It's not what you think. This article you are reading and ready to put off has nothing to do with computer games. So if you are a fan of RPGs, shooters, quests, whatever and expect to find some stuff about them, you are wrong. Everybody knows something about PC games nowadays. Surprisingly this image of computer game can help us to reach new level of understanding on this world creation and it's Creator, to show what this world might be. This is just a guess but let's see how far we can go using our knowledge of such a trifle thing as a PC game. We are about to find answers on some questions which bother many people these days: Why people can predict/feel the future sometimes? Why are there no glorious miracles nowadays? Why is there so much injustice in everyday life? Where is God? Is there a contradiction between religion and science?
Buckle up!
What if somebody decides to create an advanced computer game. Not like anything else before. His game is alive world where everything is in some endless motion and nobody waits for protagonist to come up and interact them(as in all other games). Ok look at the screen(imagine it). To make his world acting, to make it alive, the computer master chained every possible process in it in circles:
-morning-day-evening-night-morning again-...
Spring-summer- autumn-winter-spring again-...
Rain-springs-river-ocean-evaporation-clouds-rain again....etc etc.
The computer master then added some creatures into his game. In order them not to become a part of landscape only, but acting figures, he gave them 3 simple motivations to act: hunger, love, fear of death. Thus every creature was set in motion: looking for food, running away not to become a food and seeking for love.
Finally, the master added people to his game, so called NPCs, whose motivation is just a bit more complicated then that of animals. And that motivation make them act on their own in the way humans do....but always in some sort of circles too:
-breakfast-bus to work-work-lunch-work-bus home- dinner-tv-bed-breakfast-...
-Monday-Friday-weekend-Monday-
Same circles day after day, week after week, year after year. Sounds familiar, right?
But game is a game: no matter how well detailed it is, no matter if you even can hear the wind whisper or see how flags wave on the morning breeze...there is no wind, no flags, no morning, just a bit of numerals in some process chips behind everything. Nothing is actually is as it looks like. It's obvious for computer game, right?
Stage 2. World as a computer game.
What if our own world is that computer game. Only a very, very detailed one. God is just the computer master or programmer, he sits in his chair in front of the screen (that makes him to be in completely different dimension from us) and watches us closely. There is no way people can reach out and see him but he can see everyone and get all info about everything he needs. He is able to find the way to interact with people if he wishes( but people can only imagine to whom they address/pray). Being the game creator, He is able to change everything in his game, to add something which did not exist before or to erase something existed: to make a new continent or new species of animals, to turn lead into gold etc cause there is no actually gold or animals, but numerals which define appearance, qualities, all attributes and behavior of everything.
Ok, I understand that model of God who is just a man sitting in front of PC sounds too much silly. We are definitely not part of a computer game and there is definitely no one watching us on the screen day after day. (I am not so sure about that actually, cause that computer game model explains why sometimes a great man appears in this world, conquer the lands from Greece to India and then die of tiny reasons as fever in the middle of Iraq desert. Doesn't it look like some gamer played this game, got tired from endless conquests or whatever and just left the game in the middle of everything?)
Anyway, let's make it more complicated. For that we can refer to the idea which existed before Christ in Greek philosophy.
Stage 3. World as creation and a creator.
What if his world we live in is the creation and the creator at the same time. Like that crazy computer program in Terminator movies, who came to senses and realized its identity and began to create an imaginable world within itself and out of itself? This world just a glimpse which actually exist in numerals or not numerals but something else which could be contained in a dot of space, in a spark...But for us who belong to this artificial world, it's a huge Universe, Its like a Matrix movie, only without real people who are dreaming about perfect life in 20 century city. There are no humans here rather then artificial NPCs with few numbers to define its every attribute, motivation, wishes and actions.
(I want to state that intellect we're referring to is not artificial/created by somebody. Its just an image everyone can understand. Origin of it is unknown, for it belongs to another world, which humans can hardly ever reach to)
The most important thing is: there is a world who is its own creator at the same time. It includes not only Earth but all Universe we know now to its far far ends. It looks really huge but we don't know it for real, it maybe small like a spark, it can be just a computer program which has no dimensions at all.
