Making Virtual Sense of the World

Hi all,

To begin, my name is William Bailey, and I’m new to this group. I’m a new sci-fi author/writer, and love to theorize, and it shows in almost everything I write. For example the essay below is one that I wrote earlier this month for my Composition class. With this essay I was limited in words, and I had to write about something I believe in. After the teacher graded and returned this essay, it had written in big bold print across the bottom, “William you need to take a Philosophy class, because I know you’ll love it!” I haven’t signed up yet, but I’m going to take her along with some of classmates’ advice, and enroll in a Philosophy class this spring.

I hope I’m not coming across to bold posting this essay, but I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it.

Thanks, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

William Bailey

Making Virtual Sense of the World

I believe the imagination of the human mind possesses a boundless clout of divinity that allows it to contemplate the most complex mysteries of the universe. I deem curiosity the magnetic desire of the imagination to discover the answers to the mind’s questions. I consider questions to be the result of a curious imagination at work. Albert Einstein once said, “The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he or she contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.” By simply being curious and questioning the reasons for life’s existence, my imagination was able to conceive a completely new theoretical lens for me to observe the world through. This eccentric observation of the world allowed my mind to form a new obscure hypothesis that rationalizes the meaning of life, death, and the reality of the universe.

My imagination initially began working on this theoretical project after I became curious about how and why life exists. I thought I would be able to trace the roots of life back to either the theory of evolution or creation. I was soon disappointed after discovering a major flaw in both theories. They both might explain how life came to exist, but they lacked explaining why life came to exist. I then questioned why evolution and creation were my only choices. Why wasn’t there a third or fourth choice? This inquiry sent my mind on a mission to discover just one other choice, a choice that had somehow eluded the theorists of the world. During this exhaustive search my mind even pondered if the reality of life was a flawed belief to begin with. Unable to discover a third possibility for life’s existence, I analyzed why death existed. I wondered what would happen at the moment of my expiration. Would death claim my mind and body utterly forever? Would my life have just been a rare anomaly of the universe, or would some omnipresent divine force of good allow my soul to exist beyond my human remains? Soon after I reflected about my death, I questioned why life, reality, and death existed as a whole. And that was when the stars aligned and my imagination conceived its peculiar hypothesis.

To envision my theory, one must first realize that perception is not always reality. Just because something is perceived to be truthful does not mean it is the truth. For example the world is flat, the sun orbits the earth, the universe is motionless, or humankind will never harness the atom, fly, or go to the moon. As history has proved, the perceived reality of any subject is only based on the knowledge of the moment. Perception is not static; instead it is renewed as new truths are discovered. Recently, this discovery process accelerated and thereby changed the perception of reality on a plethora of subjects in almost every field of study. Just Google, “recent scientific breakthroughs” and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

The mind of humanity is thinking, understanding, and discovering like no other time in recorded history. Over the last century the intellect of humanity not only started jogging, it began leaping. One giant leap was when only sixty-six years passed between the Wright Brothers historic fight and the landing of a man on the moon. Another leap of understanding was the speed at which the human intellect discovered technology over the last twenty-five years. This evolutionary leap of technological understanding continues almost daily to fundamentally transform how we work, learn, communicate, and even play.

Just consider what has happened to electronic games since Atari Corporation released Pong in 1972. Back then people would lineup in the lobby of a department store impatiently waiting for their turn to play a simple game where a little blip pinged back and forth on a monitor. Now compare that with the complex virtual reality video games and lifelike virtual interactive games, like Nintendo’s Wii, that exist today. By simply extrapolating this evolution of virtual world technology into the future, I can envision it evolving to a point where it perfectly replicates actual reality and makes true-to-life virtual interaction possible. This virtual reality is the Holy Grail of virtual world technology and what the electronic gaming industry is striving to take from concept to reality. Once it comes to fruition this technology will not only make living a virtual life possible but also allow someone to suffer a virtual death. This futuristic equipment will create a world so realistic that when a person’s mind is plugged into the machine, so to speak, he or she will not be able to differentiate the virtual world from the real world. And for as long as their neurological functions are wired into the virtual world equipment, any memories of the real world will cease to exist. Once he or she enters the virtual reality he or she will categorically believe that the reality of his of her life and surroundings are absolutely factual. In addition, I also believe it will be possible to distort time in the virtual world. Think of this as the ultimate time management of a person’s life, a way to learn the lessons of a lifetime over short increments of factual time. To this effect a person would be convinced he or she had lived for forty years in the virtual world, when in truth only a fraction of factual time had passed.

