continue to consider other possibilities, including this one.
“What this might mean, good wise”… is a subject I can actually converse with someone if they ever seriously considered such a thing.
© 2026 – SoulSequel
8 responses to “Is Reality a Virtual Reality (or Similar) as Neil Degrasse Tyson & Elon Musk Claim?”
Look at various anime on the subject (some of which aren’t particularly SFW so I won’t include links here) on the gaming culture as well as the movie the Matrix.
But that, at day’s end is what Christians believe. That this world is a simulation, a shadow of what is to come, an unreal reality that only ends in our death. Yet if this were 100% true, this is the suckiest VR game out there. There are no save points. There are no cheat codes. There is no ability to “game the system” outside this thing called reality.
“Look at various anime on the subject (some of which aren’t particularly SFW so I won’t include links here) on the gaming culture as well as the movie the Matrix.”
What do you mean? The “gaming culture”, I hope this is not a “men’s rights movement” thing. I play video games, mostly warcraft and VR games these days… actually, most people play games of some sort. But, I am deep into technology and can speak fondly and well of video games. In my youth, I was a chess prodigy. In my career, I play both sides of the table, literally, for defensive security purposes.
Revolver, I would recommend, as a movie.
Matrix was nothing new to me, it is one movie/tv amongst many.
“But that, at day’s end is what Christians believe. That this world is a simulation, a shadow of what is to come, an unreal reality that only ends in our death. Yet if this were 100% true, this is the suckiest VR game out there. There are no save points. There are no cheat codes. There is no ability to “game the system” outside this thing called reality.”
I would have to strongly disagree that this is what Christian’s believe. Elon Musk is very unlikely to be Christian, Degrasse Tyson is a atheist leader.
I can kind of get what you are saying, that Christians believe that eventually reality will be fixed. But, I am not aware of this being a major doctrine. It is really neutral concept. There could be a God behind it, but the general theory is based on the belief people evolve which typically means they evolve on their own.
Plato’s Cave represents kind of what I am saying. There are various societies around the world, over time, who have expressed this sort of belief.
I am Christian, and I do believe it is implicit in the text. In a sense. Because miracles can only happen if reality is not as firm as we think it is, and at least for God, has the substance as we find in dreams.
“Yet if this were 100% true, this is the suckiest VR game out there. There are no save points. There are no cheat codes. There is no ability to “game the system” outside this thing called reality.”
The world remains evil, and the Bible is very clear on that. My own life is very fantastic, however, and I believe this is the end of the age and the beginning of the new one. My reality is very, very far from others, including other Christians, however.
You once asked me “what do you allow yourself to get away with then [considering I do not follow a bunch of rules of ‘do this and don’t do that’]”. Anything I want, there is no condemnation in Christ.
I literally don’t want to do really bad stuff, as my wife said the other day, I am a teddy bear. I am a very kind, nice, open minded person. Sometimes I drink at nights, sometimes I smoke pot. Recently, just been using cough syrup as my recreational drug.
I don’t go to church, they are useless for me, and I think they are all going to go the way of the dodo. I view cinema and tv today as spiritual, at least the movies and tv I watch. Jesus spoke in parables, this is a Christian nation majority wise and background wise, and the virtue system of Jesus comes out in the depiction of the heroes and heroines in our fictional story. Jesus the hero of a thousand faces.
This is why US cinema/tv is the best in the world. Music, too.
Most of the doctrines of mainstream churches are wrong entirely, or otherwise simply useless.
God has always given me good jobs, though I do focus on God and Heaven. Since the 90s, I rarely have had jobs where I have to work many hours. Normally God has me telecommute, which I do. I tend to stay up late, sleep in.
I get that everybody has to believe some will go to Heaven but most will go and be tortured in Hell forever, but that is a bunch of silly nonsense man cooked up.
I have almost died twice, it is quick and painless, ultimately. Long, drawn out deaths, obviously, however, are not. But, most of what we are scared of, we see “out there”, and just have bad imaginations.
Everything will be made right, and I am not going to lie to you and pretend it is all right, right now. In fact, it seems entirely impossible to make all this come out fantastically good.
Whether you are Christian or atheist is meaningless to me. I can’t save anyone. That is up to God, not man. As humans have no choice in the matter, how can I judge them? My own salvation is entirely by God’s grace, it has nothing to do with what I think or say or do.
I actually believe everyone will be saved in the end, and can back that up with Scripture, but it does not usually mean that is the best tactic to take.
All these things said, hypothetically, back to the topic, what if there were beings who were ‘like us’, who lived more then a hundred years? Or what if, in the future, people were immortal? Would then it not be that those under a hundred, who die under a hundred, would have been considered as ‘mere infants’ (a Scripture quote)?
Which means, we are too young to be able to know everything or even much of anything about reality. So, we should keep an open mind, regardless of how much we think we do know.
My two cents.
gaming culture can mean EITHER video game culture OR Tabletop RPG culture, but VR – the topic of this question is presently in its infancy. But maybe the games you’ve played aren’t as immersive as the anime that I’ve described. But as I said, you’ll need to look for them yourself, as I don’t want to give you titles that A) might offend you or B) might be viewed at work as some of them can be quite adult themed in nature.
“gaming culture can mean EITHER video game culture OR Tabletop RPG culture, but VR – the topic of this question is presently in its infancy. But maybe the games you’ve played aren’t as immersive as the anime that I’ve described. But as I said, you’ll need to look for them yourself, as I don’t want to give you titles that A) might offend you or B) might be viewed at work as some of them can be quite adult themed in nature.”