Next point which coming from that model where World and God are one: humans and everything else as part of that world must be one with God too. Maybe that is why sometimes people "feel" what is going to happen in near future, or what is going on far away with their beloved ones? Why that knowledge is so fragile, so rare? We will discuss it in the chapters when we speak about suppressed brain activity role, about "thoughts, fears, doubts, worries".
To make you understand what its like to be one with world, here is an example from a computer game I recently played. Its name is Mount@Blade.
I enter a battle field generated randomly by the game. I have a squad of man with me: swordsmen and archers. The field is huge and covered with trees, I cannot see the enemy/ I don't know where to lead my squad. But I know this game already and I push `charge" button. And my squad rushes forward to the enemy and I(my hero) have to only follow them. I myself, with eyes do not see the target but my men who has no eyes, they "know" where is the enemy because they are part f the program. They are one. Maybe human are one with this world in this way too. We don't need to see to know things, sometimes.
Stage 4. A bit about humankind.
I think its time to guess a little bit about us, humans. What is our role in this game called "Life" or "world". It would be easy for Man+computer model(when man created computer game on computer). God(computer master) just made an environment for his game to copy the one He knows already. He put humans as NPCs to his game so they can keep proper company to protagonist on his way, make that way more difficult or more pleasant whatever. But it's a bit too simple model to believe in it.
In case the game and creator are the one, there are no humans outside this game. Then why humankind appeared on the stage? We can guess only as always.
What if God need a witness, a spectator to his creation because it's definitely beautiful world and it's made so well. Does it have any sense? But being the one with God what kind of witnesses or spectators we humans are?
To be a witness you should be from aside at least. What if humans have something not from this world? What if we or at least some part of us is from outside. And some tend to break through, back to outside home....maybe that home is called Nirvana as Buddhists teach?
There is another possibility. What if God created humans and gave them His creative power to complete the creation(or share that completion). So every human being can change this world not only in a way "I built house and planted garden to make this land beautiful" but in most marvelous way, so man can say to mountain to move from one place to another and it will...
What if the 2 options above are both valid? Something from outworld was attracted to share the creation and witness it?
What if even more: what if humans represent that divine power of creation in present world?
Stage 5. Columbus.
What if our guess is true. How human possibly can change the world or create something. Looks like we do not see it in everyday life. But people are able to see only what they expect to see. Is that statement true that there are no changes in the world at present? To answer this lets try to figure out how miracle possibly can be created. We will start with the Bible which says: `if you have faith as small as a seed of a plant and you say to a mountain to move, and it will move". Crazy words no one ever could use them for real. But what if it does work like that?
What is the faith Jesus actually talks about?
There are probably 3 levels of faith we can identify:
Disbelief-belief-assurance.
Disbelief is a negative denying of something, cannot have creative power, can only stop some miracle to happen.
Belief. This word looks good, but let's examine it deeper. To be honest, this word is usually in circulation when people speak about something they are not really sure. That word indicates hesitation and it matches with "doubts" it always looking for "proofs' and "experiences". Today one person says: "I believe in Guan Yin" and tomorrow he says: "Now I believe in Jesus" This word "believe" is some kind of wrong concept, don't you see it? I wonder why most of religions prefer to use it.
For me "assurance" sounds most determined. When I am sure about something, I cannot change it that easily. You will need an effort to reassure me, I swear. Its strange that in present world nobody speaks about God using the word `sure'.
Lets break that tradition and equip with word "assurance' to complete our task and see human creative power.
Remember that in ancient times people believed the Earth to be square and flat. That the Sun circles around the earth and if someone comes to the edge of earth, he would see big turtle and 4 whales beneath?