To expand my theory, consider the following paradox of reality, instead of this life, world, and universe being factual, they are virtual copies. That currently we are the benefactors of real world technology that allows this virtual reality to exist. That we were virtually born here, so we could have a trial run at life, before reentering the world of true reality and beginning or resuming our actual lives. On the surface this theory seems plausible and especially when compared with random-chance. Presently the scientific community is split on how life started on earth. On one side are the random-chance theorists, and on the other side are the intelligent-design theorists, yet both sides lack the evidence needed to prove their theories. The odds are so great for random-chance to have positioned the sun at the perfect distance from earth and placed all the essential building blocks for life to exist on earth, that it staggers the mind. Just to give an idea it would be like flipping one-thousand coins consecutive and having every one of them land tails side up on the first try. The random-chance theorists argue that since the universe is infinite and contains an infinite amount of planets, “random-chance just happens.” The intelligent-design theorists argue that “because the odds of random-chance appear impossible, earth and its life must have been created by intelligent-design.” My own theory combines both sides. I believe random-chance had to take place at some point for intelligent-design to ever happen.

To conclude, I believe that it is theoretically possible for the true paradigm of this world to be one where it is a virtual proving ground for the soul. A virtual reality where God, or the powers that be, use the choices made by a person during his or her virtual lifetime, to judge if that person’s neurological functions will be restored to his or her true body. This would cause the chosen ones to wake up in Heaven or a more utopian-oriented society. Their virtual death here would be in sync with their virginal awakening in the actual world. This theory not only offers a third choice on how and why life might exist, but also explains how life after death would be possible. It even offers a moral reason for all of us to be born into a virtual existence to begin with. Society could stop evil from ever entering the world of genuine reality by robbing the evildoers’ actual bodies of the opportunity for eternity.

© 2009 William Bailey

Hi William, this was really fun to read and I have a few remarks to make and questions to ask. First, you wrote that this would present "a way to learn the lessons of a lifetime over short increments of factual time". I see how one might be convinced that she has lived a lifetime, but I don't see how one might actually learn the lessons of a lifetime as this would require that the rate of neural processing be exponentially increased. I suppose this might be possible with improved bio technology, but in that case why wouldn't those living in the 'real world' also use such neural enhancers? If they did then there would be no difference in processing rate between those in the 'virtual world' and those in the 'real world', and thus those in the 'virtual world' would not learn any faster. Second, it looks to me like your theory doesn't actually answer any of these questions, but rather just pushes them one step away, staving them off so to speak. That is, it may answer these questions with respect to the 'virtual world', but then we're left with the same problems when it comes to the 'real world'. What is the purpose of our existence in the 'real world' etc? Also, if the 'real world' is a utopia, then how does our behavior in this massively flawed 'virtual world' have any bearing on it? Someone might behave reprehensibly under the pressures of the 'virtual world', but that same person might behave morally in the perfect and harmonious 'real world', so it seems like it would be rash and unjust for the members (gods) of the 'real world' to terminate the inflowing population based on their 'virtual world' activities. It doesn't look like there would be much motivation for misbehavior in the 'real world', since it already satisfies all of our needs if we live normally (presumably). Anyway, these are just a few reservations that I have about it, but I do think that it's a beautiful and captivating idea. Hopefully you'll find the time to reply, though I see that it's been a year since your post so I suppose it's unlikely.

First Thank You!

Second, I'm Sorry I have been away for so long!! Life has kept me too busy.

I've recently been working on the 2nd edition to my book "The Great Ship of Knowledge-Learning Earth's Deathly History" and I think you will find some of my answers to your questions by reading the first three chapters. The raw chapters are posted online free to read at: www.thegreatshipofknowledge.com Just click on the tab foward/chapters and scroll down to read them.
It is a science fiction novel.
(It won't take but a few minutes to read them).

I hope you enjoy reading them.

Sci-fi regards,

~William