What? Lol.
Offend me? Sexual fantasies are normal and natural, and violence can be critical for stories (as can be sex, but usually overdone). Fucking around is bad. You can be pure at heart and still sometimes dabble in erotica, it is ultimately core to human experience. Violence can be as well, and often is metaphoric for dealing with everyday problems and other things.
Masturbation is a good example, it is not even condemned or mentioned in Scripture. Yes, Jesus did bring up sexual fantasies as sinful, but that was far from the point. The point is what you think in your heart is what matters.
There are obvious lines to be drawn there, whether you believe in God or not. Don’t have sexual fantasies about every woman you meet or something. It comes out and is gross and leads to sexual harassment. Letting your sexual desires run wild is obviously detrimental, usually.
Having any kind of sadistic pleasure is wrong and bad, including most desires for revenge. These are plainly things not to feed or one will end up hurting one’s own self, as well as others, ultimately.
…
Anyway, RPGs, I love, but with video games. I tend to prefer games with RPG elements.
Warcraft is my personal favorite.
As for magic and depiction of magic, lol, that is not what those statements meant in the Law, and the Law is not to be taken in such an absurd way.
The only real magic that exists is via God. Even when Satan took down Job, that was using God to do so.. Jannes and Jambres were fakes. Desires to be wizards and mages are desires to be able to know the power of God. Only real way to have such powers is by aligning one’s will with God’s will.
Followup note: what if you NEEDED to do something bad to save your life, would you hesitate to do so? You were kidnapped and needed to kill your captor, you were homeless and needed to steal to eat, or break into someplace to sleep, etc. Or necessity is something different?
“Followup note: what if you NEEDED to do something bad to save your life, would you hesitate to do so? You were kidnapped and needed to kill your captor, you were homeless and needed to steal to eat, or break into someplace to sleep, etc. Or necessity is something different?”
Like, say, if I need to make sure my ancestors had a glorious future, and the only way to do this was to sacrifice on an altar with a knife my only son… believing that he could be afterwards raised from the dead?
Or, maybe… say I had the real power to rain down fire from Heaven on folks, would I do so if the situation required it in order to save a lot more people?
Or, say, I grew up in a very wealthy household that was apart of this very powerful totalitarian nation… and I felt very bad about how the nation which I was a top member of was treating their poor? One day, I see one of their soldiers whipping a poor slave? Would I have problems with killing that soldier?
I could go on like this.
The Way is not to try and figure out all the ways to condemn people. The Way is to look at your own heart and see what you do and what you condemn, and very often, to back up and be very careful about condemning others. To ask yourself, “okay, I condemn them for that, but is it possible I do the same thing?” To look at sin and sinners and go, “Okay, how do I forgive them?”
I mean, my observation with those sorts of churches and people is they do everything the opposite of what Jesus taught. And when I look closer, I see them talk *about* Jesus a lot, but they really avoid actually expounding on what he actually said — except when they are into using his words out of context to try and justify their own sick behavior.
Most Christians are actually very liberal in these ways, and they are not the evangelicals. They are, I hate to use Nixon’s term, the “silent majority”.
Many rock stars, even the hard core ones are Christian. The Matrix was heavily influenced by Christianity, and one of their main authors is trans. And?
The Law… was written so that people would believe. If you look at cultures across the world, they also adhere to these beliefs. Anti-gay, anti-witchcraft, for instance, you see all across Hindu cultures, Chinese, primitive tribes. And yet, it is clearly and obviously condemnable for them to be this way. Witchcraft is this massive boogeyman for simple, warped primitive tribes. It is wrong and a lie.
There are spiritual real meanings behind that stuff, but it is not as the flesh sees it. Even Paul, a terrific understander of the Law said “but it is spiritual and I do not understand it”.
You can boil some stuff down, like my sister once said something I completely agree with, “God just wants people to be nice to each other”. Very true.
You realize with that last statement, it’s not real life. It’s a fantasy. People betray each other, backstabbing friends in the back to get ahead. People use each other, and sometimes don’t quite know at a conscious level what they’re doing. People steal from each other, either because they’re simply greedy, or because they’re in need. People misuse sex in a variety of ways — most of which are illegal or immoral. People kill each other in a moment of rage, over misunderstandings, or simply because they’re defending themselves. Sometimes you need to do bad things to get by. A life that cannot allow for such exceptions is not a life I want to be a part of.
“You realize with that last statement, it’s not real life. It’s a fantasy. People betray each other, backstabbing friends in the back to get ahead. People use each other, and sometimes don’t quite know at a conscious level what they’re doing. People steal from each other, either because they’re simply greedy, or because they’re in need. People misuse sex in a variety of ways — most of which are illegal or immoral. People kill each other in a moment of rage, over misunderstandings, or simply because they’re defending themselves. Sometimes you need to do bad things to get by. A life that cannot allow for such exceptions is not a life I want to be a part of.”
The Bible covers these things and it is false to claim that there are no exceptions in the Bible.
This viewpoint you are expressing is your own, not God’s.
It is incorrect.
There are also nice and good people and because some people are not does not make everyone bad.
In fact, if everyone were bad society would cease to function.
Also, good people do bad things, bad people do good things.
Life is more complex then what you are thinking, and certainly then what the Bible teaches which is the only book that acknowledges the evil in the world honestly.