What if in our imaginable situation the world was like that for real. Like a square flat computer map you can see on the screen. Then in medieval times some man brought up a theory that world is actually round, it's a sphere and it circles around the sun. That theory found followers and one of them, Columbus by name, was so "assured" that equipped 3 ships and went off to the open ocean to the West to look for India. (Mind the word "assured" please, simply "belief" would not be enough to make such a daredevil act, to bet all his possessions and life on the voyage to nowhere). So now is a clue moment: what if the earth was flat and square before and it became round after that act of faith made by Columbus? And our flat computer map just simply changes to a round one without big troubles for the core program.
Yeah, it sounds crazy, I know. But let us think a moment about that situation. Lets for a moment imagine it was true. What lessons we could elicit from it:
Lesson 1. A theory always comes first.
Humans have evolved since ancient times. The way we think evolved since then too. Most of us are thinking in logical way. We need some scientific word to make us listen. If somebody says: `I believe in life on other planets, so one day they can come to earth on fancy UFOs". We would not listen to that man. But if someone says the same thing in the way like this: `I made a thorough research with my crew and we found many solar systems with planets like Earth, there are huge probability there is a life on one of them", we would listen and will be happy.
So theory (a scientific sounds theory) is an important element to make people believe or even be sure in something.
Lesson 2. Action.
Columbus was a craziest man of his time. No one ever before found any land in Atlantic ocean rather then few rocky islands. No one before him ever tried to find a passage to India on the West, but people could not find it cause they lived on the square land and there were edge of the world in the Atlantic. Columbus was the first man who ever took round Earth theory so seriously that he spent all his money for that trip to unknown. And that trip was the action which probably changed the earth forever ...to be round. Action of faith. Who can make something like that nowadays when simple matter like changing a job makes us stressed, not saying about changing a city or country.....
An illustration to the power of assurance.
We all know from school lessons that people of stone age made a bonfire using a rotating wood stick.
A funny incident had happened in US in the beginning of 20 century, One red Indian Ishy by name was the last man of his terminated tribe in California. All his life he was hiding in mountains from white folk but one day he decided to go down to them. Though his motivations remain unclear, but it happened. He went to some small town and was found by some local scientists who even managed to find him job of housekeeper in local museum. Ishy was just out of stone age and he shared some tricks of his with his new friends: how to make a bow, how to hunt a deer, how to make a bonfire with wooden rotating stick. The last experience looked so easy that one professor of anthropology told to his students that no one is going to pass the upcoming exam without performing making a fire in that ancient way. When day of the exam came, no one of his students was able to make bonfire using the wooden tools. So the professor had to pull up his socks and give them a lesson of stone age routine. He took the sticks he borrowed from Ishy and began to rotate one of them.....he did it long time but all was in vain. He was unable to repeat the act of creation of fire.
Assurance comes along with experience.
When the Hollywood team made a movie Castaway, the protagonist had to make fire by that ancient way, but could not make it either. So they changed the way to making a heat with wood sticks to add more friction...I wonder if it worked and the fire they show in the movie was real one. What do you think? Do you know the examples of someone who could repeat that fire making? How come primitive ancient folk had to make that fire 3 times a day and in our profound age no one seams to be able to repeat that simple trick?
Maybe there is always an act of creation in everything we people do, and doubts can kill that act. Especially at the very beginning of experience. Just guessing.
Stage 6. Science.
So you remember about Columbus who was actually inspired by science to make his trip. What is science? We learn from school that science is attempt of human's mind to understand this world and its basic laws. Science work in this way: someone makes a theory about something and begins to look for proves for it.
One man invented a theory of evolution and another one, inspired, went and found first dinosaurs fossils. How come no dinosaurs bones were found before? Its simple, the word "dinosaur" was invented after that very first finding to name that skeleton and its translated "scary lizard". This name was inspired by theory of evolution, if some Catholic monk would find those fossils, he would name them bones of a dragon. Cause Catholics believe in John and the dragon story, right? And in that case no `dinosaurs" ever appeared. No books about them, no science movies, no toys, no computer games. And maybe no other man went out with a spade to look for more big bones, cause surely no one ever went looking for dragon bones, people do not believe in dragons, that is why.
What if those first fossils were possibly created by act of faith in evolution by that first man who found them. It can be. Why not, if in this world square earth can be easily transformed to round one. There is nothing as it seems in this world model, there are only numerals behind everything, remember?
