Matrix?

October 8th, 2016| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Bank of America analysts wrote last month that there is a fifty percent chance that we are all living in a Matrix-sorta simulated world (in that 1999 movie, humans live in a simulated reality created and controlled by machines).

(Of course, they added, that if it were all just a simulation, we would never know about it.)

It is conceivable that with advancements in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and computing power, members of future civilizations could have decided to run a simulation of their ancestors.”

They took inspiration from inventor and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. He thinks there is “a high probability” that all we see is part of a simulation or of an artificial intelligence created by a highly advanced civilization in another space and time.

Forty years ago we had pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were. Now, forty years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. Soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality. [Soon] the games will become indistinguishable from reality .… So given that we’re clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality, and those games could be played on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality [actual reality] is one in billions.”

In other words, someone’s gone ahead of humanity and created a game in which we are all pawns.

Declared philosopher Nick Bostrom (Oxford University):

One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained …). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race.”

That’s a bit too far ahead and too high above for me. But get this …

Paul, on Mars Hill, proclaimed God thus:

In Him we live and move and exist.
Acts 17:28

And Job said of God, that he is the One …

… in whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind?
Job 12:10

Hmm …. No doubt, we’re in the hands of God. Reality is reality only because of him, without whom it would all fall apart.

And [Christ] upholds all things by the word of His power.
Hebrews 1:3

And his sovereignty, power, and wisdom know no bounds.

“For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’”
Isaiah 46:9–10

We live in God’s matrix, if you will. But we aren’t pawns. We have (a limited amount of) freedom. And we are accountable to our Creator for how we use that freedom.

As, Daniel, in a rebuke to King Belshazzar said:

The God in whose hand are your life-breath and your ways,
you have not glorified.
Daniel 5:23

That’s our task: to live for God’s glory!

So … whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31