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The proposal and concept of Programmed Reality (PR) is indeed fascinating, and I've enjoyed very much the articles here on the topic written by Jim Elvidge, and those linked written by Nick Bostrom and Brian Whitworth.
For me, such a proposition generates a flood of additional questions, some of which are approached in the 'polls' included on this site. Trying to be brief, here are a few, to my mind, key, 'big picture' questions about PR, on which I would be most interested to hear responses...
* What is the nature of the 'man behind the curtain'?
If the essential nature of matter is indeed just data and instructions, and, if the reality presented is indeed as vast and as old as the universe, could it not still be the creation of God, in the sense of a divine being (though this would cast him as a Computer Scientist than a 'tosser of planets')?
Or, at another extreme, is the Programmer watching his 'sim' experiment unfold with cold, detached amusement, stopping collegues from time to time with a request of, 'wait, don't kill them yet, I want to study their habits...')?
* What is the 'scope' of the presentation?
One could suppose, as stated above, that the PR is as vast, as old, and as intricate as the entire universe. Or, is it far more limited, with just our planet, and just our solar system, with anything beyond, say, the Oort Cloud being mere scenery, a la THE TRUMAN SHOW?
If it might be a deliberate 'plant' to present a 'stock shot' of an electron micrograph of an atom or molecule (as in, 'aah, just use the what-an-atom-might-look-like shot -- but remember, we've got to use it every time...), surely their advanced stagecraft is cabable of presenting convincing scenery of the universe beyond our little terrarium.
* What is the degree an nature of deliberate intervention in our lives? And, do they ever give hints PR is in place?
Is the programmer benevolent and altruistic, or detached and perverse? Are the happenstances of life just the random actions of the 'program', or are the occurrences of everything from minutia to major events 'experiments'?
Like the supposed Illuminati, are the Programmers so brazen as to present 'clues out in the open' as to their PR activities, in the manner of the US twenty dollar bill which can be folded to reveal a very realistic, smoldering set of twin towers? Do we register such clues, or does cognitive dissonance cause use us to dismiss them as too psychologically painful to embrace?
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Hi StevieW and welcome to the Programmed Reality forum area. Your first posting is very high octane asking lots of really interesting questions laced with interesting ponderings. Your posting request responses and I'd like to try. However, instead of going through and taking item by item from your posting, I'll just throw out a more oblique kind of general response. I'll start off by saying I used to spend more time trying to analyze the "man behind the curtain" problem by sifting out what the realm of science might offer in the way of insight, evidences, and especially hair cracks in the seams of our presumed knowledge and understanding. After a point I started to shift gears, though. These days I concentrate more on an esoteric approach: *) The numerous (quality) studies of the Near Death Experience (NDE) phenomena. Here's a fairly recent book from that field of inquiry. *) Individual interesting testimonies from this field, such as Dr. Eben Alexander. *) The writings of the Gnostic Chistians (e.g., such as the Nag Hammadi Codices) *) The findings of Dr. Michael Newton as detailed in his several books. Over the decades of hypnotherapy sessions, Newton has compiled a database of around 7000 client sessions. From theses he has sifted a common back story of our so-called life between lives. Hypnotherapist Dolores Cannon has compiled decades of session material that is essentially the same information. *) The writings of 19th century Allan Kardec. I discovered there are an estimated 20 to 40 million people in Brazil that identify themselves as Espírita Kardecista (the spiritualist philosophy founded by Allan Kardec). What I found in sifting through these rather divergent sources is the same set of essential information about what is behind the curtain. myCoreArticles
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Great first post, StevieW, and welcome to our forum. And an equally rich response from RogerV. Lots of excellent leads to continue your personal exploration of truth.
No one has definitive answers to all of your questions, of course. Although there are people who believe that they do.
What makes sense to me is to approach this with what Thomas Campbell calls "open minded skepticism" and use scientific reason, logic, and trends to make your own conclusions about all of the data that is out there.
(By the way, Campbell's view is that the "program" evolves naturally as a result of an evolutionary "fundamental process." So, it wasn't like there was some dude writing a virtual reality simulation for us all to play in. Rather, there was an entity (AUM) that evolved consciousness due to natural evolutionary processes, failed "experiments" discarded, successful "experiments" continued; that our individuated consciousness is like a cell in a bigger organism (AUM), intentionally separate due to the evolutionary efficiency of being separate; and for the ultimate purpose of continuing to evolve consciousness.)
So, if you collect all of the data - NDE's, scientific research on the paranormal, the huge body of anecdotal evidence about mystical experiences now and through the ages - you start to rule out cold detached programmers and rule in ideas like free will and consciousness creating reality. There is a zen idea about something like "the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know." When that quote starts to ring true, you are probably on your journey. :)
and another...
"Knowledge is learning something every day.
Wisdom is letting go of something every day."
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