So all amount of dinosaur fossils we know now...they can be a creation by faithful scientists. Not to mention huge number of fake fossils made all over the world for sale, especially in China.
But don't care about dinosaurs and evolution. We are just trying to figure out how human create the world we know.
What if science keeps on creating. It looks like a discovery but in fact it is a creation: those spread borders of Universe, deeper things like atoms, elementary particles etc. What if they begin to exist only because scientist believe in them? And their belief is logically proven by mathematics and other stuff. You know those possessed men, the scientists, they worship numbers and calculations, they are able to do that, don't you think?
We use electricity widely today. And its one of the greatest human inventions and scientific discoveries ever. What if it's not a discovery but a creation? How else can be explained that simple fact that we use electricity in the most complicated devices like TV, phones, computers, generators etc but no one was ever able to copy such common natural "electric' phenomena like lightings and lightning sphere? They are all about electricity, aren't they? And probably first attempts to find their nature attract the mankind to make a theory of electric fields. As a result some new force was created in this world, an electricity, we use it everyday. But those original phenomena remain unsolved: what is lightning sphere. What is simple storm lightning? Are they related to the electricity we know at all?
So probably science is that creative force which changes the world not because it discovers some new possibilities in laws of this universe, but it creates new laws and new universe right now.
In this case science is no less than a worldwide religion, which worships logic, calculations and "scientific approach". And all those self made magical tools has purpose to make a person(scientist) to believe in his own theories. To feel the ground beneath, made of even numbers and symbols. And thus those theories become real.
It works like a clockwork nowadays.
It changes the world we now rapidly.
It is real... and probably its God's act of creation performed through and via mankind?
It's a magic but compared to wizardry we know from fairytales, science has one basic lack. Its based on logic and common sense and common sense says that a mountain can't walk from one place to another only because someone says so. So creative ability of science chained and bordered. Its disciples cannot transform water into vine just by saying or take flying carpet out of the sleeve. They do not believe in such "silly" things. They cannot create some new life or golden palace in one night, cause it out of common sense too... Wait a minute, I am not sure about life... they can! All those manipulations with "natural selection theory", don't we witness the creation of new species of animals and plants nowadays: dogs, horses, wheat, tomato etc etc. The new viruses, are they not a product of that creative theory? And those DNA stuff...today scientists seriously take the chance to reincarnate mammoths by implementing their survived DNA into living elephant female. Most likely we will witness new herds of mammoths on the Siberian walleyes in near future.
But still, science cannot reach out of common sense, its basic faith.
The question is: if science is a worldwide religion which makes obvious miracles and rooted in God will, then what are those religions we used to know?
Stage 7. Religion.
Ok, we saw already how science chained and bordered by so called common sense. What about religion nowadays?
Let's equip with that story about a believer who was experiencing heavy flooding and was praying on the roof of his surrounded by water home for God's help. A neighbor passed by in a boat inviting our believer to join him, but the former one refused saying: "God will rescue me". Then a helicopter with a rescue team came up trying to help him. But in vain. "God will save me", -he said again. Finally water rose up and our believer got drowned. In afterlife he saw the God and asked Him:" Where have You been? I was praying hard for your help and it never came?" And God replied: "I was always there. It's Me who sent the boat and the helicopter, but you refused my help".
Do you like the story? Does it have any sense to you? I think it does cause its very popular now. Because everyday experience tells us there is no God we can see or meet and talk face to face. Maybe in ancient times Moses was blessed to meet God, but not now, not now. We already have books of teaching, its enough for our wellbeing. We believe in God and we believe He sees our needs, especially in those dangerous situations...He must be there. But there is no reason for us to expect God to come on that boat Himself. There are no miracles but common things, we should notice God's presence in them. That stubborn believer from the story was too arrogant to accept common help, he drowned and he totally deserve it.
Most believers nowadays think that way. Looks like those who claim themselves to be religious, do not believe in miracles at all, but instead they are lead by common sense too!
You cannot hide this fact. At present times people think and see the world through the common sense philosophy. (It is also called "logic" one of the ancient Greek schools. There were other schools of philosophy, but looks like they have failed)
But most world religions are older then that philosophy. They should originally have operated with another way of thinking. Humankind has evolved since then. Ancient people did not know philosophy, logic, even history. They were primitive enough to believe that Goddess Kali was born in the middle of battle from the stomach of another Goddess and at once she began to crash demons and people and when Lord Shiva tried to calm her down, she forced to have sex with Him. What a stupid story and what kind of Goddess is she with all those cut off human heads and bloody eyes and driven away tongue?..... She is a Goddess of changes, they teach now. Every human being fears of changes, that is why, Kali has that scary image.
Do you see the evolution from the simple minds who accepted daredevil Kali without questions to those nowadays who mИnages to find some reason in her?
So probably religion is just a bit old-fashioned way to guess about God?
What if in ancient times those holy men were able to make miracles? Cause they used to think in another way, different from ours. They did not know our "common sense", they went to caves, to islands, to deserts, all alone, looking for revelation from God. And they got what they were looking for. Cause their faith was strong, their minds clean from doubts and calculations of odds. They made miracles, ordered mountains to walk, hunted dragons and demons, calmed down storms and healed the sick. Now people like that are rare. Maybe just because everyone has some basic education and knows that miracles are not exist. Still there are few names in present world from whom people expect some miracles and foresight. (But I doubt those ones are University degree holders)
So due to education, any kind of religion is inevitably diminishing nowadays. Especially in so called "developed countries". It became no more then a school of goodness, still teaching to humankind some basic principals of wellbeing. And it matters in society where common sense tells people that to be successful in life everyone need only money, money and more money.
Guessing about Gods.
Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, great prophets of past. Who are they?
It's a personal matter to believe in them and their divinity or not.
From the Computer+programmer model, I would like to show what Gods possibly could be. Let's have a look:
We have Creator, who sits in front of his PC. And we have Creation-game world on the screen. There must be some tools that game was created. Like in the Paint editor: brush, pencil, line, circle, eraser, etc. In Paint editor our world is a blank page on the screen and those tools are in the left corner. They don't belong to that blank page, but yet, they do not belong to the outside world either. They are part of the program but not part of the game( or world).
What if those tools have personalities and Brush for example is called Laksmi, goddess of abundance, when eraser is called Shiva, god of destruction, etc.
So gods (those numerous Gods from times before Buddha and Jesus) are just personalization of different powers this world built. They are no match for Creator, but for humans they are divine powers anyway and they exist in different dimension from human's world.
Same situation is valid if world is its own creator. Only without the person in the chair in front of the screen. But wait: what if that creator nevertheless has personalization, like those other Gods? Maybe He looks like an old man or beautiful lady or something else...
Do you think Creator likes His own creation? Definitely. But that kind of love of programmer to his game is a bit different from love mom has to her son, isn't it? Think about it before ask God, why there are wars and other stuff. Don't you kill 1000 NPCs every time you play Far cry or Crisis?
Also I already mentioned that possibility that some gamers from outside can play this world game. Such gamers should have avatars: Emperors, great kings, presidents or prophets, maybe Elvis or someone else. They come and go. Maybe that is why some rare people can invent a wheel and relativistic theory when others cannot?
Ancient Greeks thought of some units from outworld, which were attracted or trapped by Creator and imprisoned in this world. They became humans or part of human beings and they have hidden memory of the better world outside. And they're trying to find way back. Outside of this Universe/Creation. Probably Lord Buddha found exactly that way to Nirvana, outer Universe.... Some early Christian apologists who belonged to mystic school of philosophy based in Egypt, they taught that it was also mission of Jesus: to show the way to obtain the Heaven's kingdom which does not belong to this creation. Some of their followers even separated God of creation from Old Testament and Gospel's Father God. For them the 2 were different powers...They were claimed to be heretics of caurse and perished, forgotten until some of their scriptures were found near Dead Sea in XX century.